Vauxhall Tea Party

Phase 1 · Foundations

Week 03

The Higher Goal

The Words · The Eleventh Word · The Twenty-third Word, Second Chapter

01

Story

  1. 01A king had treasuries of jewels and great skill. Like anyone with beauty, he wanted it seen.

  2. 02He built a vast palace, adorned it by hand, laid tables with every food and invited his people.

  3. 03A teacher inside explained: the works are to know him, the beauty to love him, the gifts to thank him.

  4. 04Some guests asked the teacher and lived as the king wished. He called them to a better palace, for ever.

  5. 05Others saw only the food. They ate, drank and disturbed everyone, until the guards led them out.

A parable retold from the Eleventh Word. The wording here is ours, the story is Nursi’s.

02

Meaning

A human being was made to know, love and thank the One who made him. That goal puts everything else in its right order.

Nursi gives the key himself. The palace is this world, its roof the starry sky and its floor the flowering earth. The King is God, the teacher is the Prophet, and the guests are us. The two groups differ in one thing only: whether they ask what all this is for. A London private view has both kinds. Some walk round and read the labels. Others stand by the canapés and never look at a picture. Same room, same invitation.

Six things these Words show

From the palace to the train in the tunnel. Each picture works when you press it.

  1. the Hostknow himlove himthank himhis artits beautyhis gifts

    The gaze stops at the plate. The pictures stay dark, and the Host is never met.

    01 / 06

    The world is an exhibition, and the Host wants to be known

    In the story the palace is an exhibition hall, a teşhirgâh, not decoration for its own sake. Every room says something about its maker. The king wants to be known through his art, loved through its beauty and thanked for his gifts. We are guests here, and the only difference between the two groups is one question: what is all this for?

  2. a sparrowten piecesenough for its lifeeyesbeautymindtruthheartperfectionregretits endingfearcomforta thousand piecesyouthe note

    Ten pieces for a sparrow’s life. A thousand for yours. What are they for?

    02 / 06

    You were given a thousand gold pieces, not ten

    A master gives one servant ten gold pieces for a suit, and he buys a fine one. He gives another a thousand, with a note of instructions in his pocket. The second never reads the note, spends it all on a suit, and gets the worst cloth in the market. Animals are given what this life needs. We were given eyes for every shade of beauty, a mind for the finest truths and a heart that longs for every perfection.

  3. the giftthanksmy little ordera unit of measurethe world’s orderhis gifts, worna mirror

    The gift comes down, the thanks go up. The circle closes.

    03 / 06

    What the gold is for: thank, know, show

    Nursi lists nine aims of a human life. They come down to three. Thank: taste the gifts and give thanks. Know: your small knowledge and power are a unit of measurement, a vâhid-i kıyâsî, for sensing the One who built the world and His Names. Show: let the gifts in you be visible, like a soldier wearing the medals his king gave him.

  4. the narrow soilthe highest of the highthe lowest of the low

    The same seed, with the same gift inside it. Which way will it go?

    04 / 06

    Two roads, two faces, and the seed

    The human being is made in the finest of forms and stands at the start of two roads, one endlessly up and one endlessly down. Facing our own ego we are tiny. Facing God, our very weakness and need make us a wide mirror. We are like a seed: misuse what you were given and it rots underground; follow the command and it breaks through and becomes a tree with fruit.

  5. the Kingheartspiritmindeyes and earsdesire · the doorkeeperanger · the dog

    Every faculty is dragged out to entertain the street. The rooms behind are empty. That is decline, not progress.

    05 / 06

    The two palaces

    In a vision Nursi walks through a town of palaces. At some, the lord is out at the door playing with a dog, and the house inside is empty. At others, a doorkeeper and a quiet dog keep the gate, and every floor is busy, with the lord at the top in conversation with the king. Each palace is a person. The household is our inner faculties, the letâif. Desire and anger are the doorkeeper and the dog.

  6. sixty coins, one for each yearspentleftkept for the journeythorny fruitthe porter25

    06 / 06

    The Old Said becomes the New Said

    In a vision Nursi was given sixty gold pieces, one for each year. In a hostel of amusements he spent ten in one night. Told to keep half of what was left for where he was going, he refused. Then he was on a train in a tunnel, grabbing at thorny fruit that tore his hands, while a porter offered him all he wanted for a few small coins. He woke a different man. The porter matters: lawful pleasure is enough.

03

Read

لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنْسَانَ فِي أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍ

We have created the human being in the finest of forms (Qur’an 95:4)

Brother, if you want to understand the hidden key to the wisdom of the world and the riddle of man’s creation, listen with my soul to this short parable. Once there was a king with vast treasuries of every kind of jewel, great skill in rare crafts, and knowledge without end.

Everyone who has beauty and perfection wants to see it and to show it. So this king set out to build a great palace, an exhibition hall, to show his people the splendour of his rule, the riches of his treasury and the wonders of his art. He adorned it with his own hand, laid it with every kind of food, and invited his people to the feast.

Man is like a seed. Divine power has placed great faculties inside him. If he spends them under the soil of this life on the small desires of his self, he rots in a narrow place, like a seed gone bad. If he uses them as his Creator commands, he leaves that narrow world, grows into a lasting tree, and bears fruit.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, The Words, the Eleventh Word and the Twenty-third Word, Second ChapterWorking translation from the Turkish, made for this draft. Check against a published edition before release.

04

Explore

Which palace is yours this month?

Nursi saw two kinds of palace in the same street. Drag the line of light across one palace: the same walls, the same windows, lived in two ways.

All front doorThe lord is out at the door playing with the dog, entertaining the street. Inside, every room is dark and its work undone.

Every floor litThe gate is quiet, kept by a doorkeeper and a dog lying still. Inside, every floor is busy, and at the top the lord speaks with the King.

Progress, Nursi says, is not dragging every faculty out to the door to serve appetite. That is decline. The heart as king of this household returns in Week 6.

Course