It is difficult to trample the commanding self under one’s feet...

It is difficult to trample the commanding self under one’s feet, and to sit at the feet of another for lessons. Shaykh at-Tusi, [^3] may Allah have mercy on him, at the age of fifty-two would go to classes, while between the ages of twenty and thirty, he wrote some of his books! His Tahdhib was possibly written during this period. [^4] Yet at the age of fifty-two he attended the classes of the late Sayyid Murtada, [^5] may Allah have mercy on him, and thereby achieved a similar status as he did.

God forbid that prior to acquiring good habits and strengthening one’s spiritual powers that one’s beard should turn a bit white and that his turban should get big, so that he would lose the blessings of knowledge and spirituality. So work, before your beards before white; before you gain the attention…