Vauxhall Tea Party

Phase 3 · Cleaning the heart

Week 09

Shaped by Our Surroundings

The Flashes · The Second Flash · The Seventeenth Flash

01

Story

  1. 01For years the prophet Job (Eyyüb) lives covered in wounds and sores.

  2. 02He thinks of the great reward for illness and bears it with perfect patience (kemal-i sabır). He does not ask to be cured.

  3. 03Then the worms from his wounds reach his heart and his tongue, the places where God is remembered (zikir) and known (marifet).

  4. 04Now he prays, not for his comfort but for his worship (ubudiyet): “My Lord, harm has touched me, and You are the Most Merciful of the merciful.”

  5. 05God answers that pure prayer at once. His health comes back in full, and mercy of every kind.

Retold from the Second Flash in our own words. The prayer is Qur’an 21:83; the healing and the spring are 21:84 and 38:42. The mirror from the Seventeenth Flash is in the fifth point below.

02

Meaning

Sins and doubts are inner wounds, and what we surround ourselves with keeps touching the heart; wipe it often, and choose what it faces.

Job bore years of wounds without a word of complaint. He spoke only when the damage reached the two places he used for God: the heart and the tongue. Nursi turns the story round on us. Our wounds are on the inside, opened by sins (günah) and doubts (şüphe), and what they put at risk is not a short life but an everlasting one. This phase is about cleaning the heart (kalb), and cleaning starts with noticing what keeps making it dirty: what we do, and what we surround ourselves with, hour after hour.

Six things these Flashes show

From the Second and the Seventeenth Flash, with one detail from the Twenty-Third Word. Try each picture with your own hands.

  1. each doubt · şüpheeach sin · günaha brief worldly life · hayat-ı dünyeviyean everlasting life · hayat-ı ebediyefrom outside, all is wellJob · Eyyübouter wounds · zâhirîa brief life at riskUs, as we lookgood shoes, a neat profilenothing to seeUs, inside outinner wounds · bâtınîa thousand times more in need

    His wounds were on the outside, and they threatened a short worldly life. He bore them with patience.

    01 / 06

    Turn us inside out

    Job’s wounds were on the outside (zâhirî). Ours are on the inside (bâtınî): wounds of the heart and the spirit. Turn us inside out, Nursi says, and we would look more wounded and sick than Job, because every sin (günah) we commit and every doubt (şüphe) that enters our head opens a wound. His wounds threatened a short worldly life; ours threaten an everlasting one (hayat-ı ebediye). So we need Job’s intimate prayer (münacat) a thousand times more than he did.

  2. the light of belief · nur-u imanblackening, blackening · siyahlandıra siyahlandıraa worm · kurta small snake · yılan

    A heart with the light of belief in it. Add a sin, then decide how long to leave it.

    02 / 06

    The stain that spreads

    Sin works its way into the heart and darkens it, blackening and blackening it (siyahlandıra siyahlandıra), hardening it until the light of belief (nur-u iman) is pushed out. A well-known hadith says each sin leaves a black spot on the heart; repentance polishes it away, and if the sin goes on, the spot spreads. That is the stain (rân) of 83:14. Unless it is wiped quickly with istiğfar, the worm (kurt) grows into a small spiritual snake (manevî yılan) that bites the heart.

  3. A secret sina shameful sin, in secretafraid of being seenangels weigh on hima slight hint will dodeny the angels · inkârA major sina major sinhe hears of Hellhe wishes it were not therea small doubt will dodeny Hell · inkârSkipping prayerleaves the prayer · namazthe command, again and againwishes there were no duty · keşkia doubt, held like a proofdenial, even enmity · inkârhe runs from a fly’s bite · sinekinto a snake’s · yılanthe shield · istiğfar

    Ashamed of being seen, he finds the angels and unseen witnesses hard to bear, and wants to deny them on the slightest hint.

    03 / 06

    Every sin has a road to unbelief

    Inside every sin, Nursi says, there is a road that goes to unbelief (küfre gidecek bir yol). The man who sins in secret, afraid of being seen, finds angels and unseen witnesses hard to bear, and wants to deny them on the slightest hint. The man who commits a major sin wishes with his whole soul that Hell were not there, and a small doubt gives him the nerve to deny it. The man who leaves the prayer (namaz) feels the repeated command as a weight, wishes there were no such duty, and from that wish comes a wish to deny. Running from a fly’s bite (sinek), he accepts a snake’s (yılan).

  4. the grave’s door · kabir kapısıthe sultan of your facultiesa careera followingthe whole worldstill unmet · fânîcontent · Bâkî

    One faculty in you will settle for nothing less than the Eternal. Offer it something.

    04 / 06

    A faculty only the Eternal can satisfy

    The Seventeenth Flash opens with Nursi talking to himself: “O heedless Said” (Ey gafil Said, from gaflet). Do not tie your heart to passing things (fânî) that turn their backs when your time ends, will not walk you to the door of the grave, and leave their sins hanging round your neck. Look at your own nature: among your subtle faculties (latîfe) is one that will be content with nothing less than eternity and the Eternal One. Give it the whole world and its need is still not met. It is the sultan of your senses. Obey it, for it obeys its Maker.

  5. outside · hariçteit stands for centuriesa feedyour world · senin dünyanyour life is the mirror · âyineherc ü merc

    The house, the town and the garden appear in it, at the size the mirror gives them. That is the world that is yours.

    05 / 06

    The world in your mirror

    Nursi names an error of perception (galat-ı his): because the world around us looks stable, we assume our own small world is stable too, and fear only the end of everything, as if we will live until then. But your world sits in the mirror (âyine) of your life, at the scale the mirror gives it, and the mirror is small and may shake at any minute. Do not load it with weights it cannot carry. And a second lesson for this week: a mirror shows whatever it is held up to. The heart takes the shape of what we point it at.

  6. Üzüm üzüme baka baka kararıra grape darkens by looking at its neighbouryouwild · yabanîat home · ehlîdomestic animals took a shareof our laziness · tenbellik

    One grape in the middle of the bunch. Choose its neighbours, and give it time.

    06 / 06

    Even animals pick up our habits

    A small detail from the Twenty-Third Word: domestic animals (hayvanat-ı ehliye), whose reins have been put in human hands, have each taken a share of human weakness, helplessness and laziness (tenbellik). Set a domestic goat or ox beside a wild one, Nursi says, and the difference is huge. And from the Second Flash: a life spent on the couch of comfort (istirahat döşeği) is closer to non-existence than to life. If the animals that live with us grow softer, it is no surprise that we are shaped by the people, places and screens we live with.

03

Read

رَبِّ اِنِّى مَسَّنِىَ الضُّرُّ وَاَنْتَ اَرْحَمُ الرَّاحِمِينَ

“My Lord, harm has touched me, and You are the Most Merciful of all who show mercy.” (Qur’an 21:83, in the form Nursi recommends for our own prayers)

Over against the outward wounds and sicknesses of Job, we have inward sicknesses of the spirit and the heart (bâtınî). If we were turned once, the inside out and the outside in, we would look more wounded and more sick than Job. For every sin (günah) we commit, and every doubt (şüphe) that gets into our head, opens wounds in the heart and the spirit. His wounds threatened his very short life in this world; our inner wounds threaten our very long, everlasting life (hayat-ı ebediye). We need that prayer of Job a thousand times more than he did.

Yes, sin works its way into the heart and, blackening it and blackening it (siyahlandıra siyahlandıra), hardens it until the light of belief is driven out. In every sin there is a road that goes to unbelief (küfre gidecek bir yol). If that sin is not quickly wiped out with istiğfar, it is no longer a worm but a small spiritual snake (manevî yılan), biting the heart.

Your error of the senses (galat-ı his) is like this. A man holds the mirror in his hand towards a house, a town or a garden, and an image of a house, a town and a garden appears in it. Let the slightest movement or the smallest change come over the mirror, and the image falls into confusion (herc ü merc). That the real house, town and garden outside go on and last does you no good, for the ones in your mirror, the ones that belong to you, have only the measure the mirror gives them. Your life is the mirror (âyine). So do not load onto this life and world of yours burdens they cannot pull or lift.

Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, The Flashes, the Second Flash (First Point) and the Seventeenth Flash (Third Note)Working translation from the Turkish, made for this draft. Check against a published edition before release.Read the Second Flash in full, in English with the Turkish original

04

Explore

The black spot

A well-known hadith says that when a believer sins, a black spot appears on the heart. If he turns back and asks forgiveness, the heart is polished; if he goes on, the spot spreads. That spreading is the stain (rân) of 83:14. Move through it, and then out the other side.

A clean heartThe heart as it was made, clear, with the light of belief (nur-u iman) shining out of it.

One sinOne sin, one black spot (siyah nokta). Small, and easy to wipe. A little worm (kurt) has got in at its edge.

Left aloneNot wiped, the spot spreads and others join it. The worm has grown into a small spiritual snake (manevî yılan), biting the heart.

StainedBlackening and blackening (siyahlandıra siyahlandıra), it hardens. This is the rân of the verse: a film over the whole heart, and the light almost out.

Wiped cleanRepentance and asking forgiveness (istiğfar) polish it. However thick the film, the cloth still works, and the light comes back.

Nursi’s warning is about speed, not despair: wipe it while it is still a worm. And the cloth never stops working. When you slip, say Estağfirullah and carry on. Phase 3, cleaning the heart, starts here: first notice what keeps staining it, then keep the cloth close.

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