Anyway, as a result of this severe awakening caused me by old age, first of all I saw the  transitoriness of all the ephemeral things to which I was attached. Then I looked at myself, and I saw myself to be utterly impotent. So then my spirit declared, which desires immortality and was infatuated with ephemeral beings imagining them to be immortal: “Since I am a transient being with regard to my body, what good can come of these ephemeral things? Since I am powerless, what can I await from these powerless things? What I need is one who is Eternal and Enduring, one who is Pre- Eternal and All-Powerful, who will provide a remedy for my ills.” And I began to search.

Then, before everything, I had recourse to the learning I had studied of old, I began to  search for a consolation, a hope. But unfortunately, up to that time I had filled my mind  with the sciences of philosophy as well as the Islamic sciences, and quite in error had imagined those philosophical sciences to be the source of progress and means of illumination.  However, those philosophical matters had greatly dirtied my  spirit  and  been  an  obstacle  to  my  spiritual  development.  Suddenly,  through Almighty God’s mercy and munificence, the sacred wisdom of the All-Wise Qur’an came to my assistance. As is explained in many parts of the Risale-i Nur, it washed away and cleansed the dirt of those philosophical matters.

For  instance,  the  spiritual  darknesses  arising  from  science  and  philosophy plunged my spirit into the universe. Whichever way I looked seeking a light, I could find not a gleam  in those matters, I could not breathe. And so it continued until the instruction in divine unity given by the phrase from the All-Wise Qur’an “There is no god but He” dispersed all those layers of darkness with its brilliant light, and I could breathe with ease. But relying on what they had learnt from the people of misguidance and philosophers, my soul and Satan attacked my reason and my heart. All thanks be to God, the ensuing debate with my soul resulted in the victory of my heart. Those exchanges have been described in part in many parts of the Risale-i Nur. So deeming them to be sufficient, here I shall explain only one proof out of thousands in order to show one thousandth part of that victory of the heart. In this way it may also cleanse the spirits of certain elderly people which have been dirtied in their youth, and their hearts sickened and souls spoilt, by matters which  though called Western philosophy or the sciences of civilization, are in part misguidance and in part trivia. And through divine unity, they may be saved from evil of Satan and the soul. It is as follows: