Vauxhall Tea Party

Phase 5 · Kader and Vesvese

Week 18

Whisperings Are Not You

The Words · The Twenty-first Word, Second Station (Vesvese Risalesi) · The Letters · The Eleventh Letter

01

Story

  1. 01A tall mirror stands in a garden at sunset. The sun is in its glass, and a little of its light and warmth really does fall from the mirror onto the grass.

  2. 02A snake slides across the grass, and its image (timsal) slides across the glass, perfect down to every scale.

  3. 03Rest your hand on the glass as long as you like. No one was ever bitten by a mirror; the image carries none of the venom.

  4. 04The imagination (hayal) is a mirror like this, Nursi says. When an ugly picture crosses it, that is an imagining (tahayyül), not a verdict (hüküm), and the light in your heart stays where it was.

  5. 05Stare at it in fear and it seems to loom. Know it for what it is, turn to the sun, and it passes. If you recognise it, it goes (tanısan gider).

The snake and the mirror are Nursi’s own image, from the Eleventh Letter, and he uses it again in the Thirteenth Flash, which we read next week. The garden at sunset is our framing, and the wording is ours.

02

Meaning

An ugly or doubtful thought that comes unbidden is not your belief and not your sin: the reflection of a snake in a mirror cannot bite. Whisperings (vesvese) grow with attention and shrink when calmly ignored.

No one has ever been bitten by a mirror. That is the relief at the centre of this week. A thought you did not choose, however ugly, is a reflection passing across the glass of the imagination. It passes no verdict, and it is not you. Nursi writes to the person who suffers from whisperings (vesvese) the way a doctor writes to a patient: five wounds (yara), five salves (merhem). This week takes the first three. A whisper swells with attention and goes out when it is ignored. An imagining is not a judgement. A pure meaning can brush past a low picture without wearing it. And one image drags in another along hidden threads (tedai-i efkâr), the way neighbours share a staircase without becoming one another. The cure is knowledge, and then a small turning back, as often as it takes.

Six things the treatise shows

Five from the Second Station of the Twenty-First Word, one from the Eleventh Letter. Try each picture with your own hands.

  1. a whisper · vesveseyou

    An unwanted thought arrives. What you do next decides its size.

    01 / 06

    Attention feeds it

    Nursi opens by speaking straight to the sufferer of the sickness of whispering (maraz-ı vesvese). A whisper is like a calamity (musibet). Give it importance (ehemmiyet) and it swells; give it none and it goes out. See it as big and it grows; see it as small and it shrinks. Fear it and it grows heavy and makes you ill. Do not know its nature and it settles in; know it and it leaves. Ignorance invites it and knowledge drives it off: if you do not recognise it, it comes, and if you do, it goes (tanımazsan gelir, tanısan gider).

  2. your heart · kalbnear the heart, not in itlümme-i şeytanîan ugly picture · tahayyülgrieved and sorrymüteessir ve müteessifa verdict · hükümnone was given

    An ugly thought about sacred things crosses the mind, and the heart cries “Alas!” Ask it three questions.

    02 / 06

    Imagining is not judging

    The First Wound. A doubt (şübhe) is thrown into the heart; when the heart refuses it, it turns into an ugly, insulting picture about sacred things (şetm). The sensitive person cries “Alas!”, thinks he has been disrespectful to his Lord, and flees from God’s presence (huzur) into heedlessness (gaflet), which is just what Satan wanted. The salve: what came to you is an imagining (tahayyül), and an imagining is not a verdict (hüküm). To imagine unbelief is not unbelief. Those words are not your heart’s, for your heart is grieved and sorry at them (müteessir ve müteessif); they come from a dark spot beside it (lümme-i şeytanî). The harm of a whisper is only imagining the harm (tevehhüm-ü zarar).

  3. the mirror of the imagination · âyine

    A mirror shows whatever stands before it. Choose what it shows, and watch what passes out of the glass.

    03 / 06

    A snake’s image cannot bite

    The Eleventh Letter puts it in one picture. Thoughts that come by association are an imprint you did not choose (irtisam-ı gayr-ı ihtiyarî). If what is reflected is good and full of light, a little of it passes into the image, as the sun’s light and heat pass into its reflection in a mirror (âyine). If it is evil or dense, nothing of it passes: the reflection of something unclean is not unclean, and a snake’s image does not bite (yılanın timsali ısırmaz). A thing is ugly in the Shari‘a because God forbids it, Nursi adds, and no prohibition touches a picture you neither chose nor wanted.

  4. the imagination · hayalkalbâyâtwhat the fear imagines · telebbüscontact, but no wearinggiymek yoktur, fakat temas var

    You sit down to reflect on God’s signs. Send a meaning on its way.

    04 / 06

    Contact is not clothing

    The Second Aspect. Meanings leave the heart bare, and in the imagination (hayal) they put on images (suret). The imagination is always weaving pictures of whatever it is busy with and leaves them on the road, so a pure meaning may brush against a low one. The person with whisperings confuses that contact (temas) with being clothed in it (telebbüs). But there is no wearing, only contact (giymek yoktur, fakat temas var). Your outward purity for the prayer is not spoiled by what is inside your body, and sacred meanings are not harmed by being near low forms. You reflect on God’s signs, hunger or a bodily need strikes, the imagination shows its pictures, and the meanings pass between them. The only mistake is to stare at them and imagine harm.

  5. hidden threads · münasebet iplerithe prayer · namaz“the straight path”the commutethat emaila songtrivia · malayaniyat

    You stand in the prayer, reflecting on the verses. Watch where the mind goes.

    05 / 06

    One image drags in another

    The Third Aspect. There are hidden connections between things (münasebat-ı hafiye), threads even between the things you least expect, some real and some spun by the imagination. Opposites are far apart in the world but close in the mind, so something sacred can call up something dirty. This is the association of ideas (tedai-i efkâr). It can seize you in the prayer, even facing the Ka‘ba, and drag you to the furthest trivia. It is mostly involuntary (ihtiyarsız), especially in sensitive people, and there is no responsibility in it. Thoughts here are neighbours (mücaveret), not mixed: as the angel of inspiration (melek-i ilham) and the whisperer live on either side of the heart, and the righteous and the sinners in one house, without harm.

  6. a sacred momenta stray picturebecoming a habit · melekean imaginary illness · maraz-ı hayalînot an illness of the heartmaraz-ı kalbî değil

    In the prayer, a stray picture came near, along a thread of association. A faint thread, for now.

    06 / 06

    Notice, and turn back

    Nursi’s rule for the wandering mind: do not be alarmed, and the moment you come to (intibah), turn back (dön). Do not say “oh, what a fault!” and stay busy examining it (tedkik), or the faint connection grows strong on your attention. The more sorrow and importance you give it, the more a passing recollection becomes an ingrained habit (meleke), an imaginary illness (maraz-ı hayalî). Do not be afraid, he says: it is not an illness of the heart (maraz-ı kalbî değil). And kindly: sometimes the heart (kalb) is simply tired, and the mind plays with whatever it meets. Tiredness is not sin.

03

Read

رَبِّ اَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ هَمَزَاتِ الشَّيَاطِينِ ٭ وَاَعُوذُ بِكَ رَبِّ اَنْ يَحْضُرُونِ

“My Lord, I seek refuge with You from the goadings of the devils, and I seek refuge with You, my Lord, lest they come near me.” (Qur’an 23:97–98, at the head of the treatise)

O you who are caught by the sickness of whispering (maraz-ı vesvese)! Do you know what your whispering is like? It is like a calamity (musibet). The more importance you give it, the more it swells; give it none and it goes out. Look at it as big and it grows; see it as small and it shrinks. Fear it and it grows heavy and makes you ill; do not fear it and it stays light and hidden. If you do not know what it is, it lingers and settles in; know its nature, recognise it, and it leaves. For this whispering is a thing that ignorance calls in and knowledge drives away: if you do not recognise it, it comes; if you recognise it, it goes.

Look, poor troubled one, do not panic. What has come to your mind is not an insult (şetm); it is an imagining (tahayyül). Just as imagining unbelief is not unbelief, imagining an insult is not an insult either, for in logic an imagining is not a judgement (hüküm), and an insult is a judgement. Those ugly words are not your heart’s words, for your heart is grieved and sorry at them; they come from the satanic spot near the heart (lümme-i şeytanî). The harm of whispering is the imagining of harm: you take a groundless picture for reality, put Satan’s work down to your own heart, think his words are its words, and so you fall into harm. And that is just what Satan wanted.

If your head is caught by such an association of ideas (tedai-i efkâr), do not panic. The moment you come to, turn back. Do not say “Oh, what a fault I have committed!” and stay busy examining it, lest that weak connection gain strength from your attention. The association of ideas is mostly involuntary, and there is no responsibility in it. In it there is nearness, not touching or mixing. Just as Satan and the angel of inspiration are neighbours on either side of the heart, and the wicked and the righteous living close together in one dwelling does them no harm, so too, if unwanted dirty images come by association and slip in among clean thoughts, they do no harm, unless it is on purpose, or you busy yourself with them too much, thinking them harmful.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, The Words, the Twenty-First Word, Second Station (the opening, the First Wound and the Third Aspect)Working translation from the Turkish, made for this draft. Check against a published edition before release.Read the Second Station of the Twenty-First Word in full, in English with the Turkish original

04

Explore

A whisper, argued with and let go

You sit on the prayer rug with a book open by the lamp, and an unwanted thought arrives. Scrub through the evening: first the way of arguing with it, then the way of naming it and turning back.

It arrivesA small dark thought by the window. You did not invite it, and so far it is only an imagining (tahayyül). The lamp is warm and the book is open.

You argue with itYou turn to face it. Is it true? What does it say about me? Every answer is a little more importance (ehemmiyet), and it grows.

It swellsNow it fills the room and its shadow falls over you. The lamp is low and the book forgotten. Fear has made it heavy (korksan ağırlaşır), and it has what it wanted: you have left the presence (huzur) for heedlessness (gaflet).

You name it“This is a whisper.” A plain tag on it, nothing more. No argument, no inquiry. You recognise it, and it begins to shrink (tanısan gider).

You turn backYou turn back (dön) to the book. The thought is a speck at the window and goes out on its own. If it comes again, you turn back again. Each return is the practice, not a failure.

That is the practice for the week: name it, do not argue, and gently return. If whispers or checking take hours of your day, seeing a professional sits well beside this reading. Next week the treatise goes on to the doubts about worship, whether a prayer or a wudu “counted”, and answers them with ease rather than more anxiety.

Course