As long as you are in His presence and you are not disconnected from God...

As long as you are in His presence and you are not disconnected from God, the carnal soul will not be able to deceive you." With reference to the following verse: (ومن يعشُ عن ذكر الرحمن نقيض له شيطاناُ فهو له قرين) (If anyone withdraws himself from remembrance of (Allah) the Most Gracious, We appoint for him an evil one, to be an intimate companion to him.) (al-Zukhruf: 36) The Shaykh would say on many occasions: "Whenever man's attention is turned away from God, the carnal soul and the Satan that are lying in ambush will capture his heart and start their job from there." Take your Hands Off me!

One of the Shaykh's disciples quoted him as saying: "I saw my own carnal self in (my) spiritual state; I told it to take his hands off me! It responded: Do not you know that I will not take my hands off you until I destroy you!" Perhaps due to the same intuition the Shaykh was very interested in the following couplets: 'In the school of Eternity Your Beauty guided me. Your Bounteous Grace assisted me to be enslaved by You. My vile carnal soul favored all vanities.

Your Blessed Emanation liberated me from its clutches.' Divine Grace descends on man's heart through perpetual remembrance of Him. Once God's remembrance enters the heart, as the first step it will purify the heart of satanic temptations and carnal vanities and prepares it for receiving Divine Grace from the Absolute Bestower of Bounties.

In this respect, Amir al-Mu'minin Ali (a) says: "أصل صلاح القلب اشتغاله بذكر الله" "The quintessence of heart's soundness lies in its occupation with remembrance of God."[^4] Feeling perpetually present in the Presence of Almighty God liberates man from the captivity of the carnal soul and the Satan and consequently cures various maladies of the soul.