This Banquet is All About Abandoning Desires

This banquet is all about abandoning. The abandonment of lusts related to eating, drinking, and other human aspects of lust. God has invited us to enter this guesthouse and this invitation is nothing but abandonment. The abandonment of whims, selfishness, I-ness, and egoism. To be in this guesthouse means all of these things. We must evaluate and see whether or not we even entered this guesthouse. Did they even grant us permission to enter this guesthouse? Have we benefitted from this Divine banquet, or not? I would like to ask all of you who are present and all of those to whom these words will reach and especially the youth, “have you entered into this guesthouse? Have you benefitted? Have you abstained from lusts and desires, specifically the non-material pleasures [e.g. (love of the self, social positions etc.]? Or, are you like me [a question posed out of humility]?”

Imam Khomeini