My Dear, Loyal Brothers!
Firstly: Although it is personal, it occurred to me that I should write and tell you about a strange dispute I had with myself. It was like this:
Although the poster you know about that hangs beside me had totally silenced my evil‑commanding soul, last night my blind emotions, which employ the weapon of the soul even more insistently, exacerbated certain veins of temperament. With an excessive irritability and sensitivity caused by illness and poison, and an extraordinary state of mind arising from the whisperings of Satan and a natural love of life, those blind emotions, which resemble a second evil-commanding soul, touched my heart and spirit acutely, and made me feel an awful despair and sorrow at the possibility of death, and a powerful ambition, thrill, and pleasure.
My soul and those emotions asked: “Why don't you try to live a comfortable life? For indeed you reject such a thing and you don't seek an innocently pleasurable life within the circle of the Risale‑i Nur, but are quite happy to die. Why is this?” Suddenly two powerful facts silenced that second evil-commanding soul and Satan.
The First: When I die, the Risale‑i Nur's sacred work for belief will unfold with greater sincerity; and in no way will it be accused of being utilized for worldly ends, or for egotism or self-interest. And since my being personally alive excites rivalry, its service will continue more sincerely and perfectly. It's true that I can help a bit while I'm in this world, but rivals and critics can accuse my unimportant self, which may harm the Risale-i Nur and cause people to hold back from it. And if the person who acts as watchman lays down, all the enthusiasts in his luminous circle become alert and watchful; there are then thousands of guards instead of just one. That is to say, if death were to come, it would be welcome.
Furthermore, since many of the Nur students have devoted their property, and their comfort, and their worldly pleasures, and if necessary their lives to serving the Risale‑i Nur, why should you be niggardly, O my soul!
Also, know certainly that if it were necessary to depart from this transitory, troublesome life while working to save the eternal lives of numerous unfortunates, or if the time were to come, it would be a pleasurable honour to meet it happily.
The Second: If a weak and powerless man was to be burdened with a heavy load although he could not bear a light one, and if his friends looked on him as strong and wanted his help although it was really him that needed help due to his concealed weakness, it would be most grievous and distasteful for him to try, by being artificial and false, which are extremely burdensome, to appear big and powerful just so as not to offend them or appear inferior. In just the same way, O my evil‑commanding soul, you have become engulfed in blind emotion! With your ordinary person and virtually worthless abilities, you could not be the source and fountainhead of the truths of the Risale-i Nur, which are far beyond you and purely a divine favour. In this dark, sick age, those truths have emerged from the sacred pharmacy of the Qur'an and been placed in your hands by divine mercy. Indeed, just so as not to spoil my friends' good opinion of me nor offend their sensibilities, despite my being wretched and needy and a beggar at the Qur'an's door and a mere means conveying it to the needy, this wretched person they call Ustad has given up meeting with friends even if not in connection with the work of the Risale-i Nur, and has been obliged to do so by his spirit, for their sake, so as not to appear far inferior to them nor be forced to be false and artificial, which is most painful and burdensome. For to appear more worthy than I am, and to show myself as holding some high rank in order to please those who have too high an opinion of me, and to appear lofty and to seek the harmful, fleeting pleasures of the ego behind the veil of high dignity, which is absolutely opposed to the meaning of sincerity, would reduce to nothing all those pleasures, o my soul!
O my soul! O miserable blind emotions, always seeking pleasure! If you were to receive thousands of worldly pleasures even, they would still degenerate in this situation and turn into pure pain! Since out of a hundred of my old friends, ninety are calling me to the grave — or so it seems, I have to abandon the ten that remain here. Surely, the non‑physical life of the Intermediate Realm is a thousand times preferable to this life of old-age and loneliness. Thanks be to God, the above two facts silenced the second evil-commanding soul completely. It was content with the pleasures emanating from the heart and spirit. Satan was silenced too. Even the physical sickness in my arteries lessened considerably.
In Short: If I die, the work of the Risale‑i Nur will unfold with greater sincerity, and without any rivalry or accusations.
Moreover, it means being saved from the burdensome, cold and unpleasant pains of empty formalities and troubles of self‑advertisement and harms of artificiality, which usurp the minor, temporary pleasure which I don't seek and the pleasure at seeing with worldly eyes the victories of the Risale-i Nur.
Furthermore, O soul! With your spirit and heart, this year you have travelled both in fact and in the imagination through the regions I passed my old pleasurable life for which you so long, to see the friends with whom I was so familiar and the brothers at the parting with whom I was so sad. But you too saw that in those many regions you could find only one or two out of a hundred of those friends. The rest had departed for the Intermediate Realm, and the pleasing living tableaux had changed and had taken on a dejected, mournful appearance. Never again would one want to see those empty, friendless places. So with complete dignity and self‑respect, we should give up these fleeting pleasures and bid this life and world farewell before they drive us out unceremoniously.
The Enduring One, He is the Enduring One!With greetings to and prayers for all our brothers, your ill but joyful brother,Saîd Nursî