THE THIRD FRUIT

 

This fruit relates to conscious beings, and particularly to humankind. It is through Divine Unity and belief in it that human beings can be the most valuable fruit of creation, the dearest and most tender of creatures, the happiest and most fortunate of living beings, and the addressee and friend of the Creator of the universe, and they can attain the most elevated of perfections. Indeed, all of the human perfections and their exalted aims find meaning through Divine Unity alone and can be realized only through affirmation of it. Supposing the impossible, were God not the sole Creator, Sovereign, and Ruler of creation, then human beings would be the unhappiest and most wretched of creatures, the poorest of the animals, and the most pained, sorrowful, and suffering of all conscious beings. For together with endless impotence, countless adversaries, boundless desires and countless needs, human beings have been innately decked out with such a large variety of faculties and senses that they feel innumerable kinds of pains and experiences and countless kinds of pleasures. Also, they have such goals and desires that one who does not govern the universe in its entirety could not realize these goals or desires.

For example, human beings have an intense desire for immortality. Only one who has power and control over the entire universe as though it were a palace is able to fulfill this desire—one who can close the door of this world and open the gate of the Hereafter as easily as closing the door of one room and opening that of another. As well as the longing for immortality, human beings have thousands of other desires—some positive and some negative—which spread throughout the world and stretch to eternity. So only the Single, Unique One, Whose absolute Unity has made the entire universe into an integrated entity and Who holds it completely in His grasp, can respond to these desires and heal humanity’s two terrible wounds—their innate impotence and destitution.

Furthermore, human beings have such secret and subtle desires pertaining to the satisfaction and ease of their heart, and such vast, comprehensive and universal aspirations for the happiness and immortality of their spirit that only One Who sees the most hidden and imperceptible veils of their heart and does not remain indifferent to this, and hears the heart’s most inaudible secret voices and does not leave them without a response, is able to fulfill these desires and bring these aspirations to fruition. That One must also be powerful enough to subjugate the heavens and the earth to His command, as though they were obedient soldiers, and to employ them in the performance of universal tasks.

Also, by virtue of Divine Unity and the affirmation of this greatest truth, all the members and senses of humanity gain an exceedingly high value, whereas unbelief and associating partners with God reduce them to an infinitely low degree. For example, the most valuable faculty of humanity is reason. When Divine Unity is affirmed, reason not only becomes a brilliant key to the sacred treasuries of the Divine, but also to thousands of coffers of the universe. However, if reason falls foul of unbelief and associating partners with God, it becomes an inauspicious instrument of torment which fills the head with all of the grievous pains of the past and all of the dreadful fears for the future.

Also, for example, compassion is the finest and most endearing characteristic of humanity. If the meaning and result of Divine Unity do not come to its aid, this capacity for feeling becomes a burning source of pain and torment that reduces its owner to misery. A mother who has lost her child but, unaware of the truth, supposes that she has lost him forever feels this torturous pain to the full.

Similarly, if the meaning and result of Divine Unity come to the aid of love, which is the sweetest, most pleasurable and most precious of human feelings, it bestows upon miniscule humanity the expanse and breadth of the universe, and makes them tender sovereigns of the creatures. However, if the human being falls into the pit of unbelief and associating partners with God, then—God forbid—love becomes such a calamitous burden that, when they are separated from their loved ones, their heart is torn apart, convinced as it is by these erroneous beliefs that separation through death is eternal. However, vain amusements cause heedlessness and numb the senses, cushioning humanity from feelings of loss.

When you compare the hundreds of other human faculties and senses with these three examples, you will understand the degree to which Divine Unity and the affirmation of it are able to lead the human being to fulfillment and perfection. This third fruit has also been elaborated on in perhaps twenty of the treatises of the Risale-i Nur.

What led me to this fruit was the following feeling:

I was standing at the top of a high mountain. During a spiritual awakening that was powerful enough to dispel my heedlessness, the death and the grave appeared to me in their distressing reality, as did painful scenes of mortality and decay. Like everyone else, I found that my innate desire for immortality boiling up and rebelling against death. The tenderness and compassion in my nature also surged up in revolt against the consignment to the grave of the people of perfection, particularly the Prophets, the saints, and the pure scholars, for whom I feel great love and appreciation. I looked in the each of the six directions, seeking help, but found neither solace nor assistance. The past appeared to me as a vast grave; the future seemed to be nothing but darkness. Above me, I saw only horror; beneath my feet, and to my right and my left, all I could perceive was grievous situations and the assault of numerous harmful things. Suddenly, Divine Unity came to my help, drawing back the veil and revealing the face of reality. “Look!” it said.

First I looked in the face of death, which frightened me. I saw that for the people of belief, death was simply a release from their duties: the appointed hour of their demise was their discharge papers. Death was merely a change of abode, the introduction to an everlasting life, and the door opening onto it. I saw that to die was to be released from the prison of this world and to fly to the gardens of Paradise. Upon death, a believer enters the presence of the All-Merciful in order to be remunerated for their service. Death is an invitation to proceed to the realm of bliss. Understanding this with complete certainty, I began to love death.

I then looked at transience and decay, and I saw that they are, like pictures on a movie screen or bubbles on flowing water under the sun, a pleasurable form of renewal and replacement. Coming from the World of the Unseen in order to refresh the exquisite manifestations of the All-Beautiful Names, they undertake an excursion, a tour, in the visible world, with certain duties to perform. They also constitute a wise and purposeful manifestation of the grace and beauty of Divine Lordship, an act of mirroring the eternal Divine Beauty. This I knew with certainty.

I then looked in each of the six directions and, thanks to the truth of Divine Unity, I now saw them to be so bright and beautiful that they dazzled the eyes. The past was no longer a vast grave; rather, having been transformed into the future, it consisted of thousands of enlightened gatherings of friends and thousands of illuminated spectacles. I looked at the true faces of thousands of matters such as these and I saw that they elicited nothing but joy and thanks.

I have described my feelings and experiences concerning this third fruit with proofs, particular and universal, in perhaps forty treatises of the Risale-i Nur. They have been explained with particular clarity in the thirteen “Hopes” of the Twenty-sixth Gleam, which is “The Treatise of Hope and Solace for the Elderly.” Therefore, here I have cut short this very long story.

Said Nursi