Then ask someone struck by disaster or a worker or poor man living in penury: “How are you?” If he is sensible, he will reply: “All thanks be to God, I am working. If only the evening did not come so quickly, I could have finished this work! Time passes so  quickly, and so does life; they flash by. For sure things are hard for me, but that will pass too. Everything passes quickly.” He in effect says how valuable life is and how regretful he is at its passing. That means he perceives the pleasure and value of life through hardship and labour. As for ease and health, they make life bitter and make one hope for its speedy passing.

My brother who is sick! Know that non-existence is the origin and leaven of

calamities and evils, and even of sins, is, as is proved decisively and in detail in other parts of the Risale-i Nur. As for non-existence, it is evil. Monotonous states like ease, silence,  tranquillity,  and  arrest  are  close  to  non-existence  and  nothingness,  and therefore make felt the darkness of non-existence and cause distress. As for action and change, they are existence and make existence felt. And existence is pure good; it is light.

Since the reality is thus, your illness has been sent to your being as a guest to perform  many duties such as purifying your valuable life, and strengthening it and making it progress,  and inducing the other human faculties in your being to turn in assistance towards your sick member, and to display various of the All-Wise Maker’s names. God willing, it will  carry out its duties quickly and depart, and will say to good health: “Come, and stay permanently in my place, and carry out your duties. This house is yours. Remain here in good health.”

TWENTIETH REMEDY

O sick person who is searching for a remedy for his ills! Illness is of two sorts. One sort is real, the other, imaginary. As for the real sort, the All-Wise and Glorious Healer has stored up in His mighty pharmacy of the earth a cure for every illness. It is licit to obtain medicines  and use them as treatment, but one should know that their effect and the cure are from Almighty God. He both gives the ailment and provides the cure.

Following the recommendations of skilful, God-fearing doctors is an effective medicine.  For  most illnesses  arise  from abuses, lack of abstinence,  wastefulness, mistakes,  dissipation,  and lack of care. A religious doctor will certainly give advice and instructions within the bounds of the lawful. He will forbid abuses and excesses, and give consolation. The sick person has confidence in his advice and consolation, and his illness lessens; it produces as easiness for him in place of distress.