Conclusion of the Fourteenth Word
A blow of warning and a lesson of admonition for the heedless head.
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
And what are the goods of this world but the goods of deception?
O my wretched soul sunk in heedlessness, which sees this life as sweet, has forgotten the hereafter, and seeks only this world! Do you know what you resemble? An ostrich! It sees the hunter but cannot fly, so sticks it head in the sand so that the hunter will not see it. Its bulky body remains in the open and the hunter sees it. But its eyes are closed in the sand and it cannot see him.
O my soul, consider the following comparison, and see it! Restricting one’s view to this world transforms a great pleasure into a grievous pain.
For example, there are two men in this village, that is, in Barla. Ninety‑nine out of a hundred of the friends of one of them have gone to Istanbul, where they are living in fine fashion. Only one has remained here and he too will go there. For this reason, the man longs for Istanbul and thinks of it; he wants to join his friends. When he is told to go there, he is overjoyed and goes happily. As for the second man, ninety-nine of his friends have departed from here, but some have perished and others have been put in places where they neither see nor are seen. He imagines that they have departed and disappeared in utter misery. The wretched man becomes friendly with one single guest in place of all of them, and wants to find consolation. Through him he wants to forget the grievous pain of separation.
O my soul! Foremost Allah the Most High’s Beloved (UWBP), and all your friends, are beyond the grave. The one or two who remain will also depart for there. So do not be frightened of death, anxious at the grave, and avert your head. Look manfully at the grave, and listen to what it seeks. Laugh in death’s face bravely, and see what it wants. Beware, do not be heedless and resemble the second man.
O my soul! Do not say, “The times have changed, this age is different, everyone is plunged into this world and worships this life. Everyone is drunk with the struggle for livelihood.” For death does not change. Separation is not transformed into permanence and does not become different. Man’s impotence and poverty do not change, they increase. Man’s journey is not cut, it becomes faster.
Also, do not say, “I am like everyone else.” For everyone befriends you only as far as the grave, and the consolation of being together with everyone else in disaster has no meaning beyond the grave. And do not suppose yourself to be free and independent. For if you look at this guesthouse of the world with the eye of wisdom, you will see that nothing at all is without order and without purpose. How could you remain outside the order and be without purpose?
Such events in the world as earthquakes are not the playthings of chance. For example, you see that the extremely orderly, finely embroidered shirts, one over the other and one within the other, which are clothed on the earth from the species of animals and plants, are adorned and decked out from top to bottom with purposes and instances of wisdom, and you know that the earth revolves and is turned like an ecstatic Mevlevi in perfect order within most exalted aims. How is it then, as an atheist published, they suppose to be without purpose and the result of chance such death‑tainted events of the earth as the earthquake? It resembled the earth’s shaking off itself the weight of certain forms of humankind’s heedlessness of which it disapproves, and especially that of the believers? How is it that they show the grievous losses of the stricken to be without recompense and to have gone for nothing, so casting them into a fearsome despair? They are both making a great error and perpetrating a great wrong.
Indeed, such events occur at the command of One All‑Wise and All-Compassionate, so as to transform the transient property of the believers into the equivalent of alms, and make it permanent. And they are atonement for their sins arising from ingratitude for bounties. Just as a day will come when this subjugated earth will see the works of man, which are the adornment of its face, to be tainted by the attributing of partners to Allah the Most High and not to be the cause of thanks, and it will find them ugly. At the Creator’s command, it will wipe them off its entire face with a violent earthquake and cleanse it. At Allah the Most High’s command, it will pour those who attribute partners to Him into Hell, and say to those who offer thanks, “Come and enter Paradise!”