THE FIRST STEP: The heavens

 

 

Indeed, every guest who comes to the guesthouse or the abode of this world opens their eyes and sees that this exquisite guesthouse is a place of the most generous of banquets, an extremely artistically-built exhibition, a most magnificent military camp and training ground, a most amazing, inspiring, and enthusing place of recreation and observation, and a most meaningful and wise place of instruction. Such a person asks themselves who is the owner of this exquisite guesthouse, the author of this supreme book, the sovereign of this splendid realm. The first thing that they catch sight of is the beautiful face of the heavens, inscribed as they are with the gilt lettering of light. It calls out to this person, saying, “Look at me, and I will guide you to whom you seek.”

They then look and see the manifestation of a supreme lordship—mastership and administration—which holds aloft, without any supporting pillars, hundreds of thousands of heavenly bodies, some of which are a thousand times heavier than the earth and which move many times faster than a cannon-ball. It causes these bodies to move together in harmony and at an extraordinarily great speed without colliding. It also causes innumerable lamps to give constant light without the use of any oil; it controls and manages these great masses without any disturbance or disorder; it makes huge bodies like the sun and the moon work at their respective tasks without allowing any rebellion; it operates within infinite space—the measure of which cannot be calculated or expressed with figures—all at the same time, with the same strength, in the same established fashion and manner, without the least fault. It makes all those bodies with their massive, aggressive powers obey its law unconditionally and absolutely, without allowing any aggression; it keeps the face of the heavens constantly clean and shining without allowing any refuse to remain behind to sully it; it causes those bodies to maneuver like a disciplined army, and by making the earth revolve, it shows to the audience of creation many other real or imagined forms of that magnificent maneuver, every night and every year, like the scenes on a movie screen. This supreme mastership and administration manifests subjugation, management, direction, ordering, cleansing, and employment. This is a sublime and comprehensive truth, and with this sublimity and comprehensiveness this truth bears witness to the absolutely necessary Existence and Unity of the Creator of the heavens and testifies openly to the fact that His Existence is clearer than the existence of the heavens. Hence, in The First Step of The First Station, which was written in Arabic and not included in this Ray, it was proclaimed as follows:

There is no deity but God, the Necessarily Existent One, Whose necessary Existence in His Unity is demonstrated clearly by the heavens with whatever there is in them. This is testified to by the sublimely comprehensive, vast and perfect reality of subjugation, management, direction, ordering, cleansing, and employment, all of which are clearly observable.

Said Nursi