The Third Gleam
Everything is perishable except God and the good deeds pleasing Him
In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.
Everything is perishable (and so perishing) except His “Face.” His alone is judgment and authority, and to Him you are being brought back. (28: 88)
The repeated phrase O Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting! O Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting!, which echoes the meaning of the above-mentioned verse, expresses two important truths. It is for this reason that some elders of the Sufi Order of Naqshbandiya have made repeating it a certain number of times a special invocation, adopting it as a concise Naqshi supplication. As this phrase echoes the meaning of the mighty verse whose meaning is mentioned above, we will examine some points included in its significant truth.
First point
When recited for the first time, the phrase O Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting! cuts the heart from everything other than God, like a form of major heart surgery. The way this happens is as follows:
Because of the comprehensiveness of their nature, human beings are connected with almost all of creation. In addition, a boundless capacity to love is included in the comprehensive nature of human beings. For this reason, humans feel love for the whole of creation. They love the huge world as if it were their house; they love eternal Paradise as if it were their garden. However, whatever of creation the human loves does not remain; it all departs. So human beings continuously suffer the pain of separation, and their boundless love becomes the means of boundless agony.
It is our fault that we suffer such agony, for the boundless capacity to love has been given to us so that we direct it towards the One Who possesses an infinite, everlasting beauty. Human beings are in error when they misuse this capacity to love mortal beings, and in turn suffer the punishment in the form of pangs of separation.
And so, when recited for the first time, the phrase O Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting! signifies that the person is cleansing themselves from this error and, freeing themselves from attachment to mortal creation by abandoning it before it abandons them, has restricted their love to the Everlasting, the Beloved. What they are saying is, “The only Truly Everlasting One is You! Everything other than You is mortal. Anything mortal certainly cannot be the object of an enduring love; it cannot be loved eternally by a heart created for eternity. Since those innumerable beloveds are mortal and bound to depart, leaving me, I declare, O Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting! and leave them before they leave me. Only You are everlasting, and I know and believe that beings can only subsist by Your making them subsist. Thus, they should be loved because of Your love. They are otherwise not worthy of the heart’s attachment.”
When in this state, the human heart abandons innumerable objects of love. Seeing the stamp of mortality on the beauty and loveliness of these objects, it severs the attachment. If it does not do this, it will make itself suffer a wound for each beloved.
The second O Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting! serves as both an ointment and a cure for those wounds. That is: “O Everlasting One! Since You are everlasting, this is sufficient, You have taken the place of everything, and anything that exists only because of Your Existence.”
Truly, any beauty, grace, or perfection in creation, which are causes of love, are indications of the Truly Everlasting One’s Beauty, Grace, and Perfections, and are their pale shadows reflected through numerous veils. It can even be said that they are the shadows of the shadows of the manifestations of His All-Beautiful Names.
Second point
Human beings innately have a passionate love for immortality. This love is such that, because of the faculty of imagination, humans first fancy a sort of immortality in everything they love, and this is why they love it. Whenever they think of or see the death of what they love, they cry out from the depths of their being. All the lamentations arising from separation are in fact interpretations of the weeping that results from the love of immortality. If human beings were not able to perceive immortality, they could not love anything. It could even be said that one of the reasons for the existence of the everlasting realm and eternal Paradise is that humans cherish a passionate desire for immortality because of the intense love of immortality in their nature, and all humanity innately prays for immortality. It is because the Everlasting One of Majesty has accepted this intense, never-fading, innate desire of humans and their effective, powerful prayer that He has created an everlasting realm for humanity bound to die in this transient world.
Is it possible to think that the Munificent, Compassionate Creator would accept the insignificant desire of our stomachs and the supplication they make through the tongue of disposition for a temporary permanence or life, and create innumerable kinds of delicious foods—is it possible that such a Munificent, Compassionate Creator would not accept the passionate desire of all humanity arising from an overwhelming innate need, and the constant prayer for immortality it offers verbally and innately based on a universal, deep-rooted reality? God forbid, a hundred thousand times! It is impossible that He would not accept it. Its rejection could never be in conformity with His Wisdom, His Justice, His Mercy, and His Power.
Since humans deeply love immortality, all their perfections and pleasures are dependent on immortality. And since immortality is particular to the Everlasting One of Majesty and the Everlasting One’s Names are also everlasting, and since the mirrors of the Everlasting One take on the color of the Everlasting One, reflecting His manifestations, and are favored with some sort of immortality, surely the matter most necessary for human beings, their most important duty, is to form a relationship with that Everlasting One and to hold fast to His Names. For everything expended on the way of the Everlasting One is favored with some sort of immortality.
So, the second O Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting! expresses this truth. In addition to providing a cure for the countless spiritual wounds of humanity, it satisfies the intense desire for immortality that is inherent in its nature.
Third point
In this world, time has extremely diverse effects on the death and decay of things. Although things and beings exist one within another like concentric circles, they differ greatly in decay and death.
Just as the hands of a clock counting the seconds, minutes, and hours resemble one another in appearance, but differ in respect of speed, so too do the spheres of the body, soul, heart, and spirit in the human differ from each other. For example, while the body has a life, existence, and endurance restricted to each day, or even the hour, and although it has no consciousness of the past or the future, the heart has a wide sphere of existence and life that extends through many days, both the past, the present, and the future. As for the spirit, its sphere of life and existence extends from years before the present day to the years following it.
Considering this reality, when time is spent in worship of the All-Merciful, All-Glorified God, embedded with knowledge and love of Him, pursuing His approval and good pleasure, which is the source of the life of the heart and spirit, our transient life in this world encapsulates the seeds of and results in an everlasting life. It takes on the effect of an eternal life.
Truly, one second spent for the good pleasure of the Truly Everlasting One in knowledge of and love for Him is equivalent to a year. If it is not lived for His sake, a year lasts no longer than a second. It can even be said that a single second spent for His good pleasure gains immortality. A hundred years spent in this world by people heedless of Divine truths and orders are in fact only a second.
There is the famous saying, “A moment’s separation is as long as a year, and a year’s union passes as swiftly as a second.” I say, in complete opposition to this, a moment’s union for the sake of God within the bounds of the Everlasting One of Majesty’s good pleasure is a window opening onto a perpetual union. Not one year, but perhaps a thousand years, spent in misguidance and heedlessness of Divine truths and orders are like a second. There is another saying which corroborates this: “When in the company of enemies the vast earth is like a cup, while the eye of a needle in the company of friends is like a broad field.”
The true meaning of the first saying above is this: since union with mortal beings is transient, however long it is, it is brief. A year in such union passes like a second, and is an illusion. It occurs to one like a daydream causing regret, or like a dream bringing sorrow. The human heart, which desires immortality, can take in one year’s union the tiniest pleasure of a moment. As for separation, its one moment becomes as if not one year but many years. For the arena of separation is broad. A heart yearning for eternity suffers years of destruction because of separation, even if this separation is only for a second, for it evokes innumerable separations. All of the past and future are filled with separations from physical and earthly loves.
In connection with this matter we say:
O people! Do you want to make your brief and useless life long, immortal, beneficial, and fruitful? To want this is a natural requirement of being human; so then spend your life on the way of the Truly Everlasting One. For anything turned to the Everlasting One receives the manifestation of immortality.
Since everyone passionately desires a long life and yearns for immortality, and since there is a means of transforming this transitory life into an everlasting life, surely anyone who still preserves their humanity will seek out that means and try to transform that possibility into a reality, acting accordingly. The means in question are as follows: do whatever you should do for God’s sake, meet with others for God’s sake, and work for God’s sake. Act within the sphere of “for God, for God’s sake, and on account of God.” Then all the minutes of your life will become like years.
The fact that the Qur’an regards the Night of Power and Destiny as being equal to, or even better than, a thousand months, that is, about eighty years, indicates this truth.2 Also, the Ascension3 which our Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, made in a few minutes but which, by the expansion of time, had the effect of many years—a fact unquestionably accepted by the people of sainthood and truth—proves this truth and factually demonstrates it. The few minutes of the Ascension were as long, broad, and comprehensive as thousands of years. For the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, entered the world of permanence by way of the Ascension, and a few minutes of that world comprise thousands of years of this world.
As already mentioned, the expansion of time is a well-known fact that has been experienced by many saints. It is related that some saints did a day’s work in a single minute, some performed the duties of a year in an hour, and some others recited the whole Qur’an within a single minute. Such people of truth and honesty would never knowingly stoop to lying. There can be no doubt that they have observed the fact of the expansion of time, which has so far been widely and unanimously reported.
An example of the expansion of time that can be confirmed by all is experienced in dreams. A day in the waking world, or many days, would be necessary to experience the occurrences, words, pleasures, and pains that are sometimes experienced in the dream of a minute.
In short, certainly, humans are mortal, but they have been created for immortality and as the mirrors to an Everlasting One, and they have been charged with duties which produce perpetual fruit, and have been given a form that is a medium for the everlasting Names of the Everlasting One. This being the case, the true duty of such a being is to hold fast with all their ability and faculties to the Names of that Everlasting, Eternal One within the bounds of the things that please Him, and to go on towards Him on the way to eternity. As their tongue utters, “O Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting!”, so their heart, spirit, mind, and all their other faculties should pronounce:
He is the Everlasting! He is the Eternal, uncontained in time! He is the All-Enduring! He is the All-Perpetual! He is the One Sought! He is the Beloved! He is the One Desired! He is the One Worshipped!
All-Glorified are You. We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. Surely You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
Our Lord, take us not to task if we forget or make mistakes!
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
2 The Qur’an reads:
We have surely sent it (the Qur’an) down in the Night of Destiny and Power. What enables you to perceive what the Night of Destiny and Power is? The Night of Destiny and Power is better than a thousand months! The angels and the Spirit descend in it by the permission of their Lord with His decrees for every affair—(Being) a sheer mercy and security (from all misfortunes, for the servants who spend it in devotions in appreciation of its worth), (being) until the rising of the dawn. (97:1–5).
God Almighty keeps the Night of Destiny and Power hidden so that people should value every night and worship Him during it. God’s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, recommends that we look for it among the last ten nights of the holy month of Ramadan. (Tr.)
3 The Ascension (al-Mi‘raj): The miraculous journeying of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, through the realms of existence beyond the limit of forms, during which he witnessed the supreme signs of God.