Vauxhall Tea Party

Phase 3 · Cleaning the heart

Week 11

Daily Cleaning, and Sincerity

The Flashes · The Twenty-First Flash, On Sincerity

01

Story

  1. 01Five friends decide to share in something. Each brings one part: the oil (gazyağı), the wick (fitil), the lamp (lâmba), the glass (şişe), the matches (kibrit).

  2. 02On its own, none of these is a light. They bring the parts to one table and put them together.

  3. 03One strikes a match, and the lamp is lit. The whole room fills with light.

  4. 04Each of them has a large mirror (âyine) on his wall. In every mirror the whole lamp and the whole lit room appear, not split and not reduced.

  5. 05So each one owns a whole lamp. Done with sincerity (ihlas), Nursi says, the whole light of shared work goes into each one’s book of deeds (defter-i a‘mâl).

From the Twenty-First Flash, retold in our words. The needle-makers, from the same Flash, are in Explore below.

02

Meaning

A heart in a busy city needs a small daily routine of cleaning, and sincerity (ihlas) decides whether it works. Do it for God alone, not for the room. It is the greatest strength a person or a group can have.

Five people bring five small things, and none of them is a light on its own. Put together, the lamp is lit, and nobody owns a fifth of it: each one owns the whole. That is how Nursi sees good work shared with sincerity (ihlas). It also shows why sincerity is fragile. The moment one of the five starts asking whose part mattered most, or whose name is on the lamp, he is no longer working for the light. The small daily habits that clean the heart are the same: they count when they are done for God alone (rıza-yı İlahî), not for the room.

Six things this Flash shows

From the Twenty-First Flash, which Nursi asked to be read at least once a fortnight. Try each picture with your own hands.

  1. a heart in a busy city · kalbremembrancezikirforgivenessistiğfarreflectiontefekkürgood companysohbetservicehizmetten minutes a day

    The city’s dust settles on the heart all day. Choose the habits you will keep.

    01 / 06

    The daily toolkit

    Prayer is the base, but a heart in a busy city needs more than one wash a day. The habits are ones we have already met: remembrance (zikir), which began in week 1 with Bismillah; asking forgiveness (istiğfar), the cloth that wipes the heart; reflection (tefekkür); good company (sohbet), which shapes us more than we think; and service (hizmet), doing something for others. This Flash adds the one ingredient that decides whether any of them work: why we do them.

  2. strength lies in truth and sinceritykuvvet haktadır ve ihlastadırthe aimtwenty yearsseven years · a hundredfold

    Every helper’s effort is an arrow. Lay them end to end and see how far the work goes.

    02 / 06

    Sincerity is the greatest strength

    Nursi opens with a list. In works for the next world, sincerity (ihlas) is the most important foundation, the greatest strength (kuvvet), the firmest support, the shortest road to reality and the purest worship. He means strength literally. With a handful of students in a remote village, under surveillance, his work in seven or eight years went a hundred times further than twenty years in his homeland and in Istanbul with far more helpers. He puts it down to their sincerity, and admits it partly freed him from the showing off (riya) that fame used to whisper to him. Strength lies in truth and sincerity (kuvvet haktadır ve ihlastadır).

  3. the One who sees allthe roomhis deed · amel

    Choose who the work is for, then let the room frown.

    03 / 06

    Seek His pleasure, not the room’s

    The First Rule is short: in your deeds, seek God’s pleasure (rıza-yı İlahî). If He is pleased, it does not matter if the whole world is displeased. If He accepts a deed and everyone else rejects it, their rejection has no effect. And if His wisdom wills it, He will make people accept it too, without your asking. Later Nursi adds a quiet warning: even hoping inwardly for a gift or reward, asking for it by the tongue of one’s state (lisan-ı hal), can damage sincerity. Not the reward itself, but the waiting for it.

  4. the mystery of numbers · sırr-ı adediyet١١١١+++3apartone hand does not compete with the other

    Three alifs, each on its own. Now put them side by side.

    04 / 06

    One hand does not compete with the other

    The Second Rule: do not criticise your brothers, and do not put your virtues on display (faziletfüruşluk, literally “selling one’s virtues”) in a way that stirs their envy. One hand does not compete with the other; one eye does not criticise the other; the tongue does not object to the ear. Each member covers the others’ gaps. Then a piece of arithmetic, the mystery of numbers (sırr-ı adediyet): three alifs apart are worth three, but side by side they read one hundred and eleven. Four fours apart make sixteen; shoulder to shoulder they make 4,444. In a true union, he says, each one sees with the others’ eyes and hears with their ears.

  5. passing away into one another · tefânîfrom the Qur’an · kevsera great pool of sweet water · havuzhis brothers · ihvanhis ego · buz parçası

    A block of ice on the bank, his personality and ego. A great pool beside it.

    05 / 06

    Prefer them, and melt into them

    The Third Rule: prefer your brothers to yourself (Qur’an 59:9) in honour, rank, attention and even material benefit. Even when explaining a truth of faith to someone who needs it, Nursi suggests being glad to let a less eager friend do it, so that your own soul does not grow proud. The Fourth Rule: picture your brothers’ virtues as your own, and be thankfully proud of their honour. He borrows a Sufi idea and calls it tefânî, passing away into one another, while saying plainly that he is not a Sufi: the basis of his way is brotherhood (uhuvvet). And in a footnote: happy is the one who throws his personality and ego (enaniyet), which are like a block of ice (buz parçası), into a great pool of sweet water from the Qur’an, and lets them melt.

  6. sincerity · ihlasrivalry over gainrekabetlove of standinghubb-u câhfear and greedkorku ve tama‘remember deathrabıta-i mevtHis presencehuzur

    Three winds keep reaching the flame. Set the two means around it.

    06 / 06

    Two means, three obstacles

    Nursi gives two means to sincerity. First, remembering death (rabıta-i mevt): not by imagining your own funeral, as some Sufis did, but by looking at what is real, at your own body as the single fruit on the tree of a short life, then at the end of this age, then of the world. It cures the illusion of permanence that feeds long ambition (tûl-i emel). Second, the sense of being in His presence (huzur): in His presence, looking to anyone else for attention is bad manners. Then three obstacles: rivalry over material gain (rekabet); the love of standing (hubb-u câh), which opens the door to the showing off called hidden shirk (şirk-i hafî); and fear and greed (korku ve tama‘).

03

Read

وَلَا تَنَازَعُوا فَتَفْشَلُوا وَتَذْهَبَ رِيحُكُمْ

“Do not quarrel with one another, or you will lose heart and your strength will go.” (Qur’an 8:46)

O my brothers of the hereafter, and my friends in the service of the Qur’an! You know, and know it well: in this world, and above all in work for the hereafter, the most important foundation, the greatest strength, the most welcome intercessor, the firmest point of support, the shortest road to reality, the most accepted inward prayer, the most wonder-working means to one’s aims, the highest quality and the purest worship is sincerity (ihlas).

Your First Rule: let your deeds be for the pleasure of God (rıza-yı İlahî). If He is pleased, it is of no account if the whole world sulks. If He accepts, and all the people turn it away, it has no effect. Once He is pleased and has accepted, then, if He wills and His wisdom calls for it, He will have the people accept it and be pleased with it too, though you never asked. So in this service, make God’s pleasure alone, directly, your real aim.

A person’s one hand does not compete with the other; one eye does not find fault with the other; the tongue raises no objection to the ear; the heart does not look for the spirit’s faults. Rather, each makes up what the other lacks, covers its shortcoming, helps it in its need and lends a hand with its duty. Yes: if three alifs do not unite, they are worth three. If they unite, by the mystery of numbers (sırr-ı adediyet), they are worth one hundred and eleven.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, The Flashes, the Twenty-First Flash (On Sincerity), the opening and the First and Second RulesWorking translation from the Turkish, made for this draft. Check against a published edition before release.Read the Twenty-First Flash in full, in English with the Turkish original

04

Explore

Ten needle-makers

Ten men make sewing needles by hand. Move the slider from each working alone to all of them working as one, and watch the same workshop.

AloneAs one

Ten aloneEach man does every step himself: fetches the iron, lights his own fire, pierces, heats, sharpens. Three needles a day each, thirty in all.

One lineThey join forces and share out the work (teşrik-i mesaî). One brings the iron, one lights the furnace, one pierces the eyes, one heats, one sharpens. Each does one simple task, wastes no time, and grows quick and skilled.

Three hundred eachWhen they share out what the line has made, each man’s part is not three needles a day but three hundred. A hundredfold, from the same ten pairs of hands.

Economists will know this as Adam Smith’s pin factory. Nursi says the story was told among craftsmen to win them over to working together, and then he takes one more step. If union does this with iron, think of works of light, which never need to be cut up and shared: there each one gains the reward of all, reflected whole in his own mirror. Here Phase 3 closes. We saw what clouds the heart, prayer as its washing, and a small daily routine, done sincerely.

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