The fifth luminous aspect of God’s Sufficiency

 

 

At another time when I found myself buffeted by extremely severe circumstances, I focused on my life. I saw that it was passing swiftly, drawing ever closer to the Hereafter: it was gradually ebbing away under harsh conditions. While discussing in the Risale-i Nur the Divine Name the All-Living, life is described as having many important tasks, merits, and benefits. I thought sorrowfully that if this were the case, surely life should endure rather than be extinguished so swiftly. Again I had recourse to my teacher, the verse God is sufficient for us; how excellent a Guardian He is! This time it said to me, “Consider life from the perspective of the All-Living and the Self-Subsistent, the One by Whom all subsist and Who gives you life!”

Taking the advice of the verse, I saw that if my life pertains to me from one perspective, it pertains to the All-Living and the Self-Subsistent One from a hundred perspectives. And if out of my life’s numerous results one looks to me, a thousand look to my Creator. Therefore, one moment of life lived within the bounds of God’s good pleasure and approval is enough: a long time is not required. Since this truth and its proofs have been explained in various other parts of the Risale-i Nur, it will be summarized here in the form of four “matters.”

THE FIRST MATTER: I considered life from the point of view that in its essence, nature, and reality, life relates to the All-Living and the Self-Subsistent One, and I saw that:

in actual fact, my life was a coffer filled with keys, all designed to open the treasuries of the Divine Names; it was a small map of the inscriptions of those Names, an index of their manifestations, and a sensitive balance and measure with which to recognize and weigh the vast truths of the universe. I understood that it was a written word of Wisdom which knows and makes known, and which understands and makes understood, the meaningful and priceless Names of the All-Living and Self-Subsistent One.

When it is seen in this way, life becomes a thousand times more valuable and one hour of it becomes as significant as a whole lifetime. And with regard to its relation to the Eternal One, Who is uncontained by time, it makes no difference whether it is long or short.

THE SECOND MATTER: I considered the essential rights of life and I realized the following:

My life is a missive of Divine Lordship: it makes itself read by conscious creatures who are my brothers and sisters. It is an object of study which makes known its Creator. It is also a manifesto that proclaims my Creator’s Perfections. Life demands us to be adorned with the priceless gifts and decorations that the Creator has bestowed through it, and to display them consciously and with true belief and gratitude to the Peerless Sovereign in the daily parade of earthly existence. Life also demands that we comprehend, observe, proclaim, and bear witness to the praise and glorification offered to the Creator by innumerable living beings. Furthermore, life is a means by which the beauties and favors of the All-Living and Self-Subsistent One’s Lordship are made known, either verbally or through the mute eloquence of disposition and worship.

Thus I came to realize at the degree of certainty arising from knowledge that elevated rights of life such as these do not require a long time, that they elevate life a thousand-fold, and are a hundred times more valuable than the worldly rights of life. And so I exclaimed: All-Glorified is God! Belief is so valuable and invigorating that it infuses with life everything that it enters! Even a single flame of it removes transience from a fleeting life and bestows on it the gift of eternity.

THE THIRD MATTER: I considered the innate duties of my life and the supra-material benefits of life which relate to my Creator. I saw that life acts as a mirror to its Creator in three ways:

THE FIRST WAY: Through its innate impotence, poverty, and need, my life acts as a mirror to the Power, Strength, Wealth, and Mercy of its Creator. Just as the pleasure of food is experienced in proportion to the degree of hunger, the degrees of light are known through the degrees of darkness, and the degrees of heat are gauged through the degrees of cold, the extent of the Creator’s infinite Mercy and Power may be understood from the extent of my absolute impotence and poverty, the way in which He answers my endless needs and wards off innumerable threats to my existence. I also realized the extent of my duties to Him—duties of entreaty, prayer, modesty, humility, and servanthood.

THE SECOND WAY: My life mirrors the universal and all-encompassing Attributes and Essential Qualities or Characteristics of my Creator through its capacities and attributes such as partial knowledge, will, hearing, and sight. Indeed, I came to perceive through my conscious acts such as knowing, hearing, seeing, speaking, and asking that my Creator must have all-encompassing Attributes such as Knowledge, Hearing, Sight, Speech, Will, Power, and Life—but in an absolute and unlimited sense— together with His Essential Qualities such as Wrath and Compassion. I acknowledged and confirmed my belief in this, thus finding another way leading to knowledge of God.

THE THIRD WAY: My life also mirrors the Divine Names, Which are imprinted and made manifest on me in all aspects of my life. As I looked at my life and my physical body, I saw hundreds of kinds of miraculous works, inscriptions, and arts, and could see quite clearly that I was being nurtured with the utmost compassion. From this I understood through the light of belief how extraordinarily generous, merciful, skilful, and gracious was the One Who has created me and given me life; I saw how wonderfully powerful He is and, if one may say so, artistic, watchful, and efficient. I also perceived the innate aims and duties of creation and the results of life such as glorification, sanctification, praise, thanking, exaltation, declaring God’s infinite greatness and superiority, and affirming and proclaiming His Unity. Furthermore, I understood to the degree of certainty based on knowledge the reason why life is the most valuable of all of God’s creations and why everything is subjugated to it. I also understood the wisdom in everyone’s innate passion for life and the fact that belief is the very life of life itself.

THE FOURTH MATTER: In order to learn where the true pleasure and happiness of my worldly life lie, I deliberated once more upon the verse God is sufficient for us; how excellent a Guardian He is!

The purest pleasure and happiness in this worldly life lies in belief— belief that I am the creature, artifact, and bondsman of an All-Compassionate Lord, Who has created me and given me life; belief that I am being nurtured and protected by Him and that at all times I am in absolute need of His favors; belief that He is my Lord and my Deity and that He is most kind and compassionate to me. Belief in these realities gives pleasure and happiness so gratifying, pain-free, and unending that they can hardly be described. Therefore, how appropriate is the praise, All praise be to God for the favor of belief! This I understood from the above verse.

And so these four matters, which explain the reality, rights, duties, and pleasure of life, show that the more life relates to the All-Permanent, All-Living, and Self-Subsistent One and the more belief becomes the spirit and marrow of life, the more perpetual life becomes and the more enduring are the fruit that it yields. Seen this way, life also becomes so elevated that it receives the manifestation of eternity: whether earthly life is long or short is no longer an issue. This much I learned from the verse. And so in the name of all lives and living beings, I proclaimed: God is sufficient for us; how excellent a Guardian He is!

Said Nursi