The Purposes of Life

 

By www.MalaysiaNur.com

 

O my senseless soul (nafs) and desirous friend! Do you suppose your life’s duty is restricted to following the good life according to the requisites of civilization, and, if you will excuse the expression, to gratifying the physical appetites (stomach and “farc”)? Do you suppose the sole aim of the delicate and subtle senses, the sensitive faculties and members, the well-ordered limbs and systems, the inquisitive feelings and senses included in the machine of your life is restricted to satisfying the low desires of the base soul (nafs-i razila and havasat-i sufliya) in this fleeting life? Allah forbid (Hâşâ ve kellâ)! There are two main aims in their creation and inclusion in your essential being:

The First consists of making known to you all the varieties of the Cenâb-ı Mün’im-i Hakikî (True Bestower)’s bounties, and causing you to offer Him thanks. You should be aware of this, and offer Him thanks and worship.

The Second is to make known to you by means of your faculties all the sorts of the manifestations of Esmâ-i Kudsiye-i İlâhiye (The Sacred Divine Names) manifested in the world and to cause you to experience them. And you, by recognizing them through experiencing them, should come to believe in them.

Thus, man develops and is perfected through the achievement of these two basic aims. Through them, man becomes a true human being.

Look through the meaning of the following comparison, and see that the human faculties were not given in order to gain worldly life like an animal.

For example, someone gave one of his servants twenty gold pieces, telling him to have a suit of clothes made out of a particular cloth. The servant went and got himself a fine suit out of the highest grade of the cloth, and put it on. Then he saw that his employer had given another of his servants a thousand gold pieces, and putting in the servant’s pocket a piece of paper with some things written on it, had sent him to conclude some business. Now, anyone with any sense would know that the capital was not for getting a suit of clothes, for, since the first servant had bought a suit of the finest cloth with twenty gold pieces, the thousand gold pieces were certainly not to be spent on that. Since the second servant had not read the paper in his pocket, and looking at the first servant, had given all the money to a shopkeeper for a suit of clothes, and then received the very lowest grade of cloth and a suit fifty times worse that his friend’s, his employer was bound to reprimand him severely for his utter stupidity, and punish him angrily.

O my soul (nafs) and my friend! Come to your senses! Do not spend the capital and potentialities of your life on pleasures of the flesh and this fleeting life like an animal, or even lower. Otherwise, although you are fifty times superior with regard to capital than the highest animal, you will fall fifty times lower than the lowest.

O my heedless soul (nafs)! If you want to understand to a degree both the aim of your life and its nature, and the form of your life, and the true meaning of your life, and its perfect happiness, then look! The summary of the aims of your life consists of nine matters:

The First is this: To weigh up on the scales of the senses put in your being the bounties stored up in the treasuries of Rahmet-i İlâhiye (Divine mercy) and to offer universal thanks.

The Second: To open with the keys of the faculties placed in your nature the hidden treasuries of the Esmâ-i Kudsiye-i İlâhiye (The Sacred Divine Names) and to know Zat-i Akdes with those Divine Names.

The Third: To consciously display and make known through your life in the view of the creatures in this exhibition of the world the wondrous arts and subtle manifestations which the Esmâ-i İlâhiye (Divine Names) have attached to you.

The Fourth: To proclaim your worship to the Dergâh-i Rububiyet (Court of the Creator’s Dominicality) verbally and through the tongue of your disposition (Lisan-i kâl and lisan-i hâl).

The Fifth: Like on ceremonial occasions a soldier wears all the decorations he has received from his Sultan, and through appearing before the him, displays the marks of his favour towards him, this is to consciously adorn yourself in the jewels of the subtle senses which the manifestations of the Esmâ-i Husnâ (Divine Names) have given you, and to appear in the observant view of the Şâhid-i Ezelî (Pre-Eternal Witness).

The Sixth: To consciously observe the salutations (tahiyyat) of living beings to their Hâlık (Creator), known as tezahürât-ı hayatiye (the manifestations of life), and their tesbihat (glorifications) of their Sâni (Maker), known as rumûzât-ı hayatiye (the signs of life) and their worship of Vâhibü’l-Hayat (The Bestower of Life), known as arz-ı ubûdiyet (presenting the worship), and by reflecting on them to see them, and through testifying to them to display them.

The Seventh: Through taking as vahid-i kıyasî (units of measurement) the small samples of attributes like the partial knowledge (cuz’i ilim), power (kudret), and will (irade) given to your life, it is to know through those measures the absolute attributes and sacred qualities of Hâlık-ı Zülcelâl (the All-Glorious Creator). For example, since, through your partial power, knowledge, and will, you have made your house in well-ordered fashion, you should know that the Maker of the palace of the world is its Kadîr (Powerful), Alîm (Knowing), Hakîm (Wise), Müdebbir (Disposer) and to the degree it is greater than your house.

The Eighth: To understand the words concerning the Hâlık (Creator)’s vahdâniyet (unity) and Sâni (Maker)’s rububiyet (dominicality) uttered by each of the beings in the world in its particular tongue.

The Ninth: To understand through your acz (impotence) and zaaf (weakness), your fakr (poverty) and ihtiyac (need), derecât-ı tecelliyât (the degrees of the reflection) of Kudret-i İlâhiye (Divine Power) and gınâ-yı Rabbâniye (dominical riches). Just as the pleasure and degrees and varieties of food are understood through the degrees of hunger and the sorts of need, so you should understand the degrees of the infinite Divine power and riches through your infinite impotence and poverty. The aims of your life, then, briefly, are matters like these. Now consider the nature of your life; its summary is this:

It is an index of garâib (wonders) pertaining to Esmâ-i İlâhiye (the Divine Names);

a scale for measuring sıfât-ı İlâhiye (the Divine attributes);

a balance of the worlds within the universe;

a list of the mighty world;

a map of the cosmos;

a summary of the vast book of the universe;

a bunch of keys with which to open the hidden treasuries of Divine power; and

a most excellent pattern of the perfections scattered over beings and attached to time.

Mahiyet-i hayat (The nature of your life) consists of matters like these.

Now, the form of your life and the manner of its duty is this:

your life is an inscribed word, a wisdom-displaying word written by the Pen of Power. Seen and heard, it points to the Esmâ-i Hüsnâ (Divine Names). The form of your life consists of matters like these.

Now sırr-ı hakikat (the mystery of the reality) of your life is this: its acting as a mirror to the manifestation of Tecellî-i Ehadiyet (Divine oneness), and the manifestation of Samediyet (the Eternally Besought One). That is to say, through a comprehensiveness as though being the point of focus for all the Divine Names manifested in the world, it is its being a mirror to Zât-ı Ehad-i Samed (the Single and Eternally Besought One).

Now, as for the perfection of your life in happiness, it is to perceive the lights of Şems-i Ezelî (the Pre-Eternal Sun) which are depicted in the mirror of your life, and to love them. It is to display ardour for Him as a conscious being. It is to pass beyond yourself with love of Him. It is to establish the reflection of His light in the centre of your heart. It is due to this mystery that the Hadith Qudsi was uttered, which is expressed by the following lines, and will raise you to the highest of the high:

The heavens and the earth contain me not;

Yet, how strange! I am contained in the hearts of believers.

And so, my soul (nafs)! Since your life is turned towards such elevated aims and gathers together such priceless treasuries, is it at all worthy of reason and fairness that you should spend it on temporary gratification of huzûzât-ı nefsaniye (the instinctual soul) and lezâiz-i dünyeviye (fleeting worldly pleasures), and waste it? If you do not want to fritter away your life, ponder over the oaths in this Sura of the Qur’an, which allude to the above comparison and truths, and act accordingly:

By the sun and its [glorious] splendour; * By the moon as it follows it; * By the day as it shows up [the sun’s] glory; * By the night as it conceals it; * By the firmament and its [wonderful] structure; * By the earth and its [wide] expanse; * By the soul and the order and proportion given it; * And its enlightenment to its wrong and its right. * Truly he succeeds that purifies it, * And he fails that corrupts it. (Qur’an, 91:1-10)

O Allah, grant blessings and peace to the Sun of the Skies of Messengership, the Moon of the Constellation of Prophethood, and to his Family and Companions, the stars of guidance (hidayat), and grant mercy to us and to all believing men and all believing women. Amen. Amen. Amen.

11th Word, from The Risale-i Nur Collection

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