New Beginnings 2012, A Spiritual Addition

energizes us to do good deeds for ourselves, our families, our friends and our communities. We will try our best to commit sincerely to whatever resolutions we’ve made. We may make resolutions to take better care of ourselves or to become more educated about God, the Merciful Creator of All Things. The important thing for me is thinking about God. Too often we forget to nurture our souls which is the source of all things. Thinking about God involves being grateful for all that He provides us, it is about remembering and thanking God. What does it really mean to thank God? It means having the proper awareness for the source of what we are thanking God for in order to understand our world. It means being awake. We utilize Bediuzzaman Said Nursi’s brilliant methodology to gain awareness in thanking God for whatever He gives us. But there is more involved than simply having an awareness of the Source of the qualities of the thing given, that is only part  of it. God creates the order of this universe in harmony, He places connections between all things. This is the unity inherent in the nature of the created order of all the worlds. Let’s take a closer look: Let’s say, for example, that we wish to thank God for an orange we are about to eat. Using Bediuzzaman’s methodology, we know by reflecting upon the orange and confirming that the qualities of this fruit cannot be attributed to itself or to any cause since neither has any power to bring the orange into existence, that this thing must have a Creator, and that whoever created this orange must also have created everything in the universe, and therefore, we conclude that this Creator must be Absolutely Powerful. But are we finished? Is that all there is in being aware in thanking God for the orange we are going to eat? No, there is more. There is also the relationship between the fruit and the person reflecting upon it. Not only is God the Source of all the qualities of the orange, this external piece of fruit, but He is also the Source for everything that connects us to the orange. He is the Source of our ability to reflect upon this orange, to taste the orange, to chew and swallow it, and to digest it. God gives our bodies the ability to extract the nutrients from the orange, to distribute these nutrients in our blood throughout our bodies, and to process these nutrients to keep our bodies functioning. There are multiple processes, from macroscopic to microscopic, we can become aware of in thanking God for just this one orange we are about to eat. It is not simply a separate, external orange. In this created order, everything is attributed to God. We become fully aware that the inter-relatedness of all things connects us to the unity, and thus to God-consciousness. Is there anything else we can gain from this? Yes, indeed there is. When we become truly aware of the process involved through Said Nursi’s methodology of using our reasoning to confirm our belief in God, and thanking God for all things, we also realize that this process is, in fact, a powerful act of worshipping God. Most importantly, we realize our awareness in this act of worship immediately brings us into the presence of God. In that moment of our awareness of the power of Almighty God, we are awakened. We, at the Risale-i Nur Institute of America, extend a warm and happy new year for 2012 to everyone; may it be a year full of peace and prosperity for all. I would like to close with the following hadith: Prophet Muhammed (ASM) said: “When someone is secure in his property, healthy in his body and has his food for the day, it is as if he owned the entire world.” (Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah) –Dr. Osman Birgeoglu      ]]>