► (053) ◄

[The reply to a two-pronged question that I have been asked tacitly.]

My Dear, Loyal Brothers !

The First: Why is it that apart from work related to the Risale-i Nur, you don't want to meet personally with people who have a good opinion of your person and look on you as holding a high station, yet have powerful relations with the Risale-i Nur and whom you love dearly? Why do you prefer to meet with those who don't nurture such a high opinion of you and you pay more attention to them?

The Answer: As I said in the Second Letter of the Thirty-Third Word, people at this time sell their favours very expensively to those in need. For example, they suppose an unfortunate like myself to be righteous or a saint and give me a loaf of bread, then they want an acceptable prayer in return. But rather than paying such a price, I don't accept the favour. Just as I cite this as a reason for not accepting gifts, so people other than the special students of the Risale-i Nur display powerful interest and services thinking that I hold a high station. In return, in this world they want luminous results like the saints (ehl-i velâyet). Then they perform services for us and evince interest and this implies favours. But because I don't possess the price they want in return for favours of this sort, I am ashamed. Then they are disillusioned when they realize my unimportance and even become slack in their service. It's true that ambition and lack of contentment are acceptable in some ways in matters pertaining to the hereafter, but on our way and in our service — due to certain faults — it leads to complaint and hopelessness arising from disillusionment instead of thanks, and even to the abandonment of service. For this reason, because the contentment of our way leads always to thanks, steadfastness and resoluteness, we are obliged to be content with the fruits and results of our service although we are ambitious and aspiring in the performance of it.

For example, thanks to the service of the Risale-i Nur, this result has ensured for thousands of believers in Isparta and its environs an extraordinary strength of belief, and is sufficient for our extraordinary service. Even if someone were to appear who was as illustrious as ten spiritual poles and were to raise a thousand people to the level of sainthood, he still could not lower this degree of the Risale-i Nur's achievement. The true students of the Risale-i Nur content themselves with results like this. In place of the heartfelt contentment of that lofty pole's followers, ensured by his extraordinary station and his rulings, the Risale-i Nur's unshakeable proofs satisfy