ÜÇÜNCÜ FEN · ÜÇÜNCÜ BÂB · İKİNCİ FASIL · Üçüncü Madde
Third Article
Regarding the conditions and benefits of surrender and delegation.
O beloved! Know that the friends of God have said: When God, in His wisdom, has bound a servant to means, his desire to detach from them is born of hidden passions. When God is capable of making that servant independent of those means, his desiring them indicates a deficiency in high aspiration. For God leaves the servant facing whatever He wills, and assists him in that regard. But if one enters into something according to the desire of his own soul, God abandons him to his soul, and he cannot overcome it.
God’s pleasure is that when He places the servant in any situation, he should settle therein, until God delivers him from it as He caused him to enter it, by God's grace. For abandoning means is not within the dignity of a servant. Rather, it is the servant’s duty to remain surrendered and tranquil until the means abandon him.
As a perfect one has said: "I have often abandoned means, yet I returned to them out of my decision due to need. Then, when the means abandoned me, I felt no further need to return to them."
Therefore, whoever knows that all affairs are by God’s decree, then he entrusts his own affair to Him and submits to His divine will. He is freed from the management of his soul and attains ease.
Tranquility of heart lies in abandoning management and choice. Whoever abandons management and preference does not encounter sorrow and grief within the trials of life. If you cannot abandon management, then let your management be such that it does not manage. For abandoning management and choice is the essence of gnosis, the capital of the heart and soul.
It behooves the servant to surrender his soul to his Lord, saying "All is beautiful," and always to be with His Beloved. Let him understand every word from God and know every affair from Him. Let him consider everything beneficial for himself, even that which does not conform to his desires. Let him draw a lesson from all things and be filled with knowledge and wisdom. Let him pass beyond the created world and come into God’s presence, know his own soul and know God, and abide eternally with Him.
Poem:
If the gnostic possesses the capacity to comprehend revelation,
Then every atom would be a Gabriel conveying God's command.
Whoever desires to create anything other than what God has created within his time, is entirely characterized by ignorance. Therefore, do not desire that the Exalted God may take you from your present state and use you in another state,
For He can, if He wills, even in your present state, employ you in the condition you wish to be in. If you are a gnostic, know that desiring something from Him is accusing Him, and wanting Him is distance from Him. Desiring anything other than God is a deficiency in your propriety. Wanting anything other than God is distance from Him. Therefore, all kinds of desires are not acceptable in the eyes of the gnostics and are afflicted with fault and defect. Let you refrain from observing how to separate yourself from God, for God has appointed you to observe Him, which prevents you from watching over Him.
The first thought a foolish and heedless person has upon waking is, "What work shall I do today?" When the gnostic awakens, the first meaning that comes to his mind is: “O my Lord, in what tasks will You employ me today?” For the first thought that enters the heart of a servant is also a measure of his gnosis. The foolish person, upon rising in the morning, attributes every task to himself and says: "Let us see what works I shall do." Because the heart of the ignorant is heedless, it is preoccupied with management by his soul, and is distant from his Lord (in thought and spirit). In this case, it behooves the servant to entrust his Lord with him, so that He may disrupt his desires and scatter his affairs and ruin his heart.
The first thought that comes into the mind of the gnostic upon awakening is to attribute the work to God and say: "Let us see today, in what tasks will my Lord employ me and grant me success?" This gnostic’s heart is awake, always ready with God, and his soul is directed towards His actions. He awaits the decrees that will come to him from Him. He knows that calamities are in his desires and aspirations. For he does not know in which thing lies his own benefit or harm.
The right of disposal and preference belongs only to God, the Lord of the worlds, the sole originator.
Therefore, the Exalted Lord delivers this gnostic servant of His from the vortex of desires and ambitions, frees him from all preoccupations, and releases him from the bonds of preoccupation, so that his affairs may be sound and in place. He pleases him with the states and behaviors necessary for that. This is such a perpetual state that whoever attains it will find no use for management and preference. Perhaps he will only say with the language of his heart:
"O God! I awoke without having the power to provide myself with benefit or harm, nor am I master of my death or life. O God! Grant me success in turning towards words and actions that You love and are pleased with. You are the possessor of great favors."
“O God! The affair is within Your presence and it is hidden from me. I cannot know what I should prefer for myself. Let You be my selector, for You know and You have power over all things.”
Poem:
1- O you who are pleased with His decrees,
You must praise Him in every kind of acceptance.
2- Entrust your affair to Him and remain surrendered,
For supreme ease is for him who has entrusted his affair.
The highest degree of perfection in entrusting (tefvīz) and surrendering to God is;
1. If the bird of the heart should take flight and find the sky of wonder,
the sun of the soul would fill the expanse of wonder with light.
2. Even if the people of the heart see thousands of fortunes and blessings,
it will not come into their eye; they desire the sustenance of wonder.
3. Do not look at your sorrows, troubles, and hardships, for in so doing
the heart will find faithfulness within wonder from harshness.
4. What is life? Thousands may be sacrificed to this delight of wonder!
Leave behind the dust of understanding and thought; find the purity of wonder.
5. Seek the intoxication of wonder, do not seek to be a leader,
for those who desire leadership will wish to be in the dust of wonder’s feet.
6. Though much pleasure and purity exists in the world,
no purity can take the place of wonder within the heart and soul.
7. The sun of the love of God shines always upon the lovers;
they desire that shadow of the wondrous bird.
8. If you wish to be with your beloved forever in the heart,
become estranged from yourself; find a companion in wonder.
9. The opening of the gate of the house of the heart is through wonder, O perfect One!
Give yourself over to wonder; seize that moon-faced one.