ÜÇÜNCÜ FEN · BİRİNCİ BAB · İKİNCİ FASIL · Yedinci Madde
Seventh Point
It declares that the world and its people, the self, and desire are enemies of the believer, obstructing their path to worship and communion with God.
O esteemed one! It is known that the friends of God have said: The most important matter for a believer is to avoid and distance themselves from obstacles that prevent them from worship and communion with their Lord. Those who have strayed from worship and the presence of the Exalted God have fallen into this state due to the world, people, or the self – this has been experienced. Regarding the world, what is required of you is detachment (zuhd) from it and distance from it.
A person’s relationship with the world has three possibilities: Either you are among those possessing insight and acumen. In that case, it suffices for you to know that the world is your single enemy and the thing detested by your Lord, who is your true friend; it is the opposite and contradiction of your intellect, which holds your value. Or, you are among those striving in worship with effort and zeal. It suffices for you that the world is unproductive and ill-omened; contemplating and desiring it prevents you from submitting to God and worshipping Him. Compare this: consider what the very existence of the world does to you through its obstacles and impediments. Or, you are among those of ignorance and heedlessness. Do you possess insight to be with God, nor do you have zeal to worship? Then compare this: how will you worship Him in such a state, find peace, and communion? Therefore, it suffices for you to know that the world does not endure. Either you separate from it or it separates from you. If you remain with it, it will not remain with you. Now that the world is so, what benefit is there in desiring it and wasting your precious life on its behalf?
Verse
1- Abandon the world, let it be sent to you. Is not the end of that demise?
2- And your world is nothing but a shadow. It shades you then leads to your departure.
What is required of you regarding people is to seclude yourself (uzlet). For if you mix with them and conform to their customs and desires, they will corrupt the state of your heart and ruin your affairs in the Hereafter. If you oppose them; if you abandon worldly desires and speak truthfully, you will endure various injustices and afflictions, remaining distressed in worldly matters. Then you will not be free from their evils, pondering their animosity. If people praise and exalt you, one must fear the calamities of self-admiration (ucub) and deviation (fitne). If they disparage and belittle you, then either you will grieve or become angry. But praise and blame are calamitous afflictions that should be avoided.
Consider your state with people three days after being placed in the grave! How distant they will be from you, how they will forget and abandon you? They will not remember you kindly nor gladden your soul. So that it is as if they have never seen you at all. No one remains with you there, except God Most High, who has said, “Wherever you may be, He is with you” (Al-Hadid, 57/4). He does not separate from you. Such is your state with people. So, is it not a great deception that you waste your brief and unfaithful life with them, and then do not turn towards your Lord to worship Him? For God is the Creator who both gives and prevents giving to everyone. All of humanity will return to Him.
Verse
1- In the dwelling of deprivation, be bound to no one. Let the heart incline to those known and familiar.
2- If their natures are contrary to you, they bring torment to the soul, taking away its health and well-being.
3- If their natures are in accordance with yours, the taste of separation is like death.
To turn away from the self and flee from it, suffice it for you that you observe its intention to be lowliness, its states to be shameful, its desires to be evil, and its intentions to be corrupt. For the self, in a state of passion, is like a bewildered madman. In a state of anger, it is like a tearing, savage beast. In a state of calamity, it is like a helpless child. When blessed, it is like Pharaoh. If hungry, it cries and wails impatiently. When full, it speaks empty and useless words. Ultimately, if you look with reason, you will surely know that the world is a base thing.
Those who seek the world gather it bit by bit with toil and protect it with miserliness, yet they leave it in regret. For when you look closely, you see that the world has no permanence. Its harms – such as occupying the heart and causing distress – are greater than its benefits. When you know this, you will practice detachment from its excess, taking only what is necessary for worship. You will turn away from its uncertain blessings and beauties, freeing yourself from inclination and desire to enter the presence of God with a pure heart.
In truth, people have no faithfulness whatsoever. Their troubles are greater than their assistance. If you seclude yourself (uzlet) from them, benefiting from their goodness and avoiding their evils, if you arrange your relationship with them as with fire, then you will turn towards God, find the presence of God through worship. Then what will you do with people? You will be blessed by constant servitude to God, forge a friendship with His Book, and abide in His Exalted Presence. “Whoever is alone for God, God will be alone for him.”
Okay, here is the translation as requested:
1 – Dissolution and arising are the glory of the world’s sphere; why should it be bound to it in six ways?
2 – Helpless is that heart which trusts the wheel of fortune. He who makes his pillow a millstone is headstrong.
3 – There is no faithfulness in this realm; do not place trust at all. Rather, with soul and heart, place trust in God immediately.
4 – Do not be deceived by these customs and manners like a woman; if you are a lover, freedom suffices you.
5 – Do not waste your heart pursuing flies, for the hoopoe bird soars high, its nest is among the heights.
6 – That is a noble fowl; food for the heart and gnosis. Do not cast off the bone of ignorance, for the simurgh will not eat it.
7 – The light of God is nourishment to the spirit at every moment. Do not burden this bread and water needlessly; it is not sustenance for it.
8 – Do not give your heart to this life, do not regard it as anything; for it is already borrowed from you, and God will take it away.
9 – Return this trust to God, and be eternally alive; the cup of annihilation is filled with the water of eternity.
10 – For death by volition is the elixir of life to you; “Die before you die,” said that guide.
11 – Die through willing death, and abandon your hopes and desires. Eflatun lived a natural life (in its entirety).
12 – If it pleases the heart, death becomes as easy as sleep. That is the birthdate in the realm of meaning; greetings!
13 – If the heart does not free itself from this borrowed garment, it will find robes and cloaks suitable to its disposition.
14 – If you have burned in this fire of nature, rejoice! Your heart becomes the treasure of paradise, and your soul is nourished and flourishes.
15 – In truth, two worlds are one, and they are a mirror as well. The back of the mirror became this world, its face the realm of encounter.
16 – This side has become separation, that side the world of union. This side has become darkness, that side the radiance of the moon.
17 – On this face, tribulation and sorrow; on that face, nourishment for the soul. Throughout this side, grief; throughout that side, delight.
18 – The mirror-polisher muddies one face of it; that muddiness is a polishing agent for the mirror.
19 – Why does God not give both worlds at once to Adam? If stinginess were attributed to Him, that would be a grievous error.
20 – Night and day cannot be together in one time, for the union of darkness and light is neither possible nor fitting.
21 – O God! Do not give your heart to the transient world, become transient. May your soul and heart attain eternity in the realm of permanence.