Difference Between Love And Lust

Scientists have likened love to drug. What do drugs do to the brain? The same hormones, the same chemical changes that happen in the brain when people take drugs happens when they fall in love severely with something.

The love that comes from one's desire, how do you know your love is a good love or a bad love? See, what's the source of it? Is it coming from your physical desires or no? From your intellect, from your 'aql? If you see that the love is coming from your physical desires, that's a red flag there. That's warning that this is a love that you need to save yourself from. This is worldly love. The Imam says: worldly love causes your brain not to function, your intellect not to function. It's like a drug.

And by the way, scientists have likened love to drug. What do drugs do to the brain? The same hormones, the same chemical changes that happen in the brain when people take drugs happens when they fall in love severely with something, the same thing happens. That's why after it just like withdrawal, people who take drugs after the effect of the drug goes, what happens? They come crashing down a state of withdrawal. Leads to depression, it leads to sadness, the same thing with love.

Every worldly love in the beginning gets nice and sweet, but it always ends with misery. "Kharakatu shahwatu 'aqla", it takes away your intellect, the Imam, alayhi assalam, says: "Wa walayhat alayha nafsu fa huwa abdulaha wa le man fe yadhi shayun ha." The result is that this worldly love makes you a slave to this world. Allah has given you dignity. "Wa laqad karramna bani Adam"(17:70) we've dignified and honored the human being, don't allow yourself to be a slave to this world.

Ask yourself: what am I a slave of? Am I a slave of Allah Subhana wa ta'ala, or to this world? Many of us, this world enslaves us because of the worldly love that we have. Then the Imam, alayhi assalam, says: 'such a person who's worldly love has penetrated his heart' "la yanzajuru min Allahi bi zajiru, wa la yatadhim biwadh" This person, you see that the "muwidha", admonishment, advice no longer has an effect on it. He reads, The Qur'an doesn't interact with his heart.

His heart is dead. The Imam (a.s) says his heart is dead, "amatat ad-dunya qalba", the world has killed his heart. He hears a speech, does it move him? He hears the words of Ahlul Bayt, does it move him? When he is doing something wrong people talk to him, he gets angry. He gets angry. We've seen people like that, they are doing something wrong, you gently try to tell them that they are doing something wrong, they need to correct this. They need to do this in a certain way.

They get angry: 'don't teach me don't tell me what to do. It's none of your business.' That's it. Their heart is closed. And then the Imam, alayhi assalam, says: "wa huwa yara al-makhudhina alal ghirra haythu la iqala wa la raja" he says, what's interesting is that these people who have fallen in love with this world, who really don't think there is going to be an end to this world all the time in society, they're seeing people suddenly go.

And your life haven't you seen people who have suddenly gone? Youth who suddenly died? People whom we know, distant relatives, family members who suddenly left? If someone suddenly leaves, I will also suddenly leave. What makes you think that, you know, when you're going to die? Why did the others know when they're going to die? God is sending us messages, the Imam says: why don't they take these messages?