“The delusion of immortality is a person’s imagining himself to be eternal and deathless—as though he will never die; becoming attached to the world as if he were to remain here forever; living merely to live; consoling himself with immediate pleasures and ready wages; restricting himself to the present moment alone, indifferent to the past and the future.

Sometimes this feeling grows so strong that it takes over one’s whole life. A person may even stop thinking about his own life and become preoccupied with the ‘life’ of the world he lives in—thinking only about the Day of Resurrection. Yes, as though nothing else were truly worrying, he worries only about that and occupies himself with it. Even if it were to occur two or three thousand years from now, he becomes exclusively anxious about the end of the world. All of this comes from the delusion of immortality: for he does not think about his own death—he concerns himself instead with the death of the world in which he lives.”¹⁾

“In the end, the delusion of immortality sometimes arises from heedlessness—and heedlessness is born of living without reflection. Two things that can pierce and shatter it are: remembering death and the horizons that allow one to ‘observe’ what lies beyond death—such as hospitals and the condition of the sick. Yes, whenever a person is tested through illnesses and setbacks, or through trials involving wealth, life, or children, that illusion is punctured again and again.

In short, we must break the delusion of immortality by whatever will break it, and tear apart that suffocating atmosphere by whatever will tear it apart. Otherwise it will choke us; we will never rise into the true climate of humanity—never find the atmosphere in which we can enter into relation with our Lord’s mercy. We must keep two things always alive: the practice of reflection and remembering death. These are also among the disciplines practiced in the lives of the people of the spiritual path, the people of Sufism, and the people of truth.”²⁾

“As the Sage Bediüzzaman states, behind long hopes lies the delusion of immortality—the fantasy that one will remain in this world forever. In reality, this springs from the human longing for eternity. The human being was created for the everlasting; therefore nothing but the Eternal Being can truly satisfy him. The desire for eternity was given so that one may seek God’s pleasure, become a candidate for Paradise, and keep far from Hell. But if a person misdirects this desire, he is caught by long hopes; then he begins to search for satisfaction in rank and position, wealth and possessions, pleasure and delight.”³⁾

“Whether due to the dominance of the delusion of immortality and long hopes, or the gradual settling in through familiarity and complacency, or the bad example set by those ahead, or the alluring beauties of the world beginning to wink at us—whatever the cause—if we cannot preserve our original purity and sincerity and we feel an inner loosening, we must certainly review ourselves once again and renew ourselves.”⁴⁾

“Love of the world and long hopes nourish and reinforce each other. A person who loves the world begins to expect as if he will never die and lives as if he will remain here forever. At the beginning of long hopes stands the delusion of immortality—that is, feeling as though one will never die.”⁵⁾

“In truth, worldly life is not a place one would choose knowingly, because its end is known. Even if one wished, one cannot stay here. There is a journey ahead that leads to the grave. The Sage Bediüzzaman describes the profound mistake of those who, because of long hopes and the delusion of immortality, cling to the world with both hands—those who say ‘world, world’ whether they have anything or not: ‘Alas, we were deceived! We imagined this worldly life to be stable, and so we wasted everything. Yes, this journey of life passed like a sleep, like a dream. And this baseless lifespan flies away like a wind and goes.’”⁶⁾ ”⁷⁾

“Greed, insatiability, and never feeling ‘enough’ are also among the major weak points for human beings; many have been ruined by them. The source of this is the delusion of immortality and long hopes—living as if one will never die, and, because of that desire, becoming excessively bound to the world.”⁸⁾

“The knowledge of God is a very important factor that strengthens and nourishes willpower and faith. To illustrate: suppose you begin to desire a life of luxury and start making arrangements; then you enter into efforts to raise your standard of living. At that moment, the knowledge of God may come to your aid. It is worth relating an incident someone experienced. Perhaps what I recount is not fully objective—but I still want to mention it: One day he takes a friend to a house overlooking the sea and they sit on the balcony. Suddenly the desire arises within him to live in such beautiful places. With the testimony of his friends, he immediately gets up and never sits on that balcony again; for that view had fed his long hopes and led him into the delusion of immortality. At that moment he was able to save himself from that precipice through the knowledge of God—and through the longing to behold the Divine Beauty, a desire for which even thousands of years of happy life in Paradise would not be an equivalent.”⁹⁾

“In human nature there is an extremely intense love for abiding permanence. Indeed, by the faculty of imaginative apprehension, a person imagines a kind of permanence in everything he loves, and then he loves it. When he thinks of its passing—or sees it passing—he cries out from deep within. All cries born of separation are translations of tears that arise from the love of permanence. If there were no imagined permanence, one could not love. It may even be said that one cause for the existence of the everlasting realm and eternal Paradise is this powerful desire for permanence and the natural, universal prayer for abidingness that springs from that intense love of permanence within human nature—and that the Everlasting One of Majesty has accepted that unshakable, innate desire and that effective, powerful universal prayer, and thus created for mortal human beings an abiding world.”¹⁰⁾

“The people of the spiritual path and the people of truth, taking their lesson from the Wise Qur’an’s verses such as ‘Every soul shall taste death’ and ‘Indeed you will die, and indeed they will die,’ made remembering death a foundational principle in their journey. Through that practice they removed the delusion of immortality, which is the source of long hopes. They imagine themselves—hypothetically and in the form of a mental exercise—as having died; they suppose they are being washed, laid in the grave; and by thinking again and again, the evil-commanding soul is affected by that imagining and conception, and gives up some portion of its long hopes.”¹¹⁾

“Since death is not being ‘killed off,’ the grave is not being ‘closed,’ and in this worldly guesthouse the travelers disappear, caravan after caravan, behind the earth with great speed and urgency—then surely we will soon be separated from one another. You will see the punishment of your wrongdoing in a terrifying way. At the very least, regarding the oppressed believers—whose death is a discharge paper—you will be taken to the gallows of eternal execution. The fleeting pleasures you seized in this world under the delusion of immortality will be transformed into lasting and painful torments.”¹²⁾

“The heedless and those who stray are deprived of the glad tidings and happiness found in those five truths. Compare how painful their state is to this: an elderly woman sees her only beloved child in the throes of death; because, under the delusion of immortality in this world, and as a result of heedlessness or misguidance, she imagines death to be absolute nonexistence and eternal separation; instead of thinking of the soil of the grave rather than her soft bed, and because—through heedlessness or misguidance—she does not think of the Most Merciful of the Merciful’s Paradise of mercy and the garden of bliss—how despairing a sorrow and pain she suffers!”¹³⁾

Absence of sensation

Heedlessness

Türkçe