to live for an instant was sufficient. This truth is elucidated together with proofs in various parts of the Risale-i Nur, so here it will be explained in four ‘Matters,’ in brief and summary form.
F i r s t M a t t e r : I looked in the manner the essence and reality of life look to the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One, and I saw that in reality my life was a collection of keys with which to open the treasuries of the Divine Names, and a small map of their inscriptions, an index of their manifestations, a sensitive balance and measure of the vast truths of the universe, and a word of wisdom written to know and make known, and to understand and make understood, the meaningful Names of the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One. When life’s reality is this, its value increases a thousandfold and one hour of it gains the significance of a lifetime. In respect of its relation to the Pre-Eternal One, Who has no time, life may not be considered with regard to its length or brevity.
S e c o n d M a t t e r : I considered the true rights of life, and I understood that my life is a dominical missive; it invites my brothers, other intelligent creatures, to read itself; it is a place of study making known its Creator. It is also a manifesto proclaiming my Creator’s perfections. Knowingly adorning itself in the priceless gifts and decorations bestowed on it by life’s Creator, it displays them consciously, gratefully, and believingly to the Peerless Monarch in the daily parade. It comprehends, observes, and proclaims the thankful benedictions and glorifications of the Creator of innumerable living beings. And it makes known verbally and through the tongues of disposition and worship, the beauties of the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One’s dominicality. I understood with ‘the knowledge of certainty’ that the elevated rights of life like these did not require lengthy time, and that they elevate life a thousandfold and are a hundred times more valuable than the worldly rights of life. I exclaimed: Glory be to God! Belief is so valuable and living that it infuses with life everything it enters! It transforms the fleeting glimmer of transitory life into eternal life, dispelling the transience in it.
T h i r d M a t t e r : I considered the innate duties of my life and its non-material benefits which look to my Creator, and I saw that it acts as a mirror to the Creator of life in three ways:
The First Way: Through its impotence, weakness, poverty, and need, my life acts as a mirror to the power, strength, wealth, and mercy of the Creator of life. Yes, just as the pleasure of food is known in proportion to the degree of hunger, and the degrees of light through the degrees of darkness, and the degrees of heat through the degrees of cold; in the same way, through the boundless impotence and poverty in my life, I under