Vauxhall Tea Party

Phase 5 · Kader and Vesvese

Week 19

Telling the Pulls Apart

The Words · The Twenty-first Word, Second Station · The Flashes · The Thirteenth Flash

01

Story

  1. 01On a hill stands a great palace (saray) with a hundred doors. A seam of light shows under every one.

  2. 02A traveller comes up the road, and door after door swings open. Light pours out of almost all of them.

  3. 03A voice at his elbow points to the one door still shut: “You cannot get in. Perhaps it is not a palace. Perhaps there is nothing inside.”

  4. 04He looks again, and laughs. One open door is enough to enter, and a shut door or two does not make the palace closed.

  5. 05He walks in through the nearest open door, and from inside the shut one opens too. The whole palace is lit.

Nursi’s comparison from the Thirteenth Flash, retold in our words. The palace is the truths of belief; each door is one of its evidences, and each evidence is a key.

02

Meaning

A cleaner heart notices what pulls it. Inspiration (ilham) leads towards God, goodness and balance; whispering (vesvese) brings confusion, despair, obsessive doubt or pride. Doubt about whether a prayer “counted” is itself a whisper, answered with ease. Sensing things before they happen (hiss-i kable’l-vuku) is real, but held lightly.

The whisperer did not lie about the door. It really was shut. His trick was to make one shut door outweigh ninety-nine open ones, so the traveller would stand outside all night. That is how most whispers (vesvese) work: a true detail made to carry a false weight. Last week we learnt that a whisper is not you. This week asks how to tell it from the other neighbour of the heart, inspiration (ilham). Look at where each one leads. Inspiration leads towards God, towards good and towards balance. A whisper leads into confusion, despair, endless checking, or quiet pride. And when it hurts too much, Nursi says, complain to the All-Wise and Compassionate and say Eûzü billah (istiaze).

Six ways to tell the pulls apart

From the Twenty-first Word, the Thirteenth Flash and one letter. Try each picture with your own hands.

  1. inspiration · ilhamwhispering · vesvesethe heart · kalbtowards God · Allahtowards good · hayırin balance · mizanCall your mother tonight

    Bring in a pull, then test it three ways.

    01 / 06

    Two neighbours by the heart

    Last week’s neighbours return. Satan and the angel of inspiration (melek-i ilham) live side by side near the heart, as the wicked and the righteous can share one house. A thought arriving there says nothing yet about which neighbour sent it, so we judge it by where it leads. Inspiration (ilham) leads towards God, towards good and towards balance. Nursi’s own mark of a whisper is that it makes a person flee the Presence (huzurdan kaçar) and want to sink into heedlessness (gaflet). In the Thirteenth Flash he gives the scales: weigh your deeds and your passing thoughts (a‘mâl ve hâtırât) on the clear verses of the Qur’an (muhkemât) and the balance of the Sunna.

  2. repeated ×0the day

    He has just prayed. Choose the question he asks afterwards.

    02 / 06

    “Did it count?” is the wrong question

    The Fourth Aspect is a whisper born of hunting for the perfect form of a deed. The person takes it for piety (takva zannıyla), so the stricter he gets the worse it grows: “I wonder if it was valid?” (acaba sahih oldu mu?), and he repeats the deed, again and again, until he falls into despair (ye’s). The first cure: if you prayed or made wudu in keeping with the outward form of the law (zahir-i şeriate muvafık), and something that would have spoiled it was there without your knowing, your prayer is both valid and good. So do not ask “was it valid?” (sahih mi?). Ask “was it accepted?” (kabul mü?), and do not swing into being pleased with yourself (ucb).

  3. a tight place · harecseen through the whisperfour true schools · dört mezheb

    Choose how the way looks, then take a step.

    03 / 06

    No hardship in religion

    The second cure is ease. There is no hardship in religion (dinde harec yoktur), and religion is ease (ed-dînu yüsr). The four schools of law are true, and your deed surely agrees with one of them: that is enough. Then a real kindness: for someone afflicted with scruples, seeing his deed as faulty and asking forgiveness (derk-i kusur, istiğfar) is better than seeing it as good and growing proud. Why do whispers exist at all? As long as they do not go to excess (ifrat), they wake us, make us search and drive out indifference: a whip of encouragement (kamçı-yı teşvik). If the whip hurts too much, complain to the Compassionate and say Eûzü billah.

  4. the sea, in its placecertainty · yakînwhat if it sank?what if it sank?what if it sank?what if it sank?what if it sank?what if it sank?no evidence · no weight

    The sea is in its place, and you know it. Let a thought come.

    04 / 06

    A possibility is not a doubt

    The Fifth Aspect turns to doubts (şüphe) about belief itself. Imagining, fancying, picturing and reflecting (tahayyül, tevehhüm, tasavvur, tefekkür) are free to a degree and do not obey the will; the mind’s assent and the heart’s submission (tasdik, iz‘an) follow a balance (mizan). So imagining unbelief is not unbelief. Then the key distinction: what is possible in itself (imkân-ı zâtî) is not a reasonable doubt (imkân-ı zihnî). The Black Sea could, in itself, sink this minute, and we know for certain it is in its place. A possibility that does not arise from any evidence carries no weight. One warning: a doubt repeated needlessly, again and again, can settle into a real one.

  5. sees the faultkusurunu görüradmits ititirafasks forgivenessistiğfarseeks refugeistiazeis savedkurtulura fault · kusura hundred excuses · yüz tevil

    There is a fault beside him. Choose what he does with it.

    05 / 06

    Satan’s tricks, and the chain that breaks them

    The Thirteenth Flash names some of Satan’s wiles (desise). One makes a sensitive, pure-hearted person mistake imagining unbelief for affirming it, until he says “all is lost”. Another borrows this phase’s own word: “your kader has condemned you”. Nursi’s answer: the trembling and refusal of the one who hears it prove it did not come from his heart; seek refuge (istiaze) and give it no importance. The opposite trick stops a person admitting his faults, so the soul defends itself like a lawyer (avukat gibi). Then the chain: whoever accuses his own soul sees his fault; whoever admits it asks forgiveness; whoever asks forgiveness seeks refuge; whoever seeks refuge is saved. A third trick lets one fault of a brother hide all his good, the way a fly’s wing (sinek kanadı) held to the eye hides a mountain.

  6. maybe · belkia rule for hunches?God knows best · Allahu a‘lem

    Let a hunch come, then choose what to do with it.

    06 / 06

    Sensing before it happens, held lightly

    In the Twenty-Eighth Letter Nursi says premonition (hiss-i kable’l-vuku) is in everyone to some degree, even in animals, and that true dreams are a stronger form of it. He calls it a kind of innate inspiration (ilham-ı fıtrî) by which Divine Determining guides creatures. Speak of a friend and he walks in: the Kurds say, talk of the wolf and ready your club. Nursi was very sensitive this way himself and tried to make it a rule; he could not. Elsewhere he says he sometimes felt rain a day early, and that this is not knowing the unseen (gayb). So: real, but held lightly. It can prompt a call or a prayer. It must never become prediction, fear, control or fortune-telling.

03

Read

رَبِّ أَعُوذُ بِكَ مِنْ هَمَزَاتِ الشَّيَاطِينِ ۝ وَأَعُوذُ بِكَ رَبِّ أَنْ يَحْضُرُونِ

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

This is a whisper that springs from searching for the best form of a deed. Taking it for piety (takva), the person grows stricter, and the stricter he grows the harder his state becomes. He says, “I wonder if my deed was valid?”, and does it again, and the state goes on, until he falls into deep despair. So, by the way of the people of the Sunna, do not say of a deed you did in keeping with the outward Shari‘a, “I wonder if it was valid?”, and do not fall into whispering. Say instead, “I wonder if it was accepted?”, and do not grow proud or pleased with yourself (ucb).

There is no hardship in religion (dinde harec yoktur). Since the four schools are true, throw the whisper away and say to Satan: this state is a hardship; to know the hidden reality of things is hard, and that goes against the ease of the religion. My deed surely agrees with one true school, and that is enough for me. And at the very least, by admitting I could not worship as is fitting, it is a reason to take refuge in God’s mercy, humbly asking that my fault be pardoned and my faulty deed accepted.

Whoever accuses his own soul sees his fault. Whoever admits his fault asks forgiveness (istiğfar). Whoever asks forgiveness seeks refuge (istiaze). And whoever seeks refuge is saved from Satan’s evil. Not to see one’s fault is a greater fault than the fault itself. If a person sees his fault, it stops being a fault; if he admits it, he becomes worthy of pardon. Weigh your deeds and your passing thoughts on the scales of the Qur’an’s clear verses and the balance of the Sunna, and say: I seek refuge with God from Satan the accursed.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, The Words, the Twenty-first Word (Second Station, Fourth Aspect), and The Flashes, the Thirteenth Flash (Thirteenth Indication, Second and Third Points)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

One pull, three tests

You have just finished the dawn prayer. A strong pull comes: “That one didn’t count. Your wudu wasn’t right. Do it all again.” Switch between the three tests and watch the same room.

Towards God?It looks like a pull towards worship, but follow it. It turns you away from the window, into a grey fog of anxiety; Nursi says this whisper makes a person flee the Presence (huzur) and long for heedlessness. Real prayer leaves you facing Him.

Towards good?What grows from it? Loops of repetition round the mat, the clock running on, the door to your day still shut. No kindness, no work, no rest: only more of the same, and despair (ye’s) at the end.

In balance?Put it on the scales. On one side, a prayer done in its outward form: valid. On the other, a possibility with no evidence: it weighs nothing. It fails, so it is a whisper. Cut the thread, say Eûzü billah and “was it accepted?”, and walk into the day.

You do not need to win the argument with a whisper. You only need to notice which way it pulls. Inspiration leads towards God, towards good and towards balance; whatever fails those three can be put down. Next week the course turns to Nursi’s letters from exile, where these ideas were lived under real pressure.

Course