THIRD HOPE

One time when I awoke in the morning of old age from the sleep of the night of youth I  looked at myself and saw that my life was hastening towards the grave as though racing down a slope. As Niyazi Misri said:

Each day a stone from the building of my life falls to the ground; Heedless one! You slumber, unaware that the building is in ruins!

My body, my spirit’s dwelling, was becoming dilapidated with every day a stone of it falling away. My hopes and ambitions which bound me strongly to the world had begun to be broken off from it. I felt that the time I would be separated from my innumerable friends  and those I loved was drawing near. I searched for a salve for that deep and apparently incurable spiritual wound, but I could not find one. Again like Niyazi Misri I said:

While my heart desired its immortality, Reality required the passing of my body; I am afflicted with an incurable ill, which even Luqman could not cure!2

Then suddenly the light and intercession of the Glorious Prophet (UWBP), the tongue,  model, exemplar, herald, and representative of divine compassion, and the gift of guidance he brought to mankind, soothed and healed the wound I had supposed to be incurable and endless.

Yes, respected elderly men and women who feel their old age like I do! We are departing, there is no use in deceiving ourselves. Even if we close our eyes to it, we will not  remain here. There is a mobilization. The land of the Intermediate Realm, which appears to  us to be dark and full of separation due to the gloomy delusions which arise from  heedlessness and in part from the people of misguidance, is the meeting-place of friends. It  is the world where we shall meet with foremost God’s Beloved (Upon whom be blessings and peace), and with all our friends.

We are going to the world of the one who every year for one thousand three hundred  and fifty years has been the ruler of one thousand three hundred and fift y million people,  and  the trainer of their spirits, the teacher of their minds, and the beloved of their hearts; to whose book of good works, in accordance with the meaning of “the cause is like the doer,” is every day added the equivalent of all the good works performed  by  his  community;  who  is  the  means  by  which  the  elevated  divine purposes in the universe are accomplished and the high value of beings are realized. When he came into the world, according to authentic narrations and accurate divining of reality,  he  exclaimed:  “My  community!  My  community!”  So  too  at  the  Last Judgement  when everyone thinks only of themselves, he will again declare: “My community! My community!”, and with sacred, elevated self-sacrifice hasten with his intercession to its assistance. We are going to such a world, illuminated by the stars of countless saints and purified scholars revolving around that Sun (UWBP).

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2   That is to say, although with all its strength my heart wanted my body to be immortal, divine wisdom necessitated its destruction. I was afflicted with an incurable ill for which even Luqman the Wise could find no solution.