The Twenty-ninth Letter
Addendum
In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.
[This addendum is important and beneficial to everyone.]
There are many ways leading to Almighty God. All true ways are derived from the Qur’an, but some are safer, and more comprehensive, and direct than others. My way I have derived from the Qur’an depends upon people’s perception and confession of helplessness and poverty before His Might and Riches, and upon affection and reflection.
Perception and confession of one’s helplessness is as sure a way as that of love of God. It might even be safer, for through sincere devotion and worship of God, it can elevate its followers to be loved by God. Perception and confession of poverty or inadequacy leads to the Divine Name the All-Merciful. Affection is more effective than love and leads to the Name the All-Compassionate. Reflection is brighter and more comprehensive than love and leads to the Name the All-Wise.
Our way is not like the ways of some Sufi orders that have developed ten steps to purify and sharpen ten outer and inner senses or faculties, and whose members prefer to recite God’s Names silently. It also differs from those that adopt public recitation and seek to purify their adherents from all defects contained in the seven stations of the carnal self.
Our way consists of four steps and, rather than being a tariqa, is the Sharia or truth itself. Its fundamental principles consist of following the Sunna, performing the religious obligations, avoiding the major sins, performing the five prescribed prayers properly, and saying the words of glorification, praise, and exaltation of God after every prayer. These steps are as follows:
The first step finds its expression in: Do not justify and hold yourselves as sinless (53:32). The second step is indicated by: Be not like those who forget God, and He therefore makes them forget their own selves (59:19). The third step is pointed to in: Whatever good visits you is from God, but whatever evil befalls you is from yourself (4:79). The fourth step is shown by: All things are perishable except His Face and His good pleasure (28:88).The following is a brief explanation of these steps:
FIRST STEP: As Do not justify and hold yourselves as sinless suggests, people must not regard themselves as infallible and sinless. By nature and innate disposition, people love their self first and are willing to sacrifice everything to satisfy it. They praise themselves in a manner befitting God, the True Object of Worship, and hold themselves free of defect in the same manner. They desire to see themselves free of guilt, and defend themselves passionately as though worshipping themselves. Moreover, they appropriate for their own self the God-given faculties with which they are to praise and glorify God, the True Object of Worship. Thus who takes as his god his own desires and fancies (25:43) applies to them. Their purification at this step is not to purify themselves and not to hold themselves as free of guilt.
SECOND STEP: As Be not like those who forget God, and He therefore makes them forget their own selves teaches, people are oblivious and unaware of themselves. They consider death as happening to others, thinking that it cannot touch them. They hold back during hardship and while rendering service, but believe that they should be rewarded first when it is time to receive the reward and enjoy the benefits. Here, people train and purify themselves by discharging their responsibilities, preparing themselves for death, and forgetting whatever reward they may obtain.
THIRD STEP: As Whatever good visits you is from God, but whatever evil befalls you is from yourself teaches, the carnal self always ascribes good to itself and feels conceited. But in reality, people should perceive their defects and insufficiency and thank and praise God for whatever good they do and whatever perfection they have. According to: Prosperous is he who purifies it (91:19), they are purified by knowing that their perfection lies in confessing their imperfection, their power in perceiving their helplessness, and their wealth in accepting their essential poverty and inadequacy.
FOURTH STEP: As All things are perishable except His Face and good pleasure teaches, those influenced by their carnal self consider themselves free, independent, and self-existent. As a result, they claim some sort of Lordship and rebel against their Creator, Who alone deserves to be worshipped. They can save themselves only if they perceive the following truth: According to what each thing signifies by itself, and on account of its very nature, everything is essentially non-existent, contingent, ephemeral, and mortal. However, according to what it signifies with respect to something other than itself and its being a part of a whole, and on account of its being a mirror reflecting the Majestic Maker’s Names and charged with various duties, each thing has existence, is a witness to the existence of others and is witnessed by them.
Here, people purify themselves by perceiving that their existence lies in confessing their essential non-existence. They must know that considering themselves to be self-existent leads to a darkness of non-existence as great as the universe. If they rely upon their individual existence and ignore the Real Giver of Existence, their individual light of existence resembles that of a firefly and is drowned in the infinite darkness of non-existence and separation.
But if they abandon pride and egotism and see that they are no more than a mirror in which the Real Giver of Existence manifests Himself, they establish a relation with all other beings and gain an infinite existence. Those who find the Necessarily Existent Being, the manifestations of Whose Names cause all things to come into existence, find everything.
Said Nursi