Vauxhall Tea Party

Phase 1 · Foundations

Week 04

Contentment and Trust

The Words · The Second Word · The Sixth Word

01

Story

  1. 01Two men set out, partly for pleasure and partly for business, and go different ways.

  2. 02The first sees a terrible country, a house of mourning. He can bear it only drunk.

  3. 03The second sees a festival. Soldiers go home with thanks, and recruits are sent off with drums.

  4. 04They meet again. “The ugliness was inside you,” says the second. “You took laughter for weeping.”

  5. 05The first comes to his senses: a just king rules here. He thanks his friend.

A parable retold from the Second Word. The wording here is ours, the story is Nursi’s. The Sixth Word’s story, the king’s offer, is in Explore below.

02

Meaning

Belief changes how the same world looks, and lifts a weight we were never meant to carry.

Nothing in the country changed between the two travellers. Only the reading did. Without belief, Nursi says, the world is a house of mourning, every creature an orphan waiting to part. With it, the same world is a place of remembrance, training and testing, under a King who stays unseen. Ask a room for one word for London and you will hear “grey” and “lonely” next to “freedom” and “friends”: the same city, the same rent, two different places.

Six things these two Words show

Three from the Second Word, three from the Sixth. Try each picture with your own hands.

  1. A house of mourning · matemhanelifeless and vastorphans, waiting to partA house of remembrance · zikirhanea training groundon duty, rememberingMoved in the country — nothing

    Every creature an orphan waiting to part, the mountains lifeless and vast.

    01 / 06

    The same world, read two ways

    For someone without belief, or for any of us in a heedless moment, the world is a house of mourning: the mountains lifeless and vast, every creature an orphan. For the believer the same world is a house of remembrance, a training ground and an examination hall. Not one thing in the country moved. The reading changed.

  2. homeon duty · talimgâhlooted, gonedischarged with honourterhiscalled up, with drums

    A soldier leaves his post and it looks like loss. Taken, gone, nothing beyond the gate.

    02 / 06

    Death as discharge, birth as call-up

    The first traveller sees soldiers leaving and thinks they are being robbed and killed. In fact they are being discharged with honour (terhis), their service done, going home to a better place so new recruits can take their posts. Every birth is a call-up, with drums. Every death of one who did their duty is a discharge, with thanks. This is what belief opens up. It does not forbid tears.

  3. The scenes themselves — unchangedweepinglaughterlootinghonourable dischargean enemya friendthe heart

    The stain is on the glass, close to his own eye. He paints it on everything he looks at.

    03 / 06

    The ugliness was inside you

    This is the heart of the Second Word. The ugliness within the first traveller was cast onto the world, so he took laughter for weeping and an honourable discharge for looting. The cure is not “cheer up”. It is to come to your senses and cleanse your heart, and the veil over the eyes lifts. Belief carries the seed of a tree of Paradise; unbelief hides the seed of a bitter one.

  4. kept by its Owner · bâkîThe time of war — everything passesbodyhearteyestonguemindgone anyway · fânîstill in your hands, used in His name

    Either way it leaves your hands. Choose where it goes.

    04 / 06

    Sell what you cannot keep anyway

    In the Sixth Word the King is God, and the estate, given as a trust (emanet), is everything we hold: body, heart, eyes, tongue, mind. The “time of war” is this world, where everything slips out of our hands. The answer is to sell the trust back to its real Owner. The first profit, in Nursi’s words: passing property finds permanence.

  5. The mindworks for the selfworks for its OwnerThe eyeworks for the selfworks for its OwnerThe tongueworks for the selfworks for its Ownersorrow of the past,fear of the futurea key to thetreasures of wisdoma handful ofpassing imagesa reader of thebook of the universedoorkeeperof the stablea grateful inspectorin mercy’s kitchens

    Press each one to give it a new employer.

    05 / 06

    What your mind, eyes and tongue become

    Nursi takes three faculties and shows what each becomes, depending on whom it works for. The mind, working for the self, loads you with the sorrows of the past and the fears of the future; working for its Owner, it becomes a key to the treasures of wisdom. The eye becomes either a chaser of passing images or a reader of the book of the universe. The tongue, a doorkeeper of the stable or a grateful inspector in the kitchens of mercy.

  6. held by Himyour partthe visathe careerparentsback homethe rent

    Everything on weak shoulders, and the conscience never at rest.

    06 / 06

    The weight you were never meant to carry

    A person is weak, needy and open to endless misfortune (acz and fakr). Without trust in God, leaning on Him, handing yourself over, resting your confidence in Him, the conscience is never at rest. Is the sale so hard? Not at all, Nursi says: the duties are light, and if you fall short you ask forgiveness and carry on. What you feel now is relief, not a promise of promotion.

03

Read

حَسْبُنَا اللّٰهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ

“God is enough for us, and He is the best One to trust with our affairs.” (Qur’an 3:173)

That wretched man stands for the unbeliever, or the heedless one. In his eyes the world is a house of mourning for all. Every living thing is an orphan, weeping under the blows of parting and passing away. The animals and people are without an owner, torn apart by the claws of death.

The other man is the believer, who knows the Maker. In his eyes the world is a house of remembrance of the Merciful, a training ground and a field of testing. Every death is a discharge: those who have finished their duty leave this passing world, glad, for a better one, to make room for those newly on duty. Every birth is a call to arms and the start of a duty.

Sell what is His to Him, and five profits are yours. The first: passing property finds permanence. This life, which will go in any case, is given to the Everlasting, and becomes lasting. If it is not sold, it will go for nothing all the same.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, The Words, the Second Word and the Sixth WordWorking translation from the Turkish, made for this draft. Check against a published edition before release.

04

Explore

The king’s offer

A king lends his subject an estate: workshops, tools, horses, everything. But it is a time of storms and war. Move the slider from holding it yourself to selling it back to its Owner, and watch the same estate.

Holding itSold

Holding it myselfThe storm takes a little more each day. The tools blow away, the walls crack, and he clutches at what he cannot keep.

The offerA messenger comes from the King. “Sell me what I lent you. I will keep it safe, pay you well, and give it back better.”

Sold to its OwnerThe storm still blows, but the estate is kept. It works in the King’s name, at His expense, and the weight is off his back.

The one who sold, Nursi says, was soon living in the King’s own palace. The one who refused lost everything anyway. Selling is the signature of week 1 again: to act in all things in His name.

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