Üçüncü Lem'a/en

[Emotion and spiritual pleasure have become mixed in this Flash to an extent, and since their exuberance does not much heed the principles of the intellect or the scales of thought nor conform to them, it should not be weighed up on the scales of logic.]

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Everything shall perish save His countenance; His is the command, and to Him shall you return.(28:88) The two phrases, “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal! * O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!” both express the meaning of the above verse, and state two important truths. It was because of this that some of the chiefs of the Naqshbandi Order compiled some special invocations based on repetition of the phrases, and held it to be a concise set of Naqshi supplications. Seeing that the two phrases express the verse’s meaning, we shall explain several points concerning the significant truth they state.

FIRST POINT

The first time “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!” is recited, like a surgical operation it severs the heart from everything other than God. It is as follows:

By virtue of his comprehensive nature, man is connected with almost all beings. Also included in his nature is a boundless capacity to love. For these reasons he nurtures love towards all beings. He both loves the huge world as though it were his house, and he loves eternal Paradise as though it were his garden. However, the beings he loves do not stop, they depart, and he constantly suffers the pain of separation. That boundless love of his becomes the means of boundless torment. However, the fault in suffering such torment is his,

for he was given a heart with an infinite capacity to love in order to direct it toward One possessing infinite undying beauty. By misusing it and spending it on transitory beings, he has done wrong and suffers the punishment for his fault through the pain of separation.

Thus, the first time he utters: “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!”, it severs his attachment to transitory beings; he leaves those objects of love before they leave him and he is thus cleared of his fault. It declares that love should be restricted to the Eternal Beloved, and expresses this meaning:

“You are the only being that endures! Everything other than You is transient. My heart cannot become attached to anything transient, for it was created for everlasting love, to feel ardour lasting from pre- eternity to post-eternity. Since those innumerable beloveds are transitory and they leave me and depart, declaring, ‘O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!’ I shall leave them before they leave me. Only You are immortal, and I know and believe that beings can only be immortal by Your making them so. In which case, they should be loved with love of You. They are not otherwise worthy of the heart’s affection.”

When in this state, the human heart gives up innumerable objects of love; beholding the stamp of transitoriness on their beauty, it severs its attachment to them. It otherwise suffers wounds to the number of its beloveds.

The second “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!” is both a salve and an antidote for those wounds. That is, “O Eternal One! Since You are Eternal, that is sufficient, You take the place of everything. Since You exist, everything exists!” Yes, the beauty, bounty, and perfection in beings, which excite love, are generally signs of the Truly Enduring One’s beauty and bounty and perfections, and passing through many veils, are pale shadows of them; indeed, they are the shadows of the shadows of the manifestations of His most beautiful names.

SECOND POINT

Included in human nature is an intense love of immortality. Even, because of his power of imagination, man fancies a sort of immortality in everything he loves. He cries out from the depths of his being whenever he thinks of or sees their passing. All lamentations at separation are expressions of the weeping caused by love of immortality. If there were no imagined immortality, there would be no love.

It might even be said that the intense desire for immortality arising from that passionate love of immortality, and from the spontaneous general prayer for immortality, is a reason for the existence of the eternal realm and everlasting Paradise. The Eternal One of Glory accepted man’s intense, unshakeable, innate desire and his powerful, effective, general prayer, for He created an eternal realm for him, a transient being.

Is it at all possible that the Munificent and Compassionate Creator would accept the insignificant wish of the tiny stomach and its supplication through the tongue of disposition for a temporary immortality by creating innumerable delicious foods, and not accept the intense desire of all humankind, which arises from an overpowering innate need, and its universal, constant, rightful, just prayer for immortality, offered through word and state? God forbid, a hundred thousand times! It is impossible that He would not accept it. Not to accept it would be in keeping with neither his wisdom, nor His justice, nor His mercy, nor His power.

Since man is most desirous of immortality, all his perfections and pleasures are dependent upon it. And since immortality is particular to the Eternal One of Glory; and since the Eternal One’s names are enduring and immortal; and since the Eternal One’s mirrors take on the hue of the Eternal One, and reflect His decree, and manifest a sort of immortality;

for sure the matter most important for man, his most pressing duty, is to form a relation with that Eternal One and to adhere to His names. For everything expended on the way of the Eternal One receives a sort of immortality. The second “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!” expresses this truth. In addition to healing man’s innumerable spiritual wounds, it satisfies the intense wish for immortality inherent in his nature.

THIRD POINT

In this world, the effects of time on things, and on their passing, differ greatly. Beings are one within the other like concentric circles, yet they differ in regard to the speed of their passage. Just as the hands of a clock counting the seconds, and those counting the minutes, hours, and days superficially resemble each other but differ in respect of their speed, so too the spheres of the body, soul, heart, and spirit in man differ from one another.

For example, the body possesses an immortality, a life, and an existence in the present day, and even in the present hour while its past and future are dead and non-existent, but the heart’s sphere of existence and life extends from many days previous to the present day and to many days in the future. Then the sphere of the spirit is vast; its life and existence extends from years previous to the present day to years subsequent to it.

By virtue of this capacity – in respect of knowledge, love, and worship of God the Lord and Sustainer and the pleasure of that Most Merciful One, from which spring the life of the heart and spirit – transient life in this world contains within it a perpetual life, results in an eternal life, and resembles everlasting life.

Yes, one second on the way of love, knowledge, and pleasure of the Truly Enduring One is like a year, otherwise a year is a second. A single second, even, on His way is immortal and many years. A hundred years of the people of neglect looking to this world are like a single second.

There is the famous saying:

“A moment’s separation lasts a year, and a year’s union passes in an instant.” I say the complete opposite to this: a moment’s union for God’s sake within the bounds of the Eternal One of Glory’s pleasure is a window opening onto not a year’s union, but permanent union. While not one year but perhaps a thousand spent in heedlessness and misguidance pass in an instant. There is a saying more famous that confirms this:

“With enemies the broad earth is like a small cup, while with friends a needle’s eye becomes a broad arena.”(*)

An explicit meaning of the first well-known saying above is this: since union with transitory beings is transient, however long it lasts it seems brief. A year of such union is as fleeting as a second; it is an illusion, a dream, causing regret and sorrow. Since the human heart desires immortality, it can receive in one year’s union only the tiniest pleasure within a fraction of a second, and a moment’s separation is like not one year but many. For the arena of separation is broad. If only for a second, separation inflicts years of destruction on the heart, since it yearns for eternity. For it bodes of innumerable separations. As for physical and lowly loves, for them the past and future are filled with separations.

While on the subject, we say this: O man! Do you want to make your brief and useless life immortal, long, beneficial, and fruitful? Since such a wish is demanded by humanity, spend your life on the way of the Truly Enduring One. For everything turned to that Eternal One receives the manifestation of immortalit y.

Since everyone fervently desires long life and yearns for immortality; and since there is a means of transforming this fleeting life into perpetual life and it is possible to make it lengthy; for sure anyone who has not lost his humanity will seek out the means and try to convert the possibility into reality and will act accordingly. Yes, the means is this:

work for God’s sake, meet with others for God’s sake, labour for God’s sake; act within the bounds of “For God, for God’s sake, on account of God.”(*) Then all the moments of your life will be turned into years.

Alluding to this truth, verses of the Qur’an state that a single night such as the Night of Power is the equivalent of a thousand months, that is, around eighty years. The expansion of time, a tried principle among the people of sainthood and reality, also alludes to this truth. For through its mystery, a few minutes’ Ascension become many years and prove the existence of this truth and demonstrate it in fact. The few hours of the Prophet’s (UWBP) Ascension had the length, breadth, and comprehensiveness of thousands of years, for by way of it he entered the world of eternity, and a few minutes of that world comprise thousands of years of this world.

There are, besides this, the numerous occurrences of the expansion of time experienced by the saints, constructed on this truth. It is related that some of them did a day’s work in a single minute, and others performed a year’s duties in an hour, while others recited the whole Qur’an in the space of a minute. Such veracious people of truth would never knowingly stoop to lying. There can be no doubt that they observed exactly the fact of the expansion of time,(*) which has been thus numerously and unanimously reported.

The expansion of time experienced in dreams is a sort confirmed by everyone. Sometimes a day in the waking world, or many days, would be necessary to experience the happenings, words, pleasures, and pains experienced in a minute’s dream.

In Short: For sure man is transitory, but he was created for immortality and to be a mirror to the Eternal One, and he was charged with duties which produce eternal fruits, and was given a form that is the means to manifesting the impresses of an Eternal One’s eternal names.

In which case, his true duty and happiness is to cling with all his powers and faculties to the names of that Perpetually Eternal One within the bounds of those things that please Him; it is to be turned towards Him, and to go to Him. As man’s tongue utters “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!,” so his heart, spirit, mind, and all his subtle faculties should declare: “He is the Eternal One! He is Pre-Eternal and Post-Eternal! He is the Everlasting and Perpetual! He is the One who is sought, the Beloved! He is the One wished for and Worshipped!”

Glory be unto You! We have no knowledge save that which You have taught us; indeed, You are All-Knowing, All-Wise!(2:32)

O our Sustainer! Do not take us to task if we forget or do wrong.(2:282)

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