The Great Influence of Faith on Man

Third Fruit
This fruit looks to conscious beings, and particularly to man. Through the mystery
of Divine unity, among all creatures man may attain to the highest perfections, and
become the most valuable fruit of the universe, the most perfect and refined of
creatures, the most fortunate and happy of animate beings, and the addressee and
friend of the world’s Creator. Indeed, all man’s perfections and his lofty aims are tied
to the affirmation of Divine unity and find existence through its meaning. For if there
were no unity, man would be the most unhappy of creatures, the lowest of beings, the
most wretched of the animals, the most suffering and sorrowful of intelligent beings.
For together with his infinite impotence, his innumerable enemies, his boundless want,
and endless needs, he has been decked out with a great many faculties and senses, so
that he feels innumerable sorts of pains and experiences countless sorts of pleasures.
He has such aims and desires that one who does not govern the whole universe at once
cannot bring about those desires.For example, man has an intense desire for immortality. Only one who has
disposal over the whole universe as though it were a palace can answer this wish; who
can close the door of this world and open that of the hereafter, like closing the door of
one room and opening that of another. Man also has thousands of desires, both
negative and positive, which like the desire for immortality spread throughout the
world and stretch to eternity. It is only the Single One, Who through the mystery of
unity holds the whole universe in His grasp, that by answering these desires of man can
cure the two awesome wounds of his impotence and want.
Moreover, man has wishes for tranquillity and ease of heart so insubstantial,
secret, and particular, and aims connected with the immortality and happiness of his
spirit so vast, comprehensive, and universal, that they can be answered only by one
who sees the subtlest and most imperceptible veils of his heart, and is not
unconcerned, and hears its most inaudible, secret voices, and does not leave them
unanswered. That one must also have sufficient power to subjugate the heavens and
earth as though they were two obedient soldiers, and make them perform universal
works.
Also, through the mystery of unity, all man’s members and senses gain a high
value, while through ascribing partners to God and disbelief they fall to an infinitely
low degree. For example, man’s most valuable faculty is intelligence. Through the
mystery of Divine unity, it becomes a brilliant key to the sacred Divine treasuries, and
to the thousands of coffers of the universe. Whereas if it descends to associating
partners with God and to unbelief, it becomes an inauspicious instrument of torture
which heaps up in man’s head all the grievous pains of the past and awesome fears of
the future.
Also, for example, compassion, man’s most gentle and agreeable characteristic: if
the mystery of Divine unity does not come to its assistance, it becomes a calamitous
torment which reduces man to the depths of misery. A heedless mother who imagines
she has lost her only child for all eternity feels this searing pain to the full.
Also, for example, love, man’s sweetest, most pleasurable, and most precious
emotion: if the mystery of Divine unity assists it, it gives miniscule man the expanse
and breadth of the universe, and makes him a petted monarch of the animals. Whereas
if —I seek refuge with God— man descends to associating partners with God and
unbelief, because he will be separated for all eternity from all his innumerable beloveds
as they continuously disappear in death, love becomes a terrible calamity constantly
lacerating his wretched heart. But vain amusements causing heed

lessness temporarily numb his senses, apparently not allowing him to feel it.
If you make analogies with these three examples for man’s hundreds of faculties
and senses, you will understand the degree to which Divine unity and the affirmation
of it are the means by which he may be fulfilled and perfected. Since this Third Fruit
too has been very well explained in detailed manner with proofs in perhaps twenty of
the treatises of The Illuminating Lamp, I am sufficing with this brief indication here.
What impelled me to this Fruit was the following feeling:
At one time I was on the top of a high mountain. Through a spiritual awakening
powerful enough to dispel my heedlessness, death and the grave appeared to me in all
their stark reality, and transience and ephemerality with all their painful
representations. Like everyone’s, my innate desire for immortality surged up and
rebelled against death. The fellow-feeling and compassion in my nature, too, revolted
against the annihilation of the people of perfection, the famous prophets, the saints,
and the purified ones, for whom I feel great love and attachment; it boiled up angrily
against the grave. I looked in the six directions, seeking help, but I found no solace, no
assistance. For looking to the past, I saw a vast graveyard; and to the future, darkness;
and above I saw horror; and to the right and left, grievous situations and the assaults
of numberless harmful things. Suddenly, the mystery of Divine unity came to my
assistance and drew back the veil, revealing the face of reality. “Look!”, it said.
First of all I looked at the face of death, which I feared greatly. I saw that for the
people of belief it was a discharge from duties. The appointed hour was the discharge
papers. It was a change of abode, the introduction to an everlasting life, and the door
leading to it. It was to be released from the prison of this world and to fly to the
gardens of Paradise. It was the occasion one enters the presence of the Most Merciful
in order to receive the wages for one’s service. It was a call to go to the realm of bliss.
Understanding this with complete certainty, I began to love death.
I looked then at transience and ephemerality, and I saw them to be a pleasurable
renewal, like pictures on the cinema screen and bubbles on flowing water under the
sun. Coming from the World of the Unseen in order to refresh the exquisite
manifestations of the Most Beautiful Names, they were an excursion, a trip, in the
Manifest World, with certain duties to perform; they were a wise and purposeful
manifestation of dominical beauty; they performed the function of mirrors to the
eternal beauty of beings. This I knew with certainty.I then looked at the six directions, and I saw that through the mystery of Divine
unity they were so luminous they dazzled the eyes. I saw that the past was not a vast
grave, but having been transformed into the future, had become thousands of
enlightened gatherings of friends and thousands of light-filled vistas. I looked at the
true faces of thousands of matters like these two, and I saw that they afforded nothing
but joy and thanks.
I have described my feelings about this Third Fruit with proofs, particular and
universal, in perhaps forty treatises of The Illuminating Lamp. They have been
explained so clearly and decisively in the thirteen ‘Hopes’ of the Twenty-Sixth Flash in
particular, the Treatise For The Elderly, that there could be no clearer elucidation.
Here I have therefore cut this very long story very short.

From Risale-i Nur Collections TheRays-23 By Bediüzzaman Said Nursi