The Twenty-ninth Letter

 

Conclusion

 

These four steps on the way of recognition of one’s helplessness and poverty, and affection and reflection are explained in The Words, which focuses on knowing the truth, the Sharia’s truth, and the Qur’an’s wisdom.

This path is shorter because it has only four steps. Recognizing their helplessness or impotence leads people to rely on God, for they are no longer influenced by their carnal self. Love, the sharpest way, can lead to the True Beloved only after people perceive the falsity of their current beloved by freeing themselves from the carnal self and seeing that beloved as ephemeral. This way is safer, for it does not lead its followers to utter boastful words and make such false claims as being of a highest spiritual rank. For it obliges them to recognize their innate impotence, poverty, and essential imperfection.

Also, this way is a main highway, much broader and universal, for its followers do not have to deny or ignore the universe’s actual existence, as demanded by those who assert the Unity of Being (Wahdat al-Wujud) or the Unity of the Witnessed (Wahdat al-Shuhud), to attain a constant awareness of God’s presence. Rather, it admits the universe’s existence, as proclaimed in the Qur’an, by ascribing it directly to the Majestic Creator.

Considering that everything in creation points to its Creator, those who follow this highway avoid the error of considering them as self-existent and working on their own behalf. By using them on the Majestic Creator’s behalf, and manifesting His Beautiful Names and serving as mirrors to reflect them, this way saves people from heedlessness, enables them always to be aware of Almighty God’s presence, and opens up a way to Him through everything.

In short, according to this way, beings function as signs showing, first of all, their Creator.

Said Nursi