Have You Ever Seen God?

Preface

Humanity finds the things that are seen far more convincing than the things that are unseen. When the subject concerns spiritual values, it is almost perceived as a point of pride and a wise answer when some people cut off the discussion with a single sentence: “I do not believe in things I have not seen.”

Drawing on the experience I have gained over time, I saw it as necessary to write a book with such a title. In truth, I too know that there are far more accomplished and convincing books on this subject. For thousands of years humanity has waged the war between the things that are seen and the things that are unseen. For the sake of those seen or unseen things, people have counted their own lives as nothing, or they have made the lives of others bitter and unbearable. Whether the matter concerns things seen or unseen, through this book I have tried, at least in some small measure, to emphasize how different and how baseless our points of view can be.

The reasons or excuses we generally put forward do not necessarily reflect our belief, but rather the path we actually take. And it is quite natural for every person to defend, in his own way, the path he walks. If, through the thoughts I have written, I can shed some light for those who do this sincerely, then how happy I shall be.

One of the greatest and most valid reasons of people who do not wish to believe in anything is that unseen things are of no benefit to anyone at all. Of course, there is no shortage of philosophical thoughts such as, “They are nothing but superstitions and empty notions, the opium of the masses”. And most of the time they are right to think this way.

In these writings I have not gone into such great depths, but have only tried to voice the general thoughts one hears at a doorstep or over a cup of tea. I have used examples from our own day that everyone can understand. The astonishing opportunities we possess are today present in nearly everyone's home. This help and information on the computers we call the internet are almost even more than we need. Since humanity came to exist, acquiring or researching information has never been as easy as it is today. Yet even so, humanity that hates knowledge is just as much in the majority.

Since the greatest value we know of as invisible is God, I hope this book will be a small help to those who have difficulty believing in unseen things.

Most of the time we are defeated by ideas whose answers we do not know. We are ashamed to speak about them. Because our knowledge on that subject falls short. And if the things we believe are not based on knowledge, we find it easier to confront those who criticize our belief with brute force or with bombs. Unfortunately, acquiring knowledge seems to humanity worse than dying.

Thinking is an ability. On the face of the earth, humanity is the living creature most advanced in this ability. Instead of suppressing and destroying this ability of ours, we should use it in a way that brings us happiness and a sense of security.

Contents

Preface

Seeing

The Thing We Value Most

Points of View

If Man Sees, Shall God Not See?

The Satisfying of the Soul

Seeing

Tuesday, 31 May 2005

Are the blind and the seeing alike? Who can deny that seeing is beneficial? And again, who does not acknowledge that seeing is necessary, vital, and above all a pleasure—yet at the same time painful to the soul? Some people even say that the first and most precious of the five sense organs is the “eye.”

In truth, of the many things we possess, we are either unaware of them, or we have to lose them in order to appreciate their value as we should. There are sayings, spoken like riddles, that have by now become proverbs. For instance: “The worth of two things is not known until they are gone: “One is health and the other is youth”,” and the like. Our ability to see also falls within health. But are there really only two things whose value is not known until they are lost? In fact there are so many that we could count. Unfortunately, as with many things, we understand their value only when we have lost them. On top of this, whether people possess a certain thing or not, the one thing whose value never diminishes in their eyes and in their hearts is money—that is how they see it. The curious part of this business is that nearly everything obtainable with money appeals to the eye. As I was writing these lines, I stopped to think: what could be obtained with money that cannot be seen? Unless we play with words, believe me, nothing comes to mind. Sometimes, even if we do not see the thing itself, we surely see its effect. Surely there are so very many things that cannot be seen with the naked eye, and yet humanity has made great material investments in them. What I mean here is not only things like electricity and natural gas. We do not see gas either, but we see its effect when it turns into flame and burns. Electricity too is the same. But I do not mean only these. In nature, upon our earth, there are so many things that cannot be seen with the eye. Yet in the end humanity has, by one means or another, tried to make them visible. If something is being pushed to be sold, who tries hardest to display it—and to display it as desirably as possible? Advertisers, sellers, people who profit from that business or are pleased with it. They must display it so that they can catch the interest of the one before them.

Just as every person who wishes to be rich has it in their dreams, imagine your own dream of wealth. What would you want to do with that wealth? What would you buy, where would you go, whom would you be with? If you think it all over carefully, you will realize that most of these—indeed all of them—appeal to the eye. Besides this, do our nose, our skin, our tongue, our ear play no part at all? Of course they do. Otherwise we would have to say of blind people, who see nothing, that “they need nothing and desire nothing,” which would be utterly absurd. I am only emphasizing how valuable seeing is; I am not arguing that our other sense organs are unnecessary. Is it not the desire of us all that they should all work in harmony with one another?

Let us give an example again to show the value placed on seeing. Let us say, for instance, that “eating is a bodily need of a person.” We say so, but in reality eating is at the same time a tremendous pleasure. Indeed, in the Bible the apostle Paul, drawing attention to these feelings of people, speaks of how some of them almost deify the importance they give to their stomachs and their sexual feelings. There it is written exactly thus:

…their god is their belly. They glory in their shame. Philippians 3:19

From the truth in this verse too, we accept that eating is not merely a need but a very great pleasure. Millions of people, and women in particular, however much they desire to be beautiful, cannot master their appetites, and so can never rid themselves of those pounds they wish to shed. Why? Because, for them, saying “no!” to the pleasure of eating is most often impossible. In truth, without going to excess in our feelings, we ought to feel gratitude and contentment because of these pleasures. For instance, there are such luxurious restaurants in the world that they place excessive value upon their work. If I were to say that they place value on a dish’s appearance almost more than on its taste, I would probably not be far off the mark somewhere. In such restaurants the interior furnishings, from the floor to the ceiling and from the ceiling to the walls, are prepared with great care. The special uniforms and manners of the waiters come from experience and training acquired over long years. Those tables, and set upon them for eating, dazzling the eye, are all manner of shining crystal glasses, large and small. Plates as if coated with polish, of a spotless whiteness. Sometimes each plate is as large as a tray and belongs to you alone. So beautiful that you would scarcely have the heart to eat from it. Some of the forks and spoons are adorned with gold, yet gleam without ever bearing a fingerprint or a water spot. Some waiters have gloves on their hands, white as snow. They arrange the glasses, forks, and spoons at your table so as not to leave marks on them with their hands. If you lean over the plate, you can see your face just as it is. And if you glance sidelong at your fork and knife, either you get the impression that you are far away, or, like the mirrors in a circus, you can see your nose and your eye in the fork. If they have been carefully chosen, you see your face in that silver part as though in a true mirror, while those golden patterns running downward adorn you as if they were a garment you had put on. According to the variety of dishes that arrive, the plates and forks before you are always changed. This too is done by those penguin-shaped waiters with the white gloves on their hands. In this atmosphere, no one imagines that a bad dish will come. The dishes prepared on the plates are set before you so meticulously that it is as if a picture is saying, as the saying goes, “eat and lie down beside it.” If you are used to such settings, then your ability to distinguish the taste of the food also works better. If you have entered such a place for the first time, everything may seem to you like a theater; and of course you are seated on the stage before all those spectators. With all this, sometimes you have still not eaten the food, indeed not even seen it. But the things you have seen with your eyes have given you the feeling that eating there is a great privilege. In fact, all those staggering expenses lavished on the restaurant are aimed at giving the customer this very feeling. Sometimes in such places the cheapest meal for two starts at 300 dollars, and now, according to your imagination, you can raise this figure to 50,000 dollars, or even more. Do not necessarily expect your stomach to be filled after giving away so much money. Sometimes, while the price of a bottle of wine—of which only a certain number exist in the world—is that of a new car, a species of fish that the Japanese raise as ornaments for their large aquariums and pools will likewise sometimes far exceed 50,000 dollars. Do you find the people who eat and drink these things absurd? What, then, do you say to sprinkling gold dust into one’s drink? The price of a drink with gold dust is, of course, accordingly high. While these things catch people’s attention in a way that appeals not only to the pocket but also to the eye, what I want to say briefly is: the very act of seeing, and taking pleasure in the things seen. Even in cat-food advertisements, while they show the opened can being spooned onto the plate, they place a sprig of parsley beside it. Yet the cat neither likes nor eats parsley. The aim is to make it look good to the buyer. And the buyer is not the cat but the human. That is, it is the human who must be impressed.

Only, not every sight may be pleasing to everyone. For instance, the restaurant I mentioned just now, or the images in some other such luxuriously appointed restaurant in another country, are very different indeed. For example, in China, the child of a mother who has miscarried, in the fetal stage, is said to find a buyer at once in such restaurants for 300 dollars. That child, with its fully developed head, its feet, indeed its whole bodily form down to its distinguishable sex, is served to people in porcelain hollow bowls in the form of a vegetable soup. I do not know how full the belly of the one who eats it becomes, but if we consider the money paid, seeing what people eat and what they value sometimes astonishes us greatly. As for the price at which the miscarried baby arrives at those restaurants at 300 dollars, at how many times that they present it to the customer is likewise unknown.

Especially in the Thailand region, a live monkey—only its head visible, looking out from the middle of the table—is brought to the customer along with a hammer. With the hammer they smash the animal’s skull and eat its brain. Brain eaten alive, or very fresh, is said to be more delicious!

The things I am writing about are now shown openly everywhere—in films, on the Internet, in newspapers—and are not hidden. To some, such sights whet the appetite terribly, while to others they turn the stomach. That is, not everything we see necessarily gives us pleasure. Indeed, there have even been times when, because of things we have seen or been forced to see, we very much wished to be blind, not to see.

We cannot deal with our desire to see by evaluating it only in terms of taking pleasure. That is, people do not only look at pleasant things and close their eyes to dull and ugly ones. As children we used to shut our eyes at the kissing scene in the cinema. Our closing our eyes was not because the kissing scene was ugly; we did it because we were embarrassed. We were embarrassed to look; we felt ashamed, both on the actor’s behalf and on our own, that he was kissing in front of everyone. In America and Europe too, in years a little earlier than my time, it was so, they say. This means that, if we leave the matter of time aside, we see that people possess the same feelings. Children in some religious groups still show the same behavior when they see such scenes. While as a child one shuts one’s eyes to certain things, when time passes and a person begins to develop and grow, entirely opposite feelings and reactions come to the fore. For instance, when I was only twelve and my German friend showed me magazines with pornographic content in his garage, I could not come to myself for a very long time. Emotionally and spiritually I could not recover. I did not faint and come round, but I was very nauseated. I had become filled with anger toward my mother and father. This state of anger did not last long, because I had to understand that I needed to accept certain things. I too, at that age, had my sexual feelings and my fantasies. I did not have fantasies like those in the pornographic magazines, but I understood that I was on a road heading in that direction. Before seeing, I was not so aware of it. For this reason I struggled with these feelings of mine, thinking that to hate my mother and father would be to hate myself. While a person imagines their mother and father in a wholly different way, I must surely have thought, in my inner world, “now what are these two doing?” The thing I most remember from that moment was the long-lasting nausea in my stomach. I remember far more disgusting things, but even at my present age I am ashamed to write them. Just as I shut my eyes when I was a little child, now too I will shut my mouth and not speak of them. Because in those magazines there were, more than normal relations, perverted people in relations with persons one could not imagine. Just as, when it comes to eating, no one thinks of smashing a live monkey’s skull with a hammer and eating its brain, so in sexual relations the things in those magazines could not be conceived. In our day, Europe regards those who speak and think about these matters as I do as people who have failed to integrate into society. Those who wish to move from Turkishness to German citizenship are now subjected to an examination and asked such questions. They want you to write your views about these subjects. People who think like me become rather difficult citizens.

Indeed, later on I read an amusing anecdote related to this nausea of mine from what I had seen. A certain professor was to give a lecture, and his subject was sex. But he left home telling his wife: “I am going to give a talk on sailboats.” A few days later, at a party, some ladies were smiling meaningfully and greeting the professor’s wife. While the woman could make little sense of the situation, a close friend took her by the arm and said, “From the lecture your husband gave the other day, it was clear that he knows this business very well”; upon which the woman, astonished, said, “How strange! Actually he never understood a thing about it. And in his life he tried it only twice. The first time his stomach turned, and the second time his hat flew off.” I have always laughed, drawing a lesson from it on my own behalf.

My desire to see at that age was mere curiosity. While the feeling of curiosity teaches a person many things, it can sometimes also harm the person. For instance, I have asked myself why I still take a look at those obscene, pornographic advertisements that suddenly pop open before me on the Internet. Indeed, I even click on them so that other pages will open! The greatest reason is curiosity. This is how it is for me, of course. Everyone’s feelings and points of view are different. Religious circles regard this business as a sin. When they look at those scenes they fear the danger that they might be committing adultery in their hearts. Although none of them seems to be in favor of these things, in my opinion, whenever they find the chance, it is again they who look most. They look the most, because this business is forbidden to them. The more forbidden things are, the more desired; and so they desire this business all the more. Besides, the things displayed are not animals, plants, or apples and pears. It is a human being, like oneself, that one is looking at. Who does not feel curious about this? By nature every person feels curious and looks. Yet alongside this, if a person has a sound mind, they also know how to keep away from these things and discipline themselves. Because a person who has a sound mind and spirit knows one truth: a tremendous portion of the things that enter our mind is stored through images taken in by the eyes. Whether we want to or not, our mind automatically takes a photograph of the interesting things we see with our eyes. And after that, those pictures—again whether we want them to or not—keep coming before our eyes every now and then. And then, good luck getting rid of them! Some people call these images garbage. They imagine they are giving good encouragement by saying, “Should a person ever fill their mind with garbage?” Yes, sometimes that is true; but if a person did not possess curiosity, perhaps, ever since being created, they would have learned nothing at all. For that reason we cannot look upon all of these feelings with a disapproving eye. But if we insist, “I will look no matter what,” upon things displayed before people’s eyes—indeed things that ruin a person’s spiritual health and cast them into depressions—then that is something we ourselves will have to answer for. As with every one of our feelings, in the end everyone must decide for themselves how they will be measured. And they must do so while putting into their own pocket the spiritual troubles that arise from what they have seen and that will come afterward.

I want to develop my subject on seeing and the effects of seeing, rather than dragging it into moral zones. We said “pleasure,” we said “savagery,” we said “curiosity”; in truth, connected with seeing, we have many more feelings that could be counted.

Aquariums are said to relax people. Look at them for hours, and you feel calm and peace. Of course, looking at colorful fish swimming in clean, clear water, among carefully arranged water plants, is surely a great pleasure. This is just one type of animal that appeals solely to the eye. I say “appeals solely to the eye” because aquarium fish are not taken into the lap and petted like a cat or a dog. Nor can a fish give a person the feelings, appealing to the skin, of something soft as cotton or as a bird’s feather, caressing our hands like a soft rabbit. Aquarium fish, however, are loved with our eyes. What we see there generally relaxes us.

The Japanese are said to be very skilled at raising these types of fish. I once saw it on television: of these fish that they raise in special ponds, the cheapest of some breeds starts at 3,000 dollars a piece and goes up to half a million. Perhaps there are even ones that go for higher prices. Enthusiasts come from every corner of the world to buy these fish. Sometimes the value of a single fish comes to the same price as building a palace-like house. Since people give so much money for these, it means they take pleasure in them. Let us set aside the ostentation side of the business; what remains is simply the pleasure of seeing. Imagine you have a huge, colorful, gleaming aquarium. In the middle of a large room with the lights off, you watch them as if it were a film. Many people take pleasure in this. Especially if you yourself built and prepared that aquarium. Right beside that image which relaxes a person’s insides, if someone suddenly drops hungry piranha fish into the aquarium, it wrecks the whole thing. Seeing how those dear fish are torn apart before your eyes is no difficult matter. Will you mourn for the fish, or—if you have a curiosity of the kind I mentioned just now—for the hundreds of thousands of dollars you paid? It is not at all hard for beautiful images to turn into a terrible savagery. While one image holds peace, quiet, and comfort, another turns a person’s world upside down. The things I have mentioned are not even living people; up to now I have spoken only of fish, of food, of the monkey, of the fetal child. For some reason they do not much show the images of the wars people wage against one another as they really are. What they show most is always the dead and the wounded. And even in those, many images are concealed. Because such images cause people discomfort, they say. They have the effect of nausea on people, just like that pornographic magazine I saw at the age of twelve. But those who look at them continually eventually grow used to it and feel nothing.

While writing that seeing is a very valuable feature of ours, I had also written at the same time that it causes pain. When we think about it, the things we see with our eyes draw us into, and out of, a great many various feelings, more than we could count. Pleasurable, sorrowful, ugly, dull, meaningless, beautiful, relaxing, infuriating, frightening, terrifying, vengeful, rancorous, indescribable, awe-inspiring, degrading, astonishing, covetous-making, envy-provoking, and awakening a great many more feelings than we could count—the name of this sense organ of ours is again the eye.

In the Turkish dictionary, to see is explained as: “to perceive the existence of a thing with the eye”.

Alongside this, there is also “to look.” Many people think the two are the same, but they are not. In the dictionary, to look is defined as: “to turn the eyes upon something in order to see”. A person sees many things before their eyes, but from among those many things they look at whichever they wish. For instance, if someone asked you “Where exactly is the number written?” of the house whose door you enter every day, perhaps you would not know. Or if you were asked whether you open the zipper of the trousers you are wearing with your right hand or your left, it would be hard to answer without looking. Men’s trousers and women’s trousers are said to be distinguished in this way. The man’s is the one opened with the right hand—that is, the opening for the zipper is on the right, while on the woman’s it is on the left. Even the buttons of shirts and other garments are made according to this rule, they say. This rule too was established starting from the fact that in the old days men used swords. It was thought so that, while drawing the sword with the right hand from the left, it would not catch on the clothing. True, in our time such distinctions are not made, but the male body and the female body are quite different. Ladies who want to look beautiful pay attention to these things while shopping. In any case, our subject is to point out the difference between looking and seeing. For instance, if someone later asked you to describe one by one the things you saw out the window in passing, so many things you overlooked would come out. But about the things you looked at, you can recount them going into even the details. In short, as we notice from the dictionary meaning as well, even though we perceive many things with our eyes, in order to look we must turn our eyes upon that thing and pay attention.

What each person sees, and what they perceive from what they see, is different too. I explained this a little earlier, in the restaurant example, right down to the savagery in people’s manner of eating. If we set out from the feelings that an image gives, the sentiments felt toward that thing will surely be different for each person, according to their culture, their manners, their conscience. And moreover, the feelings we have toward the things we look at are also a state very much connected with our mood at that moment. Concerning this subject too, another anecdote came to mind.

In old times a man went to the city to sell the produce from his field. After settling his affairs, he went into a cinema. In a love scene of the film, the man embraced the woman and asked, “What do you see in my eyes?” And the woman answered, “Our love.” This scene of the film, probably owing to the effect of his having been away from home for a while too, greatly pleased the villager. When he returned again to his village, to his home, in the middle of the night, while his wife lay asleep in bed with her back turned, that scene from the film came into our man’s head and he asked his wife. When he said, “Woman Hatça! whad do you see in my eyes?” his wife, without even looking, said “Nuthin’.” This did not satisfy our man, and he asked again. He said, “Woman Hatça! take a look at my eyes and tell me what you see.” This time the woman, huffing and puffing, turned over and took a look in the dark, and again said “Nuthin’.” The man again saw it was no use, but insistently, again: “Woman Hatçaa, don’t do this, please take a good careful look, what do you see in my eyes?” The woman got up, lit the gas lamp, and holding it to the man’s eyes, looked carefully. When the man again said “What do you see, tell me,” his wife said: “A great big eye-boogeh”—which was surely an answer that man did not want to hear.

Even though this anecdote makes us laugh, the truth beneath it is sometimes bitter. However much that man, from a romantic standpoint, wished that his wife too would at that moment see as he himself wanted—which is not harmful—on the other hand, people give great effort, by pressure, to have others see the visible thing not as it appears but in the sense they themselves want. Indeed, it is another fact that, with the technique used in Hollywood films, people are made to broadcast even the news reports by manipulating them. The visible things we watch and see with our eyes as news are in fact not real, but only a film. The images, the sounds, are all specially prepared in studios. And to people it is passed off, meanwhile, as real news.

For instance, a great majority of Americans do not believe that anyone went to the moon. More precisely, they do not believe that a human foot set upon the moon. There are also many proofs demonstrating that this is so. Well then, what were those pictures we saw? As I said, it is claimed that it was a film. And indeed proven so. Some experts noticed this from the pictures by chance. In the pictures claimed to have been taken on the moon, it drew attention that there were shadows from different lights. Whereas the light coming from the sun should come from a single direction and cast a shadow on a single side, in the pictures there are sometimes even shadows on four sides. There are said to be many such, and more scientific, proofs. At a time when all the eyes of the world were turned toward America, it was said that it was impossible for the Americans to say, “We could not land a man on the moon.” They absolutely had to land on the moon. Even if it had to be by bluff, so be it, but they had to land. All humanity wanted to see this. Besides, in those days a pissing contest was being held with the Russians. They showed it, and set at ease the insides of humanity, of the tax-paying American citizens! And how many times over!

After hearing and seeing these things, a person no longer knows what to believe. Even the visible thing can be a fraud. Like the tricks that magicians do. Such shows are called “pulling the wool over the eyes”. They do not paint the spectator’s eye with paint; rather, right before the spectator’s eyes, they show that thing in a different form. For instance, in the circus, the magician who throws knives at a beautiful woman in a swimsuit tied to the center of a round wooden disk is not actually throwing any knives. From that expertly prepared round board, the knives shoot out by themselves. That is, the knives are held in their sockets behind the board. The performer pretends to throw a knife, but he drops the knife into the sleeve of his costume, and as he flings his hand, at the same time the knife, released by a spring, shoots out of the board with a sound. The images I am describing have been broadcast a great deal on the Internet and on televisions. This is just a technique. There are many such shows. Sawing a man in half, a flock of birds coming out of things like thimbles, disappearing in water, walking on water, and so on. There are even magicians who make disappear a whole huge train standing in a station. These become possible only thanks to techniques and expertly prepared scenes. But the scenes shown there to our eyes have nothing to do with reality. More precisely, they have nothing to do with the reality they want us to suppose. This means that not everything we see, perceive, and look at carefully has to be real. This too creates a very great danger for people. That the things laid before their eyes in order to distort truths and secure advantage are lies, and that we learn of these only years later, means the shaking of all kinds of feelings of trust. Now we can no longer believe even the things we see. Even when it is true, it becomes very hard to believe. Because we say, “Who knows how many times they deceived us, so why should this not be the same,” and we do not believe. And as humanity, we are not in the wrong.

When televisions first appeared, they were colorless. As a child I was not even aware of this. Turkish films too used to be colorless, and when one was in color, the posters at the cinemas always advertised it as “In Color”. I was around 6 or 7 years old then. My older sister told me about this difference, and after that I began to pay attention. She had said, “In a colorless film the color of the cars appears either black or white, whereas in a color one red, blue, green are distinct.” And truly, the first time, I paid attention more to the colors than to the subject of the film. Sometimes paying attention solely to these colors, rather than to the film, went on with me for a long time. Then, little by little, we got used to it, and anyway no colorless films were left. As for television, these colors came a little late compared to the cinema. Apart from the films themselves being colorless, even when they were in color, on a colorless television it was still black and white. In those days I was around 10 years old. In Germany, our landlord’s son had bought them a color television as a gift, and at New Year’s they showed it to us. Because I had experience from the cinema in Turkey, even though I did not understand the German for most of the things they explained, I grasped what they meant. Although it was not something new for me, I was upset that our television did not show in color either. In those days the price of color televisions was four or five times that of colorless televisions. Much later, we bought an old color television from an American soldier who was returning to his country. Of the people we knew, 98% had colorless televisions. My stepfather was very glad that we had entered that 2%. These events I am describing were like this in Germany; in Turkey, color televisions entering homes took about another 10 years. People placed great value on this matter. I have known many people who took on debt just to get a color television into their home. Myself included. All this came from the pleasure of seeing. Those colors that were spoken of were all a pleasure given by seeing and the ability to distinguish. And the ostentation of being different from others surely plays a role, one way or another.

Some people, too, are said to have color blindness. They are said to be unable to distinguish certain colors. For instance, when they drive in traffic, they pay attention not, as we do, to the light being red, but to where among those three lights of the traffic light it is lit. Because they cannot distinguish the color red anyway, they give their attention to where it is lit while looking at the lights. If the topmost of those three circles is lit, they will stop, because that is red. If the bottommost is lit, they can go—that is, green. The color first noticed even from the farthest distance is said to be red. That is why the stop color of traffic lights is red. But a color-blind person, at night, even if the light shines green from afar, will act as if they must absolutely stop, and only press the gas when they reach right beneath the light; and many people do not understand this and lay on the horn and the curses. Yet for that person, seeing which section is lit is more important than the color of the lit light. They cannot distinguish the color anyway. In Turkey they used not to give driver’s licenses to the color-blind. Now it can probably be given, in order to conform to the EU. In truth, if only you knew how very many abilities this eye of ours has. Naturally, I believe there are very few people who know all the abilities of this organ we use. We use the thing we possess, but we know very little of what it does, how it does it, and what more it can do. We just say, “After all, it’s only an eye,” and pass over it.

Many expressions concerning the eye have been and are spoken. For instance, with expressions like “a person of refinement” or “a well-seasoned person” or “uncouth”, we either elevate or lower those people. With these terms “refined–uncouth”, while the qualities a person has acquired by literally seeing with their eyes are emphasized, the aim is also to draw in matters of education, and character-like, spiritual truths. For instance, not knowing how one ought to behave in a certain place, or making moves that draw all attention upon oneself—such a person is called “uncouth”. This does not necessarily mean that the person is going to such places for the first time. They have gone to such places, and been in them, times without number. In fact, what earns them this label of “uncouth” is that person’s character and base qualities. On the contrary, those worthy of words like “refined, a well-seasoned person” are persons who reflect superior character qualities. Whereas—next to the qualities the person of the “uncouth” category shows and the reactions they draw in the places they go in and out of—the person called “refined, well-seasoned” will perhaps be in such places for the first time in their life, or has not often entered such settings. Thanks to their manner of behavior, their ability to assess the setting they are in, and the value they give to people with care and humility, the words spoken about that person, such as “a well-seasoned one”, earn them positive marks. One of the most important qualities on this subject is the feeling of covetousness that a person possesses. The subject of covetousness contains one of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses, most famously known in the Holy Scriptures. There it is written exactly thus:

You shall not set your eye upon (covet) your neighbor’s house, his wife, his male and female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything of his. Exodus 20:17

The phrase “you shall not set your eye upon,” rendered by the new translation above, was translated in the old translations as “you shall not covet.” While “to set one’s eye upon” sometimes takes on a different meaning according to its construction in the sentence, “to covet” is understood immediately. For instance, “to set one’s eye upon” can also stand in place of looking at something carefully, paying attention. Again, for example, to say, “set your eye firmly upon these things and let no one snatch them from you,” commands the person to guard those things carefully. But no one guards their goods from others by saying, in a similar sentence, “covet these things and let no one snatch them from you.” The fact that words can carry many meanings also stems from the poverty of that language. In short, if we are to define coveting:

Covetousness: greed; to set one’s eye upon: to be seized by the desire to seize a thing that belongs to another; to covet 1) to act greedily 2) to be very fond of something and to want to obtain it. Covetous: 1) greedy, 2) stingy, miserly, tight-fisted.

The expressions “refined, uncouth” that I mentioned just now are very closely related to a person’s being covetous. A person may surely behave clumsily or wrongly in some places, but this does not make them “uncouth”. Anyway, by saying “uncouthness, well-seasonedness”, what is emphasized, rather than clumsiness or maturity, is the hunger or fullness of the person’s eye toward those things.

There are so very many sayings concerning the eye, used in a symbolic sense. I will write a few of the most famous:

First love (“first eye-ache”), to go and give the joy-of-the-eye (a get-well/congratulation visit), to come to the eye (to be struck by the evil eye), to daunt the eye, to fall from the eye (to fall from favor), to catch the eye, to enter the eye (to win favor), an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, hungry-eyed, having a satisfied eye, to have one’s eye left behind (to worry about something left behind), the eye bites (a face seems familiar), the eye has reddened (enraged), the eye cuts it (to feel confident), timid-eyed, stout-hearted, piss-eyed (cowardly), the eye set high (ambitious), to poke into the eye (to make blatantly obvious), not to spare one’s eye from branch or thorn (to be fearless), the eye flooded with blood (blind with rage)…

There are so very many more that the similes and proverbs spoken concerning our eye would almost never be finished by writing them.

Almost everything enters our mind and our heart by means of our eye. By the effect of the things we see with our eye, we determine the things we do or will do again and again. Our eyes’ affecting us plays such a very great role that shifting even our whole life by this means is no difficult matter. Sometimes, apart from our own being affected, even where we look with it is very important. We have heard much of people killing one another because of a single wrong glance. Just that one glance. Again, because of a single glance, we have fallen madly in love. The beginning of the thing that had an effect great enough to make a man bore through mountains like Ferhat likewise stemmed from that one glance. The sum total of the ornaments and makeup materials that women spend on their eyes alone can be reckoned in astronomical figures. And again, however many books have been written, in medical terms, about the eye, it is certain that it has many more aspects and functions about which we do not know with certainty when it comes to describing what it is. What an interesting organ we have, and we have no idea. Or we are not aware of it. As I said, perhaps we do not know its value, and do not use it as we should.

Some people fear the effect of the eye greatly. Indeed, the thing called the evil-eye bead is said to be worn to protect against a bad glance, against being struck by the eye. Some people, on the other hand, are said to have the ability to bewitch the one before them by looking. There are said to be people who bewitch even animals with their eyes. It is certain that there also exist people who, bewitching that most venomous cobra snake with their eyes, affect it and render it harmless. Indeed, going even further, there are those who believe in the existence of people with glances so powerful that they can bring down even an airplane by looking with their eyes. Many films have been made on this subject. The man or the woman, by looking with their eyes, does and causes to be done all manner of things. All these again stem from the effect of the eye, which is related to our subject.

We said that one of the greatest reasons compelling us to look at a thing is our curiosity. Truly this is a tremendous feeling. Only, let us not forget this either: we also have a great many sense organs that want, that desire, the things our eye sees. They put such great pressure on our eye that desires like looking and taking pleasure, being satisfied, and, above all, appeasing one’s curiosity, do not in fact stem from our eye. The eye by itself has no such desires. Even if there are things beneficial to the eye, in the feelings of looking somewhere and taking pleasure from them, the eye is only an instrument. Our eye sends the images to our brain, and from there, whichever of our feelings takes the share falling to it, it provides for the relaxation of that feeling, or, on the contrary, for the disturbing of its comfort. For instance, the food that a hungry and penniless person sees. This is in fact of no benefit whatsoever to the eye. Through the food the eye sees, the body’s feeling of hunger is only fanned all the more. And this serves that body for nothing but a further degree of pain. Or when looking at someone of the opposite sex—especially if that person has an appearance we would desire. Again, rather than our eye, it is our body, our feelings that we have difficulty reining in—it is only these that suffer pain or take pleasure. Feelings like eating, sexual urges, anger, jealousy, sloth, covetousness are all products of our bodily desires. The eye too is an organ of our body, but with most of the things it sees it stimulates other branches of the body and the soul. Because these are the real feelings we possess, and because they also need to be reined in, religious organizations have their proverb-like refrains that they say on this subject. For instance, one of the sects teaches its members, “You must absolutely master three things.” And that is: “Your hand, your tongue, your loins.” With the things meant here, it is emphasized that we are obliged to say no to our bodily desires, our ambitions, our pleasures. The hiding of the monks and nuns in Christianity behind thick stone walls for centuries is also owing to these reasons. Probably because they had difficulty applying Jesus’ warnings, they chose such a path for that reason. Because God’s prophets had already taken up this matter of mastering “your hand, your loins, your tongue,” spoken like a refrain, and had warned people. But by hiding behind these stone walls, by chanting “huuuu” night and day in the sects, by standing in prostration for who knows how many rak‘ahs, by preaching door to door for hours, by staying hungry and fasting for days, these feelings could not be reined in.

For instance, Jesus Christ once:

“You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.”” (sexual relations outside of marriage). But I say to you: Everyone who keeps looking at a woman so as to have a passion for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye is causing you to stumble (to sin), tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you that one of your members (a member of your body) should be lost than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand is causing you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you; for it is better for you that one of your members should be lost than that your whole body be thrown into hell. Gospel—Matthew 5:27-30

With these words neither Jesus nor any other prophet encouraged people to maim themselves. Because God has commands that absolutely forbid such things. For instance, in the Torah, in the book of Leviticus, in the verse 21:5, God says openly concerning His servants that “they shall not make cuts in their bodies”. With the words above, the prophets gave reasonable analogies about people mastering their appetites and keeping those feelings of theirs under control. Because no one wants their eye to be torn out. When a person understands the seriousness of having their eye torn out, they no longer even look at that thing. Or they look and bear the penalty for it—and whom would that please? Neither having one’s eye torn out nor being thrown into hell is the desire of any normal person. These are words that encourage us to be careful about the things that make us fall into sin. For instance, the holy Job, aware of the danger of falling into sin because of the things he saw with his eyes, takes for himself a precaution as follows.

“I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a girl?” Torah—Job 31:1. And in another Turkish translation it is written exactly thus:

“I made a covenant with my eyes, not to look with passion at a girl.” The new translation has expressed this situation in a more easily understood way.

This means these people realized that coveting has a great relation to the eyes. They were also conscious that what we call sin—the things that ought not to be done in God’s eyes—generally ripens first in our minds. This matter of falling into sin is not necessarily connected with the same things that everyone sees. While for one person the thing they see is quite natural, for another it becomes a cause of stumbling—that is, of their foot slipping, of their falling into sin. That this can be so, the apostle Paul expresses in the Bible as follows:

… “not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed until now to the idol, eat it as a thing sacrificed to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. But food does not commend us to God; if we do not eat, we are no worse off; and if we eat, we are no better off. But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if anyone sees you who have knowledge reclining at table in an idol’s temple, will not the conscience of him who is weak, if he is weak, be emboldened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For the weak man, the brother for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge… Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I may not cause my brother to stumble.” 1 Corinthians 8:7-13

This is in fact only a warning, requiring people to be careful, not merely in the matter of food, but in every matter concerning conscience toward one another. There are still other subjects in which, while for one person a certain thing means falling into sin, for another it is of no importance at all. That this is so not only from that person’s standpoint, but from God’s standpoint as well, we read from the books we call Holy. That is, a person looks at a thing, but in that thing they look at, they do not sin even in their mind. Alongside this, there is the man who, in the thing he looks at, commits great crimes for the sake of the things he sees—not only with his mind, but at the same time with his heart and his deeds. This means we cannot lay down any hard rule that the effect of the things seen will be the same in every person. Rather, these rules are laid down by setting out from things that are general. What lies in our hearts, in our appetites, and what we covet, is far more important than the things we see. The things we must struggle against are not only the things seen, but the feelings that will make us stumble (become a stumbling block). If I am able to commit a crime and lose myself over the thing I see, then my mastery over myself is nothing. It means that what governs me is no longer I, but the things I see. There are so many things that make people fall into covetousness that they cannot be counted. Take those colorful magazines and, from almost the first page to the last, they are full of pictures that will make people desire. A holiday photo in a place with a splendid view, a snow-white yacht standing on greenish waters clean as glass, with a happy-looking man or woman on it. The very latest model of car full of who-knows-what features, palace-like houses, those deliciously pictured foods—these are always the foremost subjects of these magazines all on their own. Affected by those images, everyone now plunges off somewhere according to the power of their imagination and their wallet. Where they go in their imagination, and whether they come back again, is unknown. But is not the important thing to draw people into those fantasies? Our earth is very successful at this. Now, do not suppose that I look with a disapproving eye upon that picture of the latest-model car, of which very few in the world have one, or upon other pictures, and say, like some, “Go ahead and ban it,” or the like. But what I want to say is only and simply this: that humanity is being pushed to be given a direction along these lines. The values called spiritual, which cannot be seen with the naked eye, either do not exist at all, or, if they do, exist in a disgraceful form that serves for nothing but to poison people spiritually. Perhaps, with these words, I appear very rigid and to make no exception at all; but truly, the humanity of our time, compared to the opportunities it possesses, is very poor in this matter. Always looking at things to be desired, seeing them, and making them targets in their lives, they do not want to recognize any rule in the cause of obtaining—if need be, in the most cruel, merciless way—no matter what it is. Always, with the fantasies we shape because of the things our eyes see, we live for this cause, we work for this cause, and for this cause we die and kill. In truth, as the apostle Paul said, we are in a pitiable state.

Why are we in a pitiable state? As I said, however many five sense organs we have, I had said that the eye plays the greatest role. Well then, is our eye the only organ, according to what the apostle Paul said in the Bible, that casts us into this pitiable condition? First, come, let us read this subject from the letter Paul wrote to the Romans, inspired by God’s spirit.

…we know that the Law (religious law and rules) is spiritual; but I am fleshly, sold under sin. For I do not know what I am doing, I do not practice the thing I want, but I do the very thing I hate. But if I do the thing I do not want, I agree that the Law is good. So then it is no longer I, but the sin dwelling in me that practices it. For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, no good thing dwells; for to want is present in me, but to practice the good is not. For I do not do the good thing I want; but I do the evil thing I do not want. If I do the thing I do not want, it is no longer I, but the sin dwelling in me that practices it. So then I find this law: while I want to do good, evil is present with me. For according to the inner (spiritual) man I delight in the Law of God; but I see in my members (my body) another law, warring against the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin that is in my body. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Romans 7:15-25

Just as this apostle openly acknowledges the wrongs and sins that some people can by no means acknowledge, he also explains their causes. And he does this by means of the spirit he received from God. He says both that he sins and that his body is continually inclined—that is, willing—toward sinning. But he expresses these situations in an interesting way. When he says, “For I do not know what I am doing, I do not practice the thing I want, but I do the very thing I hate,” you too surely see how close you yourself are to these feelings. Yes, do we ourselves not do the very things we do not want, that we oppose, that are sometimes so ugly they disgust us? What does it mean not to know what one is doing, or what one is committing? Do these situations happen while drunk? No, that has nothing to do with it. After the apostle does the things characterized as sin, when he thinks about it, he realizes that the aim lying beneath it has no side connected either with logic or with reason.

There are people who gamble. I too began to gamble while still a child. Indeed, at only 6 or 7 years of age. By the time I reached ten I was playing open-stakes poker for money with men aged 40 to 45. There were times I won and times I lost. Rather than winning or losing, neither the end nor the beginning of this business was pleasant. While, when I won, I squandered the money in my hand as though it had come from thin air, I also know that in my later years I sometimes gambled away and lost even my house rent. However much I hated this business, I still played. And that in settings I did not want at all and did not like. It was as if it were not I, but some force making me do it. These words, of course, do not make that person innocent or anything of the sort. What I want to explain is that truly the people who have gotten into this business know from firsthand experience that they too do this business from time to time while hating it. I have even known people who lost their wives at gambling. They handed their wives over with their own hands to the man they lost them to. This I only heard about, but did not see. Anyway, such distasteful things are not done openly. Whether this situation pleased those women from some other angle and gave them excitement, I cannot know. And with a clear conscience too, saying “I am saving my husband.” The guilty one is always those husbands! This too is another side of the business. In any case, without our digging into it too much, let us come to why people do those things even though they do not want to. Yes, I said gambling as an example; this is only one example. There is so much more. Those who smoke hashish, who sniff heroin, hating it, without wanting to; those who work in brothels; those who wage war; those who cut men down; those who steal; those who lie; those who rage every day out of jealousy toward those around them; those who fight over nothing; those who, after drinking and drinking until drunk, roll in their own vomit—there are so many. Even if these people hate all these things, they still do the same things again and again. All right, let us say the things I have counted were extreme. You marry the most beautiful woman or man, and yet you cannot pass by an interesting person of the opposite sex who comes before you, who passes by you, without taking a look. Even if only out of the corner of your eye, just a glance. Now you wonder: is my wife, or my husband, more beautiful? Or you do this without thinking anything at all. Yet if you are a woman you absolutely do not want your husband to do such a thing, and if you are a man you hate your wife doing it. Even though we are all the same, we all likewise do the same, or similar, unwanted things that we do not want done.

I wonder whether, with even so few examples, I have managed to explain what the apostle meant. The reason I have touched on this subject of the sin we possess and continually commit is again related to seeing. Because, as it is written in the dictionary meaning too, seeing is at the same time the act of perceiving. And I had said that perceiving comes out in different forms in many people. We see a thing, but what we perceive from the thing we see shows differences, large and small, in every person. As in the examples I also gave at the beginning of the book, while one person perceives appetite, a feeling of pleasure, from the thing they see, for another it is a savagery, their stomach turns, they retch for days. We always perceive the things we see with our feelings, with the education we have received, with our conscience. That is why, in the questions asked of eyewitnesses in courts, an effort is made to strip those people of the effect of the things they saw, as it were, and to have them give an impartial statement. That is, all that is wanted from the person is what they saw, and to recount this without any addition. Perhaps this is a thing none of us does. Whatever we recount of what we saw, we try, and try very hard, to recount it with our feelings, as we perceived it. That is why, before a person is convicted, recourse is had not to the word of a single person but to the testimony of more than one witness. The more eyewitnesses there are, the easier it is to reach a decision. Even this, however, can change terribly according to the situation and circumstances. For instance, because of the attitude taken toward Black people, we say that it is “quite normal” for all the white people in the court to give eyewitness testimony in a way that renders that Black person guilty. And do not even think that those people are necessarily lying or the like. Owing to the feelings whose captives they are, they perceive the event they saw only that way and recount it that way. Most of the time they are not even aware of it themselves. I wonder whether you have ever seen such films. They become very interesting. Especially if the role is played in the character of a good lawyer. To watch their questions and their effort to bring out the truth is a real delight. We are filled with admiration for their intelligence, their logic, their impartiality. Of course, again, provided we are not taking sides. Otherwise it is no difficult matter for us to come out of that film we watched filled with a wholly different, anger-laden feeling.

For instance, in the genocide undertaken against the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, we also lived through in history how suddenly the German people’s feelings of seeing and perceiving those people, with whom they had lived together for centuries, changed. Such events took place that children, from the moment they heard that the mother they had seen for years descended from Jewish stock who-knows-how-many centuries before, from then on looked upon and perceived that person not as a mother but as a vile creature, an enemy. Still filled with these same feelings—this time toward another nation, especially toward Turks—the feelings and behavior of the German people have not much changed. Only, they cannot find the necessary setting; perhaps that is the only difference. That, at the melody a dictatorial ruler would strike up, the whole nation would repeat the same history is not at all an impossible thing. Even if such a thing perhaps never comes to pass, unfortunately the feelings that people possess are always in this direction. While pleasantly conversing with you, at an unexpected moment, when he learns that you are a Turk, even that German’s facial expression changes. I have lived through many such events. Yet nothing has happened; at that moment merely hearing that you are a Turk has been enough to change his feelings in an instant. Because their constant talk and conversations are always aimed at sowing this hatred, they make it very obvious too.

Although many more examples could be given, as a last one I want to give one more from religious circles. Upon a person, with whom they have lived together for years and addressed as a brother, with whom they hold the hope of sharing paradise together, saying, “God sees everything—as He sees the past, so He sees the future,” the organization of that religion says, “this is a teaching contrary to our doctrine,” and expels him from among them. Where they see that person, they no longer either greet him or eat together with him. Every time they see him, the feeling they now perceive toward that person has suddenly become very different too.

The things that cause people’s perceptions toward the things they see to change at once, or to remain always the same, are either that society, or the education they received, their conscience, their interest, their fear of being harmed, or their ambition to gain benefit, their love, their hatred, its beauty, its ugliness, and so on. We can count so very many effects. In short, to see the things seen as they are is an ability that must be developed and that sometimes seems impossible for us. To see a thing as it is, just as it is. It is not an easy thing. What is more, most of the time we do not even have the possibility of seeing everything of the very thing we suppose we see. When we look at an event, we see it only from our own point of view. Into the matter enter also the differences of seeing from behind, from the side, from above, from below. And there are also the aspects of those things which we cannot perceive with our eyes but which are nevertheless visible. Yes, even though a person cannot see these with the naked eye, they exist. Whether under microscopes, electron microscopes, or by rays, X-rays, tomographies, or many other devices, there are, indeed there are, possibilities of seeing. Excluded are the aspects that can be perceived down to particles smaller than the atoms of that thing, but which we do not see with our eyes. These are the things we count as physical. If we set about bringing into the matter mental, spiritual, emotional things as well, what would we do? Our perceiving the aim of the one before us, what they think, what they feel, their delusions, their love, their hatred, their heart-attitude, and so on, is even more different. After bringing all these into the matter too—when there are still a great many more things that cannot be seen with the naked eye, which I have skipped over without counting—go ahead then and say about a thing, “I have seen everything.” In fact, with this word “everything”, we declare, without being aware of it, that we cannot go beyond the limits of our own knowledge.

When we speak with people, they say, “I do not believe in a thing I have not seen,” and, as if they have said something very logical and grand, they settle contentedly back into where they sit. To them, the greatest measure is seeing. It is as if the whole body of that poor wretch is nothing but eye. As if they have no brain, no capacity for thought, spirit, intelligence, logic, or the like—none at all. As if a person created entirely out of eye alone! Yet we have so many sense organs perceived without seeing, and so many things to be perceived. To give the two simplest examples, let us say a delicious dish, or the smell of a bad perfume. These we perceive at once with our nose, without seeing them at all. Or any music we listen to. Even while talking on the telephone, we understand at once whether the person speaking on the other side is likable or unlikable—again, we distinguish this without seeing. This is the ear’s work. And what is to be said of the differences between hot and cold? Who sees that it is cold or hot? Where does this feeling come from that makes us pull the quilt around us one layer more in our sleep? Have you ever closed your eyes to feel the wind coming off the sea on a hot summer day? Even if you have never opened your hands out to the sides and closed your eyes at the very front of a departing ship, at least when you see someone doing it you understand, more or less, what they feel. Yet what gives that person this pleasure is not the things they see with their eyes. Our feelings—these feelings of ours that govern us, enslave us, sometimes drag us through the dirt, ruin us, or gladden us, thrill us with joy—what is to be said of them? We say, “I am in love!” We say, “I’ve been struck,” and are at a loss for what to do. What are these feelings? Whoever or whatever it is we saw, now in our mind it is always that. Who sees these ups and downs of our feelings? What volcanoes erupt within us—are they visible? We have the ability to perceive down to the tiniest point of the nervous system that wraps our whole body. When we possess both a physical and a spiritual body, how can it be said, “I do not believe in a thing I have not seen”? Well then, what would we do if our whole body alone were nothing but eye! Who would want such a thing? I give these examples in order to present them, perhaps somewhat exaggeratedly, to those who say, “I believe in nothing but what I have seen.” And again, that even the events unfolding before us, which we see as they are, may have a wholly different other picture, and that the things we see may deceive us, is another subject. Above, we gave the simplest examples from acrobats, from magicians.

As a child, when I was about 13, while walking on Istanbul’s Galata Bridge, I saw a man light his cigarette with a watermelon. He had gathered around himself a crowd of curious, idle, poor wretches like me, and he was both making a sale of that thing and showing how a cigarette is lit with a watermelon. Do not for a moment think this some fraud, some sleight of hand. Truly, whether watermelon or melon, or whatever juicy thing it might be—indeed even by spitting—he had lit his cigarette. I liked it very much, and while watching that man I could not tell at all how much time had passed. I too bought some of the thing he was selling. In fact the event is a chemical reality. Certain mixtures, when combined with water, show a flammable effect—that is all. Indeed, it was hot, and when my hands began to sweat, that confounded stuff had heated up as if to burn my hand. It was a paste, cream-colored. You break off a very small piece and put it on the tip of the cigarette, or of whatever you want to light. Then, shortly after you hold something juicy to it, that spot immediately catches fire. That little white thing placed beforehand on the cigarette is almost invisible in the tobacco. I do not know, even now, the detail of what kind of chemical mixture it is. Although I liked chemistry class, I had no knack for it. Because what we learned generally always remained in theory. This mixture’s having a burning effect on contact with water, however, was a visible, real thing. But how many people understand this and can explain it? Go and tell someone this truth—but skillfully. Say, “I light a cigarette with a watermelon.” They will stare at you as a madman. Or they will smile, thinking you are joking. You are neither mad nor is the thing you are recounting a joke. As soon as a chemist hears these words, they understand at once and talk with you about this subject in all seriousness. While some say “madman,” while another supposes you are joking, the difference of the person who talks with you seriously about this subject from the others is “their knowledge”. About that knowledgeable person we say: “They saw this truth, received the training for it, and therefore they know.” The acceptance, just as they are, of the things that knowledgeable person recounts, or of these things I am now writing, by a person who has no knowledge and has not seen such a thing—this too we call belief. In religious circles they call it “faith”. It is believing in a thing one has not seen. Indeed, even if one sees it, one cannot fully explain what it is—like me. Still, as I said, I do not fully, indeed do not at all, know the mixture of this paste. But it is a reality for me. Whether I can explain that thing scientifically, or whether my knowledge on this subject is zero. Or whether I have even never seen that thing at all. Believing the words of the people I listened to, whom I read, I accept this reality. While faith is explained in this way, so as to be understood by everyone, in the Holy Scriptures faith is defined as follows:

Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of the existence of things not seen. Gospel—Hebrews 11:1

Indeed, we have no need of faith toward things that are visible. One does not have faith in a thing that is seen, because it is already seen. Faith is valid for things not seen. That is, for faith—that is, for believing—if that thing is in a person’s hand, before their eyes, no longer is a question asked of them: “Do you believe in the existence of this?” They already see it, and there is no longer any need for them to believe, to have faith in, the thing they see. The apostle expresses one more plain truth on the subject of seeing and understanding:

To be sure, we speak wisdom among those who are mature; but this wisdom is not that of the present age, nor of the fleeting rulers of this age. We speak of God’s secret, hidden wisdom. This wisdom, which God determined before the beginning of time for our glory, none of the rulers of this age understood. Had they understood it, they would not have crucified the glorious Christ Jesus. As it is written,

“What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has grasped—the things God has prepared for those who love Him.”

God revealed these things to us through the Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep thoughts of God. Who among people can know the thoughts of a person except that person’s own spirit that is within them? In the same way, no one can know the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

We received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit that comes from God, so that we might know the things God has graciously given us.

While we explain spiritual truths to those who follow the Spirit, we make known the things God has graciously given not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit. A person in their natural state does not accept the truths concerning the Spirit of God. Because these seem foolishness to them. And because they are evaluated spiritually, they cannot understand them.

The person who follows the Spirit can make judgments about every matter, but there is no one to make a judgment about them. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he might advise Him?”… Gospel—First Letter to the Corinthians 2:6-16

If you noticed, with these verses the apostle speaks throughout of unseen values, of unseen truths. And he draws attention to the fact that, in order to understand these without seeing, one must absolutely possess the spirit of God. Indeed—if I make a plan and set it up in my mind, then I myself, in person, know it down to its smallest details. Because I designed it, and these things were planned beforehand in my mind, in my spirit. The thoughts that are in a person’s mind and spirit, only God can know better than the person themselves. The same holds for God. God Himself first thought out and prepared all the plans concerning the creation of the earth. We said that only God, and those persons He wills, can know the whole truth concerning a person’s thoughts. Well then, can there be anyone who knows God’s thoughts other than Himself? Did we not just read, “no one can know the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God”? This means that, in order for us to know God’s gifts (His grace)—that is, everything He has given to us humankind, the earth and the plan connected with all this—we have need of a spirit that must come not from this world but from God: let us believe this with certainty. Just as our spirit knows our thoughts, God’s is no different. The difference is that, though there are many things superior to us, there is nothing superior to God.

Psychologists try to enter people’s inner worlds by asking them questions, putting them to sleep, getting them to talk. Because these are applied from time to time in order for that person to discover some spiritual ailment, or certain truths, that even the person themselves does not know. Well then, who can know God’s inner world, His thoughts, His aim, other than Himself? Indeed, God Himself says the following on this subject:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-10) And three to five pages earlier in the same book, these words are written:

Who has set a measure to the Spirit of the Lord, and being His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, who gave Him understanding, and taught Him in the path of justice, and taught Him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding? (Isaiah 39:13-14) We, of course, answer these questions with “no one”.

Alongside all these truths, God does not, like us humans, possess a despotic personality—that is, one who merely gives orders and listens to no one. He has always disclosed His thoughts, His aim, to His creatures. He has listened to their problems and given value to their thoughts too. The Holy Scriptures and the Quran in our hands speak of a future event of humanity’s resurrection, and after that of a full thousand-year period. The “qiyamah”, put into the mind of the people as the end of the world—which is in fact not the end of the world—in Arabic means “to rise”, to stand up. In the Quran this is treated in the sense of the day on which the dead will be resurrected and rise. The earth, however, was created and shaped by God so that it might stand forever. The Quran, speaking of the book of the Psalter:

My good servants will inherit the earth (Surah al-Anbiya, 21:105)—by the book of the Psalter mentioned here is meant the book of Psalms in the Holy Scriptures. Indeed, in the place intended, it is written exactly thus:

The righteous will inherit the earth and dwell in it forever. Psalms 37:29.

As I said, while our Creator gives us information about the future concerning His aim, He has never had a despotic personality.

In one event, the prophet Abraham enters almost into bargaining with God. Before destroying cities collapsed in morals and every kind of humanity, God discloses this aim to Abraham. True, our present world is full of ones far more violent than the nations of that time. In any case, what I want to explain is about God’s personality and to show the value He gives us. However superior He may be, it is how He concerns Himself with us and how He gives value to our thoughts. Yes, a misgiving takes hold of Abraham about those cities to be destroyed, and he says to God as follows:

Will you destroy the righteous together with the wicked? Perhaps there are fifty righteous (upright persons) within the city; will you then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous within it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from you; shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice? (Genesis 18:23-25)

These words Abraham says to God. In your opinion, how does God react to these words? We humans—as our authority and our power increase, what attitude do we take toward the reactions of those beneath us? Especially if they set about giving us advice! And such advice at that—that Abraham, on matters concerning God’s justice, speaks as if holding his own understanding of justice superior to God’s. “Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from you; shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice?” Can a person say these words to even the most petty, bribe-taking, unjust judge in a town? Even if they said them, what would that judge do? Look at our world—what do they do? He would put him into such a hole that he would come out of it again only with difficulty. Would he not do all he could to make him regret a thousand times that he was ever born? These things are done in our world every day. Even in schools, we used to be afraid to dare to ask our teachers a question. They frightened us, and so we were afraid. They did all they could to make us afraid, and that is why we were afraid. This was the scene at school; and then there is the state’s soldier, police, gendarme, district governor, provincial governor, member of parliament, minister, prime minister. If you have the nerve, go and speak with them as Abraham spoke with God! Doubt their justice, as if giving advice. Let him too give you answers according to your heart’s desire! Is such a thing possible? Look, how, then, does God answer this skeptical, indeed seemingly provocative question of Abraham’s:

And the Lord said: “If I find in Sodom, within the city, fifty righteous, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Abraham is not satisfied with this answer either, and again taking up the same matter over and over, reducing the numbers by fives from fifty, he comes down to ten. Each time, God says He “will spare the city for the sake of that many people.” After this bargaining that continues down to ten people, Abraham says no more. This subject is found in chapter 18 of the Holy Scriptures’ book of Genesis, that is, the book of Genesis in the new translation.

This dialogue between Abraham and God alone gives us tremendous information about God. Some people, with the knowledge they perceive from the personalities they possess and from the course of our world, argue that this event in the Holy Scriptures is a very absurd lie. I have come across many such people. According to them, they say, “God would not, and did not, enter into such an absurd dialogue with any human.” Would God lower Himself so far! With these words they also suppose they are defending God. The answer, again according to them, is very simple. The Holy Scriptures have already been altered, and that is why there are such absurdities in them! But the things lying at the root of the absurdity are in fact more interesting. Comparing themselves with God, it means saying, in effect, “why should God do a thing I do not do and would never do?” It is not necessarily bad, unjust, despotic, dictatorial people who say this; Abraham too, whom God characterizes by calling him His friend, thought this way at one point. Perhaps from an angle opposite to our present world—that is, Abraham looking at the event from the side of goodness—thought and said it with a pure, clean intention. Even so, at the root of the thought there emerges an impression as if Abraham possessed qualities superior to God’s. That is why, some for good and some for evil, say, “God should not and would not do such a thing.” Yet who is God, and who are we?!

All right, let us say that, because these events took place about four thousand years ago, humanity’s knowledge about God was very slight. The first human, Adam, is also created about six thousand years ago. It is possible to prove these years from the Holy Writings. Not right down to the exact year, but not like the bluff we were taught either—that so-and-so many billion years ago, so-and-so many trillion years ago, the structure of humanity’s skull showed differences of so many centimeters compared to the ape. In any case, in those days humanity’s knowledge about God was very slight. Besides, God is anyway one who has existed from eternity, and our coming to know Him is likewise an infinite thing. Indeed, never, no one, will ever be able to say, “I know God exactly, I know Him fully.” For us to say this, we would have to be superior to Him, which is a thing that will never be. And a good thing too. In Abraham’s time there were not, as there are now, these Holy Books full of so many experiences written about God. They had only a hearsay knowledge about God. That this is so, we read also from the dialogue that passed between God and Job. There Job says: “I had heard of you by hearsay…” (Job 42:5)

Against humanity’s ignorance about God, how does God behave? Well then, if we humans were in His place, how would we behave? All right, even if it were a question that we believe was asked with good intention and an upright heart, like Abraham’s, how would we behave? Would we not, at the very least, take that person to task so as to make it a great lesson to others too? For, that others who see and hear this may not again, in some other event, at another time, commit such foolish disrespect against us. Let them learn who we are! By what right can they do such foolish blustering! And now puff up and puff up. In this cause people have puffed themselves up until they burst. They burst, yet still did not give up puffing themselves up. Well then, why does God give answers so grave and so very different from our thoughts, and choose such a path?

How is an ignorant person educated? What is the best reaction to be shown to the questions they ask? Indeed, what is done even if, out of that same ignorance, they speak as though accusing? “The easiest is to scold. If need be, even a beating is given! If they go further, torture is applied and they are left to rot in prisons. At the very least, they are executed”—is that what you say? Yes, if we humanity choose these paths, then our real aim is not to educate, to teach. By these paths we are either thinking of our own comfort, or trying to cover a fault of ours and hide our filth, or we cannot bring ourselves to stomach such questions and advice for our pride and arrogance. Can a person be educated and taught something by the method I have counted? Yes, in fact this too is a method, and it is possible to give both education and instruction in this way. Otherwise we would now have to say, “we were not educated in any way, and they taught us nothing.” This too would be a lie. We were educated, we received instruction, but we could never like those who approached us by the methods I have counted. We went to schools with hatred, we learned with hatred, we had many educators for whom we felt hatred. Going to school was like a nightmare, and so was the day the holidays ended. If we did have educators who caused us to learn with love, with pleasure, with enthusiasm—educators perhaps so few we could not even count them on our fingers—those educators, those teachers of ours, we did love, and love from the heart. Their methods of education and instruction were different. Whether they too learned this method from God, I do not know. Anyway, as with many things, God in fact created the human being good. From within that goodness, it is we now who choose what we will do. And the one who chooses the good is few, though there are some. We said “love”; well then, who gives value to it? That God gives it value is certain. At the root of everything meant to be eternal lies love. God, however, concerns Himself with us and loves us not by looking at momentary things but by looking at eternity, because we are the work of His hand. That is why He does not look with a disapproving eye upon Abraham’s curious and clumsy question. Well then, from all this, did Abraham learn something about God and love Him? And how. He loved Him so much that, simply because God wanted it, he migrated to cities thousands of kilometers away that he had never known, never seen. And again feeling the anxiety of death for upright people he had never known—Abraham, who entered into bargaining with God—the day came when, upon God’s saying, “Sacrifice your child to me,” he neither asked a question nor looked upon this request with suspicion. He took his child, and just as he was about to sacrifice him, God prevented this situation. The questions Abraham asked were in fact very apt. To understand that Abraham was not a type who would believe just about anything, that he strove to investigate and come to know the one before him, these examples in these two events should suffice for us. As I said, for readers who do not think deeply and pay attention, in one place Abraham may be seen as a smart aleck, a fool; while in another place he may even fall into the condition of one who obeys blindly, a mere simpleton. In fact Abraham is neither of these two types. He is a person possessing a sound curiosity, a good character, a personality who can fearlessly speak his own thought and defend it; and above all, a person full of love.

In this example with Abraham, if God had scolded him right there, poured out His anger upon him, come to wrath, and years, centuries later we too had read these things, what kind of heart-attitude would we have toward God? And what would Abraham’s feelings toward such a God be? Would he still love God so much? Anyway, have not those who claim to be God’s representatives on earth introduced Him to us like a bogeyman? Either they introduced Him as a bogeyman or they spoke of a meaningless love. They came with such meaninglessly empty declarations of love and the same repetitions that this time we became sick of the thing called love. If we set aside the interest, fear, gain, and attachments people in the religions have toward one another, how many people go to those organizations solely because they love God? Such a feeling does not exist in the instructors there, that they might give it to their members! And the one they introduce is someone they try to make resemble themselves, but not the real God Himself.

Alongside this, did God never show violence too? Did He never grow angry? Did He never pour out His wrath fully upon those vast nations? Yes, and a good thing He did so. This too was again owing to His justice and His love. What if He had stayed completely silent—for this is one of the greatest problems of people who do not believe in God. According to them, if God exists, why does He permit things like all the injustices, hungers, wars, filth, diseases, sudden death and pains, murders, hatred, and so on, throughout the earth? Owing to the answer they cannot find to this question, there are billions of people who have lost their belief in God. Yet God permits so very many things. If, from time to time, as in the examples of Abraham, of Moses, of Job, and many other prophets, God has intervened, has torn those nations up from their place and destroyed them, by such examples He gave—even on a small scale—God strengthened our faith. He showed that He hates all these things. Again, though few in number, good people have lived on the earth. He also showed that He was pleased by the good things they did. These books, which He had committed to writing by means of His prophets, helped us to come to know God. Though very slightly, yet with knowledge more than enough for us and to spare, God introduced Himself to humanity. And this coming to know and introducing is, as I said, infinite. If God permits us to continue our existence forever, let us have no doubt that we too will come to know many of His aspects, old and new.

On this subject, up to now I have not spoken at all of seeing. Even though I have touched, within the events I mentioned, on the existence of our other sense organs, did I speak of seeing?

Abraham’s speaking with God. True, in this example I gave, Abraham is speaking with an angel in human form. That in those verses it is spoken of as God, or the Lord, is because that angel was God’s representative. Just as the state sends its soldier, its police, its minister, or a workplace owner sends the persons they have chosen as representatives, God too has assigned His own angels—and that very often. That is why Abraham, while speaking with that angel he saw before him, was able to state his opinion openly, owing to the comfort and freedom it gave. This is a truth that will at once escape the notice of those reading it for the first time. When read carefully, however, three persons are in question there. (Genesis 18:1-2) Two of these go to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The person spoken of concerning Abraham as “was standing before the Lord” is that third person, the visible angel in human form. (Genesis 18:22 and 19:1) Which angel it was, it is not possible to say for certain. Whether it was Michael, or Gabriel, or another angel, we do not know. If there is anything certain, it is that there was an assigned angel representing God. Otherwise, the person Abraham saw was not the real God. A similar example occurs in the event of Job. In the subject of Job that I mentioned above, in fact Job says to God:

“I had heard of you by hearsay; but now my eye has seen you.” (Job 42:5)

It is certain that by this expression the literal eyes are not meant. Because God speaks with Job from within a windstorm. Not by showing an image or a form. (Job 38:1) For Job to say, at the end of this conversation, “my eyes have seen you” is very apt. About the appearance and form of the real God I will, in later subjects, give room as much as possible. Because to this curiosity within humanity too God has given answers. But in these events I have recounted, those people, in their relationship with God, perceive God by also using their ears, one of the five sense organs. True, even had they been deaf, this time God would have spoken to their minds.

A thing perceived by the eye is perceived by the ear as well. People are said to have five such organs of perception. Eye, ear, tongue, nose, skin. Among these counted, the thing called the spirit is, for some reason, not there. Yet using all these sense organs of ours, we address our spirit. Whether in a good or a bad direction, our spirit is affected by them. Biology touches on this subject not at all, because the ‘spirit’ is not an organ of ours. They have divided living things into two: plants and animals! The subject of the human is treated under the category of animal! That is, we humans, according to the science of biology, are a species of animal. Look—while, in the gift the science of biology gives to animals, there is a sixth sense, to the human even this has not been given. The real truths, however, are that the human spirit is the most valuable, apart from these five sense organs we possess. Our sorrow, our joy, our pleasure, the feelings of comfort or discomfort within us, are not necessarily bound to what we see, what we hear, what we taste, or what we touch and smell. While by means of these our spirit is affected, sometimes, without any effect from these, our spirit is affected. Yet although the world gives importance to the science of the spirit, how it can be said that a human has only five sense organs, believe me, I cannot understand. There is no error in the words—truly, five organs are spoken of—but they never reckon the spirit as a most valuable sense of perception. In my view, this too is owing to people’s foolishness and to the public being very far behind on this subject. The rulers also take great care that the public stays so far behind on these subjects.

All manner of limitless experiments on humans have generally always been done during wars. The information about what we now know as the simplest thing—taking and giving blood, which means life—was for the most part realized in the First World War. Even then they did not know of the existence of blood groups. It was only in the 1920s, with the Austrian scientist Karl Landsteiner’s discovery of the blood groups in humans, that a great advance was recorded on this subject. Until then, blood was given, but by chance. If the man died, may his soul rest; if he lived, the doctors were glad that “we saved him” and, above all, boasted of it. The first blood factor (Rh) began to be noticed only in the 1940s. Even then, that many things about blood were still unknown, and that many mistakes were therefore made, we heard, saw, and lived through in the years that followed.

In Hitler’s Germany, through the experiments they did on Jews and on those who opposed them in the field of medicine, many new, previously unknown pieces of information emerged. Even though they researched this information largely in order to secure success in the war, meanwhile they also proved that, owing to this freedom that fell into the doctors’ hands, most of them did Frankenstein-like experiments. True, though this experimentation is a thing doctors always, ever, apply, in those wars, putting the human in the place of a guinea pig, they were tried out with all manner of things. Those tried out were, according to the Germans, the people of the always-unloved nations, races, groups of that time. That is why I would still never want to fall into the hands of German doctors. I dislike them and do not want them, not because they are German, but because in most of them there is still the same mentality. Even if they do not experiment on you, they will assign the most inexperienced, most brainless doctor to your operation. Because as Turks we are now, in their eyes, the most worthless. Moreover, because pensioners, the unemployed, the elderly, and foreigners are presented to them as a terrible burden, in their hospitals they do all they can to kill them. Doctors and priests are the people the public trusts most. The state, using these people, does and gets its filthiest work done through them. And again, in my knowledge, the Germans are number one on this subject. Indeed, everyone who reads Hitler’s book titled “Mein Kampf” will recognize those people by their fruits too. The whole country over, people of that mentality have been made rulers. I do not know about everyone, but my experiences, the things I saw, the things I heard, were personally always like this. To the one who understands, a lute; to the one who does not, even a drum and shrill pipe are too little. Our very refined and trustworthy family doctor was also German, and when he retired I was very saddened. There were, one in a million, such ones left over from the old days too. Now, however, to an upright doctor who does not stick to and resists that disgusting web they themselves have woven, they do not give even a chance to make a living.

For instance, in that Hitler’s Germany they flay the entire skin of a child of about 6 years. And they watch to see what kind of reaction the body will show. They remove a man’s skullcap as in the film “Hannibal”, and on the living, breathing man, with the brain visible bare and exposed on top, experiments are done for days. And those poor wretches suppose themselves ill and think the doctors are helping them. Again in those days, in the experiments they did to see what would happen to a person under very high pressure, or how much high pressure a person could withstand, blood would come from those people’s mouths and noses, and they slowly, slowly increased the pressure until their lungs were torn to pieces. Those people were generally Jews. All these experiments, and the reports of these findings, the Americans and Russians frantically searched for when they arrived. The technique the Germans used in the war, and the present-day missile technique that did not yet exist in America and Russia, they later realized by developing it from the Germans’ invention. In both the Russians’ and the Americans’ advancing so far in war technique, the information taken from the Germans, who came out of the Second World War defeated, also played a very great role. On the subject of medicine and on the subject of the science of the spirit, the situation is the same. Hitler’s regime was not a regime that lasted a year or two. In this dictatorship that lasted long years, the doctors and the spirit-doctors did and realized experiments they could not have seen even in their dreams, by the order and authority they received from the state.

From the Middle Ages until the middle of the twentieth century, the people called the mentally ill were either burned or beaten and tortured. They inflicted bodily pains on such people for days, for years. They applied many absurd methods. For some reason, humanity, probably because they felt no interest in unseen things, behaved very brainlessly. They preferred being caught up with visible things much more than with unseen things. Well then, did they never speak of unseen things? Would they not! And how! What do you suppose the things spoken of by those religions, those sorcerers, countless throughout the whole world, are? Toward these unseen things, the knowledge of those religions, as generally on the subject of the human spirit itself, remained very ignorant. The truth they either burned, or strove very hard to destroy. The lie, however, they so exalted that, in order to make it accepted, they made people believe in it with all their effort—with their whips, with tortures, with the guillotine, with threats, and with a great many more disgusting and ugly ways than one could imagine. In fact no one really believed in anything; but by these ways those men secured their own comfort, satisfied their perverted feelings, and managed to remain in dominion. As long as their comfort was not disturbed, as long as they had no fear of a danger, what anyone believed in did not, anyway, interest them. Their areas of interest always remained in their own advantage. However much pain they suffered and effort they showed, their aims were always in the cause of preparing a place for their own backsides, making careers, and satisfying their selfish ambitions.

The most famous pioneering name in the science of the spirit is Sigmund Freud. A researcher of the science of the spirit who lived from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century. In the time of the Nazis, because he was a Jew, he fled from Austria, where he lived, and took refuge in England. A year later he died of cancer. But with the theses he put forward, the methods of treatment applied to the mentally ill also began to change. That is, until a very recent time in the world of humanity, we had disgraceful knowledge and practices on this subject. Concerning the spirit, let alone making an effort on others, people did not even want to understand and come to know their own spirits. They strove always to suppress their own spiritual needs, as if to annihilate them. Although we are speaking of an unseen thing, in time the effects of these pressures, this indifference, this hunger toward our spirit began to emerge in a visible form in our bodies, in our works, in our behaviors. In short, however much it is denied, the effect of unseen things began to be seen.

In the psychoanalysis method that Sigmund Freud developed, it was found that talking with the mentally ill and conversing with them gave better results. An effort was made to enter the patient’s inner world, the subconscious. This is also called “listening” therapy. When did Freud become aware of these things, we said? Almost 60 to 80 years ago. Yet had people looked at the method God applied thousands of years ago, had they taken examples from those events, we would not have had to fall so far behind. That event that passed between Abraham and God—had it passed, in the Middle Ages, or indeed in our day, between Abraham and a devout Catholic, who knows what tortures they would have done to Abraham. According to them, in order to drive out of him that evil spirit Abraham possessed, who knows which of his organs they would have riddled with holes. During and after these tortures, could Abraham still have given the fruits of that same spirit? That same person, while living even thousands of years earlier, by having God before him, showed wholly different reactions. He became still more full of love, began to believe still more. His believing—not in the sense of seeing or not seeing; because in Abraham’s relationship with God there was no such problem. What I mean by believing is in the sense of trust, of feeling confidence, not in the sense of seeing. I see many people before me, but there is no rule that I will trust them all. And there is no rule at all that every visible thing is trustworthy. In short, the feeling of trust does not necessarily have a relation to seeing. Had Abraham lived together with the brainless devout of the Middle Ages and of our time, that person, while being sensible, would have encountered, in his togetherness with them, things that would have driven him out of his mind. The same person, however, in the example of his relationship with God, shows features that would leave a name behind for thousands of years. Abraham speaks with God, sensibly or foolishly; but from the one before him he receives logical, calming, upright answers. By being frightened, by threat, by kicks and blows, by torture, by scolding, could Abraham have become God’s friend? Would Abraham have loved a God who was like that?

The Quran speaks of an event not written in the Holy Scriptures. It concerns Abraham’s belief in God, a matter related to the resurrection. In the 260th verse of Surah al-Baqarah this event is written as follows:

Behold, Abraham said: “My Lord, show me how you give life to the dead.” God said: “Do you not believe?” “I have believed, only that my heart may be fully set at ease!” he said. God said: “Take four kinds of birds and make them accustomed to you. Then (cut them up and) mingle them, and place each part upon a mountain. Then call them. They will come flying to you.” Know that God has power over all things and is possessed of wisdom. (Osman Nebioğlu translation, al-Baqarah, 2:260)

As we see in this event, it is clear that Abraham had a problem. He opens this problem directly to God. Following no host of secretive, intrigue-like, cunning ways, he states his problem directly, just as it is. And God directs to him a question: “Do you not believe?” The question is in fact very apt. When this problem arose, that Abraham asked such a question, we do not know. But it is certain that it was before the attempt to sacrifice his son. Even though Abraham had seen, proven, in many matters, that God is believable and trustworthy, on this matter there was evidently something lacking within him. Logically, Abraham had already seen from God far too many reasons to be unable to say, “I have no reasons to believe you.” But Abraham’s logic is one thing; his spirit—that is, the feelings he symbolically calls “my heart”—is wholly another. And this too Abraham does not hide, and says it openly. Well then, how again does God answer him? How does He resolve this problem of his at the root?

“Take four kinds of birds and make them accustomed to you. Then (cut them up and) mingle them, and place each part upon a mountain. Then call them. They will come flying to you.” His saying this—who knows what an event to feel thrilled about it was for Abraham. Can you imagine—the answer to the question asked in fact requires a long time and effort. When I say a long time like that, not so long that centuries pass. But finding fledgling birds, raising them, and making them accustomed to himself. And accustoming them in such a way that when he calls, they come flying toward his voice. These, for the people of that time, were surely not so great a problem. They knew well what kind of relationship they should have with animals. Because they were continually caught up together with them. The important thing is—can you imagine the excitement and the feelings that Abraham’s finding the birds after this event, taking and raising them, and making them accustomed to himself would give? After doing enough tests to be sure that they had grown accustomed to him—and each animal’s growing accustomed to this also takes different amounts of time—and being certain about all of them, the coming too of the day when he would say, “now I can do what God said.” While placing the parts of those birds upon the mountains one by one, separately, who knows in what feelings Abraham was. And the most tremendous thing is those dead, dismembered birds flying, at Abraham’s call, toward him again fully alive, as if nothing had happened. Can you imagine the thrill of such an answer as that person received, in response to the question he asked God out of his doubt?

In the Bible, while speaking of the group of the faithful, look at what it says about Abraham related to this subject:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises, and to whom it had been said, “In Isaac shall your offspring be called,” was offering up his only-begotten son, reckoning that God was able to raise even from the dead; and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back from there. (Gospel—Hebrews 11:17-19)

This means that Abraham’s seeing the proofs that would overcome all the doubts within him also shows that he had personally pleaded, done something, about these. Had Abraham not gone after the doubts within him, had he hidden them within himself, God would not have said to him: “Come, Abraham, do not hide it within, tell me, look, I already see what passes through your heart.” That he had such a problem, God already knew—even before Abraham himself came to recognize that problem. Moreover, God gives great value to our attitudes and behaviors. At the same time, because it is part of a good education He gives, we must be frank with Him. In the book of the Holy Scriptures titled Proverbs of Solomon—or, in the new Turkish translation, the Proverbs of Solomon—look at what it says about this subject:

He who covers his transgressions will not prosper; but whoever confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy. (Proverbs of Solomon 28:13)

Abraham, in his relationship with God, concerned himself with Him so sincerely, leaving no room for any doubt, that he continually occupied himself with questions and answers in his mind. He did not hide such questions within himself as if they were a transgression. In your opinion, how many people live now in this heart-attitude? In my view, it is terribly few. After all this, without asking any question at all, if God said it, Abraham would not spare even his child and could even undertake the madness of sacrificing him. And indeed he did undertake it, and by this God gave a message both to him and to all humanity. Otherwise God, by the laws He gave, did not want and did not accept the killing of humans as a sacrifice. On the contrary, He has looked with hatred, in history, upon the pagan societies that did this.

People who read all this may pass through their minds, “Had God concerned Himself with us as He concerned Himself with Abraham, we too would surely have turned out different.” Yes, truly God’s relationship with Abraham may in appearance seem as if Abraham were being given privilege, being shown favoritism. Still, I say, do not let such things pass through your mind at all. Because, believe me, people who could show that man’s love for God and the obedience and loyalty he showed in this cause are not waiting at every street corner. Of this you can be sure. But this, again, does not mean “we can never be like Abraham” either. Had Abraham been someone impossible, one who cannot be taken as an example, God would not have shown him to us humanity so that we might take a lesson. And is it only Abraham? Many people have come and gone, and from within these many people, that many of them were according to God’s heart, we read from the words He had committed to writing by means of His prophets. That these writings were not written in vain, that they have preserved their existence for centuries so as to be an example to us humanity, is God’s will. In the Corinthians portion of the Bible it is written about this subject as follows:

These things kept happening as examples, and were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. (1 Corinthians 10:11)

This means, if all these writings were written so as to be an example and admonition to humanity, must not the examples given be applicable? If the writings were full of examples impossible for us humans, too hard to be done, what benefit would they be to us? If I can never do that thing, if it is never possible for me to show that faith, that love, that loyalty, that refinement, we would have to say, “these books too were written in vain, and God does not know what He wants.” Look at how, just two verses after the verse I wrote just now, God makes a promise to people:

No trial has taken hold of you but that which is human; but God is faithful, and will not permit you to be tried beyond your capacity (your power); but with the trial He will also make the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Do these verses say that doing the things expected of us is impossible, or the very opposite?

If we read only the Holy Scriptures, an impression can be drawn that the first place Abraham lived was the city of Ur, and that from there they left, as though by his father’s (Terah’s) wish, and went to Haran. Because there it is written openly as follows:

Terah took Abram (Abraham) his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, together; and he went out with them from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to the land of Canaan; and they came to Haran and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran. (Genesis 11:31-32)

When we read the verses after this event, an impression can also be drawn as if, without anything happening, out of the blue, God tells Abraham to leave there; of course, if we read only the Holy Scriptures. The Quran touches on the background of these subjects too. While they were living in the city of Ur, that city now begins to become dangerous and hazardous for them. And the cause of all this happening is Abraham’s opposing the idols that the people in that city worshiped. The interesting side of the business is that Abraham’s father too was, according to that nation’s customs, one who worshiped idols. That is, Abraham’s father in no way approved of his faith in God and his behaviors along these lines. In the Holy Scriptures we begin to come to know Abraham after his old age. Yet while these matters were unfolding, Abraham was a young lad. Although the Quran speaks of Abraham many times, I want to draw attention to the side of this subject not written in the Holy Scriptures. This subject, written in Surah al-Anbiya—that is, the 21st surah—begins in the 51st verse. Upon Abraham’s smashing to pieces the idols that were the belief of that society, the people rose up and set about burning Abraham in fire. More precisely, they burn him. (al-Anbiya, 21:68-69; al-Ankabut, 29:24; as-Saffat, 37:83-98) God, however, renders the fire ineffective upon him. After these events, the lives of Abraham and of some of his relatives who took his side there must have come into danger, so that their father too, even though he did not want to, was compelled to go out with them from that place and go to the city of Haran. That his father continually vexed Abraham in this matter, we can surmise both sufficiently from the Quran and, though slightly, from the Holy Scriptures. (Joshua 24:2)

When you open and read all these events from their place, and put yourself into those events, you will also see that Abraham had not yet spoken even a single word with God, indeed knew almost nothing about God. In his youth Abraham, using only his logic, held the argument that hand-made wooden idols could not be a creator and God with the people in that city where he lived.

Every person has the ability to think. And every person uses this ability in different directions. The human is not a stupid, base, worthless creature. Surely, alongside many effects, mastering our thoughts and choosing the subjects with which we will occupy them is likewise in our own hands. Let us not, however, expect a person who has not been trained in this and has not disciplined themselves to master their thoughts, their mind, immediately. What is more, a person who could wholly keep their thoughts and mind under control as they are does not live upon the earth—because we are sinners—and this too is a separate reality. In spite of all this, the things that occupied Abraham’s mind were generally investigating the existence of God. And to do this, no one compelled him. On the contrary, they compelled him not to do it, and, going further, they burned him. Only by God’s miracle could Abraham be saved from that fire. Which of us, over a God we do not even know exactly, but whose fellows’ brainlessness we notice, would oppose them, defend a God we do not know, and put our lives in danger? People are scared out of their wits to oppose the rules that societies lay down. And upon people who do not apply those rules, they bring all the pressure they can. The most civilized countries, that speak of freedom, democracy, human rights, cannot tolerate even a person’s headscarf. I neither defend the headscarf nor am against it. If, in response to a Jehovah’s Witness knocking on everyone’s door and saying “your religion is wrong and mine is right,” those states can say “we must accept this organization as a religion,” if they give them this freedom—and is it only to them? If the monks and nuns of the Catholic and Protestant religions, whose past is full of shame and disgraces, are shown tolerance or sympathy in their special garments, why should the religion of the one who wears a headscarf not be seen? Neither is the past of that headscarf-wearing religion cleaner than theirs, nor is it dirtier. Do they not see their own religion within as a danger, while the dangerous ones are that headscarf-wearing religion? Yet their own religions, in history and now, have crushed people for thousands of years, sucked their blood. Or do they know this truth and say, “ours are already enough for us; are we now to bring in new ones from outside among us too”! When freedom is used in a partial way, its name is not freedom. If you are going to give it, either you will give it to everyone or you will give it to no one. But the moment you begin to say your religion is wrong and mine is right, this will be proper neither from the standpoint of justice nor from the standpoint of law, which you make ridiculous. If you are giving it to another, you are obliged to give it to them too. True, to speak of justice and freedom in our world is like a fairy tale. And I, for now, have no intention of writing a fairy-tale book.

The Christians do not believe this event about Abraham that I took above from the Quran. Because it does not occur in their book, and for that reason they find this subject very absurd. Would God save a person from fire? “What nonsense,” they scoff. Yet the three young men in the book of Daniel in their hands, upon their saying “we will not worship the statue you have set up,” being thrown into the furnace by the king in the role of world ruler of that time, and nothing happening to those three people in the furnace, God having sent His angel and saved them from the fire—this they accept just as it is. (Daniel, chapter 3) In their churches, in their congregations, they have given much encouragement and delivered sermons on the subject of faith about this event. While the God who does this seems quite normal when it occurs in the Holy Scriptures, when it is written in the Quran, that God, in their eyes, has done a terrible absurdity! And most important of all: how can it be that such an important event concerning Abraham is not written in their book, but is written in this Quran! For reasons like these, the Quran has been driven into the head of Christianity as “a book full of absurdities.” And these are the reasons for the absurdities!

Up to now I had spoken of our organs of sight. From time to time I had said that we can fall into great error even with the things we see right before our eyes. Let us come to the subject of hearing—I wonder, how are we on this subject? From the example I gave just now, does it not appear clearly how brainless we are? We hear the same things, and we believe or do not believe. Even though there is no proof at all that ought to require us to believe or not believe, we do this merely by looking at labels. Who says what under which label—these are the things we humanity give the most importance to. The nations in Abraham’s time gave importance to these too. Abraham, however, was not one to sell himself as they did. Abraham was one ready to walk the road he believed in, even if alone. He never said, about his nation, “dear me, let not the unity be broken, let us preserve our customs, come what may let us integrate ourselves into the order of society,” or the like. That is why they set about burning him. For some reason, this business of burning people is seen most, in history, in Christian societies. The others too did all manner of things, but this business of burning people alive, like the pagan societies of Abraham’s time, this Christianity also very much loved. And now, with the integration model, the Germans stand before us burning Turks. Since the German chancellor, Mrs. Merkel, is also the daughter of a church pastor, we say that, according to the education she received, it is normal too! The Ottomans, upon Çelebi flying (1623-1640), said “how dare you fly, this thing you have done is the devil’s work,” but they did not burn him. They cut off his head! Which is more merciful I do not know, but probably the Ottoman’s firewood was, in my view, more valuable! They did not use their firewood to burn a person. They did not busy themselves in vain with brushwood and firewood and the like! Even though from childhood we learned that Çelebi’s head was struck off, in our time, in place of this truth, they have also altered history, saying “Çelebi was sent into exile to Algeria”! I hope it truly was so. Well then, why did such a man, when he went to Algeria, give up flying? Or did he merely strive to prove that one flew only from the Galata Tower? People, lest a stain come to them, are in an effort to alter not only histories but everything.

Who will read these lines, I do not know. The people of which society, those of which religion will read them, again I do not know; but I believe that every reader will grow angry. Either they will take sides and grow angry at me, or, if they can look at the events impartially, they will grant me the right in what I have written and grow angry at those people. That is, in either alternative their mind will be upset. I hope humanity does this by looking from an impartial angle.

Again, after all this, if you have been able to make even a little picture of Abraham in your minds, how happy I am. Can you still say: “God took his side but does not look us in the face”? For Him to do such a thing, God has neither any reason, nor do we have any valid right to make such a claim. Abraham was tested so very much. Do not think, either, that this was necessarily by God. Every person living in this world is being tested. God’s testing of Abraham occurs only in one event. And that is on the subject of sacrificing his son. Otherwise I have read nowhere that God tested Abraham. Not only Abraham—I have read that He tested no one with bad and wrong things. About this subject, the apostle James writes in the Bible as follows:

When one is tempted, let no one say: “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted with evil things, nor does He Himself tempt anyone; but each one is tempted by being drawn away and enticed by his own desire. Then the desire, having conceived, gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished (has ripened), it produces (brings forth) death. James 1:13-15

As we also see clearly from these verses, the things we are tested with are always being defeated by our own desires. Even in these weak sides of ours, the spirit creature called Satan does not take us by the arm and make us do that thing by force. He only places before us desirable things that we will catch on and fall over, and we covet them. Sometimes he places before us things like money, or some other advantage, pleasure, ambition, pride, while sometimes this can even be our very life. “Would a person not covet their own life?” you will say. Because He knew this, Jesus Christ also once said as follows:

He who finds his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:39)

These verses encourage us to righteousness, to a limitless self-sacrifice for knowing and doing the things that are God’s will. Using these verses, religious organizations have generally compelled people to make sacrifices not for God but for themselves. Whether by force of conscience, or, if need be, by force of the body. For this reason, as in the example of Abraham, let us not do whatever we do out of fear of society, saying they taught it so, leaning on the pressure of our religion, of our nation. Abraham, even if alone, was not afraid of being thrown even into the fire because of the things he did; he gave up his life, but just then he found it. The verse above does not necessarily mean that such miracles will happen. It emphasizes that, rather than our physical death, our real, true life is in God’s hands. Even if we die, to raise us again is possible only by God’s will. And those in our world who shout “homeland, nation,” when they open war unjustly on the people of another country for their own welfare, how do you suppose they hearten those soldiers? Merely heartening the soldiers they send to death as heroes of the homeland is enough, and they die too. Well then, do those who hearten those people with these things also have the power to raise the dead? Surely not, and everyone knows this too. I want to draw attention to how quickly we go to death for empty and even harmful things, and how we are deceived with easy things. Every war is at the outset made to seem just to its own nation. When years, centuries pass, the people, the presidents, the prime ministers, the parliaments of that same nation characterize them as absurdity and disgrace. Well then, what has now become of those who died then? They went so as to become heroes, they died, and time passed, and humanity began to look upon their display of heroism in history with pain, as foolishness. And truly it was so. And do not expect the development of these thoughts to take place centuries later either. One administration goes and another ruler, opposed to that administration, comes in its place, and begins to bring the dirty laundry of the previous one out before the public. And we too begin then to say: “Ah! Alas!”—but by then it is already far too late. That is why:

Thus says the Lord: Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh (the human) his arm (strength), and whose heart turns away from the Lord. Jeremiah 17:5

I, I am the one who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of a man who will die, and of a son of man who will be made like grass?… (Isaiah 51:12)—these are not words said in vain.

These verses were not written in the sense that we should become rebellious and rise up against every order. They were said so that we would not sell the superior values, the values that lead to life. Opposing one administration and starting a war so that another administration—of a different color but that will again be the same—may come to power is not one of the vital values. Or robbing and warring on other countries for the welfare of one’s country is likewise not saving the homeland and not vital. On the contrary, in this cause we lose our lives, and that for nothing. To kill and to die for money is an even greater brainlessness. Or if our religion, the traditions and customs of our patriotism, are wrong, following them knowingly will likewise lead us not to life but to death. God especially commands not to be afraid of saying “no” to these. And truly, why do we live? Only for eating, drinking, sex? Animals do this too. Well then, what is our difference from them? Truly everyone must ask themselves this question. By selling everything that is right, and defending, for whatever reason, the wrong and hypocrisy, what can we obtain? What kind of name will we leave behind us? These have no importance at all for some people. If we set out from the accustomed way of thinking, they have no importance for me either. But I also know that the eternal, enduring names are given not by people but by God. In this sense I said, what kind of name will we leave behind us. Otherwise I did not mean merely the names that occur in history books, that are taught to us.

The thing we value most

Unfortunately, I keep pointing out that for humanity the most precious thing to be seen upon the earth is money. It is the most precious thing people cannot do without. And nearly all the other things they value are likewise things connected to money. For example, even the value judgments of someone who passes himself off as an artist rise or fall only according to the market price of those paintings, canvases, and books. The most precious measure in their minds is always money. To call something good or bad, they use this measure. Do not be surprised if a painting an artist made while he was still alive was not even worth the price of a plate of food in a restaurant, yet a hundred years later that same painting sells for 80 million American dollars. And do not think, either, that the person who buys that painting understands painting, or that he loves that painting. It is simply a picture that, to an ignorant man like me, is no more than any portrait. In my view, the pictures that so many street-and-alley artists of our time make on the pavements are more beautiful. Meanwhile, everything from tax intrigues to every kind of vulgarity can be found within this so-called love of art of our age. Or the sale of the new Pope's old car for 40 times its actual value likewise does not stem from love for that car or for the Pope. With these things they buy with money, people see themselves as being within a special, privileged personality. Otherwise, neither is the backside of the Pope who has sat on the car seat holy, nor was it holy before. What makes it valuable now is nothing but the label.

Yes, after money, another thing that appears in people's eyes to be valuable, and in some cases even more valuable than money, is the label. I am speaking of the things we humans value most. That is why some choose either money or the label. And the greatest cause of that disgusting, every kind of ugliness people show one another so mercilessly in order to make a career is precisely possessing this label. Having people bow before you, having a crowd of people work at your command, the right to do whatever you want to whomever you want when you want, climbing on this person's or that person's back to make them do your dirty work, having a swarm of flatterers surround you, and so on—these give them terrific pleasure. Whether it is money or the label one possesses, people's expectations from both of these things are basically always the same. Alongside this, have there been no exceptions here and there? Of course there have. Whether artist, or soldier, or minister, or prime minister, whether rich and wealthy or poor, among these people there have also emerged idealists who value neither the label nor the wealth they possess. Because of the emergence of such exceptions, even if very few, the time of the influences that will destroy our world has been extended a little longer. To draw a comparison, it is like the people of a house living in filth being struck down by contagious diseases, while someone from the outside comes and, rolling up his sleeves, helps those people and that environment. In reality, both the filth and the invitation extended to those deadly diseases come from the people of the house. Just when they are about to perish, all of them getting back on their feet in a short time with someone's help, and then trying to drag a new, clean environment back into that same filth, of course only extends that perishing for a while longer. However much they are helped, as long as those minds and spirits do not change, the help will not have much meaning either. Only the time may perhaps be extended, that is all. Yet alongside this truth, whatever happens, the human being's duty is also to help, not to set himself in the place of God and rule. I did not give this example for the sake of individual persons one by one. I took the example I gave by looking at our world and drawing inspiration from history books. That filthy house is the world, and the people writhing on the brink of death from a contagious disease are us. It is a bitter truth, but not doing what is good is no reason to give up either.

You can read the finest examples related to this in the history of the Holy Scriptures. While people, with those stubborn heads of theirs, held valueless things valuable and trampled valuable things underfoot, God extended His hand. Whether by giving punishment or by sending saviors, He rescued them from that filth, from their vomit. And the crookedness within them was cleaned, and they said, “Ah!” Guess how long this situation lasted. Sometimes it did not even last 40 days, while at most it went on until a new generation arose. (Exodus 32; Deuteronomy 9, and the entire book of Judges) Generally it did not even last 20 years. And the One who set these things right at their root was not any human being, but God. And you yourselves consider how God sets a thing right at its root. In no time at all—no time whatsoever—those people put up an almost terrifying struggle in order to fall into a state worse than the old one. Indeed, it was not at all difficult for them to establish the very same filthy environment they were looking for.

The things that cause all this are people's value judgments. Somehow, we not only trampled valuable things underfoot, but we could not even bear to hear those values. And those who spoke them we pushed out of society, and killed in prisons or with tortures. And all of this, too, is in order to return to rolling in our vomit. From time to time we have even had the audacity to say to God Himself, “You keep out of our affairs, leave us in peace.” As for those who claim to walk in His ways and who appoint themselves as God's representatives on the earth, they appear correct from a distance, and lying down and rising up they have always thought about how they might make the people swallow every kind of crookedness. All this acrobatics they have developed in themselves has now become their art. They have kept plotting in their minds how to answer where and how, so that with the answer they give they neither tell the truth nor—unless it is absolutely necessary—even tell a lie, and yet still deceive those people. The aim is always to deceive, to climb on backs, to crush, but they keep struggling over how they will do this and fit it to a plausible pretext. If it is a religion with broad eaves, they have not even stooped to such methods. Whatever they were going to do, they did it without embarrassing themselves at all, without shame.

Alongside all these visible things, somehow we have not much wanted to consider that the real, invisible values are far more necessary to us humans and bring us happiness. When I list, as best I can recall, these values, I believe they are always the invisible ones, and that, though they are invisible, they are more valuable than the visible things—and as you read, you too will become aware of it. Come, let us do this by comparing it once more with the things that can be obtained with money:

—With money you can buy many valuable gifts, but not love,

—With money you can buy the finest medicines, but not health,

—With money you can buy whatever foods you want, but not appetite,

—With money you can buy sex, but not pleasure,

—With money you can buy a human being, but not a friend,

—With money you can perhaps buy the world, but not happiness.

—With money you can buy the doctors and the hospitals, but not life.

Surely many more such comparisons could be counted. For now this is as much as came to my mind. I first heard a talk related to this subject at a congress with religious content, and I liked it very much. To be sure, even though they themselves gave venomous talks on this subject, they did not want their members to value money—so that the resources would flow to that religion's governing body. In fact, in this pursuit they themselves were, in my opinion, weaker than everyone else. That is, let us not be surprised again if those who utter such pompous words are themselves even more ambitious and greedy about this matter. But when we consider the meaning of the words above, one would have to be blind not to see how limited the power of money is. Those who want to obtain it with all their might surely either do not know these truths or do not want to know them. Setting aside the value of money in the words above, and combining all the things necessary for the human being, we could also form a sentence like this:

A meaning emerges like “an eternal life spent in health, pleasure, and happiness together with loving friends”—and who would not want that? Did you notice that the things mentioned in this single sentence are not obtained with visible values? Their effects will certainly be seen with the eye. But the things that provide those effects will not necessarily be money.

I am dwelling on values that cannot be touched by the hand or seen by the eye; well, am I advocating being blind to these things? In fact my real aim is to point out that we have two kinds of ability to see. The first is what we see and perceive with our literal eyes, the second is what we see and perceive with our spiritual eyes. Many people do not accept a seeing other than these literal eyes, and do not want to. And if you try to enter the spiritual world, you will immediately notice what the tens of thousands of religions on our earth are good for. We say, “God is one,” but then what are these tens of thousands of all sorts of organizations? They are, supposedly, religions, sects, organizations, and bodies trying to open these spiritual eyes of ours. I, on the contrary, say that they are skilled acrobats trying to close these spiritual eyes of ours, or by distorting what ought to be seen, to show us wrong things. Just as the circus acrobats and magicians I mentioned earlier have the skill of deceiving people's literal eyes and making something appear different from what it is, so too, when we look at these religions, we are not surprised that humanity's spiritual eyes have gone blind, or seeing cross-eyed and topsy-turvy, have gone astray. It is certain that the greatest influence is thanks to our spiritual teachers. All right, however many bad apprentices, lazy learners, and brainless students there may be, but if all the students fall into this category, then is it not actually more logical to be suspicious of the teachers too? The worse a student's teacher is, the more corrupt the education he receives will be.

Anyway, let us say that, setting religions aside, we return once more to our two kinds of ability to see. The ability of us humans to see with our literal eyes is actually quite limited. For example, with the naked eye it becomes impossible for us to see underwater. And our ability to see in the dark can even be zero, depending on the intensity of the darkness. Again, with the naked eye we can definitely not make out things like a bacterium or a microbe. Because of scientists who refuse to believe in anything but what their eyes see, many people have died. They had difficulty believing that creatures invisible to our eyes could also exist. It is a good thing they invented microscopes and such, and saved the situation. But some, even though they did not see with their eyes, became aware that such beings exist by using their reason. Because they saw the effects of these things. The thick-headed ones, however, accepted this situation only with great difficulty, or could never accept it at all. Again, a human being can see nothing inside fire with the naked eye. Only if he enters the fire in special clothing, on condition that a certain degree is not exceeded. In conditions like smoke and fog, too, our eyes fail. When we look at the sun with the naked eye, it is only a matter of seconds until we go blind. Who would think that the sun, which warms us over our heads every day, has the effect of blinding us in a very short time? Sunglasses are very necessary for our eyes in these situations. There are so many kinds of them that some people have given up on the sun and on eye health, and it is possible to come across those who wear them even at night, purely for decoration. Others, for fear of appearing to show off, are embarrassed to wear them, and so in the scorching, bright sun they squint and squint, unable even to lift their heads from the ground. Like people who never use an umbrella in the rain.

It is also impossible for us to see the literal inner structure of something. Only with certain technical aids like X-rays, tomographies (cross-section scanners), and rays can we see those things. Again, with our eyes we cannot make out an unlimited distance in detail. Moreover, alongside all this, if we bring many eye diseases into the matter, the limits of our organ of sight grow even narrower.

Seeing with our spiritual eyes, too, is limited just like seeing with these literal eyes. When we say “spiritual,” do not suppose that the world of our imagination, which immediately comes to mind, is unlimited. The education we have received, our knowledge, our reason, our belief, our common sense, and so on, will greatly influence these spiritual eyes of ours. And we have a brain that is limited. Since the things we perceive, whether with our literal eyes or with our spiritual eyes, occur first in the brain, we must accept that there is a limit there too. We see or we hear, but in reality we see with our brain and hear with our brain. Our organs, like eyes and ears, would be of no use at all if it were not for our brain.

For example, think of a fully functional wired microphone; as long as its cable is not connected anywhere, it cannot hear or perceive sounds by itself. Or let us think of a lens. If the lens is not attached to a camera, it will not perceive images. Both the lens and the microphone have their properties, but by themselves they are of no use. Our eyes, our ears, hands, feet, and our whole body, too, are of no use at all if it is not for our brain. In fact, we are said to use only about 6 to 10 percent of our brain, which has a very complex structure and many functions. This ratio is for ordinary, normal people. Even the ratio of the very, very intelligent ones, those who have spent their lives filling their brains with knowledge, has not even reached 20 percent. This means we do not use a large part of our brain. And we read that when we use all of it, that tiny human brain has abilities great enough to stop the memory in its tracks. And our brain is not merely a storehouse of knowledge. Our hands, our muscles, our fingers, and the things done rapidly using them, our skills and so on, are all possible thanks to our brain, by the commands it sends. That these things are so rapid and seemingly automatic is possible through the education and exercises given to the brain. Only after the brain has learned do we advance in those tasks with our skills. Whichever organ we use most, that part of our brain works more and, over time, develops even more. For example, since the sense of smell of the rabbit and the dog is much more developed compared to the human's, the place in the human brain that perceives this is much smaller compared to the dog's and the rabbit's. Alongside this, since the human being is far superior to the dog and the rabbit in thought and intelligence, the convolutions in the brain are more pronounced and more intricately indented compared to these animals. While the rabbit's brain resembles an almost perfectly smooth kidney, the human brain is full of indentations and protrusions like a walnut. Meaning, the flatter the brain, the fewer abilities it shows. The interesting part of the matter is that our brain also influences our spirit at the same time. Indeed, it was from this angle that I touched on the subject of the brain. Otherwise my knowledge about the brain is almost nonexistent. According to many people, this is evident even from the books and writings I have written!

Yes, people once made a connection by joining the spirit with the literal heart. As though they believed that all the knowledge in our spirit, and every kind of emotion such as belief, love, hate, and jealousy, come from the heart. In fact, by the heart mentioned in the Holy Writings, what is meant is our spiritual attitude and conduct, using our literal organ. Setting out from this thought, people must have seen our heart as the source of the emotions that come from our spirit, from within us. Whereas our heart only draws in and pumps the blood in our body. That is, to draw a comparison, it has the function of a suction-and-pressure pump. At the same time it works apart from our will. As I said, our brain, which is very complex, always has a perceiving structure, and it also sends commands to the body. On what basis it sends these commands, why we behave this way or that, why we think in this manner or that, why with all these we become happy or unhappy—is trying to understand the reasons for such a host of influences what is called psychology? Perhaps it could simply be described this way too. I already pointed out that we as humanity possess very little knowledge on this subject. Even if there are libraries full of knowledge on this subject, most of it is either supposition or, as I said, written and researched in this direction with the aim of making war, the aim of torture, the aim of coercing people, the aim of turning them into remote-controlled robots. This knowledge is almost always in a direction harmful to humanity. Perhaps very, very little of it is aimed at making a person happy. And even that a person can perhaps obtain only with money he pays out of his own pocket. Psychiatry has become one of the professions some choose with pleasure, in order to seek remedies for the ever-increasing problems of rich, wealthy people, and to live off their money. And the happiness they recommend to their patients has, after a time, either brought upon the person a far more terrible depression, or even driven that person to suicide. If he is a very careful doctor, he has only tried to relieve the patient, but the doctors themselves have not found any absolute solution to give to their patients. Despite there being very few exceptions, we must also acknowledge the existence of successful psychiatrists who do their work with love. And the most important thing is that the patient himself possesses the effort to get better.

I write these subjects without knowledge, so I do not want to be a know-it-all. My knowledge is only as much as an ordinary person's research. I wrote these things to draw your attention to the fact that humanity is in a disgraceful state. This too must not be forgotten: the world of humanity has already pushed away very valuable knowledge, findings, and research with the back of its hand, and has always clung to whatever things are harmful to the human being, and has even given Nobel prizes to such people. But of course we humanity have not always worked on empty, harmful things. However, the good ones, that knowledge and those inventions that would be beneficial to humanity, we have corrupted and used to the harm of humanity, to achieve success in wars. And those who do this have generally always won, while the good have lost. This is the thought that lies in the main idea of the knowledge I want to convey. However much I am being a know-it-all on these subjects, they have a very close relationship with the subjects I want to convey, and that is why I do this. Otherwise, taking up each and every subject in my whole book, I am neither an eye doctor nor an ear, skin, X-ray, nor computer expert. And a doctor of the soul, a psychiatrist, I am not at all. I am only an ordinary observer, and I write what I have seen, what I have lived, what I have read, what I have heard, what I have perceived, and what I have felt.

Have you ever talked to yourself? Surely, and this talking to oneself is something everyone does. Of course this too varies according to the degree of loneliness. People who live alone are more intimately involved with themselves. There are even people who quarrel with themselves. These people are not mentally ill or anything. You too have surely quarreled with yourselves, more or less. For example, you have done such a thing that in the end you regretted greatly. “Why did I do it that way and not this way,” you gnaw at yourself now. Advertising firms are far better at encouraging people to do this.

In Germany, a radio channel, in order to increase the number of its listeners and thereby draw more advertising to itself, makes this request of the public: “Whoever, when the phone rings, answers and says 'hello' while saying the exact name of that radio channel will win 50 thousand euros.” For the work to be done, a terrific sum. Supposedly, by chance, someone's phone number is dialed each hour and broadcast on the radio. Although I never believed this business was done honestly, there was one thing I knew. If the person who answered this phone replied in a normal way by introducing himself, or by merely saying “hello,” well, he was done for! The announcer then goes on describing, savoring every detail, to that person and to everyone on the receiver, how he missed out on the 50 thousand euros. For the person on the other end, that day, and perhaps his whole life from then on, will now be poisoned. In his life after this he will surely wake up from time to time seeing nightmares. In his dreams, phone in hand, he will either say the fifty-thousand-euro words over and over, or he will live out in his sleep the pain of not being able to say them. Whereas it is no great trick at all for such a huge swindle to be involved in the matter. The announcer dials a phone number, and if the person on the other end gave the fifty-thousand-euro answer, he hangs up again without saying anything. The person on the other end never understands this. He supposes it may have been a wrong number, or he does not even think deeply about it, saying the connection just dropped. Because the announcer is not speaking at all; he is only waiting to see what the other person will say. He is not going to give away fifty thousand euros every hour, and when he does give it, he gives it beforehand, knowingly, to whomever he wants. He immediately broadcasts, within a few seconds, this conversation that he recorded on tape. And everyone supposes it is live. With the technology we possess, everything is possible. In fact, what I want to convey with this example was to emphasize how a person blames himself after making a mistake, and even how he will quarrel with himself. As I say, even the way we advertise is of a kind to make people mentally ill—but that is a separate subject. This was a simple example among them.

We surely also make mistakes of the kind that will befall everyone. For example, through our foolish behavior or a word we wound someone we love very much, and our relationship suddenly breaks off. In an instant we are left all alone in the middle of it. Or we do such a thing that our conscience troubles us. There are even translations in the Holy Scriptures, in a passage concerning King David, that read “his conscience beat him,” which was indeed the meaning in the original writings. In the Turkish translations we have it is written as “his heart smote him” or “he blamed himself.” (1 Samuel 24:5; 2 Samuel 24:10) When we talk with ourselves, it does not always have to be such a quarrel or fight. We have even had conversations with ourselves for hours. As long as the circumstances and conditions are favorable. This is a feature that exists in capable people. We can speak a thing as though reading it within ourselves. No sound is heard, but only we hear it, understand it, perceive it, take pleasure in it or feel anger, and so on. In fact, what interesting features we possess as human beings. It is one more of our features that, because we have done it since we were born, we are quite unaware of, or whose value we do not know at all. This too is among the values that cannot be touched by the hand or seen by the eye.

From time to time God has also spoken with people like this. And those people immediately understood that this voice was not from themselves. As though hearing something through headphones. No one hears it, but inside your brain it is as though someone is speaking. And very clearly, too, but this voice is not yours. To draw a comparison, this is like how God spoke with people. What was said, no one but that person heard. For this reason they killed many prophets, threw them into prisons, and tortured them. Others they labeled as madmen. Generally these people were looked upon in that light because they spoke God's words. But the reality is that those societies, alongside their own value judgments, low moral standards, and understanding, called those prophets mad, or looked with a bad eye upon what they did and said, because of their own ugly, filthy, and disgusting deeds. Humanity could not tolerate them, because the prophets came with words that would condemn their deeds. Nor did God always whisper into the ears of such prophets. On one occasion He spoke openly with more than about 6 million people. This event happened all at once at the foot of Mount Sinai, after the Israelites were rescued from Egypt, from slavery, by means of Moses. The laws known as the Ten Commandments, all these people heard with their ears, but they saw no one. (Exodus 3:1-2 and 12 of the Holy Scriptures; the whole of chapter 19 of Exodus and up to verse 19 of chapter 20)

Here too, no one saw anyone called God, but they all heard His words. And after this hearing, such fear seized them all that they came and said to Moses:

“Speak with us yourself, and we will listen; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” (Exodus 20:19)

This means that when these people heard God's words, they were terrified, and they were frightened enough to die. And God wanted it to be so, that they might learn to fear Him, to revere Him, to obey Him. At one point I had said, 'God wants people to come to Him not through fear but through love.' Do not suppose that God gave them this fear I speak of forever. And again, do not suppose this fear was of the kind of the usual establishing of dominion, gaining of advantage, or dictatorship. For we fear most things, but these things mean protection for us, and at the same time they mean life. Fearing heights, fearing speed, fearing fire, and naturally fearing many other things, are protective for us. These are emotions that require us to be careful. God's terrifying speaking with those people we may even describe as a protection that carries them to life, and even for this reason a gift. On the other hand, do not think that God forcibly riveted these emotions into them. Anyone, if he wished, could either embrace this fear and keep it within him, or distance it from himself. Indeed, a very short time after this event that inspired such great awe, those people made a golden calf and worshipped it. And do you know how long a time afterward? It does not even take forty days for them to make that calf, worship it, and even offer sacrifices to it. (Exodus 20:20-21; Exodus 24:18; the whole of chapter 32 of Exodus)

If a person with whom God speaks is called a prophet, then in a sense God gave this rank to all of those people. And their showing that they were not worthy of it takes a very, very short time. And these people did not merely hear a word. Until they came to Mount Sinai, whether in Egypt or after being brought out of Egypt, the human of no generation, since the earth was founded and the human was created, has seen at one time the miracles and wonders they saw with their eyes. (Deuteronomy 34:10-12)

Those miraculous events addressed the eye, the ear, the skin, the nose, and the tongue; that is, they addressed all five sense organs of the human beings, and they also addressed their invisible spirits. If you read the signs and wonders that God performed in Egypt by means of Moses—which is not that long, in about 15 pages you will see that all this was so. From the very beginning of the Exodus section of the Holy Scriptures up to chapter 16. Against Pharaoh, the king of Egypt who did not want to release Israel from slavery, and against his country, God's turning all the waters into blood and the whole country reeking of blood, the frogs overrunning the country entering even into the kneading troughs, fiery hail raining from the sky, three days and three nights of thick darkness, gnats, disgusting boils and sores breaking out on people's skin… The last plague, too, is God's striking of all the firstborn living in Egypt. While all these events were happening, people saw them, heard them, smelled them, tasted them, with all their emotions, feelings, and selves. In spite of this, did they magnify God as God as they ought to have? When we read, we say “unfortunately no.” This means that, let alone merely seeing, in spite of those events lived through with all their effects, these people did not change, and did not abandon their evil deeds. I am not saying they did not believe in God, because that was not possible. Humanity has used “not believing” only as an excuse in order to cling to its evil deeds. That generation could not even have such an excuse, but for the generations after it, this excuse of “I do not believe” was raised from time to time. In spite of all these wonders, in the later generations, even to the foolishness of such doubting people God again acted with mercy and proved His own existence to those people. (1 Kings 18:21-40)

With a king and queen abandoning the true God and turning to idols, it was not at all difficult for almost all the people to be with them as well. The people of Israel I mentioned a moment ago—despite the closeness and proofs God had shown them, their grandchildren, or the children of their grandchildren, forgot all of this in an instant. A day came when God, by means of the prophet Elijah (Elias), proved His own existence again before all that people who had turned to idols, in a way so beautiful and logical that, come, let us read it from its own place.

Elijah went forward toward the people and said, “How long will you keep limping between two sides like this? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal is God, go after him.” The people did not answer Elijah a word. Elijah went on with his speech thus: “I alone am left as a prophet of the LORD. But Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Bring us two bulls. Let the prophets of Baal take one of them, kill it, cut it in pieces, and lay it on the wood; but let them not set fire to the wood. And I will kill and prepare the other bull, and lay it on the wood; but I will not set fire to the wood. Then you call on your god, and I will call on the LORD. Whichever answers by fire, He is God.” All the people said, “Very well, so be it.”

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Since you are the multitude, you choose and prepare one of the bulls first, and call on your god,” he said, “But do not light a fire.” The prophets of Baal, taking the bull given to them and preparing it, kept calling from morning until noon, “O Baal, answer us.” But there was no voice, and no answer. They leaped about and danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah began to mock them: “Cry out, cry out with a loud voice! He is a god. Perhaps he is distracted, or he is in the privy, perhaps he is on a journey! Or he is asleep and must be awakened!” So they cried out with a loud voice. According to their custom, they cut their bodies with swords and spears until their blood flowed. From noon until the time of the evening offering they writhed. But still there was no voice, no attention, and no answer. Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” Everyone gathered around him. Elijah began to repair the torn-down altar of the LORD. He took twelve stones. This number was equal to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the LORD had declared, “Your name shall be Israel.” With these stones Elijah made an altar in the name of the LORD. Around it he dug a trench large enough to hold two measures (26 liters; about 30 kg) of seed. He arranged the wood upon the altar, cut the bull into pieces, and placed it on the wood. “Fill four pitchers with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood,” he said. Then he said, “Do it again.” They did it again. “Do it a third time,” he said. They did the same thing a third time. Then the water that ran around the altar filled the trench. At the time of the evening offering, the Prophet Elijah approached the altar and prayed thus: “O LORD, God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel! Let it be known today that You are the God of Israel, and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things by Your commands. O LORD, answer me! Answer me, that this people may know that You are God. Bring about their turning back to You again.” At that moment the fire of the LORD fell from the sky. The fire that fell consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, and the earth, and dried up the water in the trench. When the people saw what had happened, they fell face down on the ground. “The LORD (Jehovah) is God, the LORD (Jehovah) is God!” they said. 1 Kings 18:21-39

The greatest reason for the people being so doubtful about God was the queen at their head and the king directed by her. Because of their kings and queens, the Israelites committed very great crimes throughout history. By this I do not mean to say that they were innocent; surely they too were guilty, but the fear of going beyond the king's command pushed them one degree further into crime. Because when a good king came at the head of these people they became good, and when a bad king came, almost all of them turned bad in an instant. It may be so, it may be so, but the worst part of this business was that one person's sickness spread instantly to almost everyone. That king—whatever, so what, they did not say. Are it not these rulers who generally direct the people anyway? This was so in all forms of government that have ever existed. Do not suppose that it was so in monarchy but is not so in democracy or anything. Whether democracy, or monarchy, or communism, or dictatorship, or whatever form of government it may be, the people have always drawn the lines of their own lives by the direction of these. And every king, again like everyone, claimed that his own thought and belief were the most correct. Nor did they merely claim it; on top of that they forced everyone to do it. Sometimes, purely so that the kingship would not slip from their hands, they did not refrain from working every intrigue within their power. In short, whatever things the rulers of all the world's humanity did, the Israelites and their kings and queens did too. That is, to say, "How wicked the Israelites were; had it been us, we would not have been like that," is the greatest foolishness. Had we been in their place, the great majority of us would have done the same things—and indeed we are doing them. Only very few people did not do so, and said "no." Since I have written on this subject in the book titled “The Religion Mafias and Us”, I want to convey it, without repeating the same subjects, but by looking at the events from different angles. The interesting part of this subject, in any case, begins with the day that nation came and insisted on wanting a king over them like the other nations.

That nation had no human dominion over them until they demanded such a king over them. Well, was there no one who ruled them at all? In fact, if the matter is merely being governed by oneself, everyone governed himself. Let this not lead to the meaning that they lived a life without rules. They surely had rules and laws, and these rules and laws had been given by God. And do not think, either, that they lived under oppression with these rules and laws. On the contrary, only when they said “we absolutely want a king over us like the other nations,” and after they had those kings, did they take upon themselves a terrific burden, and even trouble on their heads, and most of the time calamity. For as God also said to Samuel, the prophet of that time:

“…For it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” 1 Samuel 8:7

After this, God has that prophet plainly tell them what the king they demanded over them would do. Let us read what those kings would do to them:

Samuel told the people who demanded a king from him all the words that the LORD had spoken:

“This will be the manner of the one who will reign over you: He will take your sons and assign them to his chariots and to his cavalry units. They will run before his chariots.

Some he will appoint as commanders of thousands, and some over units of fifty men. Some he will assign to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make the equipment of his weapons and his chariots. Your daughters he will take to be perfumers (those who understand spices and mix them), cooks, and bakers. Your choice fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves he will take and give to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your grapes and distribute it to his palace officials and his other servants. Your male and female slaves, your choice bulls, and your donkeys he will take to work in his own business. He will take a tenth of your flocks too. And you yourselves will become his slaves.

When these things come to pass, you will cry out because of the king you have chosen. But the LORD will not answer you on that day.“ 1 Samuel 8:10-18

Of course the matter did not stay merely with this. In fact those kings and rulers stole these things from them—from God, all the way to their own personalities and selves. The word “steal” is a little too mild, because the one who steals sees to it that he does his thievery secretly and unseen. Although there was secrecy in these ones too, the things they wanted to make others do and to take, they did or made others do by force and openly. And those who opposed them they destroyed with every kind of oppression and torture. Such a destruction that, so that it might be a lesson to the others as well, and that they too might not rise up in the same way, they treacherously slaughtered innocent people while giving the impression that they were the worst criminals. For nothing they cut people apart with saws, nailed them on crosses, threw them into fire, flayed their skins, struck off their necks, and abandoned them to death in hungry, thirsty dungeons. In human history this has always come like this up to our day, and it goes on like this. Why? Do you know? Is it because we are incapable of governing ourselves?

When God created the human being, did He not give him a head, an intelligence, a body to govern himself? Or did He give these only to certain particular persons? It may be, every human's ability and knowledge, mind, intelligence, body, and strength are not the same. While one is very intelligent, another may also be very stupid. While one is very strong, can another not be very frail? Should all this make us possessors of dominion over those people? Who is not in the passion of climbing on another's back to make himself their king, queen, minister, or prime minister? There are almost no people who are not in such a passion. The passion of being superior among one's own kind has always been the human being's greatest desire. And in every matter, too. Moreover, people do not do these things from the angle of doing good to one another, of competing; unfortunately it is a competition done from the angle of crushing and sucking blood, of boasting and looking down on those around. Even though good kings would from time to time emerge from within Israel later on, God looked with hatred upon their demanding a king. Not because He was jealous that they had abandoned Him; God looked with hatred upon this foolishness in their demands. And when we read the whole history of the Holy Scriptures, we see plainly that far greater calamities came upon their heads because of their kings. (2 Kings 17:7-8)

The aim is always for there to be someone visible at their head, that they bow before him, and that he crush them. Even if they are going to hate, again let it be someone visible. Humanity has not grasped the meaning of even hating a thing it does not see. Whereas everyone has heard something about the spiritual creature called Satan. Most, when they hear this, either laugh, or know nothing about this spiritual creature and do not want to know. It is certain that if he were seen, the situation would be very different. But he is not seen, and so no one even cares. For him one neither loves nor hates. Even the religionists who say they hate him only hate the name, but not the person. And what does this mean? He will hate the name but not the person!

When I read and researched the Holy Scriptures and the Quran, I noticed something. And I did this by asking myself questions. Because the people around me whom I knew and from whose deeds I felt a coldness, and whose deeds I even hated, also believed in God and said they loved Him. When I looked at the world in general that lives in religious circles, it was as though there were no one who did not know and recognize God and Satan. From this outward appearance, when one merely glances, that is how it seems. But is there any among you who does not know that what comes out of people's mouths and what they carry out from their hearts, or what they burn and yearn to carry out, are most of the time different? Those people, loving the labels, and hating the labels whose meaning they do not even know, and moreover obeying blindly, to the point of going to death, people they have not seen and do not know, merely by looking at their rank—in truth they were serving not God, but a handful of men. To not see these things, one would have to be blind. For this reason I had to test myself, I had to know myself. One of the things people fear most is knowing themselves. While all of them enjoy being praised through inflation and flattery, knowing what they truly are can sometimes even drive them mad. I, on the contrary, love very much to know myself. Because if I do not know the reality of who I am, what I want, and what I have made my true goal, then the road I walk becomes for me only a world of dreams. If I am someone who loves not the lie but the truth, then at the end of a road walked unconsciously, a terrible disappointment and unhappiness will await me. In my opinion this is a rule valid for everyone. We should ask ourselves, without any hesitation, openly and clearly, what we want, what we expect, what we love and what we hate. Even though it would be nonsense to set a definite rule as to how this business of knowing oneself is done, as I said, the human being should not refrain from thinking deeply, from asking himself questions, and again from giving himself correct answers. In my opinion this is the simplest path. I too still do this from time to time by asking myself the most unlikely questions. For example, if God—but the God I have come to know in the Holy Scriptures and the Quran—if with those attributes He were Satan; and Satan, again with the attributes I have come to know in the Holy Scriptures and the Quran, were God, then would I love, merely because he is called God, the Satan we now know from the Holy Books with his present attributes? Here only the ranks would change. Satan would be God, and God would be Satan. Was I, without thinking at all, loving that God merely because He is God, whoever He might be, whatever label He might possess? That is, was I looking at the position He possesses, at His being Almighty (for whom everything is possible), and so on? I do not know if anyone has ever dared to ask himself such a question from within. When I asked it, even I myself was astonished at the time. Of course I did not want to answer this question either by deceiving myself.

The being called Satan is a spiritual angel that God created. He was once such a being, until wickedness was found in him. (Ezekiel 28:11-19) But with his rebellion against God, with his becoming an enemy of humanity, he takes the title “Satan,” which means rebellious, one who rises up. The Muslim world believes, and teaches, that God created Satan, but that he was created as Satan from the very beginning. This is in fact a doctrine that accuses God. That God would create such a being that he would specifically oppose Him and become His enemy! Yes, even if such a situation developed in time on earth and in heaven, this still does not mean that God created robots who would oppose Him, who would love Him if He wished and hate Him if He did not. If God created humans and angels with the freedom both to choose and to decide—which we call free will—then to the very existence of this so-called will we must also say “no.” Just so: since Satan was created in such a way that he would forcibly do evil, then this is not something in Satan's own hands. This is where the doctrine that says “God created him thus, as rebellious and as Satan,” leads. And this yields the conclusion that God's work is bad, and deliberately so. But God neither does nor wants such a thing. However, through the free will He gave to the creatures He created, we come to see that God did not create robots and did not desire this either. It is certain that God foreknew and foresaw that such risks could exist in humans and angels as a result of the attributes He gave of Himself. But this is an entirely separate subject. Jehovah's Witnesses, however, look at this subject not as separate but as though it were the same. Whether God foresaw what someone would do, or told him to do this or not to do that—for them these are the same. That is, according to them, when God said to Adam, “You shall not eat of this fruit,” if He could foresee that he would eat this fruit, then why would He be forbidding the thing Adam would not do? The problem is precisely here. God is commanding and forbidding not the thing Adam could not do, but the thing he could do. If Adam, with his free will, will not do this but will do the very opposite, and if God is already foreseeing this, then should God have refrained from giving such a command? If God had begun setting such limits on Himself, then He would have felt no need to create us humans and the angels with free will. And should God, knowing that Adam could do that thing, but that Adam did not do it merely for his own pleasure, or because he was deceived, or for sport—should God set limits on Himself and give up His purpose, saying “oh, let me not give dear little Adam such a command, because he will not listen to me”! This would mean God denying Himself. If I, or we, as human beings, do not want to deceive ourselves, this is precisely the meaning of asking ourselves questions. And why would God trouble Himself to deceive Himself? Who can call Him to account! To ask of someone a thing he cannot do is one thing; to ask a thing he can do, and moreover would do very easily, is another. Adam was created with a nature able to obey that command of God's, and moreover very easily. He could have obeyed but did not. He was deceived, he used that attribute he possessed in a wrong way, and so on. Here I can see no error of God's. Indeed, His sending Jesus Christ—who was once an angel living in the heavens—to the earth as one equal in value to Adam, proved that God did not err in His expectation regarding Adam. Because Jesus Christ, while on earth, without committing any sin, by obeying God under conditions far harder than Adam's conditions, gave an answer to Satan and to all intelligent creatures who think like him. Whatever God expects of His creatures, He created them possessing the attributes able to do what He expects. Whether they do it or do not do it—God's also foreseeing and foreknowing this makes not God but those very persons responsible. Because we were created with the capacity to bear that responsibility.

The Christian world's interpretation regarding the subject of Adam's sin is even more comical. According to them, the forbidden fruit was sexual intercourse! The word “Fruit” in the Holy Books was used in a symbolic sense. So God would both bless Adam and Eve and say, “Be fruitful and fill the earth,” and yet also forbid sexual intercourse! Thus emerges a kind of interpretation that could be called “what a fast, and what a cabbage-pickle”—i.e., utterly self-contradictory. (Genesis 1:27-28) Here I see that I have had to treat the same subjects I wrote about in the book titled “The Religion Mafias and Us.”

The claim Satan put forward, and God—though as God He has power over everything—giving him the field, is also astonishing. (Job 1:6-22; 2:1-6; Surah al-A'raf (7):11-22; Surah al-Hijr (15):28-37; Surah al-Isra (17):61-64) The way Satan proves the case that has been put forward is also very interesting. The things Satan wants to prove are always in a form that will bring pain and unhappiness to the human being. Even if there are ones whose beginning appears exciting and happiness-giving, their end surely finishes in pain. God's approach, however, even to the human being and even to those who do not obey Him, is very different. Though He is in the right, He is always loving, merciful, understanding, one who trains and teaches. And alongside His many other qualities, He is not one equipped with a weakness for kindness. When needed, His wrath, which can take vengeance and is just, is also terrifying. In short, while God is always measured, virtuous, loving of the human being, and possessing very superior attributes, our seeing Satan's always base, disgusting, lying, cunning, and most of all hate-filled attributes against humanity, is possible from all these Holy Writings I have spoken of. I am trying to show you the difference between God and Satan by taking up a single subject. If I were to set out to convey all the subjects, it would mean copying out the Holy Writings here again, which would be meaningless. Let us look at our earth again, without counting up all the ugliness, and the proofs by which we can be sure that behind every lie, disgrace, evil, pain, and torture Satan stands as the representative are again written plainly in the Holy Books.

Let us come to the answer to the question I asked myself. Was I loving God according to the rank He possesses? And should I have hated Satan according to the bad name he possesses? When I thought about it and made honest evaluations of myself, the answer came out of my mouth in this way, even though I was not used to those words: “If this God I love were Satan, then I would still love Him, even if His title were Satan,” I said. Or if Satan were God, “I would hate such a God,” I was able to say. It is ranks and titles that coerce and astonish the human being. Was I too a slave to them? Or was it the attributes I learned about that moved me—did I love them or hate them? This is what I wanted to know. Whereas so many people who possess Satan's attributes entirely and go in his ways never lack, on the contrary, declarations of love and devotion to God from their mouths. Those people in fact love the rank possessed, not its attributes. Because the person who says he loves God must also show the attributes He wants, the ones He possesses. As long as he shows the attributes of the Satan he says he hates, that person's love for God is in fact empty and meaningless. He supposes he loves God, but the things he enjoys and desires always belong to the person he says he hates, and to his will. Even though these situations writhe within all of us because we are imperfect, that is, flawed, loving those things and doing them are different things. There have been times when we too did things we hate. There are hateful things we are even forced to do because of the sin-impulse within us, or for many reasons. (Romans 7:15) These things, though they are not right in God's eyes, can be understood. But doing those things with pleasure and lovingly is one thing; doing them unwillingly, with the emotions we could not brake at that moment, is different. Some people, however, do not or cannot do those things, but take great pleasure in watching those who do. (Revelation 22:15) And never doing hateful things at all, and willingly keeping away from them, should be the most superior goal everyone wants to reach. (Leviticus 19:2)

Whether God or Satan, these are beings invisible to the eyes of us humans. Well, is the love we show to visible things different from the example I gave above? How much do we—not spiritual beings but corporeal beings, that is, we humans—love one another? Or do we truly know and then love the people we say we love? Or is our love or hatred toward them also bound, for us, to things like label, rank, flag, race, advantage, color, and language? We love, but in fact not because we truly love. We have become husband and wife, elder brother and younger sibling, they are our mother and father, they have become president or prime minister over us. They are our brother in religion, they share the same society with us, we are children of the same nation, the same homeland, we are of the same race, we have common interests, we go to the same club, and so on and so forth. Should these be the only things that make it appear these people love one another, even when they do not love one another at all? There is almost no such thing as a human being who loves another by looking at his attributes. It is said, “Love cannot be by force,” but generally everyone says he loves the other by force, because of these reasons I have counted.

Our hating is not much different either. Now come, look at its reasons:

He is not of our family, he is a stranger. He is not of our party, he is of the opposing party. He is not of our nation, he comes from some nation or other. They have come from different sexes, races, lineages. He is not a member of our club. He does not speak the same language. He does not think the same things. Our religion is different. Our sect is different. One goes to some church or other, the other to some mosque or other. One bares her backside while the other even covers her head. One has a six-cylinder car, the other has only a handcart. Let us stretch it out further and further. Believe me, people hate one another for endless, inexhaustible reasons. They are even terrified of drawing close to one another. Whereas can the people one keeps away from because of those reasons we counted not in fact be persons possessing attributes far closer to him, and that he would love and enjoy, once he came to know them? Even if they were, and even if they came to know one another for years, no—because of one of the reasons I counted above, they can somehow never warm to one another. That they cannot warm, that they feel a coldness, is—believe me—purely because of these labels, titles, ranks, colors, veils, garments, and of course because societies see these as valuable or valueless. Even when one of them takes a step to embrace that person to his bosom, the society he lives in always sets a stumbling block before that person. But if he even leaps over that stumbling block and dares and accepts to live with that person, from then on the society will always make him feel this deficiency, as though he had a severed arm, a severed leg. The reason, again, is because of any one of the pieces of nonsense I counted above as things to be hated. That is all. If even with the things I counted as love they cannot love one another sincerely, then just imagine the effort of these people in the things they see as necessary to be hated! Behold the love of us humans, behold the hatred of us humans. And if on top of these we also add our truly hateful attributes, I think we need not consider what will happen. Listen to our world's daily news, and you will understand. And that news filtered how many times over. We are in a state to be called disgraceful, and yet we are neither ashamed nor aware. And these situations appear most of all in those societies called rich, advanced, and shouting about human rights. Just so: just as everyone fights for the thing he lacks, these too are shouting at the top of their lungs for attributes they lack. In the other countries not much sound or noise comes out on this subject. Is it as though they are more humane and know human rights? No. One shouts at the top of his lungs, but his insides are in fact full of hatred, spite, and every kind of inhuman attribute; his shouting is only from hypocrisy, that is, from bluff. The other makes not a peep on this subject, but he too is full of inhuman attributes. The difference is only in his powerlessness. That powerless one cannot have a label printed for himself and advertise it like the others. And if he tries, that powerful one spoils it. He says, “No one but me, or us, can cling to this title.” Thus he will always make himself appear great. Now you go ahead and keep considering which of them is better.

In the Second World War the Americans, seeing themselves as superior, are at war with the Germans, and, speaking of human rights, they condemn what was done to the Jews. At the same time, American soldiers in a German prison camp will not even eat at one table with an American officer of their own nation because he is black. And this even though both fought the same war and served the same country. I wonder which is less or more humane! The German or the American? One hates the Jew, the other, for his color, because he is black! The British and American soldiers who, saying “we will bring democracy to Iraq,” put sacks over the men's heads and urinated on their heads, dumped excrement, gave them high-voltage shocks, killed them with tortures and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of them, are shocked by a few terror bombs that explode in their own countries. On television they declare that they will take vengeance on them. You go ahead and consider again who is bad and who is better. In the books that Christians believe, it is written “Love your enemies too.” (Matthew 5:44-46) In the book that Muslims believe, it is written: “To those who attack you, you too attack in the same measure.” (al-Baqarah (2):178; al-Maidah (5):45) One's book says “love your enemies too,” but he himself shows enmity many times over and attacks; the other says, “to the one who attacks you, you too give a response,” and he can respond to the one who attacks with only an iota. Consider again who is better. There are so many disgraces of this kind that humanity has done to one another in our time and in history. Take from one, strike the other.

Neither does our love resemble love, nor does our hatred have any meaning. Neither do we love what we see, nor do we strive to know the values we do not see. Neither do we know those we hate, nor do we know the meaning of that hatred. Just as we do not know what we are fighting for, we do not even know those we kill. Perhaps while we are killing the very people we would love most, we make ourselves servants and slaves to those who truly hate us and seek our harm. There is neither friendship within humanity, nor does humanity know the meaning of that friendship. What they call 'friendship, comradeship' is only covering up one another's filth, not bringing to light the things done in secret. If there are true friends, we do not hear their voice or their breath either—and they do not make it heard for us to hear. The fashionable new target of hatred is “terrorists.” Like being a Jew in old Nazi Germany. Whoever they disliked, they would take them away at midnight, and no one would ever see them again. Where they burned them, where they cut and hacked them, is unknown; and no one wanted to know either. Without a sound coming out, everyone lived in fear of one another. To be sure, there are so many Germans who still yearn for those days. As long as no sound came from them, as long as they feared, the men came and took them away more and more often. From thousands, then tens of thousands, their numbers grew many times over into millions. Everyone kept silent, feared, and said, “oh, I got away this time too.” Nothing happened to him at that moment—oh! And now, too, whoever is taken from every home and never comes back becomes a “terrorist.” No one makes a peep. Wow, so that's how it is! It was obvious anyway! Let the others who knew him fear and keep silent. Let him speak, if he dares! Let him say, “No way, he was a good person, he had no wickedness at all, he lived among us for years, why do they say such things?” In the late afternoon he too is taken away, and he too never comes back at all. Then he too becomes a terrorist who has vanished. And if one of them photographs what they did to those terrorists and distributes the pictures around, that becomes a bit difficult—but let us say even if it happens, at the very most an apology is enough and more than enough. And the apology is not to those people and for what was done, but for why those photographs got distributed to the market and turned the public's stomach. However secretly they do these things, even we now see them; well, God—does He not see?

Since it is written, “Does He who made the ear not hear? Does He who made the eye not see?” (Psalm 94:9), it means that He both hears and sees. And there is only a very little time left until the end of His forbearance.

You have surely heard much about the prophet Job, but many people know nothing but this name. Perhaps there are among you those who have heard of “the patience of Job.” I too, had I not read the Holy Scriptures, would have had almost zero knowledge about Job. The Quran touches on the subjects mentioned in the Holy Scriptures only superficially, or passes over them in the manner of a reminder. In short, the Quran is not a copy of the Holy Scriptures. However many of us there are who get angry at the infidel and break our fast, the Holy Scriptures and the Quran are separate books, each on its own. Inside the Holy Scriptures there are 66 little booklets. All of them, gathered under the name Holy Scriptures into one book, were intended to be convenient. Otherwise, in this book we call the Holy Scriptures—which Muslims know as the Torah, Psalms, and Gospel—there are not three but many prophets' books. Just as most Muslims do not read the Quran they call “our own book,” when it comes to the “Holy Scriptures” they are quite at a loss. In all my life I have neither heard of nor seen a person who believes in all of these books. There are many who say, out of ignorance, that they believe in all of them—there are, but their belief does not rest on any foundation. They say they believe in all of them only in conversations at drinking tables, to try to point out that they, so to speak, are not narrow-minded. But when the matter turns serious, they neither take up the Holy Scriptures nor read and research the Quran. I explained a moment ago how and toward what we feel love and hatred. Now, if I set out to explain the things all of humanity believes, believe me, it will be easier for you to notice that we are in an even more comical situation than that subject of hatred and love. Since I want to draw the weight of the subject in this book toward the literal and spiritual eyes, and since I touched on these subjects in my previous book as well, come, I say, let us for now talk only about Job.

In the Holy Scriptures this subject is treated under his name, that is, it is known as the book of Job. With those writings that God wanted to be written and that He has preserved up to our day, He aimed not merely at the importance He gave to ancient histories, but also at every human being drawing a share for himself from those writings and taking a lesson. (1 Corinthians 10:11; 2 Timothy 3:16; al-Anbiya (21):83; Sad (38):41 and 44) It is impossible not to understand what befell Job, his patience, and his love for God even while writhing in pain and anger. Job is at the same time a sermon subject that the Christian world uses very much in encouraging people, in bracing them to face pain, and in enduring and showing forbearance. And it is very beautiful and meaningful. Only, if you read this book from beginning to end, you may understand almost none of most of it, except the first two pages. One of the greatest reasons that makes this book difficult to understand is that the knowledge to distinguish which of the persons there speaks the truth and which the falsehood is a requirement. Because Satan takes Job as a target and strives to prove that Job's love for God rests only on advantage. And in this pursuit he indeed does everything within his power. He kills all of Job's children at one time. All his wealth—and Job was a very rich man—he again makes him lose in a single day. He strikes his whole body with terrible boils. In spite of all this, Job does not abandon his devotion to God and does not refrain from loving Him. (the whole of chapters 1 and 2 of the book of Job) Now, after these events happened, his three friends who heard of it come to visit Job. Friends, so-called friends. Foolishly, out of ignorance, they make Job's morale even harder. According to them, all these calamities that befell Job were done by God. They say, “Since Job too surely has many bad sides, God is doing these things to him to punish him.” However much Job appears to be a righteous man, still, according to those friends of his: “This means that Job's fraudulent and hypocritical sides have not escaped God”!!!

Whereas, while we read these events from the book, we know the matter that passed in the heavens between God and Satan. Consequently, our reading, according to God's own words, that someone like Job possessed attributes without equal on the earth of that time, makes us hold a better opinion about Job. (Job 1:8) When we read Job's words, his understanding and wisdom about God astonish us very much. Because in those times there was neither as much of books as now, nor knowledge about God.

To be sure, even if the knowledge of people in our time about God is below zero, this does not mean that this knowledge cannot be found. Because the Holy Writings today are, with such ease, sometimes obtainable at the price of two packs of cigarettes. Most of the time they are even distributed free. Those books, as they contain thousands of years of human history, also take up as their subject human beings' relations with God. From how the human being was created, all the way to the whole earth and God's purpose concerning humanity, and after that the prophecies foretelling a thousand years of the future—it is possible to find such knowledge in those books. Of course, most important of all, it is possible to know God through these writings. But I say possible, I do not say He is known. However much, in terms of knowledge, we possess so much more knowledge and material than cannot be compared with Job's time, reaching understanding depends neither on memorizing books nor on carrying them with us every day. Even if we knew those books enough to memorize them, there would be no guarantee that we would understand. They must surely be read, and if necessary we can always keep them with us too, but these are only material. Perhaps everyone can build a house. It cannot be said that by giving people the same materials—everything necessary, from hammer to cement to iron—all of them will build the same house. Some may even have what they built collapse before it reaches the roof. Whereas the material in the hands of all of them is the same. Or when two housewives are told to make a meal with the same materials, the flavor both reach in that meal will be different. While we chew, barely and by force, what one of them has made, so as not to be rude, we eat with appetite what the other has prepared, in keeping with the expression “we ate our fingers.” This means that, more than the things possessed, it is how we will make use of them, and this depends on our own attributes. Our abilities, our attention, our being eager toward that thing, our knowledge, our heart's attitude, our effort, our patience, and so on, will surely play a very great role. Obtaining wisdom and understanding, too, can perhaps be compared to these examples I have given.

Job, compared to the examples I have given, astonishes us very much for this reason. Because, even though he had no material at hand, the wisdom he reached and his understanding about God are truly astonishing. Knowing Job as a prophet may perhaps deceive us. To be sure, the source of understanding and wisdom is God, and even if He gives it to whom He wishes, until God spoke with Job at the very end of his sufferings, Job had no verbal conversation whatsoever with God, nor any revelation he received, and so on. (Job 42:5) All of Job's knowledge, understanding, and wisdom about God he developed only by hearsay. Whatever the case, in my opinion the greatest secret of obtaining understanding, knowledge, and wisdom about something depends, again as I said, on how much we love and desire that thing. Even though Job had very little hearsay knowledge about God, he worked this knowledge within himself, in his spirit, developed it, loved it, and was rewarded by God. With both spiritual and material things.

Atomic molecules are invisible to the eye, but the energy scattered around by splitting the nucleus of the atom is terrifying. Or if we consider a vegetable seed, the situation is not much different. The beginning of the watermelon or squash—which is sometimes found to be 12–15 kilos, and even far larger in records—is only a single seed within itself. The water a fifteen-kilo watermelon possesses, its size, and its turning into hundreds of seeds, began with a single seed. When that seed burst and developed, that is when it came, in time, to be a watermelon. Of course, the carbon dioxide it took from the air, water, sun, and soil were the materials it used in the watermelon's development. We humans too can direct how we make the knowledge we possess work within us, in our minds, and afterward how that knowledge will, in our minds and in our hearts, be split apart, or sprout, and emerge with what kind of effect. The thing a squash or a watermelon does not have in its hands can, if we wish, be shaped under the will, development, and control of us humans. When I say “if we wish,” a perception emerges as though it were a task, as though it were a coercion. Even though understanding and wisdom likewise require discipline, desire, work, effort, patience, and forbearance, the most important force that splits the seed is our love for that thing. The remaining things are, again as I said, only material. Whether it is a watermelon or other vegetables, when it finds a suitable environment, it does not force itself to burst its seed and show development. That thing happens by itself. Because it has loved the environment it possesses. But if you put it too into an environment it does not love, its development freezes, and just so it dries up and perishes. On this subject there is a famous example of Jesus's. This comparison, which almost every Christian knows nearly by heart, is exactly as follows:

Jesus told them many things with comparisons. “Look,” He said, “a sower went out to sow seed. Of the seeds he sowed, some fell along the edge of the road. Birds came and ate them. Some fell on rocky places where the soil was little. Since the soil was not deep, they sprouted at once. But when the sun rose they were scorched, and since they could not put down roots, they dried up. Some fell among thorns. The thorns grew up and choked the sprouts. But some fell on good soil. Some yielded a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold. Let the one who has an ear hear!” Matthew 13:3-9

Jesus's students (apostles) beside Him do not understand this comparison, and they ask Him. And Jesus explains its meaning.

“Now you listen to the comparison concerning the sower. Whoever hears the word about the Heavenly Sovereignty (Kingdom of God) and does not understand it, Satan comes and snatches away what is sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the edge of the road.

The one sown in rocky places is he who hears the word and accepts it at once with joy, but, because he cannot put down roots, endures only for a while. When such a one meets with distress or persecution because of God's word, he immediately stumbles and falls.

The one sown among thorns is this: he hears the word, but worldly anxieties and the deceptiveness of wealth choke the word and prevent it from yielding fruit.

But the seed sown on good soil resembles someone who hears the word and understands it. Such a one certainly yields fruit, some a hundred, some sixty, and some thirtyfold.“ Matthew 13:19-23

People are practically coerced into doing good things. This pressure is most of all possible to see in religious circles. I say religious circles because it has to do with God. In fact, it would be more correct if I said all organized circles. In such environments, people are always pushed to do things for the advantage of that religion, that organization. Whether it be this religion, or science, or the military. Again, whether it be a hospital or a prison. In all these places, the official, the patient, the convict, the student, the teacher, the doctor, or whatever he may be, those people are always encouraged, coerced, and even given punishments in this pursuit, to do things for those establishments. Depending now on the environment. Whether they make one do this by giving punishment, by patting, by loving, or by beating, is unknown. Now, the love of God I want to convey cannot be obtained by any of these. From giving punishment, to every kind of pressure applied for right and good things—even if these may be necessary for education, they can play no role at all on the path of love. And by this, do you suppose that nothing at all can be obtained without love? Surely not. By force, by pressure, by being frightened, by bribe—and by bribe I mean the things put before people. This is generally money in the sense of a salary. Sometimes it can also be a woman, a career, a name, a seat. Well, with these too many things can be made to be done. God, however, as He neither values nor even stoops to any of these, especially hates such paths applied in approaching Him. The attribute of ours God values most is our love. Because it is the most powerful thing we have. Even though hatred, with its deeds, appears frightening and disgusting, the powerful one is love, not hatred. Again in the Holy Writings it is stated that the thing that is lasting and eternal is neither faith nor hope, but only love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

People's valuing the things they see more, and their necessarily loving what they see, is in fact not true love. Love, in any case, is not a visible organ of ours, nor a thing we hold in our hand. Love is emotion, it is feeling. A person lives it within his self. At the same time love is a terrifically great impulse. It comes from within us, and that impulse throws us, eyes closed, into death, into fires, into tortures, and into every other kind of calamity, without hesitation. Because in love there is no fear. Look at what the Apostle John writes on this subject:

In love there is no fear; but perfect (flawless) love casts out fear, because in fear there is torment; and the man who fears has not been completed in love (that is, he has not reached perfection, or maturity). 1 John 4:18

Again, this should not mean that everyone who throws himself into death and burning does so with an impulse stemming from love. I have had to return once more to the subjects in my previous book. If I do not explain, this time the meaning of the things I write will be disjointed. For this reason, let me take these words about love that appear there straight from the Gospel and write them again, so that it may be easier for us to understand the subjects.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am no different from a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. If I could prophesy, and knew all mysteries and possessed every kind of knowledge, if I had a faith great enough to move mountains from their place, but had not love, I am nothing. If I distributed all my possessions as alms and handed over my body to be burned, but had not love, this is of no benefit to me. Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, does not boast, is not puffed up. Love does not behave rudely, does not seek its own interest, is not easily angered, keeps no account of evil. Love does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with what is true. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never comes to an end. But prophecies will be done away with, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass away. Because our knowledge is limited, and our prophesying is limited too. But when the perfect comes, the limited will be done away with. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, understood like a child, thought like a child. When I became a grown man, I gave up childish ways. Now we see everything like a dim image in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now my knowledge is limited, but then I shall know fully, just as I am fully known.

And so, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians, chapter 13

The meaning of this writing inspired by God's spirit is truly very great. In the summary of all the Holy Writings, God wants only love. Look at what Jesus Christ says plainly on this subject:

…“'Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and most important commandment. And the second, which is like the first, is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

The whole of the Holy Law and the words of the prophets rest on these two commandments.“

Gospel—Matthew 22:37-40

Can you imagine, the summary of all that has been written in fact rests on only these two commandments. That humanity, perhaps never letting this feeling fall from its mouth and making it a subject everywhere, gives it no value at all—no value whatsoever—is another truth. Even though they try every method and struggle, they have not given importance to love in the true sense, sincerely and from within. Even the Pope, when he was elected, invited people not to love but first to hate. It must have been because he is German, that the moment he came to power he first sat on that seat by uttering words of enmity toward the Turks. When I say “even the Pope,” by the word “even” that I use, I do not write in the sense that it would be impossible for those people to do such a thing. On the contrary, in all the hatreds of history, among the groups that directed nations to war and hatred, that sowed in people the feelings of bitterness, torture, spite, vengeance, and slaughter, the papacy and Christian religionism have played a very great role. Whereas in this book, and in the Religion Mafias book I wrote before this, with the verses I continually touch on from the Holy Scriptures, the message God and Jesus Christ gave to humanity and especially to believers is very different.

It is certain that there is a difference as great as between earth and sky between the love of these label-religionists and Job's love of God. When people are under pain and pressure, they speak their words coming from all their heart. Indeed, as we also read in the book of Job, Satan quarrels with God by making this very claim. Because Satan is one who knows from his experiences that people cannot put on such acts while under pressure. This is precisely the reason he struck Job with every kind of calamity. By throwing him into distress, he wants him to rebel against God with hatred. (Job 2:4-5) When we read the book of Job from beginning to end, we see plainly that his love was bound to nothing—not to wealth, prosperity, pressure, organization, the congregation he attended, nationalism, gain, advantage, his loved ones, fear, or pain; rather, to nothing at all.

On the subject of seeing, Job's desire too was to be able to find God in a place where He could be seen. Whose desire is this not? Just as not every wish and desire of ours can be right, our desires on this subject that arise from time to time, like Job's, are also not right. It is a good thing God is not in a particular place. What if it were so? What if we had to wait in line to see and speak with Him! What if we had to go to who knows where in the world to tell of our distress, to open our heart! And there too, would we struggle to get a place in the front rows by giving bribes to who knows whom! And what would those who could not go do—the powerless, the sick, those in prison or in hospital, those without money! If such a thing existed, I believe those bloodsuckers would again be at the very front. They would always be fawning at His door and struggling not to let us in there at all. Thank goodness we call all this a nightmare and nonsense. God hears us wherever we want Him, right there, wherever we call, right there. Whatever language we speak, He understands us. Even if we do not speak at all, He knows our feelings. He is one who knows what we will say before we even converse with Him. Which is more beautiful? The nightmare-like one I described a moment ago, or the one that is this way? When we think about these things with our logic, with our reason, we can understand and say “thank goodness it is this way.” But while writhing in pain like Job, a person necessarily wants a solution at that very moment. We seek to see that God who will ease our pains. In his distresses Job:

“If only I knew where I could find Him, that I might come even to His throne,” he says. (Job 23:3)

I too have entered into these feelings most of the time. I have necessarily wanted to speak before God. Seeing Him eye to eye, receiving answers. Job was one who saw with his spirit that God is not in a particular place but everywhere. If we read the continuation of his words a moment ago, there too it goes on thus:

“Behold, I go forward, and He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him; on the left, where He works, I cannot behold Him; He hides Himself on the right, and I cannot see Him.” (Job 23:8-9)

Job had no doubt at all of God's existence, but he had also comprehended and understood that He is not seen with the eyes.

Job is one who does not, in any case, believe that seeing everything, and even looking everywhere, will necessarily be beneficial. There is one more place I want to point out—which, though it has nothing to do with seeing God, has to do with the subject of seeing. On this subject Job even took precautions according to his own view. Look at what Job says in his own words:

“I made a covenant (an agreement) with my eyes; how then should I gaze at a maiden?” (Job 31:1)

It is certain that seeing with the eyes causes great movements in our inner world. Of the many things that go to our mind, it is only by means of our eye that we store the images. However strong we may be, and however we may struggle to erase from our mind that thing we saw, this will not be so easy. To erase, or throw out, at that moment the image that enters our mind is unfortunately not in our hands. We can expend efforts on this subject, but our erasing and destroying it is something bound to time. Even so, its perishing can sometimes take a terribly long time. Even if many years pass, when it is recalled, we can encounter a situation as though that image had been recorded somewhere in a computer, and just so had suddenly popped up before us. Of course it is a good thing these things happen in our mind, so that everyone does not see! And some images even settle into the subconscious. Even though we are not aware, we can suffer spiritual disturbances because of those things we saw that are in our subconscious. Psychologists have written and speak of many things on this subject. Job, however, became aware of this situation on his own and took his precaution at once. Job was surely one who used that thinking chamber in his brain. People do not at all want to think of deep, upbuilding things. Even if they find a little gap of time, they still try to spend it on everything so as not to think. And if they do think, it is not for good but for evil, and they plot how they will do it too. In the time of the prophet Noah, humanity was in exactly this situation I have written of. God's view about those days is exactly as follows:

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man (of the human being) was great on the earth, and that every day the thoughts and imaginations of his heart were only evil. (Genesis 6:5)

Indeed, after this God wipes out and destroys entirely the human being living on the earth, except for Noah and his family. Setting aside the evils we do, trying to fill our mind and our heart only with these as well resembles trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. Whereas Job, even though there was no law, rule, or shariah, makes a covenant with his eyes, so that by means of those eyes he might not think of a wrong thing even in his mind. Could this man have any need of law, rule, pressure coming from someone else, or discipline? He is free, but he uses his freedom in a far more beneficial, productive, and comfortable way than one who is under the strictest discipline and rules. Because he loves, and does it lovingly. For this reason the Apostle Paul, in the letter he wrote to the Colossians, says by God's spirit:

“…why, like those who live in the world, do you submit to rules such as 'Do not hold this,' 'Do not taste that,' 'Do not touch this'? All these rules concern objects that will perish with use; they rest on the commands and teachings of men. To be sure, these rules have a wise-seeming (wise-looking) appearance in terms of made-up religiosity, false humility, and harshness to the body; but they are of no benefit at all in preventing the indulgence of the natural self.” (Colossians 2:23)

Between Job and the prophet who wrote this writing there is a time difference of about 1,700 years. If we bring into the matter the enthusiasts of our time who are keen on setting up shariah, laws, and rules, and the devotees of organization, then, even though 3,700 years have passed, our world has become filled with people who still do not understand these words, or who understand them but cannot stomach them.

God, who gave the rules we call shariah laws with the command “hold to them,” now, by means of this truth He later had His prophet write, wants people to understand something. However harsh and disciplining the laws that come from outside may be, as long as we within ourselves do not accept them, not only are they of no benefit, but on the contrary our bodily desires and weaknesses always multiply with the desire to break these rules. God, however, wants us to serve Him, not by always being guilty with rules we cannot and could not keep, but by His mercy; that is, by His forgiving us, with the courage a good conscience gives to our hearts. Well, what does this mean?

People who receive the shariah laws are innocent as long as they hold to those laws. But the person who makes a mistake in one of those laws, knowingly or unknowingly, is guilty. Adam did not fulfill only a single law—which he was to hold, and which we know. He was not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is all. But when he broke that law, his immortality would slip from his hands, and he would become mortal. Indeed, it is plainly evident that by God's saying “on that day you will surely die,” He meant not a period of 24 hours, but a period of a thousand years. That a thousand of our years is like a single day in God's eyes we have read many times, both in the Quran and in the Holy Scriptures. (Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8; al-Hajj (22):47; al-Sajdah (32):5) Indeed, Adam dies within the thousand years, at the age of 930. (Genesis 5:5) Moreover, their losing eternal life takes place the moment they ate of the forbidden fruit. Only their dying by growing old takes time, that is all.

If, according to the shariah, a price must surely be paid for every sin, then by abolishing the shariah, to whom did God do a kindness? To the human being, or to Himself? Of course He did this for us, that is, for humanity. Because every man who does not keep the shariah is deprived of God's glory. (Romans 3:22-23) God, however, wants not to distance us from Himself, but to draw us to Himself by forgiving. No human will be counted righteous (upright) from the works of the shariah. (Galatians 2:16) Why? Because we cannot do them, and for that reason we cannot be counted righteous. Some people, by insisting “I will hold to shariah, law, and rule,” in a sense emphasize that they do not want God's mercy and reject it. It is written plainly in the book: “The shariah is not of faith; but the one who does them shall live by them.” (Leviticus 18:5; Galatians 3:12) And since no one can do them, then no one has the right to life. Again plainly:

“For the wages of sin is death,” writes Romans 6:23. The organizations, religions, and whoever else there are who strive to make us necessarily hold to shariah, to place laws and rules over us, are in fact striving to distance us from God's mercy. And people, unknowingly, follow behind them dumbly, blankly.

“If matters are so, then why was the shariah given?”—such a question arises. The answer, however, is very simple. God gave the shariah because He wants us to be conscious that we are sinful. Again plainly:

“For in His presence no one will be counted righteous (upright) from the works of the shariah; for the knowledge of sin is by means of the shariah,” it says. (Romans 3:20)

For some reason the Jews and Muslims can somehow never swallow these truths. Whereas, even though the book that Muslims believe in never once says return to shariah or anything, they, influenced by the Jews, necessarily want to cling to the shariah laws. They both say, “The last book, the Quran, has come, and the authority of the others has been abolished,” and yet, going back even beyond the authority of the Gospel, by ascribing the keeping of the Mosaic laws to the Quran, they try to make it appear as though it were an obligation and a righteousness. Because in the Quran there is no shariah. Otherwise, on the basis of what other than the laws given to Moses would they keep the shariah?! Even if the Quran speaks, in the manner of occasional counsel, of subjects like veiling, contract, divorce, and gossip, are humanity and a state governed with these? Is this what they call “shariah”? By speaking of subjects they do not know, of which they are ignorant, as though they were shariah scholars, they do not please God at all. By our Muslims too clinging to the lie that God tried for hundreds, for thousands of years to explain to the Jews, and that they could somehow never accept but clung to, what do we mean to say to God? Are we striving to say that we too deserve the hatred the Jews drew upon themselves because of their stubbornness? To those in the passion of holding to shariah, look at what the Apostle Paul said thousands of years ago—let us repeat it:

…This only I want to learn from you: did you receive the spirit by the works of the shariah, or by the message of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the spirit, are you now finishing with the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain? If it really was in vain. Then, He who gives you the spirit and works mighty works among you, does He do this by the works of the shariah, or by the message of faith? Just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Then know that those who are of faith are the sons of Abraham. And the scripture, foreseeing that God would count the Nations righteous (upright) by faith, foretold beforehand to Abraham: “All nations shall be counted blessed in you.” And so, those who are of faith are counted blessed together with believing Abraham. Because all those who are of the works of the shariah are under a curse; for it is written: “Cursed is every man who does not continue in all the things written in the book of the shariah, to do them.” It is evident that in God's sight no one is counted righteous by the shariah; for: “The righteous person will live by faith,” and the shariah is not of faith; but: “The one who does them shall live by them.” So that the blessing of Abraham might come to the nations in Christ Jesus, Christ, becoming a curse for our sake, rescued us from the curse of the shariah; for it is written: “Cursed is the one who is hanged upon a tree.” Gospel—Galatians 3:2-14

Again in the same place it is written thus:

…Before faith came, we were kept guarded under the shariah, shut up for the faith that was to be revealed. Just so, so that we might be counted righteous by faith, the shariah became our teacher for Christ. Galatians 3:23-24

These explanations show us plainly that the shariah was given for a certain time to train people and to make them conscious of sin. Again in Romans 3:20: “…For the knowledge of sin is by means of the shariah,” it is written. What the Jews and Muslims can somehow never understand is that Jesus Christ became a sacrifice in exchange for the sins of all humanity. In fact, as all humanity, we could somehow never accept this from the heart. And do not suppose that those whose label is “Christian” understood it either. I believe there are truly very few people on the earth who are conscious of this. By calling nonsense the principle God possesses, do we make God, or ourselves, into nonsense? The book of Romans in the Gospel has written on this subject with a very beautiful justice and logic. Even though these subjects were written to be a warning to the Jews of that time, they contain a very great warning and vital knowledge for us Muslims now, who are in the same reveries.

Those who read my writings cannot make out what I am. Is this man a Muslim, a Christian, or a Jew, they wonder within themselves. In the literal sense, I belong to no religion on the earth that identifies itself under these names. But in the sense God explains, I am at once a Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew; and, moreover, with a sincerity coming from the heart. Even though I was automatically born belonging to one of them, I came to possess this faith later, by my own free will. Again, I neither take anyone's side, nor do I possess the foolishness of being of every side. But I did not write the truths in those books I strive to explain either. I am not the author of those books written thousands of years ago (Torah-Psalms-Gospel-Quran). But I want to help people about subjects that have remained hidden and concealed, distorted, and wrongly believed. I would want such help for myself from the heart, so then why should I not give it to others? Should I keep silent because of this, because some will hate me? I am not making these writings up out of my head. Even so, in the end everyone will decide for himself whether they are right or wrong. Is this not, in any case, what is valid in God's sight?

As I said, do not suppose the Christians are different on this subject of shariah either. By saying they believe in Jesus, they do not automatically carry out the things God desires, neither with their deeds nor with their knowledge. However much the verses I wrote above are written in the books they say they believe in, their practices, under other names, have always been crushing of people, rule-bound, law-imposing, organizing, and full of pressures. Looking only at this last century of ours, let us not evaluate the Christian religion as though there had always been such freedom. Moreover, these freedoms too are only to paint the eyes of those on the outside. If you enter into their interior, it is possible to find, again in them, those terrifying medieval mentalities, and those who destroy humanity with the harshest of the materials new technology uses in wars. They accomplished baptizing the people in their colonies with the whips in their hands. In short, if we say, “they never carried out what is written in the Holy Scriptures they held in their hands,” we would not much be exaggerating. The only difference between the Muslim-Jew and the Christian regarding the understanding of shariah is the words. One says: “Let us be for shariah, let us appoint a mufti, a high priest over us, and do what he says,” while the other says: “God has mercy on us, but let us still appoint a Pope, cardinals, governing-body presidents over us, and do what they say.” The desire of both groups is outside God's mercy and the freedom of free will He gave the human being. The aim is to crush people in God's name. The goal is to make people slaves not to God, but to a human like themselves. And for thousands of years, just as parasites live, they too have climbed on people's backs and had themselves cared for that way, and kept sucking their blood. Please, I ask you and the whole world, what benefit have they had for the world of humanity for thousands of years? Look at our world, at humanity, and answer for yourselves.

“No, one was an alcoholic, one beat his wife and did not look after his home, one was a thief, one was a rebel—but later he took the hand of some religious group extended to him and came to his senses!!!” The sects and orders that have newly emerged in these last centuries make their own advertisement in this way. Whoever it was that approached those people with love, such changes would surely have occurred in them too. If in such changes those religions have power over people, the religion uses this only as bait for people, as advertisement. Had they wished, they truly could have given great service to humanity, but they did not wish it—and deliberately at that.

Job, however, sets rules according to his own weaknesses. He is not one who seeks everything in law books. He is one who thinks for himself the question of how he can best do it. And do not suppose the love of God he possessed was given to him ready in a package, by force, from birth. He too had to be born like every human, and continue his life under the same conditions as every human. If a love, if a curiosity, if wisdom and understanding clung to Job, and if with all this he loved God, this was Job's own desire and decision alone. No one coerced him. No one pressured him to love God, set rules for him. He did not pass through the training of any religious organization. If pressure was applied, that too was done by Satan, so that he would abandon God, that he would curse Him. While he had lost everything and was writhing in pain in a pit, the counsel his wife gave Job about God is far more interesting. That woman:

“Are you still holding fast to your Perfection (integrity)? Curse God and die,” she says. (Job 2:9)

After this, the counsel and wisdom the three friends who came to visit him give are worse than Job's wife's.

If you try to understand Job not merely for the sake of having read it, but by entering into that spirit and those pains, perhaps you can draw a meaning out of the writings about him. To understand Job, love is a requirement, because he loved God more than everything. If you read this book rapidly, like reading a novel, it will seem very boring to you. Each time I read it, I had underlined the places I liked. The places I underlined grew more and more with each reading. There are also some places where I wanted to underline every line entirely, but I did not do it. For example, Job's cursing the day he was born begins in chapter 3. Since I have never celebrated a birthday in my life and do not want to celebrate one either (not in the way Jehovah's Witnesses understand), these words of Job's pleased me very much. More than anything, in Satan's quarrel with God, the human being plays the greatest role. Satan's case with God is because of the human being. The book of Job, however, brings very great clarity to this subject, and lays out the summary of that case right away in the very first two chapters. It is a book that will truly concern everyone who is human. Because whether people want it or not, they are automatically born within this case, live, struggle, and die. Even if only out of curiosity, I would want to read and learn about this case—and I did, moreover countless times.

In societies like ours, in order to value the elderly, to show them respect, and to benefit from their knowledge and experiences, the young are continually taught to be humble, and most of all respectful. This teaching is not a bad thing. But to make it a rule is foolishness. A human being should be respectful and humble toward everyone. He should do this at the very least out of the respect he has for himself, even if not for the sake of the one before him. Job has, apart from those three friends who came to him, one more young friend. While the three friends spoke, he always kept silent and listened. In the end he begins to give his answer to their foolishness with these words:

“It is not the great who are wise, nor the elderly who understand what is right.” (Job 32:9)

This young man, whose name is Elihu, his love for God, his understanding, and his wisdom about Him are truly very valuable. Indeed, only about him does God say nothing bad. God only becomes angry at those three friends, and He emphasizes that Job too was ignorant in his accusations against God. (Job 42:7-9)

All these people I have counted, whether good or bad, whether right or wrong, were aware of something. They believed in the existence of living beings invisible to the eyes of the human being. They were aware of a great power that created them. Using their thinking abilities, they had obtained much wisdom on this subject too. In spite of the thousands of years that have passed, our earth has become filled and overflowed with millions of religious men who have not at all, not in the least, reached this knowledge of theirs and most of all their understanding, yet have been greatly exalted by people. And if you do come across ones who have knowledge, they are like the old, cold, dusty books in libraries. In themselves there is not even a trace of love or humility.

What then—is there no righteous man at all in the world? In the literal sense, in fact, there is not even a single righteous man, or human, in the world truly. Look, these words, which astonished and even saddened me at the beginning, express God's views about us:

“God looked down from the heavens upon the sons of men, to see if there were any who understood and sought God. They all turned back; together they became corrupt. There is none who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:1-3 and 53:2-3)

Unfortunately, what bitter words—but true. And the prophet Isaiah speaks with God with these very meaningful words:

“For we all became like an unclean thing (in the sense of bodily and spiritual uncleanness), and all our righteous deeds are like filthy garments; and we all wither like a leaf; our iniquities, like the wind, carry us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)

Here the prophet compares even our righteous deeds to a filthy piece of laundry. Before God we are truly so. If we are honest with ourselves, we will see that we are so in our own eyes as well. As humanity, in the present time, we are dirtier than in any age.

Are you aware how many expressions related to seeing we use, sometimes without being aware of it? Who can deny that we possess eyes other than the literal eyes? How happy are those who see with those eyes too, and do not remain blind.

Points of View

My head aches so badly, from the nape of my neck upward. I never used to know what a headache was. Everything else of mine has ached, but throughout my whole life my head never once ached, not even a single time. Those who suffer from migraines and headaches might have envied this condition of mine. As a child I still cannot forget how my father, at the least tiredness or the smallest distress, would immediately say “my head aches” and pull the blanket over his head. I suppose I must take after my mother; like her, my head never ached. While I was writing my books I had a problem with my nose. I was constantly sneezing, one sneeze after another without end. We thought I must surely be allergic to something. In the end I could bear it no longer and went to the doctor. I do not much like going to doctors. And in Germany I do not like it at all. Turkish doctors give you morale, give you medicine, whereas German doctors immediately reach for the scalpel, the knife. Whether it is my luck, or whether this is simply the system in Germany, I do not know, but in every one of my operations there was always some mishap, some carelessness, some negligence not written in the reports. Moreover their hatred toward the Turks and the work they do makes their intentions all the more evident. And on top of that, the statistical figures in their hands make them decide who is to stay alive and who is not. As anyone who has gone to a doctor in Germany knows, doctors ask you a whole lot of personal questions rather than asking about your ailment. It is decided what will be done not according to your illness, but according to the answers to those questions. For example, I have statistical figures like this in my hand. Living in Germany in the year 2007 there were:

42,057,327 women, 39,954,835 men, 17,713,394 pensioners, 6,084,973 employed, 10,069,146 students, 2,736,032 mostly husbandless single parents raising children (Alleinerziehende), 1,838,455 attending university, 343,556 doctors. (Evangelisch-Freikirchliche Brüdergemeinde e.V Frauenweg 7 74072 Heilbronn- 2007)

They regard these roughly 18 million pensioners, the unemployed, the foreigners, and especially the Turks as harmful to the country. Understanding Hitler’s policy of that former time, and what Merkel’s era wanted to convey without saying it outright, they have begun to apply it again. The order to “kill this one, kill that one” is no longer given directly as before. Hitler was one of those fools who thought himself clever. His children are now doing this work in a way that no one can prove.

They performed my first operation when I was 21 years old. Thinking my appendix had burst, they opened up the right side of my belly with a most disgusting incision, but it was not the appendix at all! And since doctors never like to come away empty-handed, they took out my perfectly healthy appendix too. But if I were to tell you the ways they forced me into that operation and their rudeness, my writing would stretch on pointlessly. When a person listens to them, he gets the impression that he is about to die at any moment. Especially in those years, in Germany, whoever said “my head aches” to a doctor twice, they would cut his head off at once. At that young age, when I felt as though a car could even be driven over my abdominal muscles, after I came out of the operation my belly had burst outward exactly like a starving African, like those Vietnamese children in wartime. No matter how hard I tried, I could never push it back in the way it had been. And after the operation was finished, they dropped me off the operating table onto the floor! I woke up so badly. And on top of that, did not the head nurse insist over me the very next day that I absolutely must get to my feet? I tried to get up, but I thought I would die. This one, meanwhile, kept nagging at me without stop. I remember being able to say “Please take this one away from over me and go”, so nearly did I faint. It did not take a few days before bruises began appearing all over my body. Among them there was only one nurse, and she worked only on the night shifts, who, after 8 days had passed, told me about this incident. Not a peep, not a single sound, came from the others or from the doctors. As I said, such things never appear in their operation reports.

A year or two after they cut my abdominal muscles in that way, I got a herniated disc in my back. After an operation of that kind, it is something quite normal to expect. There are no muscles in the belly, and the whole load rides on the back. With those pains I managed for about 13 years, until the day came when I was limping on my left leg, and again they said an operation. After I had the operation, this time, even though there was nothing at all wrong, I had a terrible pain in my right leg. I could not even put on a sock. Over a year, by walking with the pains, doing gymnastics and so on, it lessened and later passed completely. Let the Germans rage and fume as much as they like, I call this “hostility,” I call it “unwillingness,” I call it “giving no value.” They, however, call this condition “patriotism.” As I said, especially if on top of that you happen to be a Turk, or according to them from some other lower-class nation! They see you as a guinea pig. Just for the money they will get from your insurance, they cut some part of you. And our Turks, for some strange reason, are a nation fond of operations. In order to make themselves pitied and to avoid working, they are willing to have every part of themselves cut. Well, the Turks are even ready for death so as not to work at those filthy and heavy German jobs, but never mind. Is it easy to be a slave for money? As long as the Turks were fond of operations, the Germans cut and sliced them, tried them out as guinea pigs. All the Turks came to Germany with the dream that they would earn money and then live it up back in the homeland; but I never saw a single one of them make that come true. However, there were not only those who left Germany but also — if the expression fits — those who fled. Some of these poor souls later regretted it. Most of all the children, of course. For long years they simply could not adjust to Turkey.

In the 35 years we stayed in Germany, we had two long-standing family doctors. One was German, but he was a worthy human being. The Germans never liked him. He was both knowledgeable and exceedingly compassionate. In short, a man rich in human values. When he retired, I was almost ready to weep, wondering where we would go now, to whom we would go. Near us there was one they called the Arab doctor, but I had never gone to him. To this day I neither know nor asked which country he came from. He too seemed a worthy one. When I caught the illness called shingles, I had again thought it was a herniated disc, and while the orthopedic doctor was sending me from here to there, I went to him as a last resort, and he understood my illness at once. And merely by listening. So the others had not even deigned to listen, or they were ignorant, thickheaded doctors. From then on our whole family began going to this doctor. Let me come back to my nose. There was a sore in my nose. Inside there was a scratch as if it had been cut with a razor blade, but it simply would not heal. And it hurt so much. It must have been from the movements of my mouth while eating, the muscles moving back and forth, that the pain in my nose sometimes brought tears to my eyes and became utterly unbearable. We were saying that perhaps this was also causing those sneezes I mentioned. I went to this Arab doctor who was our family doctor. The moment he looked, he said, “the left side of your nose is blocked.” He gave me medicine and added, “take these, but you must have an operation.” “With medicines it will improve only for a short while, and then it will act up again,” he said. I took the medicines, and as he said, for a few days it seemed better, that was all. Again the sneezes, the pain continued. This time the doctor referred me to an ear-nose-and-throat doctor. And did he not, the moment he looked, refer me to the hospital! Good Lord, it was not at all on my mind, I say, but in that state it was nothing bearable, and so I console myself.

My sneezes had advanced so far that on the very morning of the day I was to be admitted to the hospital my eyes had turned bright red and I was sneezing constantly. I even said to my wife: “Look at the state I’m in, you can see, this is my last resort,” and we went to the hospital. Right away, if I am not mistaken, on the second day they operated on me. When I woke from the anesthesia, I woke with terrible pains. I have a lot of pain, but I cannot tell where the pain is coming from, which part of me is hurting. It was certainly from the head region, from the nape of the neck, but although I had been operated on through the nose, the pains were not coming from my nose. And since I do not have nose operations every day, I had no experience in these matters. With the effect of the anesthesia too, I keep trying to force myself to sleep so that I may forget those pains. The nurses say of this pain of mine, “it is normal, pressure was applied to your head and there are tampons plugging your nose, so it causes pressure.” What could I say; I thought they must surely know the truth. And even if I did say something, who would care in the slightest!

When a person’s nose is blocked, he cannot swallow anything. And if he does swallow, since the air that should come out of the nose cannot come out, each time there is a pressure on the nose. This is not so much the case while eating, but while drinking water it is terrible. Because while drinking water the whole mouth closes, and with each swallow pressure rides upon the nose, and a pain, do not even ask. The tampons stay in the nose for two days or so, I think. On the day they are to remove them, it causes pain for some people. And this too, in the hospital, whoever fell to whichever doctor at the dressings, that one did it, that is, by chance. Because although there were four or five doctors, and almost every time it was someone else who did the dressings, one of them, a thin doctor who was like two meters tall, in the shape of a reed, was far cruder than a veterinarian. They open up the nostrils and place a very thin medicated cloth inside, so that the place does not become inflamed or anything. All of them open that nostril in a normal way and do this. But this reed-like doctor opened up my nose in such a way as though he wanted to enter inside with his whole body. In an instant I had pulled myself back with the pain. And he, grinning, asks whether it hurt! Although fortunately I never fell into his hands again, while I was in the examination room, for some reason, out of all the many doctors, he kept eyeing me like that. Actually I had already made up my mind that I would definitely refuse to let him do my dressing. Even now, about this thing that happened to me, I have inside me the feeling that he perhaps did it deliberately, with intent. Go and prove that!!! Perhaps he did not even enter the operation at all, or he entered briefly, helped his colleagues for five minutes in a way that would not appear in the reports, and left. Could it not be so? And whose mind would it occur to that he would deliberately cripple the men whose faces he did not take a liking to. Is it easy — the man is serving his homeland! The more foreigners, especially Turks, he cripples, the greater the service he will have rendered. And even if he could not do it, there are so many Germans of this mentality and this desire. That whoever has the opportunity would do it without batting an eye, this I have most certainly come to believe in these recent times. Furthermore, the father of one of those youths who burned the Turks alive in their sleep in Solingen is also a German doctor. In the past I believed in these people and, trusting them with my whole heart, lived 40 years in Germany. Even if all these accusations of mine are groundless according to some, it was they who instilled this belief in us. And when I look at history and at what has happened to me, I do not think I am speaking so groundlessly. In history every country has in time been turned upside down and has undergone many changes. But you can never draw out of that nation its deep-rooted ways of thinking. I have gathered this experience and knowledge as I read of the thousands-of-years-long history of Israel in the Holy Scriptures, and I have also witnessed how every nation I have known could simply never rid itself of the corrupt characteristics of its past, the very characteristics that devoured them. Even if they made many outward changes in their forms of government and in the rulers over them, these characteristics that gnaw at those nations, that finish them off, destroy them, and in the end drag them to unhappiness and ruin, have simply never departed from the minds and hearts of many of them. A German columnist put these feelings of his own nation into words very beautifully. The piece I happened to read somewhere is exactly as follows:

…Why? I do not know. And that every unemployment automatically turns, in a shameful manner, into rightism, into nationalism. On this subject Henry M. Broder used a clear manner of expression: ‘A most beloved and widespread social philosophy is the one lamented over and over like a dirge, that unemployment leads to extreme rightism.’ (in fact an unproven claim)

But why? An unemployed Englishman goes fishing, an unemployed Dutchman plays billiards, an unemployed Italian looks for himself a lover, while a German who has merely become unemployed almost automatically turns into a Nazi. Or is this a genetic inheritance?

The logicalness of illogic is because everyone believes in it. The experts, on the other hand, argue that everything must be discussed with everyone. Just as understanding something does not mean approving it, one must also investigate the motives of that thing — not merely what is done, but why it is done. A Nazi beating an African just because he entered a discotheque does not show that he is a quarrelsome person, that he takes pleasure in violence. He is probably unemployed and, out of the uncertainty of the situation he is in, cannot express himself in any other way.

But why is it always the foreigners, the homeless, the disabled? Why do those whose situation is bad not show their anger against a branch of the state, or, at a gala where the super-rich gather, in the form of a protest that no aid is being given to the poor in the third-world countries?

Jörg Kachelmann

Truly, this condition of the Germans has been well described, but again by a German who can see events impartially. Of course, for the Germans such people are the greatest traitors to the homeland. In Hitler’s time too they shot many such traitors to the homeland by firing squad! Without looking at who won and who lost in the course of history’s development, and looking only at the fruits, it is not at all difficult for us to understand that those very people who were shot truly loved their homelands.

Fortunately, the doctor who happened to remove those huge tampons from my nose in the hospital — although he was German — was a very decent, careful man. He began warning me beforehand. “While pulling out the tampons I must on no account try to cough with a pain or anything, otherwise his whole face and eyes would be covered with the blood coming from my mouth and nose.” “If I am able not to do the things you mention, then I will not cough,” I said. “If you want, you can do it,” he said. I said all right, we agreed, and he pulled out the tampons. It was for me like drawing a hair out of butter, so smoothly. Oh sir, the relief I felt, do not even ask. My brother, what a great affliction that blockage in the nose was! Especially — it must be from the size of the tampons — when they are pulled out, a person’s nose becomes like stovepipes. Oh! What a way you breathe, and how the air comes in through the nose. But then, once the flesh of the nose returns to its former state, you cannot take in so much air. Moreover, if too much air enters, the nose smells, they say. That is why the nostrils must not grow too large. These things the doctors told me. Afterward I thought about it and I suppose I understood what they meant. Because then, since the person will take in most of the air through the nose, everything in the air will also pass through the nose. The hairs in the nose already serve as a filter, and since much of it is caught and held there, this time that place will get dirty more quickly. So those who pick their nose a lot and are always digging out a booger, their nostrils are either very large, and that is why they form boogers, or they are very small and their nose bothers them and — do they think it will enlarge the holes? — I do not know. If we say it is also a bad habit, that would be correct.

It is not a very cheerful subject. My trouble, however, began after that operation. That these pains were really coming from the root of my neck I began to realize more once I left the hospital. And it was as if the whole ground were slipping out from under my feet. After the hospital, for two more weeks I had to go to the ear-nose-and-throat doctor who had sent me there and have the dressing done. When I told the doctor about this condition, he said “what I described could be dangerous.” But the next time, when I brought up the subject, he said “it is not so important and it will pass,” so what am I to do — I do not believe it, but I can do nothing either. And this is so not only living among Germans; perhaps it is like this everywhere in the world. Once you tell people something they do not like, you must be ready for war. You will ask, why should the doctor not like what you said. For the Germans, a foreigner’s complaint about a mistake made by doctors, and that doctor going after the matter and helping the patient — it cannot even be imagined. For them this situation is, as I said, treason against the homeland. As much as they can, they try hard to make that patient out to be crazy, senseless, full of baseless delusions, a constant complainer and a liar. By doing so, they are supposedly rescuing their doctor colleagues — whom they do not know, and whom, when they do know, they hate one another — and rescuing the homeland. Moreover, German doctors in recent years have been very well organized. Like every organization, these too first united in protecting their own rights. Whatever the manner of an organization’s working, it is to protect itself. It lies, it denies, it commits fraud, it kills a man, and it uses every fair and foul card in its hand, cards one cannot even imagine. It rejects entirely, just as it is, every kind of accusation directed against itself. Exactly like Jehovah’s Witnesses, or like any organization. They too, whatever accusations are directed against their religious organization, take up a single stance, to show a counter-reaction. No distinction between right and wrong, true and false, is ever made. For this cause they do everything they can. If it is a lie, they tell the lie; if they saw it, they say I did not see it; indeed they go so far that, saying to themselves “if we do not act this way we will perish,” they make even themselves believe in that thing. In truth their organization is an idol to them. This condition it is possible for us to see not only in Jehovah’s Witnesses but, as I said, in every organized institution. Whether you are police, or a soldier, or a doctor, or a teacher, or a judge, or even a prosecutor, all of these take it upon themselves as a duty to protect one another. Depending, of course, on the one across from them. If across from them there is someone superior to themselves, someone who can make his voice heard, someone of standing, that one is above all these organizations. But to those like us, they show all the heroism they can muster, and in order to say and to make you believe that black is white, they are ready, if need be, for every kind of base and vulgar ugliness. Beware of being deceived by their ranks, their labels, their business cards; they are human beings, and like every human being they possess the same characteristics. They do not merely trample underfoot the superior and virtuous things for this cause; on the contrary, by destroying even those who defend them, they say “I have accomplished one more duty” and sleep soundly in their beds. If they cannot accomplish the things I have described, then their sleep is lost. If they cannot make the crooked appear straight, this is for them like defeat and death. The extreme of these feelings I have seen very much in the German people and in Jehovah’s Witnesses. In our Turkey and in other countries there is surely such a thing too, but in my view these characteristics are far more extreme, and in a form possessing a satanic cleverness, in the people of countries that are organized and strictly disciplined. With the thoughts and beliefs that excessive discipline and order bring, are they, by committing fraud professionally, serving the homeland, saving their religion, or defending God? Whereas God is disgusted, and look at what He says:

You must not follow after the crowd for evil ends; and you must not testify over a legal case so as to turn aside after the crowd to pervert justice; you must not show favoritism to the poor in his legal case. (taking his side out of pity)

If you come upon the ox of your enemy or his donkey going astray, you are to return it to him without fail. If you see the donkey of one who hates you fallen down under its load, you shall refrain from leaving it in that state; you shall by all means release it together with him. …Keep far from a false matter; and do not kill the innocent and the righteous… Exodus 23:2-7

If a stranger resides with you as an alien in your land, you must not do him wrong (put him in a difficult position). The stranger residing with you must be to you like a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself… Leviticus 19:33

…Give a hearing to the cases between your brothers, and judge with righteousness between a man and his brother and the alien residing with him. You must show no partiality to persons in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great. You must not be intimidated because of a man, for the judgment belongs to God… Deuteronomy 1:16-17

To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifices. Proverbs 21:3

There shall be for the whole congregation (all of you), for you and for the alien residing among you, one statute; as you are before the LORD, so shall the alien be. There shall be one law and one regulation for you and for the alien residing with you. Numbers 15:15-16

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; who put darkness for light and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise (clever) in their own eyes and who regard themselves as discerning (shrewd, sensible, capable)! (Isaiah 5:20-21)

These verses, which I have written from only six places, occur in the Christians’ holy book, in the Torah. I have not written here even one of the verses in the Gospel about Jesus Christ loving all people without any distinction whatsoever. Those who wish to read may open and look at verses from the Gospel such as Matthew 5:43-48, John 13:34; 15:16-17, and 1 John 4:10-11. For many people, to practice the exact opposite of what is written here is, alongside love of homeland and nation, at times a duty that absolutely must be carried out! But every one of them, in doing this, resorts to lying, deceiving, and fraud. Because although their own written laws do not support them in this direction, unfortunately the fire that burns within their judge, their prosecutor, their lawyer, is not in accord with the laws and with righteousness, but is one that strains and tramples upon the laws and upon justice. The word “all” that I use here is only in a general sense; to come across those who fall outside my generalizations is truly very difficult. To say there are none would be foolishness. Not every person sells himself. Just as those who opposed the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany were as many as they were, so too, in the situations I have described, are those who stand on the side of righteousness and justice. That is to say, they are so few as to be almost none. Because the Germans, especially in these recent times, regard the person who defends a foreigner, or who stands against the accusations directed at him behind his back even among neighbors, as one who openly does not love his homeland and nation, and as a traitor. In order to slander foreigners, and especially Turks, in every possible way, a person, if he is German, must join in this. This too has become a rule that society itself has laid down and rapidly developed over time. And the people who have no part in these ugly, inhuman injustices keep silent. They think, “Why should I draw anger and hatred upon myself for no reason?” They turn their heads and do not look in that direction, and they stop up their ears, not wanting to hear those things. And besides, every person has his faults and mistakes anyway. By holding the magnifying glass over only a certain class, by speaking negatively about them, in my view neither the homeland is saved nor the nation. But when we look at history, that homeland, that nation, that religion, with this mentality, has one day come to be toppled and destroyed. And even if not destroyed, it is paying the price at a terrible cost, meeting with hatred.

I was talking at the airport with a German tourist returning from Turkey. He was a man on his own, around 55-60 years of age. He was constantly running Turkey down. No — at the hotel they had given him not a room facing the sea but one looking to the back, and by haggling he had nonetheless gotten a room with a sea view. Since we stayed in the same hotel, I know that they had done the same to me too, and I had said nothing. No — the waiter had brought a knife and fork but no spoon. And this man could not tolerate such things at all. He was telling me these things. He said nothing at all about the sea he saw from his room for all the days he stayed there, the meals he ate for what could be called free prices, having stood in line countless times, the staff’s patience toward his every complaint, the comfort of the hotel. Now that this king had come there, they were of course obliged to treat him in such a servile and pleasant manner. That is the mindset and the expectation. Please, let someone tell me what difference there is between this man and the Turks in Germany whom we call the worst. In my view his character, his dissatisfaction, and his griping are far worse. To say that Turks are sometimes far more decent than they — though only in very few cases — would be to take sides, so I do not say it. One is a tourist, the other a foreign worker, a slave. And openly one of the oppressed workers at that. I am not defending the Turk, nor do I wish to praise the German falsely and wrongly, but what is the difference? If the things that set people apart are their races, their nationalities, their money, their labels; even if this is a difference, these things make a person neither human nor inhuman. The things that make a person human, or deprive him of humanity, are his characteristics. If we are to make our evaluation according to the characteristics displayed, it is impossible to find, as a whole state or as a nation in our world, people who are true, honest, just, compassionate, and loving. Within all of them the bad ones are mostly the majority, and the good are a very small minority. And this condition has nothing to do with race and such, with culture, with color, with the shape of one’s hair. It is only circumstances that put people through change. But most of all, racial and color discrimination, fascist nationalism, is for some reason a filth that has always come out of these Christians. The centuries-long slavery, oppression, and massacres against the blacks in America, the Germans’ attempts to exterminate the Jews, gypsies, the elderly, the disabled as a whole, the slave trade, the stealing of human beings, the world wars — I think it would be no lie to say these are generally always the handiwork of these Christians. Slavery has perhaps existed ever since humanity began to spread over the earth, but starting from the direction of the belief that Christians ought to hold, I wish to give voice to the utterly contrary efforts they have shown on this matter. Some Muslims attribute the reason for this hostility they see from the Christians to their own Islamic religion. Even if that excuse exists, the fact is that although almost all the blacks in America are Christian, the hatred they have seen for centuries was not based on religious difference. The First and Second World Wars too took place mostly among Christian countries. Once again, belonging to the same religion did not make them friends. In the genocide shown to the Jews too, many Jews were Christian. That the divisions, hostility, hatred, and grudges among people are something the religious have sown, or always supported, is certain; but in history, while they were doing these things, in accordance with their political interests they did not much regard whether people were of the same or of a different religion. In accordance with their interests and their fears, they have always committed every kind of filth. When we look at the past, we see that they have produced such fruits. Look at what Jesus Christ said about ones like them:

“Beware of false prophets! They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them. Can grapes be gathered from thorny plants, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit. Neither can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will recognize the false prophets by their fruits. Not everyone who calls me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of the heavens, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in the heavens. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! Did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not cast out demons in your name? Did we not perform many miracles in your name?’ And then I will declare to them plainly: ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness!’” (Matthew 7:15-23)

After reading these words, ask yourself justly: In accordance with these words, which religion on earth has, I wonder, borne good fruit? I say plainly, “none.” Even if there were some that made a good beginning, in the end all of them were defeated by this world. Whether willingly or unwillingly, the day came when they strayed from God and from His commandments.

Some people also argue that hatred stems from events done in the past. Although people have never had any difficulty in always finding a reason for hating, the cause of it has not necessarily been rooted in the past. Again, if we consider the black slaves in America and the Turks in Germany, these two nations in history did nothing that would require anyone to hate them. On the contrary, as a country the Turks, having always shared the same fate together with the Germans, the Turks’ heads have never been free of trouble. The blacks, on the other hand, were stolen from their own homelands and, subjected in the vilest manner to things not even done to the animals we call harmful, were forced for centuries to live and to be enslaved in those countries. Those men had neither any war against that country nor any ill treatment toward those people. If they did any wrong, it was to save their lives while enslaved, to flee for the sake of freedom, or to steal when they were hungry and desperate. If, much later, after the freedom given to the blacks, lawlessness gradually increased between the whites, out of their hatred, and the blacks, that too came about through society’s pushing these people out and again through its hatred. Just like the lives of the Turks in Germany. However much German society pressured the Turks, however much it embittered life and belittled them, amazingly they became neither enemies nor did they tire of living in Germany. But most of them became a problem in that society. If the same things were done to a German, an American, an Englishman, they too would become problematic in that society. Those who are the real problem, and who create problems in the human world, have always been the nations of that mentality which classifies and degrades these people. Their hating people, without any reason, by looking at their type, their shape, their skirt, their hair, their headscarf, is the most valid of the reasons they defend. I have never been able to understand this ugly side of humanity. Because the Kurds are supposedly being degraded in Turkey, they started a war, taking support from Germany, England, France, and all the other European countries besides. And most of them threw bombs in Turkey and then sought asylum in these countries. If the reason for their seeking asylum were economic hardship, I would understand it, but if it is the problem of people being excluded — this is the thing I cannot understand. In Turkey the Kurd could stroll about the streets shouting for joy, his jacket over his shoulder, his raki in his hand, his pointed-toe shoes with the heels trodden down. Let him do this in Germany, in England! I never saw such a freedom given to any of them. You will say, “They do not give such a freedom to their own people, so how should they give it to the Kurd?” Yes, yes, but for the Kurd this way of behaving was, to him, in the sense of freedom. He found this while in Turkey, but he could not find it in those countries where he took refuge. He ate meat, his belly was filled, he bought a car and rode in a Mercedes, but is his face smiling? Whether German or English, do they make your face smile? Only as long as you weep are they at ease within; when you begin to smile, all those peoples first of all hate you. He himself cannot smile, so how should he endure your smiling? When the nation sees that the condition of the man it has taken into its country as a slave, as a worker, as a needy beast of burden, has in time become good — and especially when they see that some of them have come into a condition happier and better even than their own — what does that nation do? It burns them in stoves, in ovens, and makes soap. And indeed they did. As I said, time has changed nothing. Hatred is not within people; hatred is taught to people. These situations, whatever they may say, although the exact opposite is written in the books they believe in, these hostilities mostly always come out of the so-called Christian countries. Help a German, and if he is in need, give him something; if the one who does this is you, a foreigner, he hates you most of all. He sees himself as having been brought very low. Death would perhaps not come to him more bitterly. Whatever disgusting feelings there are on this matter, they have instilled them in one another. I have tried to put myself too into these same feelings, asking “do I perhaps think this way as well?” Of course, for a society raised according to the philosophy in Hitler’s book titled “Mein Kampf,” all of this is normal.

Women used to come to our home to help my mother. I address them as helpers, because we never used the word servant. Even though no one had forbidden this word, for us it was like a sin. In our home we always had such helpers. Over time we saw and heard that those people had become far richer than we. Indeed, I still cannot forget the money one of them gave me when I was a student in very difficult circumstances. I saw this not as a humiliation of ourselves but as an honor. It means we had given so much love into those people that, expecting nothing, she showed me such closeness, and that too without my asking her. To behave well and to win people’s love instead of their hatred makes me happy, and so I rejoice. What if that person, in a difficult situation of mine, had cursed and sworn at me? And on top of that, if she had said: “What things you and your kind did to me — now you find your own affliction too,” would that be any better? Of course I am not going to rejoice at my poverty, my destitution, my misery. But to hate that person who helped me, because she had once served in our house, does not pass through my mind, nor through anywhere in me. In the Turkey where I have lived, and by my own impressions, I have hardly seen a person who hates that individual for this reason. Are there none? There surely are, but I have not seen them; one must look. But if you live in Germany you see it everywhere; here is the difference. Because it is so, are the Germans proud and honorable, and am I without pride, without honor? Look, it is precisely on these two concepts that we must dwell.

First of all, God hates most of all the thing called pride. When I first read this in the Holy Scriptures I was very astonished. Whereas the first thing taught to a person of every society is pride. Let us not confuse pride and arrogance with being honorable, dignified, and worthy of respect. These, neither from afar nor from near, have any connection that would make them synonymous. To those who do not know, they may seem like the same or interrelated things, but they are separate concepts.

Pride in the dictionary: 1. A person’s feeling of valuing himself. 2. Explained as self-aggrandizement, swagger, airs;

Honor: 1. The respect a person feels toward himself (synonyms: dignity, self-esteem). 2. The gesture of value that others show toward a person: for example, as in “a banquet will be given in his honor.” (Basic Turkish Dictionary, Kemal Demiray)

Let not this “person’s feeling of valuing himself” given under the heading of pride, and the “respect a person feels toward himself” under honor, appear as though they were the same thing. Whereas in a person’s respect toward himself there lie honor and dignity, in the proud person’s valuing of himself there is only a selfish and egotistical meaning. And those who say ‘it is not so’ do not know the meaning of pride.

If you have noticed, pride is always a self-regarding, self-admiring, selfish feeling in a negative direction; but alongside it, honor is explained as synonymous with respect. A person’s respect for himself, his dignity and honor, directs that person to do virtuous, worthy, compassionate, loving, just — in short, superior — things; while pride, whatever it makes one do, always appeals only to that person’s selfish feelings. Beneath the feeling that drives one from self-admiration all the way to the trampling underfoot of all superior values lie pride and arrogance. Honor is patient, it is enduring, it bears and it also shows mercy. It is understanding, it pities, it loves, because honor is not a selfish feeling that thinks only of itself. Pride, on the contrary, dies, kills, does not pity, does not show mercy, and even when it loves, it smothers that love within itself. It is a feeling always inclined to trample all good and virtuous characteristics. While honor is humble, pride, again on the contrary, is synonymous with arrogance, high-spirited, self-admiring. In the dictionary I looked at in German, apart from the Turkish dictionary, pride is also explained as “the joy felt on account of a success achieved.” (A dictionary explanation according to the German mind, but the truth. Because they are in exactly those feelings.) For example, a joy felt as a result of the winning of oneself or of the sports team, the athlete/athletes one supports. Or the pride felt about one’s own daughter’s/son’s success can also mean that person’s joy. The pride felt because of the success one’s country has shown, the pride felt on account of the war one’s country has won, and of course the joy and so forth. None of these examples except one is written in the dictionary. But I multiplied the examples in connection with the explanations, so that it would be easier for us to understand. On the surface these sentences seem like reasonable and fitting feelings to a person. But the sly feeling that underlies them always stems, again, from admiring our own selves. The aim is to draw the glory upon our own selves. Even though there is no need for anyone to notice it, our feelings are in this direction. For example, a father saying that he “feels pride” in his daughter/son on account of the very fine grades she/he brings — according to the educational morale given throughout the whole world, this is normal. Whereas if the feelings a person’s pride shows are joy, must he not at the same time rejoice and feel pride at the success of everyone’s son and daughter? If they are all members of one group, branches of one organization, belonging to the same sports club, then indeed the situation is sometimes like this. But if the daughter or son of some nation or individual with whom he has no connection at all, indeed whom he does not even like, has shown success, can that person still, this time, say he feels pride in them? On the contrary, the pride he possesses will make him angry toward these people and more full of hatred. Whether it be son or daughter, whether wife or husband, or whether our relatives, the pride we feel in them is again directed only to our own glory; it does not necessarily depend on our loving them at all. The person who most wishes to elevate someone, or who wishes at all costs to take a share from someone already elevated, does this with the feeling and the desire of pride. And by this, in fact, he wishes to elevate himself as well.

Think of sports competitions. And especially when football is mentioned, national teams and the World Cup come to mind. On this subject the Germans are extremely fiery. I have reached this age of mine, and not once have I ever seen anyone support the opposing team, or another country’s team, because it played more decently, more finely. Imagine that there is such a decent team, and all its footballers are of far superior talent, and the Germans are falling apart and playing very rudely with fouls. Even in such a situation no German would support the other team, nor say so. This, to them, is a terrible treason against the homeland. If he does this in the stadium, he cannot even come out of there alive. This is so not only for the Germans; for every nation, though the form varies more or less, it is the same. I said that while pride is shown in the dictionary as “sometimes the joy felt on account of a success,” in truth this joy is always selfish and one-sided. Only if the team, the athlete, the soldier, the whatever-you-call-it of his own supporting, his own desiring, his own wanting, his own loving, his own country shows success, only then does this become a joy for him. However decent the other side may be, however just and rightful, however talented, however true and honest, forget rejoicing — because in the face of these virtuous characteristics of theirs the proud person sees himself as brought even lower, he is seized with a far greater hatred toward that side.

If I am not mistaken, upon the Germans’ defeat in a World Cup match, their coach angrily left the field at once and went off. Whereas those boys needed him precisely then. Many years before, his ancestor Hitler too left the stands upon the Germans’ losing a match! In all the world press this behavior was written about negatively concerning that coach. What made that man behave in this manner was solely pride.

Again, imagine that your son plays football. Because of a single mistake of his, the whole team loses the match too. As a father or a mother, what do you say to your child? If the match had been won because of his success, what you would say is well known. That you would embrace him and say: “Being your father (or your mother), I feel pride in you” was a very great probability. Whereas with these words we are clearly elevating ourselves and, without realizing it, preparing the way to sink that child into the ground. What does it mean — while boasting of being his father when he wins, would we be ashamed when he loses? Most of the time, foolishly, we put such images into our children’s minds. Let us say that this time things went badly and the match was lost, and because of your child’s mistake at that. Your child is already sad, and his teammates are muttering at him too. Even if you need not necessarily shout and yell at him — though there are many fathers who do this — at the very least you too, in a sad state, in silence, or at most reluctantly, speak words of consolation. Whereas for a virtuous, honorable person these things are of no importance at all. Even if he loses, that child is still loved, and the winning joy of the other team is shared together. Because this is a sport, and one side must surely lose and the other side win. And if the aim is solely and only to win, then let no one take part in sports competitions. Because the gold medal or the cup will be given to only one side. If for those who remain this means pride or death, then let this business never be begun. But if the aim is the joy felt from that sport, the person already experiences this feeling as long as he plays that game. Whether he loses or whether he wins. Pride, if it is the sharing of joy, why is it always connected with the winning, the success, of certain particular people? In our world there are so many games, entertainments, weddings, trips, and hobbies that, if the aim is to come first everywhere and in everything rather than to take pleasure, then let us pull our hands and feet away from everything. Let us never take part in those marathon runs into which tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people enter all at once. Let us begin none of all the sports that can be counted. Because, again I say, only one will win that greatest medal. Perhaps you will say, “footballers do that job for money, and for big money at that; it cannot be seen as a hobby like that.”

Firstly, it is the spectator who has made that footballer who earns so much money rich. If there are no spectators at all, the footballer cannot earn money either. Well, which child began playing football in order to earn money by this path someday? Leave the children aside — what, do you think, is the reason that grown old men form neighborhood teams, constantly train after a tiring day’s work, and go to a match in rain and mud at the weekend? And these people cover all the expenses out of their own pockets too. Surely, when sport is mentioned, terrible sums of money are turning within it. And this is why our world destroys many worthy, talented people. If sport has become in our eyes like the fighting of the gladiators in the old Roman arenas, this is our own fault. And the reason we became its captive and destroyed the feelings called joy is because of our pride. Not everyone is as crude as that German coach, of course. This is why, at the end of a match, the teams try to express that they are sharing their joy through displays such as exchanging jerseys and embracing one another. Even though most of the time this is only a show, it is done. In short, pride is only selfish, ugly, self-thinking. Whether it be about one’s child or one’s country, or in a game between neighborhood teams; pride always takes sides and in the end seeks its own glory, and gives no place at all to love.

“Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep,” it is written in the Gospel, in the book of Romans, in verse 12:15. There is no place for pride here.

When one goes down to the root of the matter by looking from another angle, in fact, in such things, besides pride, taking sides also plays a great role. Our world raises humanity always with the mentality of taking sides. According to them, even if it is bad, one side must at all costs be taken. From politics, from nationalism, all the way down to the family, called the smallest unit of society, people must take one another’s side. We are fed with teachings such as “There can be nothing so bad as a person who takes no side,” “The greatest lack of character is impartiality.” But there is one truth, and that is that taking sides blinds a person. Beneath the taking of sides there is in fact already the saying “be blind.” Of course, in this blindness too, whoever the person, the group, party, team, nation, army, family, boss whose side is to be taken, all their kinds of faults, crookednesses, filth, ugliness must not be seen. And if there is even the danger of being seen by everyone, that too must be covered up. People who take sides are very easily directed. Because just as it is easy to direct a blind person onto the wrong road, so it is with this. All those instruments we call the media — newspapers and the whole press, radio, television — provide a very great ease in directing people who take sides, as a whole mass, wherever it is desired. The spirit that united the people of a whole country in a single thought and a single hatred in Hitler’s Germany came about through the taking and the making-take of sides. Although the words of those people at the postwar trials, such as “we knew nothing, we saw nothing,” were a lie in the literal sense, in the spiritual sense they were true. Since they did not wish to hear, to know, to see, in one respect they had also spoken the truth. Since these truths are well known to the rulers, they, far from merely taking sides, even openly stir up society to look with an evil eye upon certain groups. Whereas taking sides blinds not only our faculty of sight but also the other organs by which we possess the faculties of perception and comprehension. Indeed, the rulers, those who wish to rule the world upon their finger, want precisely this. Because it is far easier to drag a blind society wherever one wishes.

Even an ordinary person, with words such as “if the friend I go out with is not going to turn a blind eye to my faults, then that man is not for me,” has meant here the side-taking of a good friend or comrade. But let us on no account tie this together with things like helping, showing sympathy, self-sacrifice. There is a man who does not take sides but would give even his life for the sake of humanity. For example, let us read from its place the words with which even those hostile to one whom God values, indeed whom He values “greatly,” approached him.

When they came, they said to him: Teacher, we know that you are true and that you show favoritism to no one; (you do not take sides) for you do not look at the person of men; you teach the way of God in truth. (Gospel — Mark 12:14 and Luke 20:21)

Even if it is not immediately noticed in the writing, it was his enemies who spoke these words full of praise to that person. According to the understanding in our world, what do they call such a person? How could this person, who looks at no one’s person, who takes no sides among people but approaches them with righteousness, come to be one whom God greatly loved? We hate such characteristics, while God greatly loves them. To understand that in our time there is a terrible separation between God and humanity, I believe there is no need even to see. It is clear enough to be understood even if we are blind. That is, of course, if we still wish to understand.

In the courts, impartiality is expected of judges. Otherwise there is no justice. In Germany, in every case of mine with Germans, however much in the right I was, I clearly lost. However much I was in the right, again I lost. Only when I was in a case against a Turk did they then act justly. Many years before, too, unjust Turks were coming out in the right. In the early eighties I went to a friend’s labor court case and personally experienced these things. Even though he himself knew he was in the wrong, the court found him in the right. Legally, perhaps, he was in the right. And besides, in those days the communist bloc was standing firm on its feet, and even though one was a Turk, many rights were being given to workers. This too was not justice. Again, all things connected with taking sides. Let people shout as much as they like, “we take no sides”; they cannot overcome these feelings of theirs. And they do not even want to overcome them. God’s expectation, on the other hand, is clear.

You must not do injustice in judgment; you shall not favor the person of the poor, nor show respect to the person of the mighty. Leviticus 19:15

These words tell us clearly: you shall neither pity the poor because he is poor, nor consider the person of a man of standing and power. Because both are the taking of sides, and these too blind a person. The collapse of societies, mistrust, hatred, the courage to do the things that are evil — people take these from such things. The German people have not yet become aware of these things I have written. After the union of East and West and the withdrawal of the Americans, if they come to realize that the laws are behind them in a partial way, then the Turks’ difficult situations will become far more grievous. And indeed it turned out so. Therefore, to abandon justice and take sides, to crush the other by injustice through taking one single side — whether this be in Turkish-German, or in man-woman, or in black-white relations — states and nations, by trampling justice underfoot, have never secured, and could never secure, their own happiness. Before the ruin of every nation, state, and dominion, the morality of that nation, state, ruler collapsed first.

Coming again to the subject of pride, let us give another example about pride, taking it up from the understanding of hospitality. For example, according to the understanding of hospitality of a Turk, a Kurd, or some other Asian person, the right thing is for the host to lower himself before that guest and to become a servant. He wishes, by doing whatever he can and by everything he does according to his abilities, to please the guest. Even if not all of them behave this way, this is to them a very correct manner of behavior. This manner of behaving is also a feeling that puts his conscience at ease within him. Alongside this, a German’s understanding of hospitality is very different. Even if you sit in his home for hours on his business, he does not even wish to give you a coffee or water. And if he does give it, he makes it evident that he is doing it very reluctantly. To run about for a guest, especially for someone he does not know and has no interest in, throwing himself down as though flinging himself from place to place, and to serve that person, is for that German a terribly great debasement and foolishness. To them these are the things a person without pride would do. Of course, giving things requires generosity, and serving is the opposite of laziness. But rather than from stinginess and laziness, the feeling of pride outweighs all of these. The German, on the other hand, boasts of being proud. Once he sees someone serving in that way before him, that person immediately becomes very small in his eyes. And not only does he become small — he is virtually disgusted by him. Not because it is being done to him, but he is disgusted at himself being like that. To them, the proud person is worthy. The way of receiving a guest shown by the Turk, the Kurd, is to him wrong and ugly. And, contrariwise, that they want everyone to treat them in such a humble and servile manner is another truth. This servile manner of behavior that he himself enjoys should, according to them, be done only by people of a lower class. They cannot be proud anyway. Pride is a gift given only to superior races. This is why it is not surprising that, on Sundays, and especially if the weather is sunny, while they do 20-30 kilometer health-walks all at once, when they are together, to the spouse who asks for a water or a beer from the kitchen a few meters away in the house, they say, “go and get it yourself, and bring me one while you’re coming.” The fear that such requests from spouses could turn into a terribly bad habit always lies within them. And is she a servant, that she should do such things! All these are always the fruits of the feeling of pride, and never rest upon love. Even if his heart wishes to do that thing, he forcibly reins himself in and does not do it. His pride does not let him do it. Even if it is someone he regards as superior to himself, someone for business, for interest, or someone he loves and knows, he saves himself from the feeling of debasing himself by this serving, again, by taking him to a restaurant. And if his circumstances are not suitable, and those people are not, in his view, worthy of being taken to a restaurant, and he himself has perhaps been hosted, eating and drinking, at least ten times in that person’s home, then he does it, as though to pay a debt, on a certain day, and calls on that same day all the acquaintances to whom he wishes to pay the debt of his pride, so that they all come out at once. Whereas the understanding of hospitality that occurs in the books these “so-called Christians” say they believe in is very different. Do not on any account think I say this only for the Germans. I believe that an Englishman, an American, a Frenchman, or the people of every wealthy nation are generally like this. If a person from a poor country is a wealthy one there, he too becomes so. Whether he be Kurd or Turk, if they too are wealthy, in the midst of abundance, they immediately display, more or less, the characteristics of those nations we call proud. Because with the possessing of wealth their hearts too have now been lifted up.

Alongside this, in the Holy Scriptures we also read that not every prosperous and wealthy person is necessarily proud and regards serving others as a humiliation. One of the most famous, well-known examples occurs concerning Abraham, the friend of God. When he saw people he did not know at all in the scorching heat of the East, he got up and ran from before his tent, and, bowing before those people, even begged them to stop by him as guests. Although he had many servants and attendants, he told his wife to make the breads that had to be made for those people he did not know at all. The characteristics of this man I have mentioned, I have hardly ever seen in any German among whom I lived for nearly 40 years, not even in their devout religious ones. Abraham’s behavior is not a behavior appreciated among the so-called Christians; in fact, this is to them dog-like servility. (Genesis 18:2-8) Of course, they never voice this openly in this way. A proud person should never do such things. That is correct, because a proud person does not do such things anyway. As I said, even if he wished to, he could not. In all those we call men of God, on the other hand, there is almost no pride at all. Whenever such a feeling did come to them, this too led them to ruin, to a disaster, or removed them from God’s protection. (1 Samuel 18:6-9)

Pride truly has no positive side at all. Even if pride is shown as a useful feeling that moves people to action — for war, for religion, for the homeland, for nationalism, for achieving success — this feeling is a characteristic that God hates. Not only God; people too hate to see this feeling in another, even while they themselves do it gladly. The greatest characteristic of the prophets is that they were not proud but humble. In history too, the characteristics of the people who have made the greatest names to be taken as examples have not been pride. The message that God gave us with Jesus Christ, born in a stable, is also in this direction. While to us people giving birth to a child in a stable is characterized not as God’s blessing but as His curse, to God and His angels this detail is of no importance at all. On the contrary, they rejoiced at God’s works and at the one born. (Luke 2:1-14) We perceive giving birth in a stable as a curse not only because of its difficulty but because we characterize it as a humiliation and cannot stomach it in our pride. Again, many prophets — though they had the authority — regarded, toward the people who foolishly acted superior to them, the falling into pride as a terrible sin. (Luke 9:52-55) They were spat in the face, whipped and cursed, chased about; they did not make a matter of pride of enduring prisons and torture. Whereas all of these were true, honest, brave, honorable people. The proud, self-admiring person must one day put into his pocket the seeing of every kind of hatred and insult, along with hostility, from others. The same things may come upon humble, honorable people too. The difference is that the proud person is receiving what he deserves, but what is done to the honorable person is characterized as injustice. In God’s sight, on the other hand, while the one goes to shame and death, the other goes to eternal life and happiness. Daniel 12:2

Look at what Jesus Christ said by means of the wise Solomon; let us read it from its place:

The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; I hate arrogance and pride and the way of evil and the perverse mouth. (Proverbs 8:13) There are many more fine words about pride and arrogance. For example:

Before a breaking comes arrogance, and before a fall comes a haughty (proud, self-admiring) spirit. Proverbs 16:18

When pride comes, then comes shame; but wisdom is with the humble. Proverbs 11:2

In the Quran too nothing good at all is written about pride. In some translations of the Holy Scriptures the word boasting has been used in place of pride, or pride in place of boasting. And sometimes the phrase “became arrogant” in place of pride. Perhaps the only word that could have two meanings, one positive and one negative, that could be confused with pride, is “boasting.” But even though boasting can sometimes be used in a positive sense, in pride we cannot find even this. For example, a person can boast in God. Here it is a wish to give the glory to the one boasted in, to His characteristics. Only here too one must be careful. God, placing a limit even on boasting, reveals through His apostle that these words be said.

Therefore, let no one boast in men… (1 Corinthians 3:21) Thus says the LORD: Let not the wise (sagacious) man boast in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast in his own might, let not the rich man boast in his riches; but let the one who boasts boast in this, in having insight and in knowing that I am the LORD who exercises loving-kindness (goodness, favor, forgiveness), justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I take delight, declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:23-24, Romans 2:23)

These verses emphasize to us clearly that we may boast only in the LORD and in the things belonging to Him. Well, can one take pride in the LORD? Such a manner of expression, joining the LORD and pride together, I have read nowhere in the Holy Scriptures. In short, no such thing is written. Again, as I said, because in pride there is selfishness; but the difference between the person who boasts in God and the person who takes pride in God is: the one who takes pride takes a share of the glory for himself too, but the one who boasts in His works gives all the glory and majesty to Him, that is, in this case, to God.

In the Holy Scriptures, again, some translations have used the words “they behaved wantonly” in place of pride. In using being wanton and pride as one and the same in meaning, they have not been much mistaken. And sometimes, while words such as “self-aggrandizement,” “arrogance” are used in place of pride, in one place even the expression “answers roughly” has been used in place of “answers with pride.” (Proverbs 18:23) That pride is merciless, it is possible to see also from translations in this form. In another translation, since it must be in harmony with the sentence, there are those who used the word “shameless” in place of pride, that is, the word meaning unabashed, unembarrassed, brazen. And quite rightly. Because the proud person possesses these characteristics. Even though, from the day we are born, they have shown us pride as a very superior, virtuous feeling, according to God’s understanding this feeling is truly a very terrible thing. Pride is a cause that pushes a person to shame, hatred, indecency, even to dishonor. To armies, to those who go to war, to those who will slaughter human beings, this feeling is given beforehand in excessive quantity. The ugly deeds that can be done in those places are possible only by possessing this feeling. Pride, which according to the Holy Scriptures is also synonymous with the lifting up of the heart, is the greatest characteristic that made Satan Satan. (Ezekiel 28:13-19) Who can say that Satan is dignified and honorable? His pride, on the other hand, became the cause of the trampling of all the values in him. Even though pride is supposedly explained as though it values oneself, on the contrary; pride takes and destroys even the smallest value a person possesses. Let us not deceive ourselves by looking at proud people of power. The glory, respect, esteem shown to them rests only on interest and on fear mingled with hatred. That is, it is false. And at the first opportunity they are destroyed in the most merciless way. This is why such people cannot even go out into the street unprotected, alone.

Although in religious circles pride is shown as though it were a bad characteristic, its opposite, humility — generally that too falsely — they are in favor of showing only toward one another. Toward those outside, however, all their behavior is proud, arrogant, self-admiring. When we look at history, while the great majority of wars are waged under the name of religion, the feeling that sends those people to die and to kill has, in most cases, again been pride.

People, with the education and instruction they have received, cannot easily reconcile these things I have written with one another. But if you consider deeply — not only by looking at the Holy Scriptures, but by considering the dictionary meaning of this word — it will still not be at all possible for us to join pride with such good things. Ask and decide for yourselves. Would you always want to live with a proud person, or with a humble, honorable one? Without paying attention, without knowing the meaning fully, and without thinking — as in most of the education and instruction given to us, without showing the trouble of investigation — this must be one of those pieces of knowledge we take ready-made on a tray. The day came when we did not merely accustom our mouths to these words, but applied those words too in a manner befitting their full meanings. And that with the thought, belief, and conscience that “I am doing the most correct thing.”

Coming again to my nose operation, I suffered these pains, which advanced in a terrible experimental way, for fourteen months. In the end I could bear it no longer, and they took images of my neck on a tomography scan. And indeed the thing I had suspected from the very beginning came to light. The cartilage in my neck had herniated and burst outward. That is, one of the cartilages in the neck had shot outward, toward the canal where the nerves coming from the brain are. During the operation they had pressed my head so far back that, had they pushed just a little more, it would have been nothing at all for my whole body to come out of the operation paralyzed. The doctor who took these images called me into his room and, first of all, do you know what he asked? At which hospital I had had the operation. At that moment I could not remember the name of the hospital and said “I don’t know.” This time he asked whether or not I had had the operation in Germany. Before leaving the house I had anticipated that I would meet with these questions. Had I lied and said “I had it in Turkey,” who knows what kind of report he would have written! That too I know. These are events we experience here every single day. As I keep saying, these men behave this way out of love of the homeland! If the mistake made is against another state, and especially against Turkey, everything is examined under a microscope, with the most heartfelt degrading feelings and sentiments, and with additions on top. And the report is written accordingly. This is a manner of behavior expected of every German and, to them, entirely normal. To them, what is abnormal is to be impartial. Do you know what they say to me? “This is perhaps not from this operation but happened before or after!” And it is not only the doctors; even the therapists I went to for physical therapy, although it has no relevance or meaning at all, virtually make a great effort to distance me constantly from this truth. The people of a nation that passes for very logical and clever are sometimes so very foolish and illogical. As they act this way, aside from all trust and respect, a person can even lose all his love for humanity. “Taking sides and bribery blind a person’s understanding” is not said in vain in the Holy Scriptures. If religion, love of the homeland, and nationalism rest upon lying, deceiving, hypocrisy, fraud, massacre, and injustice, I call this neither love of the homeland nor love of the nation; this is downright dishonor. These are the kind of love shown only by people who sell both themselves and their homeland, who have no self-respect. I will repeat the same things again. The Germans who did not obey Hitler’s orders were called traitors to the homeland, and they shot them by firing squad. When we look at history and at the events that unfolded, it became clearly evident who the traitors to the homeland were. And I do not say this because Germany lost the war. I draw attention to the fact that the end of every nation that tramples superior values underfoot and sells itself has been, and will be, thus, sooner or later. Moreover, that the label, the rank, the power has no importance, I had shown by comparing God and Satan. Had the Germans not been defeated in the Second World War but won and become masters of the world, would they have been so very lovable? Do you think the sympathy felt worldwide for that America and those Americans of the time was solely because they won the war? I say no to all of this.

Can you imagine — if I were to say: “A doctor came, hit my car, and turned my 50,000-Euro car into scrap; moreover he objects, he does not accept paying the damage,” everyone would understand this. Even if they did not want to, because I am a foreigner, they would perhaps be obliged to concede I was right. And the laws too might then take that money from him for me. But when the subject concerns human health, why do they have difficulty understanding? And to concede one is right becomes quite impossible. Whereas, if the matter is one of error, in both events in the example there is a doing of harm stemming from error. Why is the understanding shown to the one so different from the one shown to the other? Is it because the institution that organizes the doctors does not interfere in that doctor’s private life that it does not protect him? This is a situation like how, in the old days in Texas, they immediately hanged horse thieves but showed far more tolerance to one who killed a man. Was the horse valued more than a human being? Come now, in the old days a horse meant that man’s livelihood, but now, if we are to compare health and the car, which is more valuable and vital for that person? The value the Germans give to human life and the care they show is most of the time less than for a dog. I do not mean the shows they put on for appearance’s sake. I can already see, as it were, that many Germans will be angered at the things I have written. Stating it again and again, I say that I am only trying to give voice to the things I have seen, experienced, perceived. If they say “True, but we do these things only to you Turks!” — even if I do not believe it, look, I would not be surprised. Organizations, with the rule of the handful at the top, look to no one but their own interest. Let us see when they will understand this. My German neighbor who sits next to me, after he retired, they operated on him literally 10 times, and the man, though he weighed over 100 kilos, dropped to 55, and still they could not kill him! He too, saying homeland and nation, is ready even for death, but although he experiences these truths I speak of in his own body, he still simply cannot accept and swallow them.

I gave the images taken of my neck to a specialist orthopedic doctor, an appointment with whom I could only get, with difficulty, in about three months. I said that these pains had appeared after the nose operation. Upon my asking, as though I were someone who knew nothing, “what did they do that I became like this, or did they drop me?”, upon his saying “come now, it is from doing the operation over a long time and pressing your head back,” I made a request: “could you also give me the things you say in writing?” At once he asked: “Who wants it?” I said my insurance, which was true; because of my first complaint to them, they were keeping the report too. I did not say my lawyer, because I knew what would happen. “Let them write to me and I will give it to them,” he said. Oh, how glad I was. Look, there are such true doctors, people who do not stoop to selling themselves, I was telling my wife. As soon as I came home I opened up the relevant health insurance and explained the situation with the doctor’s name. I gave his telephone number and his name. I told my lawyer the same. Did not the man write them a report exactly the opposite of what he had told me! From a nose operation such a thing never happens. And besides, I was supposedly always chronically ill in the vertebrae of my spine. And on top of that, this fraud wanted a fee of 25 Euros for those words he wrote. At the same time, this doctor writes these lies as a report without any hesitation at all, under the roof of a religious hospital called Diakonie in Schwäbisch Hall. Even that Arab family doctor of ours, whom we call the best, reported that “he had never in his medical life heard of such an error in a nose operation.” Even so, showing humility, he says “ask a specialist too.” All three doctors, as though with a single mouth, reported this situation as “it cannot possibly be.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses came to my mind again. These are a religious organization with over six million members. If they were to summon all the members to court over a single error of their organization, I believe that all of them, though they had not been taught beforehand, would defend that organization in a definite manner, and by lying too. Whatever it might be, they would count doing this a duty. In short, over 6 million people bearing false witness without batting an eye — the education given by the organizational mindset has accomplished this. And what kinds of conferences do you think their organizations and the state give to those doctors too? As humanity we are going down a very terrible road, and our end will not be at all a good one for all of humanity. Can you imagine — whatever the doctors do, as a patient you have no rights at all. And if you run around a lot for your rights, at most I do not think you could even get the money for your lawyers. It has been two years for me and I have obtained nothing. For now my health is enough neither to set up a workplace nor to work. Even these books I am writing I am struggling to complete with my life barely holding on. On the other hand, I want to concede the doctors are right, and I say, I wonder whether one of them did this filth to me especially, on purpose — which is exactly what I have believed from the beginning. Go and prove that! And then again, on the other hand, if there is no danger at all of such a thing happening, why do they make one sign, before the operation, about the risk that is said to be “your head may ache and it may last even for months”? For a risk that will not happen, why do they take a signature from people?

I happened to be on a plane, and in one of the subjects of the magazine that those airlines put out, there was a conversation with a surgeon about the public’s complaints of this herniated disc in the neck. To the question of what most causes this illness, the specialist professor surgeon answers thus: “While painting the ceiling, hanging a curtain, changing a light bulb, indeed one can even acquire this cursed thing with a sudden sneeze,” he says.

Look at the astonishment of it all — pressing a person’s neck back for two hours during an operation would not cause this! And German doctors report this too. Later, in Turkey, while the doctors were performing a goiter operation on a friend’s wife, they caused a herniation in the neck in the same way. Since the same events had happened to me too, I asked: “What did you do, did you not seek your rights?” And she said: “We sought them, but they object, saying this cannot happen in such an operation,” and immediately German doctors came to my mind. Filthy deeds are just like a virus; I was of course not at all surprised at how quickly it had spread.

I, on the other hand, went to seven lawyers, explaining my situation by letter and by telephone. The first question of all of them was whether or not I had insurance that would cover the expense of this case. When I said I did not, again all of them advised me to appear before the doctors’ commission, saying they could not take the case for other pretexts. And this commission is free, they said. If they confirmed the cause of my illness, the situation would be far easier and less expensive. These doctors have arranged a page for their commissions on the Internet. We read it, and I will try to write out the parts most important, in my view, exactly. The figures may be more or less; I will try, by writing round numbers, to make it easier to understand.

Out of approximately 1,100 cases, all but 75 were brought to a resolution in these commissions. Inwardly I hastily said at once, ohhh! They have also written examples of some cases they conceded. Always at most two or three. Then it continues: of these 1,100 people who came, 750 were deemed unbelievable, that is, liars. And to the great remaining majority they conceded regarding their health conditions but said they could not accept this as the doctors’ error. That is, they sent them off saying, yes, you have this illness, that is true, but you acquired it not during the operation but from somewhere else. That is, like my situation. For some reason they did not give, with this number, the exact number of the people they conceded to fully. However clever they may think themselves, in fact these notices are very foolish. In my view the number of those people they conceded to is no more than 30-40. And those too are generally always in problems concerning women’s births and babies. It must be out of fear that the German people’s stock is dying out; evidently they must value this one subject very much. Otherwise they would recognize none of them — but never mind. That is, out of so many people who applied to the commission, only 75 people, being unsatisfied, went to court! These men see these writings as their successes and, for this reason, arrange those pages. And you now think those they conceded to “received their rights.” I too thought so. By conceding, they give that person only morale, physical therapy, and perhaps a little money; that is all. In the end, by explaining and explaining that they too can make mistakes, that they are human, that such situations are unavoidable, the other side is softened. As I said, even if they gave no figures about these, this is so for very, very few people. And do not think you can go before this commission so easily, willy-nilly. After all the files, together with the operation reports, come into their hands, if they do not object, only after waiting at the earliest 9 months to a year and a half can you go before them. Sometimes this time can of course stretch even longer. And they are not obliged to give any account at all! Because the person is not obliged to go there. Moreover, they pose as though they are supposedly helping you. After reading those writings, I definitely decided, once and for all, that I would never do such a thing. It is certain that more than 80 percent of those people who come to these men are, in my view, truly in the right. This I know from my own experiences, which I have recounted from living them, and with proof of how the doctors lie. That ear-nose-and-throat doctor did not give me even the simplest information containing my illness in writing. Only upon the insurance fund requesting it in writing did he give it, by force. These difficulties are like this concerning a subject as small as a pinhead — you imagine the others. And that too he sent not by writing the truth but by writing false and wrong things. The other orthopedic doctor who wrote the false report, there is no need for me to write about again and again. All these, and far more, are a reality experienced by those who appear before that commission. And the statistics are there in plain view. And these too are recounted not by me but by them, on their pages, boasting: “Look how we managed the events without reflecting them to the court.” Because whatever the case, when it is reflected to the court, that event becomes terribly expensive. And that for both sides. However much the judge listens to a host of lying expert witnesses before him, all of them are exactly like the people who are members of Jehovah’s Witnesses and of the Catholic papacy. This is why, however tough his stomach, the judge’s stomach too is not without turning. And besides, the events are plain and clear. However much this judge sees a thousand of them before him, he does not send off, cannot send off, 750 of them like them, with the stamp of unbelievable and liar. At the very worst, even if he does not concede the patient is right — for they do not much like conceding anyway — even his saying that everyone must pay his own court expenses is a great defeat for the doctors. Just think of the whole loss of lawyer and court expenses of 1,100 cases. The smallest starts from 5-10 thousand Euros. This was so for their 1,100 cases. There are hundreds of thousands of such cases. This is why they encouraged that doctor, that judge, at a meeting, at a party, giving one another counsel, saying look to settling your own filth yourselves, and, with the state’s pushing too, they encouraged those doctors to set up commissions, to organize. In short, even if out of those 1,100 people you earn the right to enter among the 50, they still, by keeping a person struggling for years, wring that life of his out of some other part of him again. And the number of those who, like me, never go, or cannot go, is beyond counting. Their successes are truly worthy of praise, bravo to them. What I have recounted here is not about organized religions but about organized doctors. I believe that as long as we humanity remain as we are, the things that come upon us are even too few. Come, if you are so bold, go to the doctor, lie down under the anesthesia, and hand over your life to him. As a patient you have no rights, so that the men would fear to make a mistake. Moreover, they have also taken upon themselves the task of cleansing the homeland. And having loaded such a filthy task onto the men’s backs, are they then to demand an account from them! God forbid, God forbid!

As far as I know, in Germany and generally in these so-called developed countries, no doctor gives, and can give, a document that would be against another doctor. Even if he knows the patient is a thousand percent in the right, they do not let him do this. Because, being organized, they are obliged, indeed compelled, to follow certain rules. If there are among them those authorized to decide and to investigate whether or not there is an error, this too must be done only by those commissions I mentioned. This logic is instilled in all doctors. The doctor who goes beyond this is thrown out of that organization. From then on they make his life and that profession poison to him. Only if he can flee that country and, far away, perhaps try his luck again, may he try. But wherever he goes, the world is full of filth, and he will be forced to give his struggle everywhere, or, giving up, he will bow his neck to them. Those who are curious about this subject, which I have touched on only very briefly regarding organizations, let them read the book “The Religious Mafias and We” and, in place of the religious organizations mentioned there, take these doctors’ organizations and put them in — it fits exactly, and their workings rest upon the same principle. Just as the Jehovah’s Witness who wishes to take a right step and says “I will no longer bow my neck to that organization” is reminded of the promise he gave during his baptism, so too the doctors are reminded of the Hippocratic oath they swore in the name of whatever their gods are. Most of them, by belonging to these organizations, think they have protected themselves and guaranteed their lives too. In truth, by making themselves belong to that organization, they sell themselves and make themselves slaves. I call this being a willing donkey. Do you think that by this path they will be happy? Since each of them has sold himself and sees himself as obliged to sell himself, their lives become poison too. Moreover, the heads who oppress them too, like every ruler, can take a sadistic pleasure from this business. In the old days a doctor had a standing and a value most loved among the people; now, however, many people do not even feel trust toward them. Evidently the saying “whatever you sow, that you reap” will never grow old and will preserve its validity.

Since we live around the hospital, we get more mixed up with these things. The doctor who moved into our street must have been quite worn out during the move and all, for right around then, while performing this operation, a patient of his died on the table. And in a simple operation at that. To tell the truth, I conceded the man was in the right! The man has two camel-sized sons, but neither of them is the type to show the trouble of even fetching him water. The mother, meanwhile, is even worse. This man carries the whole load, saying “my family.” And besides, this is Germany, not Turkey where you hire porters and such for every job and nobody moves house with his hand on his backside. Moreover this poor soul rented not one but two houses at once. In the short leave he took for all this work, so that he could finish the job and make comfortable his roughly 1.90-tall, 120-kilo wife and his giant, hairy babes, so that he could go straight off to work. I know he is a surgeon from his having operated on my stepfather years ago. And, bless him, he had done it very well too. During that move I had said to our wife that this man could not operate in this state of exhaustion. No, but they are supposed to perform operations like a machine and earn money for the hospital. And indeed, right in those days a man, because of his error, went to kingdom come. That is, the victims of moving, exhaustion, and morale — their blood is what these men shed on those tables. He isn’t going to go to a slaughterhouse, is he — are these men butchers, doctor! Everyone should do his job in his own place, is that not so!

Since my mother always had a love of animals, we too had a little dog. Even though I was greatly bothered by it, I too would sometimes take it out to walk in the street. Oh sir, you should see those cold Germans! At most one out of every five people would surely either look at, or stop and talk to, and pet our dog. And in those days I was very young too, my age was 21-22. Amazing — whereas no one talks to me, does not even look at my face, when there was a dog in my hand the situation changed. And I never at all liked being looked at for the dog’s sake. And the Germans love to show love toward little babies and children as though they had never seen such a thing. Whereas their real human relationships they keep in deep freezers. And in shock freezers at that. And do not even try to thaw them, because you cannot know what will come out from inside.

I have seen many people, German or Turkish, angered at the things I have written. I had asked my uncle, an engineer in Ankara, to help with the publication of my book, and after he must have read my book somewhat like that, his Turkish nationalist feelings and love of religion must have flared up, for he had sent me a mail ending with the last lines of Neyzen Tevfik, ending with the word “dishonorable,” and, I believe, wishing to say these lines to me not with his own words but with that poet’s words. A friend of mine whom I had known for years, who had later become a doctor, after reading the same book, The Religious Mafias, vanished without a trace. In fact they did not even deign to say whether they had read it or not. That is, whoever takes the book in hand becomes strange! Jehovah’s Witnesses, meanwhile, even expel from the congregation those who greet me, and that on account of this book I have written. Those who are German and read these books of mine hate me solely because of the views I have written about the Germans. My aim is neither to slander the German nor the Turk, neither to declare war on Jehovah’s Witnesses nor on all religions. But by writing the truths impartially, as I saw, experienced, heard them, do I become the bad one? If I keep silent, if he keeps silent, if we keep silent, who will speak? Should I, like everyone, write a book of fairy tales?

“Woe to those who issue unjust decrees and to the scribes who write crooked things!” (Isaiah 10:1) says the LORD.

And besides, my aim is not to seek people’s satisfaction, their glory. Let everyone who is angered ask himself this: “Are the things he wrote a lie or the truth?” If it is the truth, what can being angry at me change? These events, these truths, which I have merely put to paper — do the other people not also see and know them, as it were? Because they keep silent, do they think everyone is blind, satisfied, or has fallen silent out of guilt? No — but if the things I wrote are a lie, then let them accept the things I wrote as a book of fairy tales. One is not angered at books of fairy tales. A person is not expelled from the congregation for greeting one who has written a book of fairy tales! Nor does that person become a traitor to the homeland or anything of the sort. Religions supposedly teach people the love of God! Some become patriots and do all sorts of things, while others so love God and do all sorts of things! Any thing whatsoever — if we say we love it — its value becomes savory and increases only if it is kneaded with concepts like the superior, the virtuous, the just, love. By lying, by fraud, unjustly, by taking sides, by dishonor, we only lower the value of those things, and it means we are striving to destroy them. Whether this be the homeland, or our religion, or whatever organization we are attached to. Had we taken a lesson from history, we would not repeat the same things. Some people evaluate history like lottery, lotto numbers. That is, for them it is a matter of chance. About the things that happened in the past, they think: “Had we too had luck, then it would have been better, we would not have been defeated, we would not have been destroyed.” Whereas in all the Holy Scriptures and in the Quran, God has never used an expression such as “if you have luck you become like this, if you have no luck you become like that.” The Person who created the earth and all the heavens did not, and does not, do His works by chance. As Albert Einstein said, “God does not throw dice.” There may be those who say, “What has God to do with the events in history?” Although God permits many things, He has not left the earth ownerless and to the madness of Satan and of human beings.

I spent 40 years of mine in Germany, asking nothing from anyone but trying to give to very many people as much as I could. When I became unemployed 25 years ago and, at the time they were to give me unemployment aid, I did not want it, the official was astonished and quarreled with me. I had said, “Am I obliged to take aid?” and, looking at my face in astonishment, he had gone off and called his chief. By putting my signatures to a number of papers stating that of my own will I refused the aid, I barely got myself out of it. And never again, not even to look for work, did I set foot at that institution’s door. And do not think I did these things because I am very good, or like an angel. Because if someone gives you something, he will then bring it out of your nose. This too I knew. If your skin is thick and you are also a bit shameless, only then can you get things. And according to my belief too, the great majority are not those truly in need of aid but those who are truly in need and receive no aid. They already make no sound, and if they do make a sound, they are made to regret being born. Those whose skin is thick, on the other hand, succeed. We hear that many asylum-seekers have built houses, opened businesses, with the social aid they took from Germany. Even if I saw none of them happy, that is how it was. It does not concern me either, but I wanted to draw attention to our just world, to the manner in which people apply their religion and patriotism, their nationalist feelings.

I cannot pass over without recounting a thing my mind and my reason still cannot accept. Because my headaches were terrible, during physical therapy, having my head hung relaxed me very much. It is actually a very simple device. They place a cloth suspended from the ceiling by ropes under your neck while you lie down. A person’s head stands, as it were, suspended in the air. Just as physical therapies are not free, the insurance fund pays far more than the money we pay. Even though these physical therapies are surely very beneficial, since my pain was a 24-hour pain, I wanted to buy this suspension, which relaxed me, and hang it from the ceiling at home. None of the physical therapists whom we asked where it could be bought wished to tell us this. I said, “they must surely be thinking that by this path I could restrict their work opportunities,” and I began searching myself. But we could not find it. We told the health insurance; they said that if a doctor prescribed it they would accept it. The mind of all of them too is on the money they will give. I, on the other hand, was asking where it could be found, thinking perhaps they would know! We went, and the doctor prescribed it too. But we could not find the very same thing. Well, when we asked where these people who do the physical therapy get it from, no one helps. Neither the health insurance nor the places that do the treatment. And do not on any account think this thing we were looking for is some dangerous device or such. While I was in physical therapy, from this suspension placed under my head, each time, when the time was up, I got up and went off myself. As I said, this suspension needs to be at a comfortable height, three to five centimeters above the bed; that is all. For such a treatment therapy together with massage, for every ten sessions, I am not sure, but the insurance probably gives somewhere between 200-300 Euros. And go to the doctor and have him prescribe as much as you want. No one says anything, and especially in this situation cannot say. While roughly 700-800 Euros of a three-times, ten-session prescription like this comes out of the health fund, out of our pocket too the share falling at least to us is about 100 Euros, and the time and travel expenses to go there are extra. In the end, this whole device that we searched for and found on the Internet is not even 50 Euros. We ordered it and it came. The German insurances scream at the top of their voices, “let us economize, there is no money left in the funds!” Let them keep on screaming! And they do not help me either, out of concern that I might do something wrong to myself! Well, if I lie at home on a very high, or abnormally low, crooked pillow, is that not a mistake for this neck of mine? In the end, the money for that fifty-Euro device, which they had said “if the doctor prescribes it we will pay,” they refused to pay, saying “it is not necessary.” The device they say is not necessary they apply to me in physical therapy, they give ten times its money, but when I buy it, for the thing that relaxes me, that eases my pains, they write a letter, without shame, saying “it is not necessary.” Behold the disciplined German mind! This system resembles the very logic in communism. When the Germans united with the eastern side, they rolled up their sleeves, saying “we will straighten them out too.” When time passed and I looked at Germany, I say one would again have to be blind not to see who straightened out whom, who corrupted whom. Those people possessing the organizational mentality of communism each took up posts in the west in a managerial position. That country which that mentality sank now drags these ones too to the same place. The Germans, who were very afraid of the Turks, saying “oh, our culture will be corrupted,” with such a swindle they swallowed under the name of homeland, nation, unification, I fear will lose far more things. Every nation one day comes to receive the recompense of the injustice, the hatred, the hostility it has committed. Histories show this. Those who take a look at the history of the Holy Scriptures concerning Israel and the nations will understand this at once. When we were children, my mother had told us much about the superior virtues and humane behaviors of the Germans. Truly, with our mouths agape, we would listen to these accounts for hours. Even though others had come to Germany for money, for work, our greatest reason was to live with a people of a country bearing these characteristics. As I said, although the Germans always had problems concerning love, we felt in childhood, in the years I came, their just, humane laws of that time. Now, however, there is not even a trace of any of it.

Another reason for my recounting all these things is again connected with seeing. I had spoken of physical seeing and of spiritual seeing. With these things I have written, let me draw attention to people’s points of view. By writing the things I have seen and experienced, I wish, if possible, to warn humanity. Surely, in the end, all these things I have written are, after all, my own point of view. Just as our reaction toward the objects we see with our literal eyes can be more or less different for all of us, so this difference too stems from our point of view. This thing called point of view occurs with the literal eyes just as it does with the spiritual eyes. A dictionary in my hand explained view and point of view in the following two meanings.

View: 1. The manner or act of seeing. 2. The judgment arrived at about events, thoughts, and things. Point of view: 1. The manner of thinking for evaluating a thing. 2. The area the eye can see in its own direction. (Basic Turkish Dictionary — Kemal Demiray)

For example, the angles from which the people across the street and behind it who watch an accident see that event are from different places. The person looking from behind also sees the car’s brake lights. The one looking from the front has perhaps seen the driver’s reaction. Those looking from the side have made far more different observations. Sometimes there may be those who happen to look at the accident from above, from an apartment floor, a bird’s-eye view. The point of view of all of them is different from one another. When the event is evaluated taking all these into account, it becomes easier to understand the truth. Even though no witness lies in this event, what nonetheless makes those statements different is the places where the people are, and consequently their angles of looking at the events.

I said there are also angles of looking with the spiritual eyes. This means that different views will emerge. Let us not think that this must necessarily occur among those of opposing thought and belief. The points of view, the evaluations of events, the things they pay attention to, of people who possess the same thought and belief, and who have again made the same values their goal, are, just as in the accident example a moment ago, different. For example, the apostles who wrote the first four books of the Gospel recount the same events, but looking from different points of view. Although they wrote the things they saw and heard impartially, just as they were, they were spiritually under the influence of the same point of view. To the subject one paid attention to and gave importance, another did not touch at all but drew attention to the detail of some other subject. And by this they wrote not lies but, on the contrary, truths. Even though they wrote, sometimes taking up events from very different angles, all of them in the end speak of Jesus Christ and of his life. For someone reading the Gospel for the first time, the writings of these four people consist of needless repetitions. Again, some, for the sake of refuting the Gospel and proving that it has been altered, do research and, without taking into account those people’s points of view, go the way of comparing words one to one, with only superficial evaluations. Just as the Christians do the same thing by comparing the Quran with the Holy Scriptures. But investigating the truth is done by very different methods. This subject I treated a little more fully, again, in the book titled “The Religious Mafias and We”.

People who are aware that points of view can be different behave more carefully. One who is aware that events can be seen from many sides will be more cautious in the step he will take, in the decision he will make, in the words he will say. The greatest characteristic of a wise (sagacious) person is that he can weigh events, persons, and what may happen in the future beforehand. And with these a person should be able to evaluate both himself and others. Since a wise person would already know that this business is not so easy, come what may, he will not immediately behave according to what he sees and hears in that instant and, most importantly, according to his feelings. And especially he must never make himself the master of everything. To be able to weigh a thing from every side requires impartial research, the taking up of events from many angles, and most importantly the knowledge to distinguish what is right and what is wrong — this, I think, everyone will accept. If we set out to behave according to only what we see in that instant, we can go as far as shouting “hurrah!” and lynching people. This is a view and a manner of behavior of the rabble class. In the summer, while I was in Turkey, almost every day I heard on the news of the people’s movements to lynch someone. Whether they were right or wrong I do not know. The only thing I know is that in lynching there is no such thing as a right anyway. To set out to lynch — aside from disregarding that state, that judge, those laws — is at the same time a terrible lack of wisdom. And it is also a massacre. However much an event may make lynching appear to us as though it were justified, it can never be defended as a wise manner of behavior. If there is an injustice, if there is an obvious wrong that has been done, and if you even have the strength to lynch people, you can use this strength to hand that person over to the laws, to the authorized people, and to bring a case against them. It may be that these matters are very tiring and can drag on so long as to destroy a person’s morale before obtaining a result. Indeed, it is nothing at all for the one in the right to come out in the wrong, and the one in the wrong to come out in the right, in the end. I spoke of my experiences concerning the things that happen to patients in Germany. Moreover, who knows, perhaps that person is not at all guilty as you suppose or see. If you lynch him, just as, out of nowhere, you would become guilty of the blood of an innocent person, so too, because you could not rein in your own feelings and folly, you may lose your own life instead of his. Even if the laws and man do not demand that life from you, the day comes when, at a time you do not expect, God demands it.

Concerning the wrongness of judging by appearance, the Quran tells an interesting story. This subject is not treated at all in the Holy Scriptures. Rather, in the Holy Scriptures we read mostly of Moses’ relations with Israel. Whereas we know almost nothing about the details of his life in Egypt up to the age of forty, and of his life afterward for another 40 years in Midian. It is evident that much care was taken to write the records of the Holy Scriptures briefly and concisely. In the Quran, on the other hand, while many events of the Holy Scriptures are mentioned, some details not occurring there are also touched upon. In the eyes of the Christians and the Jews, on the one hand it is a one-to-one copy, while on the other hand, because it has entered into different details, this time it is a “fabricated” book. To refute a thing at all costs, by whatever means — is there any lack of words? Listen to the politicians before the elections and you will see. In their accusations against one another at the same moment, and consequently when they are cornered, their defending of themselves skillfully and in ways one would never think of, is truly an art. Perhaps the art of fraud, but even so, to perform that business so instantly is not everyone’s portion. Yes, concerning the wrongness of judging by appearance, let us come to that interesting story that befell Moses. This time from the Quran, again I wish to write it exactly from its place:

…Then they found one of Our servants to whom We had given mercy from Ourselves and had taught knowledge from Our own presence. Moses said to him: ''May I follow you so that you may teach me some of the true knowledge that has been taught to you?'' He (Khidr) said: “You cannot bear to be with me. How can you be patient about a thing you do not comprehend through knowledge?” he said. He said: “If God wills, you will find me patient. I will not disobey you in any matter.” He said: “Very well then, since you wish to come with me, do not ask me about anything until I myself open up and tell you of it!” Thus they set out and went.

They boarded a ship. He (Khidr) made a hole in it inside. (Moses) said: ''Did you make a hole in order to drown those in it? Truly you have done a terrible thing!'' He said: ''Did I not tell you that you cannot be patient while you are with me?...'' (Moses) said: ''Do not rebuke me for the thing I forgot. Do not lay upon me a hard burden because of this.'' Thus they continued on the way. They came upon a boy. He killed him. (Moses) said: ''You have killed an innocent soul. He had killed no soul. Truly you have done a very evil thing!'' He too said: ''Did I not tell you that you cannot be patient while you are with me?'' (Moses) said: ''If I ask you about anything after this, then keep me as a companion no longer. This will be my last apology to you.'' Thus they continued on the way. They came upon the people of a city. They asked the people of the city for food. But they did not wish to host them. There they found a wall about to fall down. And he set it straight. (Moses) said: ''Had you wished, you would have taken a wage for this work.'' He said: ''This is the parting between me and you. Let me tell you the inner meaning of the things you could not be patient about.

That ship belonged to poor people working at sea. I wished to make the ship a little defective. Because behind them there was a king seizing every ship by force. As for the boy, his mother and father were believers. We feared that he would drag his mother and father into transgression and unbelief. We desired that their Lord should give them in exchange one better than him in purity and nearer in mercy. As for the wall: It belonged to two orphan boys in that city. And beneath it there was a treasure belonging to them. Their father too was a righteous man. Your Lord willed that the two of them should reach maturity and bring out their treasure, as a mercy from your Lord. I did not do these things of my own will. This is the meaning of the things you could not be patient about.'' Al-Kahf (18):65-82 (Osman Nebioğlu translation)

Here we read of the wrongness of judging by appearance. In those three events that passed between Moses and that person, the person’s stating “I did not do these things of my own will” explains that the things he did were from God. If there is one certain thing, it is that God has been concerned with Moses since the day he was born. (Exodus 2:1-10) We have no doubt either that, in order that he might be wise and understanding, He had him experience many events. Because events unfold in such a way that Moses, although he gives his word, cannot restrain himself and opposes him. For example, as for the building of that wall. It is written that, before the wall was built, they asked the people of that city for food. So they had no money and their bellies too were hungry. And it is evident that the people of the city were not very hospitable. While in an exhausted and distressed state, the man beside him building a wall without expecting anything in return does not fit into Moses’ reason, and, becoming angry, by saying “had you wished you would have taken a wage for this work,” he means, in one respect: “our bellies are hungry and these men gave us nothing, and moreover we have no money. Had you at least asked for something for this work, our bellies too would have been filled.” In my view, God used such events in raising a prophet who would come in the future. It is not possible for us to know, through the records that pass very briefly in the Holy Scriptures, the researches Moses did up until prophethood came to him. Even the Quran does not touch on it very much. But in the essence of the subject concerning the life of the prophet Moses, we see that he was always in a state of research. Well, what was Moses researching?

Even though he grew up and was educated in the best conditions and standards of Egypt, a world-ruling country at the least, Moses was not satisfied. They had not answered Moses’ spiritual desires. In history and in our time too, we already know and see that governments generally do not much give answers containing the truth to humanity’s spiritual hunger. If Moses was seen worthy of prophethood by God, this stemmed from Moses’ using his own will and doing the things that would please God. Because He knew that he would do the things that would please God, God had his life put to paper from the very beginning. Had it been not him but another, this time He would have had that one’s life put to paper from the beginning. That is, it is not, as we believe, that a person is automatically born as a prophet. Nor are the things those people will do, whether good or bad, programmed beforehand. Rather, because He foresaw and foreknew these things that would happen, because He knew those people before they were even born, God chooses them. A sentence in Yaşar Nuri Öztürk’s book titled “I Answer” came to my mind. And it is also a truth that should be a great lesson for Jehovah’s Witnesses. There it is written exactly as follows:

“It is not that we do because God knows; God knows because we do or will do.”

With this truth, very beautifully expressed, the fatalist understanding of people and the thought that “we are like this because our fate was written thus beforehand” is also refuted. If our fate was written beforehand, this is not because it was programmed beforehand, but only because of God’s characteristic of seeing the future as it is. He saw, but He saw whatever we did. He neither forced, saying “do it!”, nor did He apply pressure. In the end, whatever we did, we did it only by using our own will. Perhaps we may have understandable excuses; the cause of this too is again not God. That is, if we curse God, if we disregard His existence at all, we do not do this because God wishes it. Nor do Satan and his demons take us by the arms and make us do what they want, make us say what they want. And if they speak by means of us, it is because we permit it. Or, by drawing away from God, we throw ourselves into that abyss, that current, from which there is no getting out. Again by our own will, we ourselves prepare beforehand the ground for others to master us. And after that, we can keep under control neither the things we do nor the things we say. (Luke 4:33-35; Luke 22:3)

Words expressing people’s points of view and feelings are used in the language of the people too. Again, envious eyes, the evil eye, arrogant eyes are expressions used in societies. Here, rather than literal seeing, looking, attention is drawn to the person’s point of view and consequently to the heart-attitude he possesses.

To make people small in one’s own eyes, or, on the contrary, to enlarge and inflate them, is another art. From time to time, in the direction of the things they wish to obtain, people have resorted to such methods, and it is still much applied, a method that works. This too is something like a kind of psychological suggestion. With an event that happened recently, I can perhaps explain this situation better.

Preparations are being made for the World Cup matches and the qualifiers are being played. The match will be held in Germany, and the others are the guest team. And when the Germans are defeated in football, they can even throw themselves out of windows. Anyway, there is a match between Mexico and Germany. And the Mexicans are playing well. The Germans, meanwhile, were in a falling-apart state at that time. Around the time preparations were being made at the camp, what should they show on television by chance but the Germans, all the way from Mexico, bringing that place’s mayor or such into the middle of the camp, saying “we will help you build schools.” The whole television crew, the Germans in a helping pose, and now and then with scenes showing the pitiful state of poor Mexico and the schoolless Mexican children, the television turns again to the young footballers in the camp. The Germans, in the position of big brothers helping them, are psychologically leveling those youths to the ground. That it is impossible their great love for the Mexicans has flared up so that they do this. And you’re going to help — brother, has there not remained a place and setting, that you blow your own horn before those young sportsmen, honorable in their own way, saying, “look, we are helping you, eh!” The aim is not help or anything of the sort, but to make those youths small in their own eyes psychologically, so that they can thrash them in the match. Now you should see the German sportsmen — they are embracing them, arm in arm like charitable big brothers. Whereas the Germans do not embrace anyone man-to-man; for them this is homosexuality! And some of those boys are ashamed, some in a bewildered state with feelings between joy and shame. Whereas against such charitable ones Jesus Christ says very fine and fitting words.

Take care not to do your righteousness before people to be seen by them; otherwise you will have no reward before your Father who is in the heavens.

So then, when you give charity, do not blow a horn before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues (places of worship) and in the streets to be honored by people. Truly I tell you: “They have received their reward.” But when you give charity, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your charity may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you. (Matthew 6:1-4)

These ones, meanwhile, far from blowing a horn in that neighborhood, are in a display of showing off, blowing their horn to the world on the television channels. Evidently the German coach cannot trust his sportsmen, so he has resorted to this way. And now you imagine the morale of those children to whose country help is given. After this, go out and beat that team that helped you! Is that a possible thing? And indeed they were defeated. As you can understand, this politics worked. Had the men only come themselves and said “we will help you,” perhaps the Mexican coach would prevent this situation. So they even bring their men, all the way from Mexico, whom they cannot say no to, so that their hands and arms are tied. Well, who does not understand this? On behalf of Germany and on behalf of those very young Mexican children too, water ran down my back from shame. And I could not keep myself from saying, shame upon a sport won in such a way.

This was making people small in one’s own eyes; I spoke also of the exact opposite, and this is enlarging those people in one’s own eyes. Even though we sometimes do this to our loved ones to give that person courage, to spur him on and encourage him, this too must be done carefully. What generally comes to my mind is how people can always misuse these feelings. For example, before soldiers go to be blown to bits in war, the commander, or the leader, gives a speech. Now he inflates and inflates those soldiers whose faces he does not even look at, whom he always thrashes and sees each of only as a robot. However great his speaking ability, he enlarges and inflates them by just that much. And after that, off to death. Surely not all who give such speeches are dishonorable. People know very well that by degrading or elevating a person in his own eyes, something can be obtained. Perhaps I too, by writing this book, will become aware of how very many things there are connected with seeing. It has so many various meanings.

Again we said that curiosity connected with seeing exists in every person. The prophet Moses too, like every person, was one who had the curiosity of seeing. He wished to see God. This does not mean that he doubted God’s existence. At the very least, on account of God’s constantly speaking with him, the miracles He performed, and many more astonishing events, Moses could not doubt God’s existence at all. Moses’ wish to see was, in my view, based only on curiosity. And since God knew this curiosity of people, He had this event that befell Moses put to paper. And by this He gave an answer to us too, who possess the same feelings. Moses said to God:

“I beg (implore) you, show me your own glory.” (Exodus 33:18) God answers thus:

“You cannot see my face; for no man can see me and live.” (Exodus 33:20)

When I first read these words I could not much understand them. Thoughts such as “Is it not possible for God — even if that man dies, could He not raise him again?” passed through my mind. The human mind is not of a structure capable of taking in God. That is, we are of a limited creation. What is more, there are great limits even in the things we see and will see. Seeing under water, looking at the sun, distinguishing bacteria, watching an exploding atom bomb are things not possible, or very restricted, with our naked eye — I had already said this beforehand. Let alone being able to look at an energy like God, in what form, I wonder, should God appear to us so that we too could say “we saw Him”? When God is mentioned, do we people seek before us someone tangible, someone to be embraced and hugged? Even though these feelings are not wrong, when it concerns God they become impossible.

For example, our taking those tiny fish in the aquarium into our hands to fondle them, to caress them, means death for those creatures. Or the flights in the air of a many-colored butterfly give rise, as it were, to the joy of spring within us. If we set out to take it into our hands and fondle it, this too means death for that butterfly. Those who live in Germany know very well the worth of the sun. And to bring the sun close over those people would bring them not joy and pleasure but only pain and death. So to love some things it is not necessary to embrace them and to see them at all. There are even people who wish to go to the sun and do research within it. While recounting this subject, a joke came to my mind now. From the Black Sea jokes.

Some Americans came to the Black Sea for a project. Our Temel, so as not to fall behind the American engineers’ boasting and boasting about the moon, about space, and about the things they had done, suddenly says “eh, we are going to go to the sun.” Upon the American engineer’s saying “no, man, how can that be, you would melt before you even got there,” Temel replies, “eh, did you think us stupid — we will go in the cool of the night.”

Since God knows that our wish to see God is only harmful to us, He answers, “You cannot see my face; for no man can see me and live.” Some Israelites must have misunderstood this subject, for in time, out of an angel they saw in human form, they were seized with fear and say “we have seen God and we shall die.” For some of them, a person who sees God being unable to live was, as it were, in the sense of a spell. As though, even if you saw and are alive, you must nonetheless die. For this mother and father who will have physically the strongest child in the world, miraculous events occur. This subject passes in the 13th chapter of the book of Judges of the Holy Scriptures as follows.

There was a man from Zorah, from the tribe of Dan. His name was Manoah. His wife was barren and had had no children. The angel of the LORD appeared to the woman and said, “You are barren and have borne no children, but you will become pregnant and give birth to a son.” “From now on take care to drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For you will become pregnant and give birth to a son. No razor is to touch his head. For the boy will be dedicated to God from the womb. He is the one who will begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” The woman went to her husband and said, “A man of God came to me. His appearance was awesome, like the angel of God. I did not ask where he came from. He did not tell me his name either. But he said, ‘You will become pregnant and give birth to a son,’ ‘From now on drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy will be a Nazirite dedicated to God from the moment he enters the womb until the day of his death.’”

Manoah pleaded thus with the LORD: “O Lord, I ask that the man of God you sent may come again and teach us what we should do for the boy who is to be born.” God heard Manoah’s plea. While the woman was in the field, the angel of God appeared to her again. But Manoah was not with his wife. The woman ran to her husband to give him the news. “The man who came to me the other day has appeared to me again!” she said. Manoah got up and followed after his wife. Coming to the man, he asked, “Are you the man who spoke with my wife?” The man said, “Yes, I am.” Manoah asked, “When the things you said come to pass, what will be the ruling concerning the boy’s life and his task?” The angel of the LORD replied, “Let your wife keep away from everything I told her,” “Let her eat nothing produced from the vine, let her drink no wine or strong drink. Let her eat nothing unclean. Let her carry out all that I have commanded.”

Manoah said, “We wish to detain you and slaughter a young goat in your honor.” The angel of the LORD said, “Even if you detain me, I will not eat the food you prepare,” “If you are to offer a burnt offering, you must offer it to the LORD.” Manoah did not realize that he was the angel of the LORD. He asked the angel of the LORD, “What is your name? So that we may know, and when the things you said come to pass we may honor you.” The angel of the LORD said, “Why do you ask my name?” “My name is beyond understanding.” Manoah took a young goat with a grain offering and offered it upon a rock to the LORD. At that moment, before the eyes of Manoah and his wife, wondrous things happened: The angel of the LORD ascended to heaven together with the flame rising from the altar. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell face down to the ground.

When the angel of the LORD did not appear again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realized that he was the angel of the LORD. He said to his wife, “We shall surely die,” “Because we have seen God.” His wife replied, “Had the LORD wished to kill us, He would not have accepted the burnt offering and the grain offering,” “He would not have shown us all these things. Nor today would we have heard the things He said.” And the woman gave birth to a son. She named him Samson. The child grew and developed. And the LORD blessed him. The Spirit of the LORD began to move Samson in Mahaneh-Dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol. (Holy Scriptures, Judges chapter 13)

That woman’s husband was neither the first person to misunderstand God’s words, nor will they be the last. That the first man Adam’s knowledge about God too was wrong, we read from the records. After Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from which he was not to eat, he begins to see his private parts and is ashamed. Until that time, there was no such feeling in them at all. And when he hears God coming in the garden, he hides. Did Adam not know that hiding from God is absurd? Perhaps he did not know, and perhaps shame made him do this automatically. What drew my attention while reading these subjects is God’s behavior. In His relationship with Adam, God’s love toward Adam. Whereas God is everywhere, and from everywhere sees everyone and everything. Even though it is so, He does not do this characteristic of His in a manner that would disturb people. In the book of Genesis this subject passes as follows:

The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise; and she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave to her husband with her, and he ate too. The eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; they sewed fig leaves and made aprons for themselves. They heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day; and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:6-8

From this record too it is possible to understand that there was a constant relationship between God and Adam. According to the writing, let us not think that God literally walked in the garden or such. Nor can we think that He appeared in any form. When God wished to speak with Adam, He surely made His presence felt to him with certain particular sounds. Only after hearing these sounds does Adam understand that the Lord has come, and hides. God is one who saw them eat that fruit from the very beginning, indeed one who saw and knew this even before they ate. (Job 35:14; Gospel — Hebrews 4:13; Psalms 33:13) In spite of all this, how full of love is God’s behavior — and that toward people who have committed a crime. First He makes His own coming known slowly, little by little. He asks “where are you,” so that Adam may hide no longer. Only after all these, and after the answer He received, does God begin to speak and to ask questions.

When a higher-ranking person is going to enter the room of a lower-ranking one, he opens it with a bang, without knocking on the door, and enters. State officials and those who work in organized institutions know these situations well. This is very normal. The owner, the boss, the chief of a workplace — whatever he is — he too enters everywhere in that workplace in this manner. The one who comes from a lower rank, however, first knocks on the door, and when he does not hear the voice that will grant him permission to come in, he waits like that without entering. Let him enter if he dares! These examples are entirely normal in our world and are taught to people as an order, an arrangement, a form of respect that must necessarily be carried out as a rule of morality. God, on the other hand, shows terribly different characteristics compared to us. Before speaking with the human being He has created, He makes sounds that announce His coming. Whereas who is the human being in that infinite and terrible universe, and who is God? Moreover, after committing sin, after not obeying even that seemingly smallest command of God, what more should the human being’s value be, in your view? God, no matter what, always shows superior and virtuous characteristics. We, however, never took God as an example, as a God, a master, a father. Within the disgusting rules we ourselves laid down, we praised and inflated ourselves, and we are still striving to crush and destroy one another. And in the rudest manner at that.

In the laws God gave to Moses about the rules of priesthood too, we see one more interesting thing connected with this subject. On the lower fringes of the garment that the one called the high priest would wear, there had to be little bells. So that the sound he made when he walked would be heard. Whereas the high priesthood of that time was the greatest rank God gave among people. God, on the other hand, with such laws and rules, provided both the respect to be shown to that person and that no one would fall into a difficult situation before that person. (Exodus 39:22-26) Again, in one verse:

Truly there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin. Also, do not give your heart to all the words that are spoken, so that you do not hear your servant cursing you; for your own heart also knows that you too have many times cursed others. Ecclesiastes 7:19-22

This is the understanding of respect I learned from God. Well, what of the understanding and application of love and respect we have learned since childhood? How do the people whose rank grows behave in our time?

So then, in seeing and in hearing too, God, by placing limits on people, wishes to increase the love and esteem that will be between them. It is not necessary for every higher-ranking person to necessarily appear in the midst suddenly, without making a sound. This is, at the least, not a good intention and does not build up. This manner of behavior does not increase a person’s esteem in his own name either. In our time, on the other hand, far from suddenly entering, there are cameras placed everywhere. And all of them for our security! Well, if God already sees us at all times and everywhere, why did He not make this evident directly to Adam back then but chose such a way? The greatest first reason was to give Adam ease. In truth, that God always gives us examples, messages, through the things He does — whether in Abraham, or in Moses, or in the other prophets — we see, if we wish. He either leaves us examples that must be applied, or gives us lessons we must understand. Moreover, He also places us within the feelings, the conscience, we must feel. Because in the span of time that unfolded after Adam, in God’s relationship with people, we do not see the same things as in that first human couple. In time, people slowly, little by little, begin to learn many things about God.

Like a child growing every passing year, and the parents’ behaviors toward that child changing too. The mother and father who, when he is a baby, say “come now, we’re going out for a stroll,” do not, to their 15-year-old child, express that they are going somewhere by saying the same things. By this, neither has that mother and father changed in a way that would mean a lack of character, nor is this change of behavior wrong. To behave according to the knowledge and the education the one across from us has received is necessary and correct. Many people who begin to think ignorantly about such verses strive, as though accusing God, to draw out various different meanings, as though God is being hypocritical. God, on the other hand, in His relationship with us and in His judging of us, is just, and is never in favor of injustice being done to us. On the contrary, we have a God who sees everything, always in order to save us from every kind of filth. In the book of Job of the Holy Scriptures, Elihu, one who is wise and understanding, expresses God’s attitude and manner of behavior toward the human being who has committed sin in the following way:

So that He may declare to the human being what is right for him, if there is beside him an angel, an intercessor (one who will mediate), one in a thousand, then God is gracious to him and says: ‘Deliver him from going down into the pit, I have found the ransom.’ His flesh becomes fresher than a child’s; he returns to the days of his youth. He prays to God, and He is pleased with him, and he sees His face with joy; and He restores his righteousness to the human being. He sings before people (sings for joy) and says: ‘I have sinned, and I have perverted what was right, and it did not profit me; He has delivered my soul from going into the pit, and my life shall see the light.’

Behold, all these things God works with a person two times, three times, so that He may bring his soul back from the pit and it may be enlightened with the light of the living. (Job 33:23-30)

Behold, the heart-attitude, that is, the motive, in God’s seeing of everything is in this manner. Not as though searching out our sins, our wickednesses, but on the contrary, with an approach as though seeking how to save us from those sins and our wickednesses.

Again, in the later generations, in another example, the prophet David gives voice to the following interesting truths on the subject connected with God’s seeing:

For you formed my kidneys; you wove me together in my mother’s womb. I give thanks to you; for I am made in an awesome and wondrous manner; your works are marvelous (wondrously wonderful); and my soul knows this very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was wrought in the depths of the earth in a wondrous manner. Your eyes saw me while I was an embryo; and while none of them yet existed, all the days appointed for me were written in your book. (Psalms 139:13-16)

From these verses we see clearly that in time humanity’s knowledge about God had increased. And the One who provided this knowledge was not we but God Himself. That is, God did not hide Himself from His creatures. Not only did He give knowledge about Himself, but He also left laws and examples by which we would be happy. Even though at times our knowledge, our conceptions, our expectations about God are very wrong, He always called out to us humanity, making Himself known, explaining His expectations — and those expectations are solely for our joy — and with countless more pieces of knowledge. We, however, stopped up our ears, blinded our spiritual eyes so as not to look, seared our consciences so as not to feel; yet He continued to call out to us, and His hand still stands stretched out. (Isaiah 5:25; 9:12; 9:17; 9:21; 10:4; 14:26!)

After this knowledge and these explanations, even though quite a bit of time has passed, we see that there is still in people the wish and the desire to see God. And this too we know by reading from the records that pass in the Gospel. When Jesus Christ, before his death, was speaking with his disciples (pupils), a conversation like the following passes among them:

…If you had known me, you would have known my Father too; from now on you know Him and have seen Him. Philip said to him: “Lord (my teacher), show us the Father, and that is enough for us.” Jesus said to him: “Have I been with you so long a time, and you have not known me, O Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father; how do you say: Show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak of myself; but the Father remaining in me does His own works. Believe me, I am in the Father and the Father is in me; if nothing else, then believe because of those works.” (John 14:7-11)

For someone who reads the whole Holy Scriptures from beginning to end, Philip’s this request from Jesus seems very childish to a person. We understand him, we share his curiosity, but it still seems childish. Christ’s answer, on the other hand, has later caused confusions in the minds of the Christian religions and of people. By Jesus’ saying “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” Christianity makes Jesus Almighty God. This verse too is one of the proofs they use concerning their claim that “there are three Gods.” Whereas when we read the verses carefully, Jesus clearly:

By saying “The words I speak to you I do not speak of myself; but the Father remaining in me does His own works,” the understanding that Jesus would be some Almighty God does not emerge at all. On the contrary, he draws attention to the fact that he, like the other prophets, like all created angels, does God’s will. What need is there for God to do the will of another God? And which one should listen to which? According to the Christians’ teaching, if there are three Gods, is it not to be expected that the words of all three would be their own? Jesus, on the other hand, says: “The words I speak to you I do not speak of myself; but the Father remaining in me does His own works.” Here Jesus draws attention not to the will of three Gods but to the will of a single God. And, drawing attention to the works he had done, he means to say, “all these works you have seen were God’s.” He means to say, “Rather than seeing God too with the eyes, rejoice in His works which you have seen, and on this matter, instead of a physical image, give value to perceiving with your spiritual eyes.” Like the prophet David.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands. Day utters speech to day, night imparts knowledge to night. There is no speech there, nor any words, their voices are not heard. Yet their sound goes out through all the earth, and their words reach to the four corners of the world. Psalms 19:1-4

The belief expected from these words is to draw attention to the creative Person behind the things that appeal to the literal eyes. And that is God. Just as a person reflects himself through his works, so we can see God’s reflection too by looking at His works. Let us on no account, by looking at our world that has turned into a hell on earth, seek God in those works. Those we did, not God. Rather, we corrupted the things that had been made. Just as God’s works are, in one respect, a reflection of God, so too the works we have accomplished on earth are a reflection of the spirit of us human beings and of Satan. I have never seen Satan and have no such curiosity either. But with the reflection of the works I have seen in him, it is not at all difficult for me to guess what sort of one he is. I do not mean what sort of appearance he has. That he possesses a very beautiful creation and, on account of this, fell into pride and became Satan (the Rebel, the one who revolts), we already read from the Holy Scriptures and the Quran. (Ezekiel 28:11-19; Surah Al-A’raf (7):11-13) The side of him that concerns me is not his outward appearance. In truth, the thing all of humanity ought to know about Satan is his great hatred and hostility toward people. And the reasons that lie at the root of this hatred too are the hatred stemming from pride, arrogance, and self-admiration.

God, when creating Satan too, did not create him to be proud. When pride is used concerning Satan, words such as “he fell into pride and became rebellious” are used. In truth, our letting ourselves be swept up in everything that will lead us to danger happens in this way. In the beginning it may even seem pleasant, indeed as though necessary. But its end is exactly like being swept up in the current of a waterfall. If we cannot save ourselves, we can go as far as being torn to pieces. As the current grows fierce, the person becomes unable to do even the things that are his own desire and wish. And naturally, after this, the image he will reflect outward, with the things he will do to save himself, will be quite abnormal too.

While speaking about seeing and about Satan, it is necessary to state this truth too. While we human beings possess a limited structure in the matter of seeing, the spiritual creatures we call angels — among whom are also the demons who went after Satan — their faculties of seeing are not as limited as ours. That they see us behind things like night, day, darkness, and walls just as they see us, and that they even have the ability to whisper into our minds, we read again from these holy scriptures. For example, in the 27th and 201st verses of Surah Al-A’raf (7), concerning Satan and the demons:

…He and his tribe see you from where you cannot see them.

When Satan whispers evil to those who guard against evil, they remember (God) and begin to see the truth.

Not everyone remembers God in these whisperings, and does not try to see the truth either. Even though these spiritual creatures we call Satan and his demons, hostile to humanity, appear to be in an advantageous position over us, their imposition upon us is limited. In short, neither Satan nor his demons can use physical coercion, taking any human being by the arm and dragging him, saying “you shall by all means do this evil.” Alongside this, you can be sure that if we permit it, by mastering our minds they can make us do far more things. This is why we ourselves, by mastering our own minds, must decide to whom we wish to be subject. As the apostle James said:

Therefore submit to God; but stand against the Devil and he will flee from you. (James 4:7) — as he said.

To make the Devil called Satan flee from us becomes possible by doing the things that do not please him. And these are the things that are God’s will. The more Satan sees how much he masters us, since this business gives him just that much more pleasure, he will be together with us too. Even children, as long as they are of one mind while together, stay together. When disagreements begin to pile one upon another, they too draw away from one another. Because this situation no longer gives them pleasure. The above verse wishes to tell us these things. Otherwise, as in the Dracula films, by holding up a cross to the vampire, Satan does not flee from us; on the contrary, he draws nearer. Let us not seek salvation or protection in the talismans we have made into idols. Neither the Christian’s cross, nor the Muslim’s evil-eye bead, nor the word “Jehovah” that Jehovah’s Witnesses never let fall from their tongues protects us from Satan or draws him away from us. If we believe that God’s name is Jehovah, the apostle James says that only by doing His will can we make Satan flee. (James 4:7) Moreover, by using prayers that we say by heart and whose meanings we do not even know, as though they were talismans, we will not achieve success either.

If man sees, will God not see?

With today’s technology, people can see and observe another room, or the surroundings of a house, or even places thousands, tens of thousands of kilometers away, by means of cameras. Without being there in person, it is possible to observe these things live, instantly, from great distances. Again, by means of satellites sent into space, it is even possible to follow a person from the front of their house to wherever they go. Even if you are inside a closed tent, again by means of those satellites they can see how many people are inside and record every one of their movements. The human eye, with the help of technology, is nearly everywhere. And these are only the things we know about; we must also accept that there are far greater capabilities that are not made known to us. Through cameras placed in great cities, in train stations, airports, harbors, and many other places where people gather in crowds, some eyes are always watching us. This is called security. That is, supposedly people do these things for our own good. Sometimes perhaps yes, and sometimes no. Because, after all, all these evaluations are ultimately carried out by human hands, and it is man who decides what is right and what is wrong. For this reason no one can say, “these things are always done with good intentions, without harming anyone.”

Even though we human beings have advanced this far in the matter of seeing, in understanding and wisdom we have somehow been left far behind. Man, who with this technology that I have only roughly described above sees nearly everywhere, can somehow accept neither the existence of God nor that He can see and hear everywhere. To them this is impossible. As if six or seven billion people could ever be seen all at once, and heard as well! But God, thousands of years ago, answered our doubts on this matter with the following words:

He counts the number of the stars; he calls them all by their names. Psalm 147:4

With our foolishness and our lack of understanding, how mistaken are the thoughts we hold about God, when with these words written more than about 3,000 years ago God gives us information about Himself. There was yet another truth I pointed out in my book, without writing the verses before and after it. Let us write and read them all, so that our text may become more meaningful.

You senseless ones among the people, take notice; and you fools, when will you become wise?

Can the One who plants the ear not hear? Or the One who forms the eye, can he not see? The One who corrects the nations, can he not reprove? The One who instructs man, does he not know? Psalm 94:8-10

There are also some people who, even though they see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears, still cannot understand. However many proofs you bring to them, no, they do not want to understand. In some cases God even wants it to be this way. That is, God does not want to change the condition of us human beings who are without understanding—or rather, while we are without understanding, He does not want to give us the spirit of wisdom and understanding. Nor is He unjust in this. To rescue us in an instant from all the filth we have done, from our state of stone hearts and stone heads, and to say, “welcome to the road that leads to paradise,” becomes an injustice in God’s eyes. This does not mean that those people cannot be forgiven whatever they do. Because we read clearly that God says: “Whatever you may have done, if you repent and turn from your evil ways, I too will accept you.” (Ezekiel 18:1-23) The reason God does not draw certain types of people is because they do not repent and set themselves right. Even if they show a momentary change merely for their own advantage, or after the troubles and disasters they suffer, this is not repentance, nor does it mean changing. Regarding such people, Jesus Christ drew attention to this prophecy that had been spoken beforehand:

This is why I speak to them by illustrations; because, looking, they look in vain, and hearing, they hear in vain, neither do they get the sense of it. For them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says:

“Hearing, you will hear but by no means understand, and looking, you will look but by no means see; for the heart of this people has grown thick, and with their ears they have heard heavily, and they have shut their eyes; that they might not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn back, and I heal them.” Matthew 13:13-15 and Isaiah 6:9-10)

Because these people did not love the road that leads to salvation, nor did they love God. They did not want to understand or love Him. By their works they turned this world into hell, into a place that cannot be lived in. God, of course, will not be pleased with them. There are also many pious people who outwardly appear as though they love God and honor Him. Our earth is full of many religions and sects filled with people who appear as though they are devoted to their religions, and who boast of obeying their leaders without deviating a hair’s breadth. Concerning them too, God again speaks thus:

The Lord said: Since this people draws near to me and honors me with their mouth and with their lips, but they keep their heart far from me, and their fear of me is the commandment of men that has been taught to them; therefore, look, I will again do a wonderful thing among this people, yes, a wonderful thing and an astonishing thing; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their discerning (skillful) men will be covered up.

Woe to those men who hide their intentions deep from the Lord and whose deeds are in the darkness and who say: “Who sees us? And who knows us?” Oh, your perverseness! Shall the potter be counted as equal with the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker: “He did not make me,” and the thing formed should say of the one who formed it: “He has no understanding”? Isaiah 29:13-16

As humanity, are we not exactly in such a condition? In fact, how pitiable is the state we are in, and we do not even want to be aware of it. Why do we as humanity have a problem regarding the fact that God always sees us? Why are we so disturbed by this reality? One reality that disturbs us most is that God not only always sees us, but is also One who, just as He knows all that passes through our minds and hearts, knows exactly what we will do in the future as well. There are many people who deny God because of all these things—yes, solely because of these. Do they see these attributes that God possesses as a violation of their private lives? Or is this in their eyes an injustice? I wonder why people with this mentality do not stand up to the governments under whose authority they live regarding this matter? Because, as I said, under the name of security those governments possess records that know everything about a person—from the number of teeth in your mouth, to which of them is false, to where you took your vacation, which plane you boarded, and to what you like and dislike. The people’s telephones and computers, meanwhile, are constantly under surveillance. In fact, I would not be lying if I said they know a person down to their intestines. Especially since they started this fashion of terrorism, they do these things while also regarding themselves as if they were in the right. Without asking permission from anyone, they poked their noses into everyone’s entire private lives. All the costs of those expenditures they make under the name of security also come out of our backs. They are shameless enough not to pay even from their own pockets the money they spend to protect their own backsides. I say these things for those who, against God’s attribute of seeing us everywhere, say “I don’t believe in a God like that.” While humanity endures all sorts of troubles and harm to itself for the protection of a handful of men—those so-called handful of people being always busy harming humanity—why do we look with a hostile eye upon the seeing attribute of the Owner and Creator of everything, which is directed solely toward their good and their benefit?! Or, on the contrary, if God could not see us, then what would we do? My words are of course for those who have a good relationship with Him and who, at even the smallest of their troubles, do not hold back from immediately calling upon Him. Well then, who has ever gone through life without falling into trouble? Even pilots raised under communism who never knew God—when their planes were damaged in accidents or in war and they realized they were surely going to their deaths—in the last few seconds cried out “Allah (God)” from their mouths, as recorded voices heard from the tapes have shown. In a time of trouble, who would not want God to see us and rescue us from that trouble? When examined with logic, God’s seeing everything is both beneficial and His right. Because when we speak with God, saying what we are, how do we approach Him? We say, “We are your servant.” This expression is also used regarding Jesus Christ and many other precious prophets. (Acts 3:26)

What does a servant, or a slave, mean? A slave (servant) is a person who has been bought for a price. From then on he is like a possession of his master. Among human beings the understanding of slavery was at least like this. Well then, when we approach God, in what understanding are we making ourselves a servant to Him? Or is our approach merely for the sake of talk, a false humility? If so, believe me, we cannot make God swallow these feelings of ours. Perhaps for these and similar reasons we do not want God to know everything. By this example, if we are two-faced, we do not want God to understand this either.

I want to open this subject up a little more for you by giving an example from my own son and from a friend of mine. Because if we approach events by looking at them from only one angle, we will never be able to see our own faults and our sickness. For this reason we need to force ourselves to think in many directions.

To a friend of mine, who was around 35 years old at the time, I asked whom he loved most, and in response he had said, “my father.” When over time I paid attention to his relationship with his father, this love seemed strange to me. He himself would say: “When my father comes into the room, I stay at most five minutes, I get bored and leave right away.” When I asked, “Don’t you say that you love your father most?” he would answer, “yes, that’s right.” Since I too have a son, when I weighed his feelings—whether as a father or as a son—this situation did not resemble love at all to me. When I told him this, his answer was, “maybe I can’t stay near him for long because I smoke.” Yet, since he knew that I too am bothered by my clothes smelling of cigarettes, whenever we were together for hours, bless him, he never smoked. When I said, “Even if you do smoke, can you only stay five minutes without a cigarette?” he looked at my face without giving any answer. I would have been very afraid of my son loving me like this. Because if this is love, if in the name of respect we can never come together at all, and when we do fully come together he can barely stay even five minutes with me, I added: God forbid he love me like that. And do not think at all that my friend’s father is some despot, an angry, tyrannical, domineering man. In his own way he is a joking, quiet, generally calm, poor soul of a man. Of course, for his son’s good, he surely does now and then speak in the form of advice, muttering and grumbling things like “wouldn’t it be better if you did this such-and-such a way” or “wouldn’t it be more correct if you did it this way.” But our friend was not the type to be bothered by these. He had his own workplace, and once, when his father was with him too, he laughingly told a customer who called him, “if you’re looking for my father you’ll find him at the mosque, if you’re looking for me you’ll find me at the bar.” His father was someone who knew about these things too. Actually, the person I am speaking of truly did love his father—but with pity. That is, his love was based on pity. Since childhood he had seen the self-sacrificing things his father gave to his family without thinking of himself as gullibility, naivety, foolishness. Since he too took, according to his own advantage, his share of all this gullibility, naivety, and foolishness, he looked upon this situation not with a bad eye, but only with pity. If his father had been naive, gullible, and foolish toward others but a lion at home, then he would have hated him. But by seeing that his father applied these qualities of his to everyone, he knew very well that he did not discriminate between people, and that if he were to take a side, he would take his family’s side. The father was, in his own way, a believing man, and he took care to maintain a good relationship with God. Our friend, on the other hand, seemed to have shelved all of this. While he would sit for hours, until the middle of the night, with people he said he did not love at all, drinking, laughing, and joking, he had almost nothing in common to share with his beloved father. When I paid attention to my son, I saw the same qualities in him too, or similar ones. I am sure that he loves me too. But this too somewhat resembles that friend’s love. I have thought a great deal about the reason for this. Actually, it is sometimes hard to understand and sometimes not.

When I was in high school I had a car, and I would often go places with my teachers. In the places we went they would offer me cigarettes. I would not take them, but when they asked whether I smoked I could not lie, and I would bow my head down in a way that meant yes, I smoke. Then they would insist, “here, have a smoke,” because they wanted me to feel at ease. Once I took one and smoked it, but they must have noticed, because they said, “we’ve made the boy’s cigarette taste like poison too.” I had smoked that cigarette not as a pleasure, but almost like a duty, thinking it would be disrespectful in the face of my teachers’ insistence. They were all beautiful ladies, and I at that time was a very young final-year student. In fact, what made the situation uncomfortable were the positions we held. They were teachers, and I a student—when at that time I may even have had a woman friend older than they were. With her I could do anything without hesitation. But these ladies, in the capacity of teachers, were the teachers of the school I attended. These were the feelings that troubled me. But alongside this, I also had more than enough very shameless friends. I also saw ones who exploited the good intentions of such warm teachers and carried on with buffoonery to the point of wringing the sweat out of a person’s back like water. Sometimes I cannot call these situations good or bad. Because when I look at the events, alongside those so-called buffoons some teachers were not at all uncomfortable. Perhaps, on the contrary, just as they themselves were uncomfortable with someone like me who felt discomfort, beside those people I called buffoons they laughed and felt themselves even more at ease and relaxed.

In another example, I was constantly together with the school principal, and for this reason, while together, I would smoke without any awkwardness. In fact, marriage was forbidden in high school, and when I asked him about this situation he gave me permission, saying “if you want, get married,” and he managed things for me. Otherwise I would not have married until school finished. Even though we had such an easy companionship, I never smoked inside the school—except once. And that one time, wouldn’t he raid the toilets? I threw the cigarette away and left; whether he saw it or not I do not know, because the toilet was packed to the brim with a lot of boys, but I was very ashamed and troubled, thinking why did I put him in a difficult position. Even that same day when he laughingly said, “I almost caught you too,” it did not put me at ease, and I told him this was the first time I had ever done such a thing. My guardian, meanwhile, was his wife, who was the deputy principal at the school. I could never have abused all this good intention of theirs. And besides, to them this was not something wrong. They only had to apply the rules, and to him this was an ordinary duty he had to perform, that is all. Because when he was in high school he himself had done and lived through the same things.

To be able to understand why people, despite loving one another in their relationships with each other, feel discomfort in being together, it sometimes truly becomes necessary to make a spiritual analysis. However much we say we love, sometimes we feel discomfort at the very presence of those people. To me this is actually not fully healthy love. Perhaps there is respect, fear, reserve, embarrassment, and all such things, but it comes hard to me to call it fully “love.” Or that love, through the counter-effect of all these things, cannot experience the state of true love in the person. That is, if it were stripped of all these elements and were a pure love, then that love would be far more natural, heartfelt, sincere, at ease—but it cannot be stripped. It is something like mixing the flavors you dislike into an ice cream cone you love. Now and then you lick that side you love, but with the other tastes you do not want, that disturb you, always coming into your mouth as well. In fact it is as though someone is striving to destroy even the love you have for ice cream. If every time you buy ice cream someone always gives it to you mixed with the things you do not want, the day will come when you will be very sick of eating ice cream. Because it will give you no pleasure.

People’s relationships with God are like this too. I had said, “Many people do not believe, and do not want to believe, that God always sees us. Because this only gives them a feeling of distress.” People who are new in religious circles will, one day, with the knowledge they have gathered, come to believe absolutely that God always sees them. But this belief also takes away and destroys all their joy and gladness. Not only in the presence of others, but even when alone, it is as if they are always living in some distress. This knowledge that they possess has put them into such distress. In a way, they too will want to say, “oh, if only God could not see me everywhere,” but their tongue will not let them. If that person cannot bear this distress and casts away from themselves that belief, that faith they hold, in a short time they become a much more cheerful, relaxed person. And, as if they had a psychological ailment, in order to get rid of this belief they constantly give themselves suggestions, so that the state of distress will not come over them again. From then on, for them God either does not exist, or, even if He does exist, He does not see everything. The organizations of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are aware of this psychological problem, from time to time spread teachings to their members such as: “God does not always watch us, see us, pay attention to us.” Since people who feel this distress are in the majority, they do not want—first and foremost themselves—to drive their members away from among them and to spoil their ease as well. Even though many people know this truth from the Holy Scriptures written with proof, and naturally so, because of these publications of the organization they cannot fully experience the awareness that God always sees them. In fact, they either forget, or want to forget, or know and disregard, or do not care about God’s state of seeing everything from time to time.

Being respectful is not a wrong thing. Doing everything in front of everyone is disrespect. That is, in the presence of certain people, being respectful, deferential, and even reserved toward them in accordance with their circumstances and positions is also God’s will. Look at what is written in one place regarding this subject:

Render to all their dues: to the one entitled to tax, the tax; to the one entitled to customs, the customs; to the one entitled to fear, the fear; to the one entitled to honor, the honor. Romans 13:7

There are so many verses that tell us to be respectful and to honor one another. Whether within the family (Ephesians 5:22 and 33; 6:1-4), the heart attitude we ought to have toward governments and toward everyone is explained in the verses exactly like this:

…Knowing that whatever good anyone does, whether slave or free, he will receive this back from the Lord, serve, as slaves to Christ, your masters according to the flesh in the singleness of your heart, with fear and trembling. (This verse, written in Turkish at Ephesians 6:8, is written in the 5th and 6th verses in some foreign languages)

God, even in these few verses alone, clearly emphasizes that we be deferential and respectful, and that we do these things in a way that comes from within. Even though from time to time these situations are not so easy at all, with God’s help and with willingness, forcing ourselves too, we can succeed.

As can be understood, to respect someone—and moreover for a person to respect someone he loves—is both fitting and a very fine thing. The side not understood is the distress we feel from being together with those people. What I cannot reconcile is inserting distress right next to love and respect. For this reason the problem, in my opinion, is not in “respect”; when love is spoken of, respect is only used as an excuse for keeping one’s distance. In general this is the truth of the matter. The examples I have given—whether from myself, from my son, or from other people—show this. This time I asked myself the following question: “Well, would I be distressed to be in God’s presence?” I said, and sank into deep thought. Was I distressed by God with His attribute of seeing us at every moment? When a person thinks without deceiving himself, interesting results emerge. With that question, immediately there came to my mind the moment when, while I was searching for the lyrics of a song on the Internet, I looked at those pornographic images that somehow would not close and, on the contrary, kept multiplying. However much I did not want to, I thought of those very young and beautiful girls having relations with animals, and I was terribly ashamed and my stomach turned. Both on their behalf—for they actually do this thing—and at the same time on my own behalf, for why did my eyes see it. It can happen, a person sees, but getting rid of these images that spoil and defile our minds does not happen in an instant either. Every now and then they come back to our minds. The things I looked at as a child had made my stomach turn, and even those were not normal; years have passed, I have grown old, and the things I see still turn my stomach. Even if a person had the highest feeling toward someone of the opposite sex, with those images all those feelings too would be destroyed. If this is progress, then in every matter concerning stomach-churning we really have progressed greatly. Anyway, this is only one example. In fact, the side of our relationship with God that distresses us emerges when we do things that we ourselves cannot, or do not, do openly in front of everyone. That is, the foundation of our distress lies in our own works. In the Internet example, I did not feel guilty or anything about the things I saw, but the moment I asked myself whether being together with God would distress me, immediately these images came to my mind, and I was distressed because of that. Again it was not because of God, but because of what I saw; I was somewhat ashamed of myself, too, for having looked. I was trying to close the pages—but while looking carefully at some of the images! In our time they have carried things that could never have been seen right into the living room. Anyway, let everyone do what they want, but I hope that as humanity we will never, for all eternity, forget what we have become, how much we have been debased in our own eyes. That is precisely why God permits all these things.

…And when I have forgiven you for all that you have done, I will confirm my covenant with you, so that you may remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your shame, and you will know that I am the LORD, the word of the Lord Jehovah. Ezekiel 16:62 and again:

Therefore the Lord Jehovah says thus: Look, my servants will eat, but you will go hungry; look, my servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; look, my servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame; look, my servants will cry out joyfully (will sing songs) from gladness of heart, but you will cry out from pain of heart and will howl from brokenness of spirit. And you will leave your name to my chosen ones for a curse-oath; and the Lord will put you to death; and he will call his servants by another name; so that whoever blesses himself in the earth will bless himself by the God of truth; and whoever swears an oath in the earth will swear by the God of truth; because the former troubles have been forgotten, and because they have been hidden from my eyes. Isaiah 65:13-16

Since God has said that all these situations will unfold this way, so it will be.

Let us come back again to the distress we feel at being seen everywhere, or at being together beside those we love and respect. When the matter concerns God, to say, “all our distress regarding God always seeing us stems from our own deeds, not from God”, is again, in my opinion, the most correct thing. If we are doing something good, while we are all for a trumpet being blown before us, so to speak, for everyone to hear and see it, then it should not be hard to understand why we want our bad and crooked works to remain hidden, and why we are not in favor of God seeing everything. While we desire God, and most of all people, to see us in the help we give as a show to people and in the three-penny alms we hand out, do we then even attempt to blame God—“why does God see everything”—in return for our great sins that go so far as to shed the blood of others?! In the matter of seeing, are we the ones who should make decisions about what God is to see? Even though many people do not approach the matter with this logic, the desire within them that they cannot even explain to themselves runs in this direction. In short I arrive at this conclusion: Our works either take us far from God or draw us near to Him.

Even though people respecting one another is not wrong, if there is a distressing situation in this respect, I think both sides should strive to remove it. Neither should the one worthy of respect use it for his own advantage and to crush and frighten those before him; nor should the person showing respect abuse the tolerance, love, and freedom the other gives by using it wrongly. I think God wants people’s lives to be such that they can do everything they do naturally, even in front of everyone, without hesitation, fear, or discomfort. Beneath these words of mine, some abnormal thoughts will also emerge. For example, man—indeed every man—has to go to the toilet, but this task cannot be expected to be done, and should not be done, in front of everyone without discomfort. I still cannot relieve myself even at the urinals in public toilets if someone is next to me. However badly I may need to go, I struggle. According to what we see in films, in the old American army the soldiers used to do their large business side by side in the toilets, without that dividing wall separating one from another. In prisons the situation was the same. If it had been me, I would surely have struggled greatly with this situation. Who knows what they were trying to achieve under the name of security by again choosing such a method. From the relations of husband and wife, to the desire of two lovers to be alone, sometimes even in eating, a person does not want to be alone, or right out in the middle of everyone. These are people’s natural feelings, and as I said, it is also necessary that it be so. By saying, ‘we should do everything we do in front of everyone without discomfort,’ I did not mean such things at all. When I say everything a person does, even the things one does in secret, I meant that a person should never do the things that are shameful, ugly, wrong in God’s eyes—that is, the things we call sin. And the purpose of faith in God always seeing us is precisely this. And if there are things that distress us, we should make an effort to abandon them. Neither the relations of husband and wife, nor relieving ourselves in the toilet, nor sometimes the desire to eat alone, nor joking, playing, and laughing with our friends is bad and wrong in God’s eyes, let alone sin. The One who created us created us this way in the first place. We need to purify our minds of some things. Just as this is called a healthy mind, our having a healthy belief also depends on the correct knowledge we receive.

Is there not also a real side to combining respect with the feeling of distress? Is there not—indeed, there is, as much as from earth to sky. One of the sly feelings people use to crush, exploit, use, gain advantage, and even sometimes destroy one another is also respect. Whenever I think of the respect that was taught to us in school and how it was demanded from us, both then and still now I recall it with hatred. Our filthiest teachers were the ones who demanded the most respect for themselves. In the times when I was a boarding student at Haydarpaşa High School, I even saw how a teacher named Ziya Bey, catching a student who was walking with his friend in those enormous corridors as he passed, suddenly beat him until he broke his mouth and nose. Then he left that boy—who was on the ground covered in blood, screaming like a beheaded chicken—just like that, and walked off without even looking back once. We had all thought there was something big behind the incident. Yet the boy neither knew that teacher nor took his class. His whole crime was, supposedly, that he had seen him and not buttoned up his front. Even this we figured out by guessing. That teacher called Ziya Bey did not even deign to tell the boy his crime, if there even was one. This was only one of the hundreds of impressions I lived through. While I saw that the ones most worthy of respect were far too ashamed even to demand such a thing and would not even deign to, it is also a fact that the people who deserve no respect at all do all the filth they can to those around them. It must be for all these reasons that once people bring in this thing called respect, they are then scared to death of that person and cannot even bear their existence. Once respect is mentioned, what lies beneath it immediately is fear, being frightened, threats—not love. People to be feared, merciless, far from compassion and humanity, have always striven to be respected. And they are generally in favor of obtaining it by force. This is the feeling this world has given us under the name of respect. For some reason these types have not sought a respect that stems from love. Without striving to earn love, by force, saying “but you will respect me,” they have applied and still apply every kind of pressure they can to people. Meanwhile let us not perceive the exceptions as the general rule. Even in places where students are given freedom and tolerance, those students literally tie a tin can to their teachers’ backs and broadcast it to the whole world on the internet. Again, take from one and hit the other.

In the Middle Ages, among the monks, laughing seemed almost to deserve death. In the old days, seeing a cheerful-faced religious man was impossible in Islam as well. Jesus experienced the same problem among the Jews too, which is why he spoke these words:

“When you fast, do not put on a sad face like the hypocrites. They disfigure their faces to make it evident to men that they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.

But when you fast, anoint your head with oil (fragrance, perfume) and wash your face. So that you may appear to be fasting, not to men, but to your Father who is in secret. Then your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:16-18

When we were in the military, they taught us: “A soldier does not laugh showing his teeth; at most he only smiles.” According to the work a soldier is to do, this teaching is correct. Stemming from the complex education and cultures we have received, as all of humanity we are in an almost undecided state regarding respect, love, and conduct. Sometimes, even on the simplest of matters, we have to think long and hard before we can say what is right or what is wrong. Even though it is sometimes impossible for us to keep pace with the so many complex cultures among people, learning what the will of the one and only God is, and doing everything in our power to know Him, is in fact a vital necessity for every person. At the same time it is a road that rescues us from the pressure of complex and sometimes absurd customs and traditions, and leads humanity to healthy happiness. Because eternal life must mean “happiness” for everyone. No one wants to walk on a road of eternal life that will in the end lead to pain and distress. And God’s promise to humanity is exactly this:

… I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind. God will dwell among them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe out every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Neither will mourning, nor crying, nor pain be anymore. For the former order of things has passed away.”

And the One seated on the throne said, “Look! I am making all things new.” Then he said, “Write this down!” “Because these words are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21:3-4

God’s promise to us on the road of life is exactly this. The understanding of respect in the examples I have given—whether in my son or in my friend—should not be based on such a ridiculous love that it cannot keep us even five minutes beside those people. Love, in fact, always seeks togetherness. People who love feel sorrow at separation. People who love sometimes even weep from the joy they feel at being united. Love is also not the sharing of a roof based on interests. Because I live in Germany, from the impressions I have naturally formed about them, it would be more correct to say that the Germans’ real love for one another is not at zero degrees but, unfortunately, at minus I-don’t-know-how-many degrees. Although among them there do not seem to be the absurd displays of respect we have, like “button up your front, stand up,” they apply their coercions with much different tactics. Since the authority and rights of the teachers in their schools too are limitless, and since no matter what happens they always come out in the right before the law, it is not for nothing that students go mad and some of them take up a weapon and kill every teacher who comes before them. Just let a person be given a little bit of authority, and let that person not abuse it! Whether this be for the student or for the teacher. Even though events, colors, and tastes emerge in different forms, since it is people who fill our world, it is entirely normal that we have sides resembling one another. This is so in Turkey and so in Germany, but in the matter of love, unfortunately, they are all the same.

Regarding the subject of respect, one of the records about Jesus Christ came to my mind. Because the Jewish religious leaders could not stand Jesus, they send men to arrest him. But the men come back without arresting Jesus. Let us read the reason and those words from their place.

When the officers returned, the chief priests and the Pharisees (the Jewish sect of that time) asked, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers replied, “Never has any man spoken the way this man speaks.” John 7:45-46

Can you imagine, even his enemies, being affected by Jesus’ speaking, did not arrest him, and in a way had gone against their superiors. And one of those superiors was the chief priest. Chief priesthood, as I said, was the greatest rank God gave to that person in Israel. God, who gave this in Moses’ time to Israel, says, “Without that person as mediator I will not take or look at the sacrifices in your hands.” Consider the right God granted to that person and the honor He gave him. In Israel, everyone who wanted to draw near to God first had to bring the sacrifices they brought before these men. In a way, they had to approve this business. In short, the priests had to represent God’s dwelling place. Even if from time to time they did not produce works worthy of it, they did not possess this rank on their own either; on the contrary, they had received it from God. Nor should this mean that they had lordship over the faith of people. (Numbers 18:21; the whole of the 12th chapter of Deuteronomy; 2 Corinthians 1:24)

Even though the situation was such, these men did not obey them. Their respect for Jesus Christ, too, was only because they were affected by that momentary speech there. Now, one might say that if they had been together from the start, they knew him and therefore loved him—but no. Nor did Jesus threaten them, nor bring down fire from heaven to frighten them, nor intimidate them by using any other power. Despite many obstacles, the respect those people felt for Jesus was genuine. Without any pressure or coercion, they felt respect. And moreover toward someone in the position of an enemy. And the authority they possessed we saw later on. Those who had Jesus beaten, handed him over to the torturers, and then pressured for his death, were again these priests and their community. With these things I am trying to explain how great the difficulties were that those men endured in order to respect Jesus. It is easy both to respect and to show respect to someone whom everyone respects. But truly, to respect a person with feelings that come from within—and moreover at the cost of earning the anger of your superiors, of persons who have lordship over you—this is very hard. Who can doubt that the feeling shown was not genuine? Look at what those who lived together with him say about Jesus:

He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten anyone; but committed his cause to the God who judges with righteousness. 1 Peter 2:23

Would you believe that such a person could apply pressure for people to respect him? Regarding Moses and all the other prophets too, the situation was not clean different.

“…And Moses was more humble than all the men on the face of the earth,” it is written. (Numbers 12:3)

There is not a single record anywhere of people serving God saying, somehow, by force, by threat, by beating, “you must show me respect.” Rather, it is those who move away from God who displayed this trait, and who demanded it of people even by force if necessary. Toward God’s true servants, on the other hand, people have adopted exactly the opposite attitude. Most of the time they have despised them, beaten them, spat in their faces, lynched them and sawn them apart, thrown them into fiery furnaces, they have been cursed by their closest relatives, and humanity has not held back from doing them whatever evil it could. But they gave great value to their love for God. And they knew very well that this does not come about by force, by threat, by frightening, by beating. What value does a loveless respect have anyway? Besides, how long would the life of such a respect be? In my opinion it is zero. A person is respected because of qualities that make him worthy of love. The respect shown for the sake of rank, label, or position has not been earned by the person himself. However much he may say, “I earned this rank, they gave it to me because I am worthy,” the respect shown is given solely to that rank. As long as he does not show the effort to earn it from each individual before him, that respect stays with that rank and is empty. Respect and love should in fact be earned. Even though it seems terribly difficult, it can be earned. Yes, in every place and over everyone this will not be possible, but a person should still do everything in his power. In general the ranks that are obtained are not given according to the love shown to people in the first place. Even if presidents and prime ministers are chosen by the people, the people who choose them do so not out of a feeling of love in itself, but either by valuing the material welfare that will be provided for them, or because they have no other choice. Because the promises politicians make before coming to power are generally solely in this direction. Anyway, if they were to speak about love too, then just as with welfare, in that matter as well they would tell a bunch of tall tales. In short, if we look at the essence, neither does the voter, in the true sense, love the one he chooses, nor does the one chosen love the one who chooses him. On this matter both sides have the same feelings. If, looking at the people filling those squares, you are thinking, “wow, look how much they love him,” it definitely means you are mistaken. Even though among them there may be some dreamer lovers who are there because they were impressed by the color of his shirt or the shape of his hair, the general majority come to watch out of curiosity, for the show, for the display of force. And many of them without knowing what they are doing. Everyone is going somewhere, so they go along behind them.

Since the subject of my book is about seeing, I must certainly point out this too: “seeing is a talent.” Because the word “talent” is explained in the dictionary like this:

Talent: the power innately acquired in a person in the matter of learning something, doing and completing a task, or adapting to a situation (synonym, capability).

Even though seeing with our eyes may seem as though we do it naturally—indeed sometimes even against our will—this is truly a talent. And moreover a talent that needs to be developed. There may also be those who say, what talent of ours regarding seeing could possibly develop? The one related to the subject I want to dwell on more is “our talent of looking”. Again, if we say that both the talent of seeing and the talent of looking, both of them, are developed, we would not be wrong at all. It is again in our own hands to develop our eye muscles, or to accustom them to laziness. If we do not develop them, then as a result of this our inevitably coming to need eyeglasses is nothing out of the ordinary either. But now I want to dwell a little, not on seeing, but on developing the talent of looking. It is truly a very necessary, indeed sometimes a vital, subject. Most of the accidents that befall us because of carelessness are related to this. In the news this is briefly called “carelessness” and passed over. Yet it is most often a situation closely related to seeing and looking. Through the education we receive, we ensure the development of this talent of ours too without even being aware of it. Because of the education a child receives, his perspective on his surroundings will continually change. When he looks at the things he sees every day on the same road, he will now draw different meanings from them. For example, if he is first learning to read, he will try to work out the meaning of the signs he sees along the way. If he is first learning to do arithmetic, from the numbers he sees, by adding and subtracting, he will—even if wrongly—obtain certain results in his head. After the instruction he receives, he will now look with a completely different eye at those writings, numbers, and colors that formerly seemed meaningless to his eye, combining them. The same things apply in distinguishing with our ears and our nose as well. But let us stay with seeing, which is our subject. All of them have wonderful, very superior qualities. As I said, I am not an expert about any of them. But by using general information with examples, I am striving to explain the existence of beings that we cannot see with our eyes as well.

The reason people show interest in films like detective and murder ones also stems from the talent of seeing. From everything that seems very ordinary to the eyes of ordinary people, those detectives and agents see and draw a meaning. And in this way that detective can find whoever the murderer or the criminal is. The side we find most interesting in these films that we watch lovingly for hours is those people’s talent of seeing. What we admire, feeling admiration inside and saying “wow,” is sometimes that the detective has solved the murder by seeing something that would not even occur to us. There are also so many more such details related to every profession that they cannot be counted. From a good car mechanic’s detecting the fault by looking at the shape of a moving car, to his knowing that a car which to us has no defect at all had previously been in an accident. A cook’s confirming the correctness of his thoughts about a dish merely by what he sees, without even tasting it—this knowledge is the talent of seeing, and consequently of looking, that they have developed in themselves naturally, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly, as a requirement of their professions. The Native Americans were said to be very skilled at tracking horses or anything that walks on land. For example, they could solve the meanings of the tracks in such a way as to know how many horsemen had passed along that road, how many people were on the horses, the sex of that person from the rider, and even what circle they might come from, all the way to whether or not there was a sick or wounded person on the horse. While a good shepherd calls every sheep in the flock by name, to us all of those hundreds of sheep in the flock are the same. This talent, of which I have counted examples, develops through instruction received, or through knowledge acquired on its own over time. Whether in small children or grown adults, there are many methods for developing this talent. Again, to give one of the simplest examples from our own time, like the puzzle of finding the errors in two identical pictures in magazines and newspapers. There is no, seven of them, no, ten of them—the puzzle of guessing the pictures that are not exactly identical to each other can be come across on any pages of many magazines. Sometimes such competitions are also held by setting a time limit. The more errors a person can find in a short time, the more they say about him, “someone whose talent of seeing is developed.” The aim in some intelligence tests is this too. With a lot of those tests, our talent of seeing, our attention to the things we see, is evaluated by combining these with the intelligence we fundamentally possess, as to what things we do.

There is an expression we always hear: “Don’t go beyond the boot (Cobbler, stick to your last).” This expression too emerged, again indirectly, from the talent of seeing.

A man, while walking around a painting exhibition, stops for a long time in front of a painting and shakes his head meaninglessly. The painter too sees this man at the exhibition and slowly approaches him. He also asks, “How do you find the painting?” The visitor says of the portrait: “The buckle of the boot on the man’s foot has been made incorrectly.” Upon the painter asking, “How did you understand that?” he answers, “I’ve been a cobbler for so many years, this buckle isn’t made like this, it’s made like that.” The painter immediately takes up the paints and brushes and corrects the buckle right beside the man. The cobbler, seeing this, in a thoughtful and critical state with his hand on his chin, upon saying, “the trousers are wrong too,” the painter answers: “Don’t go beyond the boot.” And in this way this saying has become an expression that emphasizes that people should know their limits. Whether it really happened, or is just a story, I do not know. Even if whoever made it up, the meaning is fine. The side related to our subject is that it was his knowledge that caused the cobbler to see the faulty buckle on the boot and immediately notice it. The painter too had worn boots and surely had seen many boots, but not by looking with the eye that cobbler saw with. After the painter corrected that mistake of his, he will be more careful the next time; that is a separate matter. Our eye will never look with the eye that cobbler saw with. So then, seeing is very closely related to the education received and to experiences. When we are without knowledge do we not see? We do see, but the things we see gain no meaning for us. The things an unknowledgeable person finds and calls a yellow stone will, in fact, greatly interest a jeweler. There are many jokes told in this humorous form. What I most want to draw attention to is again the ability of seeing with our spiritual eyes.

On this subject too, although there are many events that have been lived, I will explain the ones that immediately come to my mind by giving examples. For instance, one event I will relate occurs after the Israelites were rescued from slavery in Egypt. The peoples of those lands living in the places that God was going to give to Israel as an inheritance had earned God’s wrath with their very evil and immoral lives. The most courageous among them, a nation named Gibeon, came with a trick to Joshua, whom God had chosen and appointed after Moses, presenting themselves as if they were coming from a very distant land, and asked that, in order to make a peace treaty between themselves and Israel, they give their word to one another in God’s name. Because God did not want Israel to make a peace treaty with any of these peoples of the land. Rather than the situation being a war among enemy nations, the Israelite people were like execution officers carrying out God’s judgment because of those people’s sins. For example, like a judge passing a death sentence and someone else carrying out the task. Since the Gibeonites too knew that it was so, they resorted to such a deceitful path. (the whole of the 9th chapter of Joshua) So then, these men had seen that God was with the Israelites. This already passes clearly in the records. Those of you who know the Holy Scriptures will say, “Well, after those events one would have to be blind not to see this,” but the one who did not see, did not see. For example, from the king of Egypt, Pharaoh, to all the other Hittite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, and Hivite kings, they somehow could not see this. What were those things they did not see? All the waters and the river in the land of Egypt turned into blood, fiery hail rained down, the land had thick darkness for three days and three nights, Egypt was overrun with frogs and locusts, all the firstborn in the land except the Israelites died, the seas parted, and many more miraculous plagues and events followed one after another. That all of them would happen, Moses too foretold beforehand in God’s name. But the fact is, that Egyptian king in the role of world ruler, and his officials, and many more kings and the peoples of that land, even though they saw all these things, could not draw such a meaning from them. If there is one thing that is real, it is that they looked upon gold and called it a “yellow stone.” They surely saw, but because of their sins they could not perceive the things they saw by combining them with certain other things. The Gibeonites, on the other hand, saw; even if by trickery, they strove to save their lives and did save them. Because they feared God. In a way, this precious feeling in them made even the trick they had done forgiven. However great sinners they may be, it is clear then that the one who is worthy of salvation acts accordingly.

While these events were happening in the same region, thanks to their faith in God, sometimes individuals too were able to save themselves. For example, when two Israelite spies were noticed in the city, a woman who was a prostitute rescues them by hiding them on the roof of her house, and she says:

“…And before the men lay down, the woman went up to them on the roof; and she said to them: “I know that the Lord has given the land to you, and that dread of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the country are melting away before you. For we heard how, when you came out of Egypt, the Lord dried up the waters of the Red Sea before you, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, to Sihon and to Og, whom you utterly destroyed. We heard, and our heart melted, and no courage remained in anyone before you; because the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.” (Joshua 2:8-11) she says, and she takes an oath from these men in order to save the lives of her own household. When that entire city was put to the sword and destroyed, the Israelites did not touch these people. Even though fear and dread had fallen upon the kings of all that surrounding people, while some sought a solution in warring with Israel, the people of God, others chose a wise path like Rahab, the one called a prostitute. Sometimes what the most lowly and worthless of a society, its so-called prostitute, sees, neither kings nor superiors nor officials nor the common people can see. This too passes in the records of the Holy Scriptures, which we call God’s book. Even thousands of years later we still read about these people. Moreover, that woman becomes the great-grandmother of the prophet David, who would later be born and would make a name among God’s most precious prophets. (Matthew 1:5-6; Hebrews 11:31; Joshua 2:1) That this woman later came to have an honorable home and family among the people of Israel we read from the records that follow. It could in any case never be imagined that she would engage in prostitution again, because in the laws God gave there was no permission for this. (Exodus 20:14; Leviticus 19:29; Deuteronomy 23:17) It is also clear that that woman had surely earlier done this work because of compulsory conditions that had a real basis. Because the records point us to this being so. For example, after this woman made a treaty with the Israelite agents, she immediately goes to her household, to her mother and father and relatives, and gathers them to her. (Joshua 6:22-24) Because according to their treaty, the Israelites would do nothing to the house on whose window they had tied the red cord. Everyone in the city, however, would die. All those brothers, relatives, and mother and father trust this woman’s word and rely on her, and they gather in that house. So then it was clear that she was a woman true to her word. Let us not always see this as though it were entirely normal. In a similar event, before God destroyed the peoples in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, He sends his two angels to save Lot and his family. Lot too, understanding the seriousness of the matter, first goes to the men who were to be his sons-in-law, that is, the young men engaged to his daughters. But they do not even take Lot’s words seriously. And that despite how honest a person Lot was. And in this way they perish in the city’s destruction. (Genesis 19:14)

While we read records whose ending we know, or whose ending we will immediately learn, let us not see those people’s foolish behaviors meaninglessly as though they were a fairy tale. We read the 20, 30, or 50 years that pass in those records in a few pages, and so it seems that way to us. Indeed in those records sometimes a period of 950 years is dealt with in two pages. Let these not deceive us and make us say, “I would never do such a foolish thing.” Even though we live in the same, indeed a far worse, similar world, as humanity we look upon those events before our very eyes in a completely indifferent state. And those who see and understand seek a shell to hide in with the thought “may the snake that does not touch me live a thousand years,” and they stay silent in the face of those ugly events. If those we say see best are afraid, stay silent, and watch without doing anything, what can we expect from those who do not see?

When we read the records concerning Jesus Christ, similar events are experienced too. The Israelites had been awaiting a savior called Messiah for centuries. They even possessed prophecies full of details about where he would be born. Amazingly, only 12 people believe that he is the Messiah. And one of these betrays and hands him over. That is, all in all 11 active people. True, many people were convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, but not like these 11 apostles. Again we read from the records that many women too served Jesus with all they had. (Mark 15:40-41; Luke 8:1-3) Despite this, in the final event, even the very person who said, “You are the Messiah of the living God,” denied him. Despite such malfunctions occurring, what I want to mean is that some people possess the spirit of being able to see truths. These people, despite their sins and their faults, still saw. And moreover they saw things that everyone else did not see. Again, when we read the places dealing with Jesus’ life, our understanding that he was the Messiah, or at least a prophet of God, seems very natural. And the people who were impressed by Jesus and those miracles do not take long at all to abandon him. However indifferent and cowardly the people who pass in the records of that time were, we are the same. At least our works prove this. We say that we see, but by behaving as though blind we heap more sin upon ourselves. As Jesus said, if only we had never seen.

And Jesus said: “For this judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind.” Those of the Pharisees (a sect) who were with him heard these things and said to him: “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus said to them: “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say: ‘We see’; so your sin remains.” John 9:39-41

When Muhammad said that he was a prophet, first his uncle cursed him, and everyone abandoned him and no one at all remained around him. He was even forced to flee from those places for his life. These records, which do not pass in the Quran, they had taught us like historical knowledge, but they were true. Some records of the Quran too are written in a direction that confirms these thoughts. Little by little people begin to take Muhammad’s side. There are even those who say, “The ignorant Arabs were always blind anyway.” But believe me, this seeing that I speak of has nothing to do with ignorance or with learnedness.

The Satisfying of the Soul

Spiritual blindness is also described as the darkening of the heart. In one sense this is correct. Since nothing can be seen in the dark, the darkening of what is symbolized here as our heart, that is, of the spiritual eyes, our understanding, means that we have lost our capacity to discern. Even a person whose literal eyes see very well cannot see in the dark; he bumps into this and that. While the darkening of the heart means pessimism in the dictionary, it also indicates that our eyes in the spiritual sense can no longer see. Where such a person will bump into after that, time will show. Look at our world; you will surely see the way people live, the things they value, the reasons they devour one another, the things they are anxious about, and the things they wear themselves out for every single day. The things you see around you and hear in the news, which end in unhappiness and pain, are the things we humans bump into. Some of them we pass by, escaping only by chance, not because we saw them. Just as the searing of the conscience means the conscience becoming numb to distinguishing good from bad, so the darkening of the heart means becoming unable to select events and grasp their meaning, becoming unable to see. Whereas the eyes not seeing and being blind gives people terrible distress, the darkening of the heart I am speaking of, the searing of the conscience, spiritual blindness, seems to affect people not at all. Again, a person whose eyes see is not so greatly affected on his own account by the things he hears about the blind and about blindness. But when it becomes a question of his own going blind, then it draws his interest. When we too hear about spiritual blindness and the state of being in spiritual darkness, we are not much affected. Most of the time this subject does not interest us in the least. Yet the situation is urgent, and we must surely do something. Would we not do everything in our power not to be blind in the literal sense? What is more, a person who is in spiritual blindness can, if he wishes, make those eyes able to see again. And accomplishing this lies in his very own hands.

People who cannot see with their literal eyes come to Jesus Christ and plead for their eyes to be opened. And Jesus sometimes asks them a question. For example, he says: “Do you have faith that I can do this?” (Matthew 9:27-28) And they answer “yes.” Let us not understand this as a mere spoken “yes,” said just for the sake of saying it. Because if it were so, they could not have deceived Jesus. These people, without doubting that Jesus had been sent by God, believed with their whole heart. They were blind, but they saw with their spiritual eyes the things they had heard about Jesus, and believed. Moreover, this faith gained them literal seeing eyes as well. Is this an unhappiness? Certainly not. Both kinds of seeing make a person happy. Even though the things we see and feel are sometimes very ugly, we never want to lose this ability of ours. The easy thing is to be blind; seeing is hard. That is why we described seeing as “an ability.” An ability is a quality that must be gained. Even though our sense organs such as the eye, the ear, the nose, the skin, and the palate were given to us by God as a gift, without being earned, we either dull the things we possess or we can develop them to be more sensitive and more perceptive. Only there is no absolute rule that these will always work automatically in the best way and with the greatest sensitivity. As I said, this is something that also depends very much on us. If I give an example from the computer, perhaps I can explain more easily what I mean.

Although a computer bought from a store has within it certain information and the programs that will run it, this is only general. That is, let us say it is like the eye, ear, nose, and other sense organs that every person naturally possesses from birth. What you will do with that computer from then on is far more important. Whatever you give to the computer, that is, whatever you load into it, that alone can it give back to you. You cannot expect it to give you what is not there. With it, whether to turn your computer into a city library, a music company, or a photo studio, and to enrich it with every kind of thing you can imagine, lies in your hands. Or, on the contrary — as often happened to me when I did not know how to use it — that device with such valuable features can just as easily turn into a nerve-racking box that does not know what it is doing, that understands nothing whether of hand or arm, of word or speech. Like the features we possess from birth, the computer too already possesses certain features when it leaves production for sale. We either develop and enrich it, or, on the contrary, we ourselves later endow the computer with features that go so far as to drive a person mad. This holds true not only for the computer but, in one sense, for everything. Sayings such as “Whatever you sow, that you shall reap” were not spoken in vain.

The spiritual development in people, which we never dwell upon and whose meaning most of the time we do not even know, is also very important. That spirit which must be developed must surely be able to see, and to discern the things it sees. “Does it not see from birth anyway?” you will say. Yes, like our eyes, it too sees. Just as the education and instruction we receive for the ability to see with literal eyes either develops us or can sometimes dull us in this matter, so the situation is the same regarding our spirit. Just as books and every kind of writing mean nothing to someone who has never learned to read and write, so in a similar way our spiritual eyes, left untrained and kept in ignorance, possess seeing ability only in this sense. Humanity, being aware of this, has done something for our spiritual development as well. When we look at the world in a general sense, it is in truth impossible not to draw a negative conclusion from what they have done. It is as though they have labored not to develop us spiritually but to dull us and to make us blind. In fact, it would be even more realistic to use the word “especially” in place of the word “as though” in this sentence.

The spiritual development of humanity, the answering of its problems, has been undertaken most of all by religious establishments, sects, organizations, psychologists, and certain other institutions. The greatest of them, so far beyond rivalry that none can be compared with them, are the religions and the sects attached to them. Because the religions are certain of the existence of these spiritual eyes in people, they supposedly labor to develop them. Again, to tell the truth, they turn the eyes in people not toward the direction they ought to look and see, but toward wholly different directions, and — quite apart from driving people mad as in the example of the computer — they are ready, if need be, even to gouge out seeing eyes in order to blind them. And do not suppose that they themselves are seeing in this matter. About those religious ones, again Jesus Christ speaks fine and enlightening words on this subject. Since the whole subject is so full of meaning, rather than that one sentence alone, I will write out all of the verses. Because if I give only the location of the verse, it will be meaningless. And I suspect that generally no one will take the trouble to open that place and read it. Setting aside one book and opening another is not done out of laziness. Yet it is one of the things a good researcher must absolutely do. Let us come to what Jesus said about those religious ones on this subject.

At this point some Pharisees (a Jewish sect of that time) and scribes came from Jerusalem to Jesus and asked: “Why do your disciples go against the tradition of our forefathers? They do not wash their hands before eating.”

Jesus gave them this reply: “And you, why do you go against God's commandment for the sake of your tradition? For God said: ‘Honor your father and your mother' and, ‘Let him who reviles his father or his mother surely be put to death.' But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother: All the material help you might have had from me is dedicated to God, need no longer honor his father.' In this way, for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God.

You hypocrites! How true is the prophecy of Isaiah concerning you: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me. For the things they teach are only the rules of men.' Jesus called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and take this to heart. It is not what enters the mouth that defiles a man. What defiles a man is what comes out of his mouth.” At this his disciples came to him and said, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”

Jesus gave this reply: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Leave them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if a blind man guides a blind man, both of them will fall into a pit.” Peter said, “Explain this parable to us.” “Do you still not understand either?” Jesus asked. “Do you not know that everything that enters the mouth passes into the stomach and from there is cast out into the sewer? But the things that come out of the mouth issue from the heart. And it is these that defile a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. These are the things that defile a man…” Matt 15:1-20

“If a blind man guides a blind man, both of them will fall into a pit” — is this saying not indeed true? In the example here, Jesus, using literal blind men, in reality spoke of the spiritually blind. Even though our eyes see, blinding them again lies in our own hands. Let us not necessarily think of deliberately stabbing something into our eye. Through ignorance, and sometimes through the wrong things we do out of stubbornness, our going blind is no hard matter at all. And there are certain professions in which people must be careful about this. The simplest example: while welding with the naked eye is unthinkable, there are still very many people who do it. Alongside many such professions, people who do not use the means at hand and who struggle as if consciously to blind their eyes are not in the minority either. We immediately notice when our eye does not see. Spiritual eyes are not so. Just as we notice the hunger of our body, and when we do not satisfy it we feel a continual appetite, an urge, a discomfort, our noticing of our spiritual hunger and doing something to satisfy it are not as urgent and insistent as with our bodily hunger. And if we are not even conscious of these things — even though we are troubled, and all of humanity suffers great trouble on this account — by seeking the cause in wholly different places we only go toward greater pains and unhappinesses. And we are especially steered to seek in those places. Televisions, films, radios, the education and instruction we receive in schools, the books that are written, the newspapers, advertisements, and so on — thanks to them, they expend very, very much effort in this matter. With all these things we have brought forth an empty world and empty men who take pleasure in empty things. As all of humanity, we are as in the situation of the words God spoke concerning the nation He once chose, before its destruction:

All this came upon the Israelites because they had sinned against Jehovah their God, who had rescued them from the yoke of Pharaoh of Egypt and brought them out of Egypt. For they had worshiped other gods and had lived according to the customs of the nations that Jehovah had driven out from before the people of Israel, and according to the rules that the kings of Israel had established. In secret they did these things of which Jehovah their God did not approve, and everywhere, from watchtowers to walled cities, they set up places of worship. On every high hill and under every leafy tree they set up sacred pillars and Asherah poles. In all the places of worship they burned incense, just as the nations had done that Jehovah had driven out from before them. By the wicked deeds they did they provoked Jehovah to anger. They worshiped idols, though Jehovah had said, “You shall not do this.” Jehovah had warned the people of Israel and Judah through all the prophets and seers, saying to them, “Turn back from these evil ways of yours,” “and keep my commandments and my rules, following all of the Holy Law that I commanded your forefathers and that I sent to you through my servants the prophets.” But they did not listen; they were stubborn, like their forefathers who did not trust in Jehovah their God. Despising God's rules, His warnings, and the covenant He had made with their forefathers, they went after worthless idols, and so they lost their own worth as well. (they walked after an empty thing, and became empty men) Although Jehovah had commanded them not to live like the nations around them, they lived according to the customs of the nations. They abandoned all the commandments of Jehovah their God. They made themselves two cast calves and an Asherah pole for worship. They worshiped the celestial bodies. They served Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery. They did what was bad in the eyes of Jehovah, devoting themselves to wickedness and so provoking Him to anger. Jehovah became very angry with the Israelites and drove them all from His presence, except for the tribe of Judah.

Even the people of Judah did not keep the commandments of Jehovah their God. They lived according to the customs that the Israelites had adopted. For this reason Jehovah rejected everyone of the offspring of Israel. He punished them by handing them over to plunderers. He drove them all from His presence. 2 Kings 17:7-20

In the old Turkish translation, in the verse 2 Kings 17:15:

Instead of “Despising God's rules, His warnings, and the covenant He had made with their forefathers, they went after worthless idols, and so they lost their own worth as well,” it has translated exactly as follows: “…They despised His laws and the covenant that He made with their forefathers and the testimonies He gave them; and they walked after an empty thing, and became empty men…”

In many translations in foreign languages, this expression “they became empty men” has been used word for word. The things that came upon them we either read as history, or, out of boredom, do not even value at all. Well, by fleeing from this information, will we be able to change God's thoughts? If you are reading this book in Turkish, do not by any means see these words as a book written merely for Turks. By these writings I mean all of humanity.

There is a trouble, but we cannot understand it. Humanity — bored, oppressed within, pessimistic, unable somehow to be happy no matter what it does — in the end may resort to alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and reckless, perverted sex, yet it cannot find what it hoped for. All of this arises from spiritual hunger and from not satisfying it, or from being unable to satisfy it. Humanity is looking for something, and constantly it supposes that with the things it gives to its body it will satisfy its soul, but in vain.

Although the satisfying of our bodily hunger seems easy, in this matter, as in nearly every matter, we are very much in error. Our physical disorders mostly arise from wrong nourishment. Even in what seems the simplest thing, we make terrible errors. Mostly, either we do not know — for indeed they teach almost nothing about these matters — or we do not even take the trouble to know by using our own effort. One of these is myself. In all my high school life we received education only with simple bits of information such as “In which foods is vitamin C found.” Yet I do not even know how to plant an onion and grow it properly. Well, how many high school or university graduates know this? Is it for that reason such a worthless and empty task according to our times? Eating whatever our heart desires seems to us as though we are doing something good and right. We do not even know what is necessary for our bodily health, what is unnecessary, or even what food combinations may be harmful. Yet eating food and coming to relish the flavor of it begins first in the mind. Because we eat the foods that are settled in our mind, whose taste we know, our heart craves them. A thing we have never known and never eaten, even if our stomach is hungry, most of the time our inner self will not want. Indeed, even though it is very beneficial, we may even feel disgust at that food. Even though in childhood our inner self does not accept certain things no matter how hungry we are, the flavor that settles in our mind and the knowledge we possess about the benefit of those foods will one day develop a different appetite in us. When I was a child I did not like fish at all, especially turbot, whereas now turbot has perhaps become my most beloved fish. It is so expensive that even now I cannot always buy and eat it. I used to hate celery dishes. Because it was said to be beneficial, by eating it even by force I now love it very much. This means our brain must first come to know that food. And this generally begins first within the family. The culture of eating truly begins to develop within the family in childhood. The excessive weight of those poor people who later became rich sometimes comes from the new kinds of food they discover. Without prolonging the subject too much, let me come to the point I want to make. Just as all our bodily, that is, physical health, and even our beauty, is very closely related to our nourishment, so our spiritual health depends on how we nourish our soul. So much so that the bodily complaints of a person whose spiritual health is impaired will keep increasing. Because if these two are not in harmony with each other, a day will come when both surely affect each other.

For example, someone who has terrible pain in his body cannot whistle and sing songs. Even if he does, he takes no pleasure in it. Again, someone writhing with bodily illness will have difficulty perceiving spiritual things as well. Cancer patients suffer great pain in their final period if morphine is not administered. Whatever there may be to explain to these people on spiritual matters — even if it is the very things they desire — because their mind is always on their pains, they cannot achieve full concentration. On the contrary, the situation of one who is physically healthy and sound but spiritually in pain is the same. If you read the Holy Scriptures, or if you have read them, you will even see many spiritually troubled people pleading with God and His prophets to help them. Most of all, in the Gospel, the spiritual pains of these troubled people were also caused by other spiritual creatures. (Matthew 4:24; Matthew 8:16, Matthew 12:22; Luke 6:32-34; Acts of the Apostles 19:12) Let us not read these verses as though they were fairy tales. Those people were not legends or anything of the sort; they were real. When we read in the Gospel about Jesus Christ, even though many people came to him to be healed, we do not see in the records that all the disabled in Israel came. This means that some did not believe in this. And for those who were spiritually sick and were healed, the situation is no different. Jesus in those days healed only those who were aware of this sickness and who had faith in order to be healed. Is the situation any different in our day, as it were? There are so very many people who are sick and unaware of it. Both in the bodily and in the spiritual sense. For a thing that is not even noticed, neither help nor remedy is sought. If people feel no spiritual lack, then they will not seek a remedy either. Or a lack surely exists, it exists, but he is seeking it in wholly different ways and settings. And the worst of all, whether it be bodily or spiritual, is to fall into the hands of a wrong, unskilled, bad doctor. The proverb that has been said, “A half-doctor deprives a man of his life, and a half-cleric deprives a person of his faith,” is very apt.

The Creator of all humanity is the One who best knows our soul and how to satisfy and train it. To say, like fanatical religionists, “We must consult a religionist about every spiritual ailment of ours and must expect help only from him” is foolishness. God surely knows what is most right about everything. But not everyone who says he believes in God is God's spokesman or representative. Another reality is that people who do not believe in Him also possess correct knowledge on many matters. Or let us put it this way: all food, drink, and the sun belong to God, but He gives them to the good and to the bad alike. (Matthew 5:45-46) Indeed, those we call faithless and godless can sometimes, thinking more reasonably and logically than many believing, religious people bound to their organization, also see and evaluate many events far more humanely and clearly. (Luke 16:8) I do not wish to pass judgment on the religiousness — what it is and how it is — of the people who brought forth those religions. Rather than their going the wrong way, I characterize as great blindness their seeing and presenting themselves as the sole and only source of righteousness. No man of God is conceited and declares “I am the most right, there is no one besides me,” nor has any ever done so. Even Jesus Christ — whom the Christians believe to be the son of God (which is only correct when viewed from the spiritual side) and who, like the Adam of the beginning mentioned in the Quran as well (Surah Al Imran (3):59), was flawless — did not accept such an attribution but gave the glory to God. In the Gospel there is a conversation as follows:

As Jesus was setting out on the road, someone came running to him. Kneeling before him he asked, “Good teacher, what must I do to gain everlasting life?”

Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good?” “There is only one who is good, and that is God. Mark 10:17-18

These people were never of the conceited sort. Their humility was not a show or a hypocrisy either; on the contrary, it was a reality coming from their sincere hearts. And the words they spoke gave voice to the truths.

Well then, how should a person who is conscious of all this satisfy his spiritual hunger? Where should he seek the eateries, restaurants, and markets that will satisfy it? For an inexperienced person these may seem very difficult, even impossible. Only a few questions can help us about these. For example: “Has the One who created the whole earth and heaven and who satisfies people and animals within it with such varied foods left us, in the spiritual matter, to hunger and famine? Is His purpose to make us unhappy, or to encourage us to live in a happy, peaceful world?” If we give positive answers, answers oriented to our own benefit, to even these two simplest questions, then it means there is hope for us. Because even if we do not have the knowledge to answer this question, we will at least accept it logically — that God has provided us sufficient food in spiritual matters as well.

For example, in our times the Holy Scriptures and the Quran, which can be obtained in the cheapest and easiest way, were written by the will of God, and have moreover been preserved down to our times. If we do not make a matter of life and death out of periods, commas, worthless printing errors, and translations with wrong interpretations, we will see that we possess abundant spiritual food. In my opinion God especially permits such changes, so that for those with a disorder in their spirit it may be, as it were, a snare. But it is not God who sets the snare; rather, they themselves develop the heart attitude that will lead them to ruin. (Al Imran (3):7; 2 Peter 3:14-18) According to them, “Men corrupted and changed the word of God.” As I also wrote in the book “The Religion Mafias and Us”, if we attempt to believe this saying, we make God out to be a liar. Because He clearly says in all the sacred books that He will preserve His word. (Al-An'am (6): verse 34 and verse 115; An-Nisa (4):136; Psalms 12:6-7; 1 Peter 1:24-25; Matthew 24:35) The changes such as periods, commas, numbers, places, and times found in those books do not distance us from God and from knowing His attributes. Whether it be the Quran or the Holy Scriptures, I have read with great pleasure those who criticize them. There was never any question of my coming to know God wrongly through the matters they called “changed” or “fake.” Some people cannot even bear the simplest piece of knowledge, that “God always sees the future.” Even though they say they believe in those books. And with wrong interpretations such as “What is meant there is not this but that,” concerning this and similar pieces of knowledge that do not please them, they suppose that they are deceiving themselves and those who follow them. So be it; in the end everyone should believe as they wish. Everyone should be able to choose both the right and the wrong as they wish. Since I am not a lawmaker, I do not wish to make any interpretation as to where the limits of these should begin or end. Since all of humanity will give an account on its own behalf, everyone is himself responsible for his belief, for what he wishes to believe, and for his right or wrong interpretations. With the spirit God gave, wise Solomon gives voice to these truths in the book of Ecclesiastes of the Holy Scriptures:

The conclusion of the matter is this; everything has been heard; fear God, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, together with every hidden thing, whether it be good or bad. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

It is this simple. There is no one who will flee from or escape this judgment. And since our Judge will be God, no one will be able to give a bribe, deceive, or commit fraud before Him. Since all this will be so, we need not feel anxious and afraid about our righteousness, our sincerity, our honesty, and, most important of all, our love. Our errors already exist and will exist. But especially the things we do knowingly are not called error. In these matters we must examine ourselves with sincerity. As for long counsels about these things, we have all received them everywhere in the world from birth, or are still receiving them. I want to dwell not on these things that appear like the confusion I have spoken of, but on the importance of our soul's seeing and how we must nourish it.

How we nourish our soul will affect both our literal and our spiritual eyes to a terrible degree. From the meanings we draw from the things we look at, to the things we hear, read, listen to, and speak; our lying down and rising up, our eating and drinking, our walk, and even, if I may exaggerate, our very appearance will be affected by this. I am not a soul-scientist, a psychologist, or anything of the sort, but I also recommend that you believe absolutely that these things are so. Along with the things I have listed, even our health will take its share in this matter. Whether they will show an effect in a good direction or a bad one will depend on the food we receive. Because what we nourish our soul with is very important. The human soul is affected by everything from listening to music to the setting of the sun, to the view of mountain, forest, and sea, and it feels from these a relief, and sometimes a discomfort. This depends on the things it sees, listens to, and perceives. The reason I continually draw attention to the words of God in the satisfying of the soul is that I want to say we, as the whole world of humanity, can both eat and drink from that source without anxiety. As humanity, an interesting situation is that our soul is always seeking a belief. No matter where in the world you go, even the smallest tribe living in what are called virgin forests has a belief it exalts and worships. And this even though no one taught them anything. Just as humanity, no matter where in the world it is, possesses the feeling of hunger and the need to satisfy its body, it is certainly clear that it possesses the same feelings regarding belief and the seeking of a God for itself. And from this the following meaning emerges: this feeling of seeking God, which is in our nature, within us, we possess from birth. As it is also written in the Book:

God, who created the world and all the things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; since it is He Himself who gives to all life, breath, and everything, He is not served by the hands of men as though He needed anything; and He made every one of men from one blood to dwell over all the face of the earth, having appointed their set times and the boundaries of their dwellings; so that they should seek God, and if possible find Him by groping (by searching); yet He is not far from any one of us; for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as also certain of your poets have said: ‘For we are His offspring (His lineage).' Acts of the Apostles 17:24-28

When we look at history, humanity has gone about meeting this need in various ways. The existence of many religions and the belief in all kinds of gods is for this reason. Even though the people of the countries of the world called “modern” struggle to suppress these feelings with the things they obtain through pleasure and money, they too possess the same need. Since there is a single God who created all humanity and everything, He must be the One who knows and gives what is the best food for our soul, as also for our body. That is why, when spiritual food is spoken of, I say, “We can develop our soul with the wisdom in the words of God.”

Whether it be for our soul or for our body, we sometimes understand only after a long time whether the nourishment we receive is good or bad. Excessively bad things are of course easily understood. While a very bad dish is evident from its very smell, seeing those who pierce themselves full of holes with swords and skewers at their gatherings, saying they are worshiping God, will not develop our soul in a positive way either. But in the same event, for those whose aim is to perform acrobatics in a circus, this situation may be useful. For this reason, in the settings we are in, we must ask ourselves what we are seeking, and this too without deceiving ourselves. When I look at the people in many religious circles, in those places where they gather, believe me, I say it is sometimes impossible to find, among thousands of people, one person who truly seeks and loves God, one sincere person. Each of them has wholly different expectations, aims, and thoughts — whether good or bad, whether right or wrong, but very far from God. I have no intention of laying down a rule that there must be a society of people who think of God continually for 24 hours. But I want to say that at least in the settings we are in, we must possess a thought and a spirit-attitude befitting the purpose. In the places where God's name is mentioned, I do not want to spend my hours, my days, my months, and my years — indeed my whole lifetime — in vain. In my opinion, rather than a person being in those places for nothing, standing as a scarecrow in the fields relieves that person far more in the spiritual matter. At least he does not distress his body with forms such as lying down and rising up over and over, reciting hymns, and praying, calling it worship. In short, whatever we are seeking, and wherever we are seeking it — whether it be a right or a wrong place — we will not immediately understand this at once just by looking from outside or by going inside. As we give ourselves to something, we must conduct a search that comes fully and truly from the heart. We can also do it half-heartedly, for form's sake, out of laziness. But then the task of understanding what is what will take a very long time. Indeed, sometimes without understanding, and without even wanting to understand, we may live and die a whole lifetime with a wholly empty belief we possess. As human beings we do not have, as in the old days, a lifetime of 700 or 800 or even 900 years. Like a flower we appear in an instant and quickly wither away. And the ruin of our body is sometimes a thing that will happen in an instant. To young people this saying seems very meaningless, but the truth of the matter is so. Because to me too, when I was young, it seemed so.

For example, while I was together with the Jehovah's Witnesses, with the knowledge and impressions I had gained in three months, on some subjects I was both more knowledgeable and could see events more clearly and plainly than an elder (an official in the sense of a spiritual leader) who had been there forty years, in my own eyes. “In his own eyes everyone sees himself so,” you will say. More than twenty years have passed since then, and I see that those people, despite all the bodily effort they have expended, are still infants in the cradle in spirit, in knowledge, and in the capacity to see. And it is not only I who say this; Raymond Franz, who lived among them for 63 years, worked actively for 40 years, and rose all the way to the governing body, which is called the highest level, also writes it in his books. As do many others who walked those roads and became aware of the error. And if you ask, “How are the other religions?” — perhaps even worse. Never mind the Jehovah's Witnesses being children in knowledge; those in the other religions are almost as if unborn in knowledge.

Alongside this, some especially regard possessing very little knowledge on the subject of religion as sufficient. According to them, the difference between an excessively starved, thin person and two people who have become tubs of fat by eating much junk and wrong food is only in the numbers on the scale. In truth the lives of both are in danger with regard to health — giving such demagogic examples, they also flee from too much knowledge.

The subject I want to explain is that in seeking the truth, people must do that work with a whole heart. What happens if we do not? As I said, the task only drags on and on. We can be aware neither of what we are doing nor of the road we are walking in the true sense. Someone must take hold of us and shake us. Even if we are shaken and our eyes are opened to certain truths, if we continue in the same attitude, at most we perhaps change place. That is, like leaving one party and going over to some other party. Or leaving one religion or sect and going over to another religion or sect is the same. Charles Taze Russell, who years ago started the Jehovah's Witnesses and understood and became aware of this and wrote it in his book, also noted this. If, by saying “We are satisfying our soul,” we attempt to deceive ourselves while in fact leaving it starved, then not only do our time, our finest years of youth, and our energy — which we can never bring back — go to waste, but with a soul filled with wholly empty or trash-like things we may fall into depression and even be driven to suicide. I do not say this in the sense that we must necessarily stay away from them. But I say that before we let ourselves be carried away by them, we must, continually, without ever tiring, conduct a very good search. Then, just as we will not grieve over the years we have passed, we will not see our time as having been spent in vain. I too spent about twenty years seeking God among the Jehovah's Witnesses and in other religions. But my aim was always to be a servant to God, not to man. That is why I never for a moment bowed to any of them. And that is why I see my time spent with them not as a regret but as, “It is good that I learned by going; perhaps I may even be of benefit to others.” If I had never gone among them, perhaps I would never have learned and would not have understood those people. I do not mean to say that I learned correct knowledge from them, but I mean that by researching whether that knowledge they taught was correct or wrong, I myself developed. I could also have researched just by sitting at home, but those taught things would never have come to my mind, sitting on my own, for me to research.

For example, let us say you go to a restaurant to satisfy your hunger. You order food but, without eating it, one way or another you pass your time. Just as you pay a fee for dishes you have not even tasted, you leave that place too with a hungry body. In this way, apart from remaining hungry, it is even impossible for you to know whether that restaurant is good or bad. Let us suppose that, feeling hungry, you go to the same restaurant every time, and leave it in the same way. In bodily hunger perhaps no one would do such a thing. But in the satisfying of our soul, as almost all of humanity, we are exactly as in the example I have written here. With the example I give here, I want to compare the restaurant with the places where we receive religious education. Let not that atmosphere around us in the restaurant — the smells of food, the bustling waiters, the sounds of plates and dishes, the people sitting at the tables, and so on — deceive us into thinking this is a place one comes to in order to be satisfied. Since the satisfying of our spiritual hunger takes place in the spiritual sense, no one in those places can see what anyone is eating, or how much he has been satisfied by eating. He can only guess, and those guesses are most of the time wrong. Moreover, even if we suppose we have been satisfied by the things we literally ate, the nutritional value of the foods in that restaurant may be zero. This is also called hidden hunger. That you, like others, enter that restaurant with a wholly empty stomach and leave that restaurant again either with a wholly empty stomach or bloated from eating yet with zero nourishment, is not an impossible thing. Let us not deceive ourselves by regularly being present in those places either. When we look at the religions on the face of the earth and the people they spiritually nourish, how developed their souls are we can liken to the body of the child from Sudan in Africa, whom we see in the picture below. The difference between the bodily hunger that child suffers and the way the religions on the face of the earth satisfy our soul is this: the one is seen with literal eyes, the other is of the kind seen with spiritual eyes if we so wish. My own thought is not even as optimistic as I have used in this comparison. In my opinion we have a humanity that is spiritually dead. And to make a generalization from our handful who are gasping their last would be unrealistic.

I said, “To satisfy our soul, we can, without hesitation, nourish ourselves from the books God caused to be written,” and afterward I said how much the religions have left us starved. And this is precisely the subject I want to explain. We confuse two things with each other. When religion is spoken of, God immediately comes to our mind. Bravo to them, that they have managed to plant this in people's minds. For example, when we say bank, money immediately comes to our mind. Or as, when a restaurant is spoken of, foods come to our mind. Those places gave us these associations. When religion is spoken of, associating God in our minds is surely not wrong. The side we must not forget is that there is no rule that either that bank or that restaurant or any religion whatsoever will necessarily work automatically, in a way befitting its purpose, correctly, healthily, and satisfyingly, for our benefit.

Well then, who will decide what is good or bad?

Surely, in the end, the decision is ours.

Well then, from where will we know what is right in this? Do we not all want to make the most correct decision?

Raising ourselves spiritually, tending and rearing our soul like a child, is in the end our task. Our soul is something that depends on us; whatever kind of shape we give it, or whatever kind of shape they may give it, we must first want this or permit it. Our deciding what is right or wrong comes about by possessing a measure. In our lives, whom, what, which standards do we take as a measure, or should we take? Come, let us broaden the subject a little more about these too.

Let us begin with a simple example. In order to estimate the length of a table, or for a person who knows no unit of length measurement to know whether that table will fit into a place he wants, he must possess a unit of measurement. Taking a rope in our hand, or taking a meter-rule, we can measure the width and length of that table. If we take the meter-rule, the measure we possess is valid everywhere and on everything, whereas the measure by which we measured with a rope will be valid for only that single thing. For truly, what else can I measure with the rope by which I measured the table? The unit of measurement called the meter was, after all, invented by men. What is important is not that a meter is a hundred centimeters or that it is 140 centimeters; what is important is that a meter is the same everywhere. Numbers in units of measurement will always change. We men have called a meter 100 centimeters. At the beginning we could also have called it 120, or 240. Indeed, in many countries these units change. They do not say meter, kilometer, but mile. They do not say liter, but gallon. Their quantities also change. But it is the same everywhere. When gallon is said, there is a chart showing how many liters it is. Just as, when mile is said, there is a chart showing how many meters it is. That is, let names and units not mislead us. If we possess a measure that everyone will accept, we understand more easily what we mean and what is meant to us.

Our question was to estimate how long a table is. Surely a voice will come from every head, and the numbers each one says will also be different. At the end of all these estimates, when that table is measured with the meter-rule, its length becomes definitely certain. For example, when we measure with the meter-rule, however long the table is, whether we want to or not, we must accept that number. When we begin to speak about God, the situation is not much different either. If we believe in a being who is the creator of everything, our logic must also settle into the fact that its name is Allah, Gott, Teo, or Elohi — in different languages but with the same meaning. Likewise, whichever religion we say we belong to, what we must accept as the measure is to read and research the sacred book of that religion; at least it can be a beginning. And if the creator and owner of everything is God, must we not, whether we want to or not, accept and at least taste the things He has set before us as spiritual food? We eat and are satisfied every day by the things He gives for our body. Whether we use these foods in a right or wrong way, we do use them. Why should the situation be any different with spiritual foods?

By these things I am by no means saying either believe in God or in the books He counts as sacred. For now our aim is to find the answer to our question by giving examples. Is not the aim to seek any place, a market, a bazaar, a restaurant, a store where we can eat spiritual foods? It is possible for us to satisfy the hunger of our stomach in many different eateries and restaurants. In every food market we can buy what our heart desires. While we possess abundant material to meet this need in the streets, on the avenues, from the buses to the ships and even the airplanes, why in the spiritual matter does the whole world seem to us virtually like a desert?

On this subject too, by writing something about the experiences I have gained on my own behalf, perhaps I can explain the truest realities better. Believe me, our being nourished spiritually is not at all so difficult. Yes, it is something that takes a person's time and energy, but this is so for everything. Do we not sit for hours in front of the most trashy film, without understanding it? If you try to keep a daily “time-expenditure” report about yourself, you will become aware of how much time you spend on empty things. Just as I myself know that for the bodily foods of a household of only four people, prepared with a little care, at least 4 to 6 hours of the day must be spent in the kitchen — and this is possible only with a kitchen fully equipped with electronic appliances. If you go to draw water from the well, to take vegetables from the field, to grind wheat at the mill, you would find it somewhat hard to satisfy these four people on your own. Let us not forget that for thousands of years humanity lived under these conditions. The women of our last century are not throwing themselves out into the streets saying “I am going out to work” for nothing. Because the work at home is sometimes far more boring and heavier than that outside. Moreover, hardly anyone appreciates this work either, and in the end it grants no pension and gives no money at all.

The prophets and faithful people mentioned in those writings we call the Holy Scriptures most of the time could not find even the things I have listed either. They met either with a famine or with an enemy invasion. Conditions were then far more dire even just to fill the stomach. The subject came up about time, and that is why I am writing this. This saying, “I have no time,” is the greatest excuse the Germans use. Other people, by saying other things, put forward other excuses. Just as time is a condition for satisfying the body, so time is a condition for satisfying the soul. Some spend that 4-to-6-hour time I mentioned by buying ready-made things with the money they earn working outside, and some in the kitchen at home. Even if, the richer one becomes, such problems decrease, their time is even scarcer with other problems and programs. In short, just as we necessarily accept the time spent to satisfy our body and absolutely set aside time for this, so the situation must be the same for satisfying our soul.

If we have wriggled around the matter of time for conducting research and reading, then the next most important reason is our want, our desire for that thing. Desire, want, is sometimes a foremost reason. It is of course not logical for a person to want a thing he does not know, does not understand, and has never even heard of. The want within us begins first in our mind. Indeed, what we mean by our inner self is first our mind, our brain. We meet certain questions every day. Why are we born, and why do we die? What is the purpose of life? What will we be after we die? Where do the dead go? Every person is confronted with this and similar questions. Whether he wants to or not, his surroundings and the things he sees will surely teach him this. The things he learns are not necessarily the answer to the question. A person, asking such questions either within himself or of someone outside, has surely awaited the answer too. Now the answers to this and similar things are only a few of the foods our soul desires. As long as we do not receive satisfying answers to such questions, then just as our body literally is not satisfied, so is our soul's hunger.

For example, in me the want to research arose within, through such questions and answers. Even though people said things to me such as “What are you doing?” or “What is the need to do this?” or “Well done!”, I did not do this research for the sake of any of them. Only for myself, yes, for my very own self, I wanted to find the answer to these questions. After all, how could I explain to someone else, as “this is right,” a thing of which I myself was not convinced? Meanwhile, most of all I gave importance to joy. I never wanted to enter into a sour-faced, forced manner, as though I were putting God into debt, or an impression of suffering. Because from what I read, as far as I clearly understood, God is in favor of seeing the man He created joyful, and of the one who does his deeds with joy. Are we humans not the same? Sometimes we prefer a person who says “no” to us with a smiling face over a person who says “yes” to us with a face as if cursing, as if saying “may your name perish.” Just as things done by force, unwillingly, do not please us either, so they are not acceptable to God.

Alongside this, while the time has come, I am obliged to state a truth as well. It is easy to ask a question, but sometimes we either do not want to know the answer at all, or we ask merely to oppose. While we suppose that we are aggrandizing ourselves with such arrogant tactics, unknowingly and unawares we leave our soul starved and begin to treat it as an enemy.

In the days of Moses, in the wilderness, God says to make a tent of worship. Look, in response to God's requests, with what heart attitude even the stiff-necked people of that time, who understood nothing of words, behaved and responded; let us read it from its place.

And all the assembly of the sons of Israel went out from the presence of Moses. And every man whose heart stirred him came and gathered, and they brought Jehovah's offering for the work of the tent of meeting and for all its service and for the holy garments. And the men along with the women, all whose hearts were willing, came. Everyone who presented an offering of gold to Jehovah brought brooches and rings and finger-rings and bracelets, all sorts of articles of gold… For every work that Jehovah had commanded to be done by the hand of Moses, every man and every woman whose heart made them willing to bring, the sons of Israel, brought a voluntary offering to Jehovah.

(Exodus 35:20-22 and 29; Also Genesis 4:3-8; Isaiah 61:7; Revelation 21:4; Deuteronomy 28:47-48)

This subject concerning joy in “giving” happened to be a verse I used by chance. In truth, our being joyful does not by any means require us to give material things at all. God does not want the gold, the silver, the money we have; He wants us. Those things already belong to God. Gold, silver, money, we can only give to people. But the free will we possess, our Creator gave only to us, and He wants us to draw near to Him with it. I have never understood, and I will never understand, those religionists who somehow cannot grasp that we must serve God from the heart, willingly, joyfully, and who crush people with pressure and force. In truth, they want us to serve not God but themselves and their own aims.

While a person conducts research in order to develop spiritually, many put up quite a struggle to take away this joy in him. If you are defeated, you are ruined. Every beginning means inexperience. While acquiring knowledge, an inexperienced conscience also develops in a person. Now it is precisely at this point that the work of the religious establishments begins. If you go after them, you will resemble people who, impatiently, enter the very first restaurant they come upon and either upset their stomach or fill their belly with things they never wanted. Among people, children are the easiest to deceive. Because they are inexperienced and unpracticed. As we too begin to grow spiritually, our childhood period will surely come. By no means, looking at your bodily age, suppose that your spiritual age too develops automatically in the same proportion. On some subjects perhaps yes, but on the subjects that lead to real life, believe me, most of the time we are not even as much as a baby. If I say that on this subject we have not been born at all, perhaps I would be telling the truth. (John 3:1-15) This is not a shameful thing. Do not be ashamed at all. In acquiring knowledge and in growing spiritually, some of the greatest enemies within us are laziness, a feeling of inferiority, being ashamed, pride, and arrogance. These are virtually destructive of the soul's food, as if they carry the property of an atom bomb. However old you may be, since you cannot know everything, do not shrink from listening and asking. Even if there are sometimes those who laugh mockingly at your questions, with the correct answers you receive that thing will now have meaning for you. There is no rule either that these answers will necessarily be correct or will satisfy you. But these subjects should drive you to research. Even if a thing seems right and logical, do not suddenly believe everything without conducting research. A tiny bitterness that you value least, that you hide within, will one day grow and develop as huge as a giant. A day comes when defeating that giant becomes impossible for you. If we see to destroying, while they are small, all the evils we suppose insignificant, then it means we now also possess an utterly clean spirit that relieves us. Who wants to nourish worm larvae or other parasites in his body? Just as they disturb our body and our health, so in us too there are, in the form of a host of parasites that disturb our soul, bad and wrong feelings that seem small in our eyes and that we suppose, in the beginning, we hold under control. We must wage a decisive war against these. And after doing all these things, never see yourself as though you have become utterly clean. If you make the error of falling into such a supposition, know that you are surely in a great error. However much effort you expend, however much knowledge you acquire, however much good you do, you will never be able to cleanse yourself of all sins, nor will you have completed your spiritual development. Because God's apostle states this truth:

If we say “we have no sin,” we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we openly confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (Gospel—1 John 1:8-9)

If sin draws attention to the existence of our shortcomings, then we must never put an end to spiritual development either. Moreover, when humanity inherits from God the eternal life called paradise, even though it will have stripped off all its sins, its spiritual development will continue, and indeed must continue. That is, our process of showing spiritual growth is endless; let us not forget this. Let us be humble not in word, and not as though merely posing with outward appearance, but coming from the heart, in a real way. This is a very great factor in spiritual development. Many people evaluate being truly humble as though it were only for the benefit of others, in terms of doing good to others. In truth, by being humble a person does the greatest good to himself. This quality both relieves your inner self and swiftly makes you grow and develop in spirit. As I said, the things that draw a wall of bronze before our soul are things such as arrogance, jealousy, envy, pride, taking sides, being ashamed to do what is right, fear of society, and so on. Come, let us read not from our own words but from the words of the Lord's apostle to see what kind of personality we must possess spiritually.

For this reason put to death the worldly aspects of your inner being—sexual immorality, uncleanness, passions, evil desires, and the greed that means idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient. In the past, when you lived among such people, you too walked in these ways. But now put off all of them from yourselves—including anger, rage, and malice. Let no reviling or indecent word come out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another. Because you have stripped off the old creation with its evil habits and thrown it off from yourselves, and you have put on the new creation, which is being renewed in the image of its Creator so as to attain accurate knowledge. (Gospel—Colossians 3:5-10)

If we possess the qualities God wants of us, then our showing spiritual growth and being relieved will come along with it. A good medicine that a sick person takes with nausea, even if it does not immediately stop the nausea, its effect over time will calm his stomach without the person even becoming aware. By putting on, like a garment, the new man created according to God, we will change swiftly, without even being aware. Those around us will notice this, but by no means expect that they will praise you. On the contrary, as your sympathy for the things that are right increases, if you have begun to love without expecting return, if you defend the truths, if you speak about your belief without shrinking, with respect, knowingly, people will draw away from you and from time to time will even hate you. Looking at people, it is impossible not to be affected by this hatred of theirs. If you fall into faintheartedness and are defeated, you are ruined. Always ask yourself: “Should it be the person I want to please, or God?”

We had set out by giving examples from restaurants. We had likened the religions, the eating of food in order to receive spiritual nourishment, to going to a restaurant. Only with the knowledge you receive and apply about God will you have tasted that food. After that, whether to eat those things or not is something you will decide.

Taste and see; how good, how happy is Jehovah! Happy is the man who takes refuge in Him! (Zabur—Psalms 34:8)

Whether spiritually or bodily, in eating food do not expect a rule-bound list from anyone either. To the rules God has established, neither add nor take away. Certain points I have written to you were only so that you might have joy. Because if you have no joy, if the things you do are not based on love, whatever you may have done, a day will come when you fall. If you do not take a lesson, this fall may even be of the kind never to rise again. There is a proverb, “Start like a Turk, finish like an Englishman.” Even though running fast seems a factor in drawing near to the goal, by becoming excessively tired we may also come face to face with the danger of losing our energy, and therefore our joy. Let us run toward the goal, but with a pace that will never stop. Because a goal is set up in order to obtain certain things. If our goal is to please God and to feel joy from this—for which God created man for this very purpose—this too is endless, eternal. That is why, if you do not know how to take pleasure in God, in His attributes, first of all learn this. All the religions on the face of the earth, in my opinion, only cause one to miss this pleasure. Do not permit them to make a wall between God and you. God clearly says on this subject:

“Draw back from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for what is his worth?” He says. (Torah—Isaiah 2:22)

Whether on this subject, or on whatever subject is the will of God, let us ask for help from Him Himself, with prayers coming from within, that He may help. And our requests should be with words coming from our mind and our heart. Let us not attempt to pose before God with words whose meaning we do not know. Moreover, God has no need of special body postures for prayer either. None of the forms of worship taught to us is written either in the Quran or in the four books we know as the Torah, the Zabur, and the Gospel. God is not sought and worshiped through the traditions of men. We see what the traditions of men have made of us. Spiritually they have driven us to death. And bodily, throughout the world we are breathing our last breath. God commands and wants us to break all the chains of bondage that hinder us from drawing near to God. Again, because He loves us.

I, I am the one who comforts you; who are you that you are afraid of a man who will die, and of a son of man who will become like grass; and that you have forgotten Jehovah who spread out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, who created you; and that all day long you constantly dread the rage of the oppressor when he prepares to destroy? Where now is the rage of the oppressor? (Torah—Isaiah 51:12-13)

Because of fear and senseless shame, do not be servants to men. When God gave Jeremiah the office of prophet while he was still of an age to be called a child, look what He says:

“…I will pronounce my judgments against them for all their wickedness, because they have forsaken ME… Do not be terrified before them, or I will terrify you before them… They will fight against you; but they will not prevail against you; for I am with you to rescue you.” Jehovah says. (Torah—Jeremiah 1:16-17 and 19)

Someone who reads my writings may think that I have a hatred against the religions. But the things I hate are not the religions, but their bad qualities and ours. Although I love my child, I also hate his bad qualities. But this does not mean that I ever hate my child. Surely in the end I will accept him too as he is, but this will still not mean that I love the bad and wrong qualities in him. By big and swollen words, people, by saying “I have loved you with everything about you,” or “I love you,” perhaps mean the greatness, the power of love. But we can never love the qualities we count as bad in those we love. Indeed, we cannot do this, precisely because we love him, nor should we. How can I say, about a thing that is bad in my eyes, “But you go ahead and do it”? Or if I see a harmful thing in the person I love, how can I keep silent? Only let us not confuse things: here I am speaking of love, not of ruling. Just as America cannot be said to love the people in Iraq, so in the bombing of people by religious fanatics it cannot be said that it is “for good” to one another. Love does not bomb; on the contrary, it keeps alive and educates. It hopes for salvation. In the bomb and in war there are self-interest, gain, rage, hatred, revenge. They are in no way compatible with love. Even though keeping silent about injustices done, and showing peace, sometimes truly seems impossible, God says: “Vengeance is MINE, I will repay,” and again:

You shall not take vengeance and you shall not hold a grudge against the sons of your people; you shall love your neighbor (people) as yourself; I am Jehovah. (Leviticus 19:18)—saying this, He commands staying away from this feeling. Meanwhile, let us again not confuse defending oneself with taking vengeance.

Since our subject is spiritual growth, since by learning something from God and from His words we will go not backward but forward, let us not, by drawing wrong meanings from my writings, view the religions as though they were lepers. On the contrary, in the education we will receive and in the desire to research, they are very great factors. Whether to attend church, or the synagogue, or the mosque, or the meetings of the Jehovah's Witnesses, will make you lose nothing. The loss only comes when you make them lords over yourselves—which happens very insidiously—when you make them a mediator between God and yourselves, and again when you believe that you will be saved only thanks to them; now it is then that you lose and are being nourished spiritually like the child from Sudan in Africa. Very well, that child's situation was for reasons beyond his control; but what about us? If we, of our own consent and desire, become donkeys, what can they call us? If I can say that I have developed spiritually even a little—which, as I said, is an endless thing—I gained this too by going among many religions, but only with the help of God. By going and listening to them we do not fall into sin or anything of the sort. Indeed, look what Jesus Christ says about them:

After this Jesus addressed the crowd and his disciples as follows: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses. For this reason do and observe all the things they tell you, but do not do the things they do. For they do not do the things they say. They bind up heavy loads hard to carry and put them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves do not want to move even a finger to carry these loads. ”All their deeds they do to be seen. For example, they make their phylacteries large and the tassels of their garments long. They love the chief place at banquets and the most prominent seats in the synagogues. They love being greeted in the marketplaces and having people call them “Rabbi” (my teacher, my master). “Do not let anyone call you “Rabbi.” For you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no one on earth your “Father.” For you have one Father, and He is the heavenly Father.

Do not let anyone call you “leader.” For you have one Leader, and He is the Christ. The greatest one among you must be the servant of the others. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You shut the door of the Kingdom of the Heavens in people's faces; you neither enter yourselves, nor do you let those who want to enter go in!

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You travel over seas and continents to convert a single person to your religion. And once he is converted, you make him twice as much a subject of hell as yourselves. Gospel—Matthew 23:1-15

With my experiences about the religions, I confirm these words of Jesus wholly, from the heart. In truth, the guilty ones are not only those religious leaders; by making them leaders over ourselves, the fault is in fact ours. And in this way we corrupt those people too. For every person, being a leader is a great snare. That is why, whatever the place you have entered, we have no need to take people, religions, wonderful speakers and those who say wonderful words immediately upon our backs and become a donkey to them. Only as long as you see them as an older brother, an older sister, a brother, do you also advance spiritually. But if you say, “They will save us, I will enter paradise thanks to them,” then set aside spiritual regression—you will come face to face with the very great wrath of God as well.

Every restaurant owner wants you always to be nourished from him. This want of that restaurateur is of course normal. But which of us does this? The foods obtained from various kinds of restaurants, and the difference in flavor, will open our appetite more, and we will take pleasure in eating. Choosing the things we will eat and drink is generally in our hands. And the measure of what is beneficial and what is harmful is present in the books we call the word of God, which are in our hands. Sometimes, in things that seem very complicated and impossible to get out of, rather than immediately making a wrong decision, it is wiser to wait and research. What is important depends on which of the pieces of knowledge we receive and the behaviors we see we will select and which we will throw away as trash. If we do not know what we must see as valuable and what as worthless, let us research and pray without ceasing. Look, again Jesus Christ likens this subject to something.

Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a net cast into the sea that gathers from every kind; when it was full, they drew it to shore and sat down on the ground and put the good into vessels, but threw the bad outside. Matthew 13:47

This principle holds for everything. God's angels too, in the last days, will separate the bad from the good according to this principle. In seeking God and advancing spiritually, whether with the religious or with the irreligious, or in our relationship with the whole world, why should we not apply this principle? And if we point solely to the religions as the cause of our spiritual hunger and our little development, this too is an injustice. From the Hollywood film companies to all the television channels, the radio stations, the newspapers and magazines, the books, the politicians who govern states, and the education we receive in schools, throughout the world we are already in a spiritually disgraceful situation. Moreover, this truth too must be voiced. Whether they be the police, the gendarme, the soldier, the doctor, the teacher, the cleric, the president, the prime minister, the pope, the mufti, the religionist, the infidel—whatever they are, they are. The spiritual food that all these institutions give humanity is truly a thousand times worse than the hunger of Africa. Yes, perhaps all this is so, but within them too there are surely, in certain measures, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and the things we call the food of the soul. Doing as Jesus said, if we wish we can gather the values scattered throughout the whole world and develop ourselves. Always expecting from others, seeing and criticizing their flaws, their weaknesses, their lacking sides, builds up no one, in my opinion. Yes, it may perhaps protect a person from danger and open his eyes, but it does not build up. That is why we ourselves, we personally, by doing something, learning, and teaching, can be of benefit to humanity. Always to criticize, to expect from others, is easy. If, constructively, we build up something, we will also have our reward. If this world is in filth with everything about it, as human beings we surely had our own share in that filth as well; let us not forget this either.

Even though all the religions, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, claim that the wisdom of the whole world is in the monopoly of a single person, or establishment, or organization, to accept this absurdity is nothing but madness, conceit, and fraud. Whatever the case, why do we feel such a great need to wear the team jersey belonging to a particular place? Of course, according to them, your freedom is a “betrayal.” Since the aim is already to enslave us to themselves, like the restaurateur who believes that we must always go to eat at his place, why do we not see these accusations of theirs too as natural, but rather our conscience is strained on this matter? Since every religion presents itself as the representative of God, they already meet your relationship with such various religions in your research with great reaction, and try to create in you a conscience as though you are going to various different Gods. As I keep saying, the insidious thought they give as education is, “Only they are the representatives of the one God, everyone else is a fraud.” But the real fraud is that religion or sect that makes this claim. Even if to me they are all one, it must be accepted that within them too there are a few valuable people. Look what the apostle Peter writes in the Gospel, in the whole of the second chapter of 2 Peter, about these false religionists, those who drive people to death, regarding the last days. Even though it is a little long, I want you to read it carefully and think.

…But there were false prophets among the people of Israel, just as there will be those among you who spread false teaching. These will secretly bring in destructive teachings, even denying the Master who bought them. Such ones will meet with sudden destruction. And many will be led away by their debauchery. Because of them the way of truth will be reviled. Out of their greed they will exploit you with fabricated claims. The judgment long ago rendered against them does not delay. And the destruction awaiting them does not slumber. God did not spare the angels who had sinned; He cast them into hell and put them in chains in darkness. There they will be kept until the time of their judgment. God did not spare the ancient world either. But when He sent the flood upon the world of the ungodly, He protected Noah, a preacher of the way of righteousness, and seven others with him. He judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ruin. By this He gave an example of what will come upon the ungodly. God rescued the righteous man Lot, who was distressed by the debauched (given to pleasure and revelry, dissolute) conduct of the lawless. This righteous man, living among them, day by day tormented his righteous heart because of the lawless deeds he saw and heard. It is evident that the Lord knows how to rescue those who walk in His way from the trials they meet. And He knows how to hold back for the day of judgment, punishing, those who are unrighteous, especially those who go after the corrupt desires of the natural self and despise authority. These insolent and headstrong ones do not fear to revile glorious beings. Yet even the angels, though greater in power and might, do not revile and judge these beings before the Lord. But these people, reviling in matters they do not understand, are like animals without reason, living by instinct, born to be caught and slaughtered. And like the animals, they too will meet destruction. In return for the injustice they have done, they will suffer harm. They count reveling in the daytime a pleasure. They are stains and disgraces. When they eat and drink with you, they take pleasure in their own deceptive ways. Their eyes are full of adultery; they cannot get enough of sin. They entice unstable persons. They are accursed people whose hearts are trained in greed. Following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the gain gotten by injustice, they left the right way and went astray. Balaam was rebuked for the crime he committed. A dumb donkey, speaking with a human tongue, prevented the madness of this prophet. These people are springs without water, clouds driven by the storm. Deep darkness awaits them. Because with empty and swollen words they entice with the passions of the natural self and with realms of lust those who have only just escaped from those walking in the wrong way. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever a person is defeated by, of that he becomes a slave. If, after escaping the defilements of the world by knowing the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in the same deeds and are defeated, their last state becomes worse than their first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment entrusted to them. This true proverb describes their situation: “The dog returned to its own vomit, and the pig, after being washed, to rolling in the mud.” (2 Peter chapter 2)

When religion and religiousness are spoken of, worship observances and duties come to mind. Even though none of us says it openly, we are terrified of these. People who say they are fasting but secretly eat outside, and then at home again sit down at the table with a pose as though they are breaking the evening fast with their children, are not in the minority. We can neither carry the loads we take upon ourselves, nor do we raise our voice against being continually loaded, and by resorting to the ways of how-shall-I-deceive-them with hypocrisy against these pressures of theirs, we become frauds for nothing. Do we suppose we are making a show to people? And all this while it is before the eyes of God! Like the time a Jehovah's Witness, so as to fill his preaching hours at the end of the month, spends for hours, shamelessly, in the home of some soft-hearted person whom he eats and drinks with. Because his religion demands a report from him every month. He must certainly write how many hours he went door to door. However full of joy a person you may be, when you have done this for years, not even the letter j of joy remains in a person. And not only in you; it remains in no one. A retired couple bound to a Catholic religious group whom I met while on vacation did knitting as worship. And from these too, as far as I understood, the man and woman show their faith with the knitting they knit! Surely, even if such a thing was not asked of them for this purpose, in time the understanding in those people turned at once into such a duty of faith. Some, saying “I fast and perform the ritual prayer,” lie down and rise up over and over with an empty heart; some, saying “I will fill my hours,” seek door to door for places to fill their belly; and some do knitting! All these people are performing a duty. What duty? Their religious duties to God! Oh, God has such great need of these things you do! Go on doing them. Yet if we saw our devotion to God as a pleasure rather than a duty, we would obtain far greater successes and would also possess a good relationship with Him. Whatever the thing done may be, when we always attempt to do it with an understanding of duty, a day will come when our joy on that thing too will surely be lost. That is why everyone must make his own decisions and establish his own relationship with God. If we wish, those around us can surely be a help, but not a mediator. The mediation of another between father and child arises from shame, from guilt. And God, who is our spiritual Father, already sees and knows everything; what need is there of a mediator? And does God not know that mediator too? Who knows whether he is someone cleaner or more sinful than we are? Even if that person is a very clean prophet, he will save only himself by his righteous deeds, but I had written in my other book that neither son nor daughter can save anyone. (Ezekiel 14:12-20) As the apostle said:

“Brothers, do not be children in mind, but be little children in evil and be mature in mind.” (1 Corinthians 14:20)

If we are absolutely seeking a mediator for ourselves in order to go to salvation, God gave that too.

“…and there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name given among men under heaven by which we can be saved.” (Acts of the Apostles 4:12)

If anyone—whatever religion, man, or even angel—after this explanation above promises salvation, he is a fraud. And this eagerness to promise salvation is, most of all, for some reason present in the Christian religions. While Muslims most of the time do not even know what they are saying on this subject, the Christians, despite those explanations written in the book they hold in their hands, still shout at the top of their voices to people, “The road to salvation passes only through us.” And everyone outside of themselves will burn crackling in hell! Do America, England, and the other Christians suppose that they are already helping God in this work of burning these people? Well, is it easy to be God's helper! And soon there will be no petrol left either. So that there will be no energy crisis in those cauldrons in hell either, America and the other countries are probably already making preparations! After the ardent votes of the religionists in the elections and the priests' support of the America-Iraq war, I drew these meanings. Or else is it hatred, malice, money that makes them do this? Well then, in this affair, on whose behalf are the religionists speaking? On behalf of the God they represent?!!! Here now, these too are the spiritually rich Christian societies. Whoever wishes may go and hope for salvation in one among them. To him, a good journey!

Now I ask you: In order to see the truths, to understand them, to perceive them, what more do we need? In my opinion the problem is sometimes neither in our spiritual nor in our literal eyes. As I keep saying, the real problem is that one must want to see, understand, perceive. And generally we see what we want. The things we do not want to see or look at, naturally we do not see, do not perceive, and feel nothing about them either. Set aside seeing and perceiving these things; we labor to dull all these feelings of ours I have listed. Because they have frightened us, terrified us, and by saying “Nothing can be done by us anyway,” we permit a handful of people to govern all the humanity of the world. As long as we are in the sickness of being governed and remain incapable of even governing ourselves, we have no right to see, to feel, or to perceive either. And we, as humanity, want it this way. That is why, by no means, from my saying “we bring a handful of men over our heads and let them govern us,” attempt to become an enemy or anything of the sort to those people. If we cast off that handful of men from over our heads, we are a world of humanity ready to crown two handfuls over our heads. Because we do not see that any other kind of solution can exist. Because we are all bad, we give no room to any other remedy either. At the tiniest bit of freedom, we, as humanity, virtually go mad. If men with clubs, sticks, and rifle-butts are not set over our heads, we are ready at any moment to destroy one another. And most of the time we are unfortunately no better than those who govern us either. It is these things I want to explain by what I have written, perhaps so that we might feel shame.

Well then, what should we do? I both say that we must struggle to see spiritually, and, by saying that everyone—from the governors, to all the religious establishments, to people—indeed everyone is untrustworthy, bad in small measure and in large, full of errors, do I not in fact put our situation into a complete impasse? In this situation, of what benefit is seeing? What changes by seeing, by knowing, by perceiving? It is not for nothing that some people say, as they do, “I know, but I do not want to know.” Because humanity dreads that it can change nothing. Read history and you too will think the same. What things upon things humanity has done, and in the end again it has been the same tub, the same bath. If we can change nothing, is there really any importance in seeing, and in perceiving and feeling?

But when we read all the sacred writings, a person arrives at yet another conclusion. Above all, first of all, a person must change himself. Without attempting to change anyone else at all, first himself. It is precisely for this reason that we must be able to see—first for ourselves. And this too by looking from every side and from as broad an angle as possible. Not the world; first of all, we must knead ourselves with deeds worthy of salvation. And God does not give anyone the right to change others anyway. Even His most valued prophets were not for this aim. They always left the freedom to choose good and evil to the people themselves. Only by saying what kind of consequences awaited them as well.

“I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day; therefore choose life,” it goes in Deuteronomy, or the Repetition of the Law, 30:19.

These words indicating this freedom of choice were spoken by the prophet Moses on behalf of God. Indeed, if it were not so, what would be the meaning of persuasion, of faith, of research, of God encouraging people to good? This too is something each person will do himself. That is, let us erase and cast from our heads the thought that “I will change others.” At most we can be a help to others, we can warn them, that is all. And so that everyone might change himself, God permitted so many ugly things on the face of the earth. Otherwise free will would have no meaning at all. If God did not value free will, could He not, as though counting it as nothing, at once turn all humanity into the robots He wanted? This is a thing only we humans do. We too know how hard it is to change a person. And the ones we struggle to change, we expend effort merely to milk, to obtain gain; not expecting anything, not merely for the sake of that person's life.

However bitter it may be, however much we can change nothing, let us still struggle to see. In order to see the truths, in order to be able to take a lesson from the things we see, in order to be happy, in order to be able to run toward the goal—in short, this valuable quality I keep speaking of, our Creator gave to everyone so that they might live with pleasure. Even though of course everyone seems as if they know its value, God and the angels pay far more attention to how we evaluate the things we look at and want to see. As even an inexperienced poet said: “Love is not in two people looking eye to eye, but in two people looking at the same goal.” Rather than where we look, what we see, the question is why we look and what we want to see. With these, are we developing in ourselves a soul that goes toward salvation, toward peace, or a soul that goes toward destruction, toward bitterness?

There are so very many factors in the training of our soul that, however many books may be written for this cause, it is still hard to say that all the details have been set down in writing. The most important is the person's motive, that is, his heart attitude. We had spoken of the different angles from which events are seen, and this is the same in the heart attitude too. Even though there are many causes that make the things two people who see the same things perceive from that event terribly different, this is one of the most important causes. There is looking at a thing with hatred, and looking with love, with a feeling of pity, with a negative or a neutral eye, and many such feelings can enter into the matter, and that event creates in us a wholly different impression. That is why God wants all of humanity to possess an eye, a soul, an understanding, a knowledge for distinguishing good from bad—and such a heart attitude too—that will benefit only themselves. That is why, in the quite long span of time that passed with the offices He gave to so many prophets, let us take up and read those books we call sacred, full of the events He wanted set down in writing, and let us drive them deeply into our mind and our heart. This is true worship. This is the love of God. Even members of religions who say they love God, and who, set aside making an effort to try to understand those books, have not taken the trouble to read them from beginning to end in their whole lives, show the boldness to call people to salvation door to door with those books. The finest example is the Jehovah's Witnesses. Among them there are very few people who read that book from beginning to end. And those who possess such an unknowing faith that they would go even to death without blinking are not only they either. And if these are the most diligent of religions—which they are—you consider the other religions. People who, with a single movement of the finger of their religious leaders, would go with closed eyes to kill, are not few either. The faith of these people is blind and rests on no real knowledge. That is why their eyes are closed and they are ready to do anything. If their eyes had been opened, if they had seen the truths, would those people still listen to this one and that one? This is also the reason for meeting great obstacles with those religions in the effort put forth to know, to learn, to understand. But still, for a person who wants to learn the truth and to love God, these can be no excuse. Because of all this, let us read from its place what God says:

My people have perished (been destroyed) for lack of knowledge; since you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may not be a priest to me; since you have forgotten the law (the laws) of your God, I too will forget your sons. The more they multiplied, the more they sinned against me; I will turn their glory into shame. They feed on the sin of my people, and they set their hearts on their corruption (their crooked deeds). And as the people, so is the priest; and I will bring their ways upon them, and I will repay them the recompense of their deeds. They will eat, and not be satisfied; they will commit adultery, and not multiply; because they have left off giving heed to Jehovah. Hosea 4:6-10

If God spoke these words at that time to the people He called “my own people,” what will He not do to those outside of that? As humanity we hate knowledge. In order to obtain wisdom and understanding, set aside touching them—we do not even want them to pass near us. Even though we rack our brains over many things, even though we consume ourselves over many things, these do not lead us to life, to the God who gives the promise of eternal life. We are bored to death of His words. Speaking about them virtually throws us into depression. It is as though God has become for us not salvation, happiness, hope, but a nightmare. And what causes this too are our deeds and the things we pass through our heart, but not God. It is we who built the wall of enmity of bronze between Him and us. Even though it is very late, we are still not without hope. To change ourselves in a positive direction, or truly to leave our end to a terrible bitterness, is again a thing that is in our hands. That is why let us take with importance these words of God:

Turn back when I discipline (correct) you; behold, I will pour out my spirit upon you; I will make my words known to you.

Since I called and you shrank back; I stretched out my hand and there was no one who looked; you set at naught all my counsel, and you did not want my correction (my bringing you to the way); I too will laugh at your calamity; when fear comes upon you, when terror comes upon you like a storm, when distress and anxiety come upon you, I will mock (scoff).

Then they will call ME, but I will not answer; they will call ME early, but they will not find ME. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of Jehovah, they did not want MY counsel, they despised all MY correction (my disciplining); therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own ways and be filled with their own schemes. The turning away of the foolish (simple) will kill them, and the carelessness of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to ME will dwell in safety and, having no fear of evil, will find ease. The Proverbs of Solomon 1:23-33

God says exactly this. Since He is the One who will best know the development of our soul, if we still want to hate knowledge and to be soulless, or to possess a repulsive soul that this world tries to create in us, this is something we ourselves will decide and determine. Which road he will choose, each person must decide for himself.

Jehovah is compassionate and gracious, Slow to anger, and abundant in love.

He does not accuse continually, Nor keep His anger forever.

He does not treat us according to our sins, Nor repay us for our wrongs.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His love toward those who fear Him.

As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our rebellions from us.

Just as a father is compassionate toward his children, So Jehovah is compassionate toward those who fear Him. For He knows our leaven; He remembers that we are dust.

(Psalms 103:8-14)

The prophet David describes God and man's relationship with Him in this way. The section of the Holy Scriptures known as the book of “Psalms” (sung sacred words with a musical instrument) is known to Muslims as the “Zabur*” (*book, letter). In the translations of the Quran too this book is mentioned as the “Zabur.” (An-Nisa (4):163; Al-Isra (17):55) Even though in the Muslim world, and merely from the explanation of the Quran, an impression may arise that only the prophet David wrote this book, in truth in the book of Psalms there are also revelations that other valuable people received from God. The names of these people are written at the beginning of each Psalm. Who wrote some Psalms is also not exactly known. Among the names that come to my mind just like that, besides the prophet David, are also names such as the prophet Moses, the sons of Korah, Asaph, and Solomon.

If you attempt to read this book too like a novel, like a story, you will be very bored. Because, since it treats thought-provoking, informative, counsel-giving, and even prophetic subjects in a poem-like way, if, after reading sometimes a stanza and sometimes a short sentence, you immediately pass on swiftly, the likelihood of it gaining you anything will be slight. At least this is how it is for me. If we struggle to grasp the meaning of those writings, they are full of interconnected pieces of knowledge that require us to think, and even to know the Holy Writings well. Above all, when we read the book of Psalms, we must set aside plenty of time. For example, even though the verses I wrote above express, in very simple words, things everyone will understand, when we think out their meaning one by one, we will become aware that qualities are being spoken of that are so exalted that no one in our world shows to anyone. With these words God is being introduced. In the book of Psalms we can find much knowledge about God. These words are also not like the advertising posters that politicians use. The attributes of the real God are spoken of. And indeed, when we set our logic working, we will also accept that God has no need of anyone. That is, these words were written for none of the reasons such as gathering votes for God, earning money for Him, providing commercial gain, or making Him famous. Thankfully He has no need of such things. It is we who are in need. It is again we who are in need, powerless. These words, written by sincere, whole-hearted people, were also written to introduce God to humanity, to make Him beloved, to draw attention to the existence of one who will understand us in our troubles, in our pains. The book of Psalms in the Holy Scriptures is the place where such knowledge is concentrated.

Even a person's merely knowing and believing the above verses—would he still have any trouble, since God sees him at every moment and always, and is concerned with him? A person who is in this faith throughout the whole 24 hours of his day I have not known. In word, when a question is asked, everyone answers, “God of course always sees.” But while this knowledge in their minds sometimes passes through in the true sense for a few minutes of the day, some people—set aside a few minutes of the day—could not accept this truth with their whole heart even once in a month, in a year, indeed in a lifetime.

Some religions even teach, “God does not always roam behind our necks like a detective.” According to them, they have drawn the meaning that we would be troubled by God always seeing us. That is, God, doing a bit of politeness now and then, leaves us alone! Consider that if, at that very moment, in a trouble of ours we call upon God, if we cry out to Him with prayer, from where will we know when God's polite time begins and when it ends? This teaching is a teaching of the Jehovah's Witnesses. According to them, God does not always see, and moreover—just as a gardener's interest in the weeds is very little—God does not even take interest in or look at bad people at all. Indeed, in one place they say exactly the following:

“…He does not use that ability to know the future to interfere in the affairs of His creatures. He is not a doubtful, suspicious God who continually wants to find fault in the thoughts, aims, and hearts of His creatures and to make difficulty for them.” (German Watchtower issue 53/p.468 paragraph 13)

According to this religion, God's ability always and regarding the future to see is presented as though it were bad. And it is explained in such a way that, if He always sees, it is as though God will see only in order to look for evil in His creatures—such an image is aroused. That is, if He sees, since He will see evil in us, that is why, out of His love for us, they mean to say that He does not always see. And in this way they suppose that they are praising God! Like the Muslims, who suppose that by saying “Jesus was never killed” they are protecting God. Being always seen by God is in truth a subject that most people are troubled by. Surely the Witnesses too have understood this, so they do not want to trouble their supporters and themselves. As for me, I somehow cannot understand these feelings. I understand, but I cannot combine what I understand with logic. Why is a person troubled by God?

If we turn back to the first human couple, they too, after a certain event, suddenly became troubled by God, afraid, and hid themselves. Did you remember this first human couple and that event? Adam-Eve and the forbidden fruit. Before that event this couple had no such problem at all, none whatsoever. The Holy Scriptures and the Quran write that in them there was not even a trace of these feelings that give a person trouble—neither fear, nor hiding, nor being ashamed. Rather, we do not come across any writing showing that they possessed such feelings, none at all. Only when they sin do both of them suddenly enter into troubled, strange feelings. And this comes about even though they did not even yet know God properly. That is, they did not even yet know that God sees every place at every moment. Otherwise, as I also said in earlier subjects, they would not have hidden. (Genesis 3:8) After these truths I arrive at this conclusion. As I also touched on in the love between father and son, we are not in favor of God's always seeing us, because of the things we do not want seen, that we are troubled by. And these are generally things that do not please God. Yet when we do one-thousandth of the things that please Him, we want virtually to blow a trumpet before us and say, “See, look, what I have done.” This means that we are in favor of God's looking not when He wants, but when we want, on the subject of seeing. It is as though we struggle to make God like a remote-controlled camera. We will run it while posing and scatter artistic images all around, then click and shut the camera off again and prevent God from seeing. Sometimes when I think about us humans, I ask myself, “Are we humans or are we geese?” I gave a little earlier the name of the religion, so-called the most disciplined, the most assertive, that seriously, seriously believes the things I have written here. And moreover they learn, teach, and believe: “No one in the world will be saved but us.” Do you understand, I wonder, why I somehow cannot combine these affairs with logic? I do not want to go into proofs and such on this subject, because I already wrote sufficient proofs about them in my book titled “The Religion Mafias and Us”.

Yet a feeling that relieves me most is that a person can find God at every moment and in every place. Otherwise how do we trust Him? How do we believe in His power? How can He sustain the existence of an uncountable number of intelligent creatures, whether in the heavens or on the earth? Yes, we, in this world we have turned into a hell, see everything as though it were tied to chance. Those who are in dire straits and call upon God, the cries of people massacred and burned in masses, those writhing in pain in hospitals, on battlefields, people who can barely even draw breath from hunger—seeing them and asking, “Is God really seeing?” out of ignorance, out of pain, I understand as not knowing what one is saying. God will not become blind because of our ignorance, will He. Not knowing a thing is one reality, but the existence of that thing is another reality. Will God say, “Very well, this servant of mine does not know that I see him, so let ME too not see him”?! Is such an absurdity a thing that will happen?

Should we not feel joy in this attribute of God that troubles some people? Very many times, while speaking with God and praying to Him, I have praised this attribute of His. Just consider, in order to see even the simplest state official we pass through what difficulties, and most of the time perhaps we cannot see him, cannot explain our trouble to him. And those we bring to the top have no time at all for people. In a trouble of yours, call someone and let us see whether he will listen to you. I am not saying let him bring a solution; I am saying let him at least listen. You will not find even that. The ones at the top are terrified of doing such a thing. What if he does it, what happens next? Then will not the others too flock like a swarm of locusts? He is human; for which of them shall he find time? Human as he is, most of the time this situation is understandable too. And you, with your trouble, your grief, your pain, sit down on your backside, and even granting them their right. But God—is He so? At every moment, whether you are in your own home, or on a journey, whether you are at your workplace, or hundreds of meters below the ground. Or whether you are in the heavens or at the bottom of the sea, He always sees and hears you. Without your having to wear any special clothing, without looking at the state of your hair or your head, in whatever state you are in, without taking an appointment or anything, at every moment He hears and sees you. And we too can speak with Him whenever we want, at every moment. Whether by night or by day, whether under the scorching sun or in the freezing cold, we can speak, pray, and share with Him our trouble, our joy, our feelings of gratitude, our thoughts. He never says, “I have no time, go today and come tomorrow,” or “Wait in line, be quiet, do not speak.” Indeed, accusations such as “You chattered too much, do not draw out your words for nothing, you are very ignorant, and moreover a hypocrite,” even if they are true, He listens without throwing them in our face. He only makes our conscience say them. And if we want to hear. However foolishly we speak, He is hearing us without scolding. Please tell me, who does the things I have listed? It is not the human, not the angel, we are speaking of; we are speaking about the owner of the whole universe, about the highest authority. He Himself is the owner of the universe and of everything. Do all these things prove God's hatred toward us, or His love? Whom do people willingly listen to that they hate? By force we do things upon things; I do not mean these. I do not want to compare God with the human, with the angel, or with anything else. But I write it so that we might feel shame. While we have so valuable a God, we for our part flee from Him nook and corner. We cannot even bear His seeing, His hearing. And moreover I watched on American television, in a survey question, a woman who said, “So He even knows the things that pass through our mind, our heart!” and then continued, saying, “Even if I die, I will not believe in that God.” When God is spoken of, we enter into terrible troubles. We beat our head against every stone, but we want to know nothing that belongs to Him. And those who claim to be His representatives on the face of the earth just as much expend effort to cool us toward Him. With their nonsensical teachings, their threats, their pressures, their hypocrisy, their wars, they have taken humanity in a pincer grip. Concepts such as God, truths, sincerity, righteousness, free will, love have so very many enemies on the face of the earth. It is not others, it is we who brought the world to this state. Even if we count in the spiritual creatures called Satan and his demons, still it is we who brought it to this state. They only said, and we, gladly, did. However much God warned humanity from times past, we still did the very opposite. For thousands of years we pushed back the God who always stretched out His hand to humanity. Even if we sinned a thousand times, He punished perhaps only once. He kept silent, and we grew even more rabid. Even though He warned beforehand through His prophets, “Do not do, do not commit,” we, out of spite, did that much more. In fraud we went before Him; in hypocrisy, with the blood of the innocent men we shed in our hands, we prayed to Him. We saw only ourselves as sacred and everyone as unclean. And when our wants and desires were not fulfilled, we threatened Him. We stretched out our tongue so far that we raised it up to the heavens. He again always kept silent, was patient. We this time grew even madder. We called Him to account, saying why are you silent. We cursed, saying why do you not intervene. While doing our bad and murder-filled filthy deeds, we also had our pictures taken laughing, with mockery. And we mocked Him too, saying, “Where is God, look, He is doing nothing.”

And sometimes we somehow could not share Him. We said my religion is the most right, and yours is wrong. And because of this we shed human blood in torrents. We bit, we tore to pieces, we devoured and consumed one another. Saying “We will go to paradise,” with the things we stripped from others, with the things we stole by robbery, we supposed we were giving Him alms, a bribe. We supposed Him a bandit like ourselves. And the places we gathered and gave His name we made to resemble a bandit's den.

“…and coming and standing before me in this house which is called by my name, to do all these detestable deeds, you say: ‘We are delivered,' is that so? Has this house which is called by my name become a bandit's den in your eyes? Behold, I, I too have seen it,” Jehovah says. Jeremiah 7:10

Even though God spoke all these warnings to the generations before us, we took no lesson and felt no shame, our faces did not blush, and as all of humanity we did not turn back from our bad deeds. The more we grew heated, the more we grew so heated that we encouraged our wives, our daughters, to prostitution. If they bared their backsides, we treated them well; if they sat in our laps, we gave them work. Offering at one stroke a hundred times the money she earned honorably, by hard labor, we said, “Only just do prostitution.” And they did it gladly. Fathers took their daughters by the hand and, about her, saying, “My daughter is an artist,” openly, before their eyes, made her play in pornographic films. Beside the director, the father looked at his daughter, gave her encouragements about what she should do. These people, before the courts, with a gold necklace on their neck and a gold name-plate on their wrist, felt no shame; on the contrary, both the daughter and the father cursed those who looked at them with shame. The laws too took their side. They worshiped, as God, money, which is the work of their own hands. Saying, “If I say you are God, you are not, but you also do work like Him,” they so exalted money that they even invented such proverbs about it.

Do not suppose that God's silence too is eternal. By blinding ourselves, we supposed that He too does not see. By making ourselves deaf, we supposed that He too does not hear. His name we used against one another only in our rage, and even then only to curse. And again in our rage we cursed with His name. In the moments we supposed we were rejoicing, we were terrified of His even drawing near us, we fled from Him nook and corner. Believing in Him we turned into a matter of pride.

Each one of us created a God he made up out of his own head and boasted of him, took pride in him, cut off the tongue of those who spoke against him. We called millions to slaughter for this cause. We tried to make them believe that the more you slaughter, the greater grows your land in paradise. Out of pride, out of arrogance, we grew so rabid that we shamelessly said, too, that every kind of abomination we did we did to please Him. Not sparing child or elderly, woman or man, old or sick, before slaughtering them we said blessing prayers for the soldiers with God's books. The deeds of those of us who pass for the best were as the prophet Isaiah also wrote before God:

For we have all become like an unclean thing, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and we all wither like a leaf; and our corrupt deeds (our corruptions) carry us away like the wind. Isaiah 64:6

We put the world into a shape in which none of us has any trust left in another. In the courts we gave crooked verdicts, we took bribes and took sides. We declared the innocent guilty, and the guilty innocent. From the one we lay down together with in our bosom, to those we bore and raised, whom we called our life, our blood, we shared the same roof only for gain and self-interest. The one who gave, gave for his pride and his arrogance; the one who took, took because he was thinking of his benefit; and love was in none of them.

“Even your parents, your brothers, your relatives, and your friends will betray you and will have some of you put to death. Everyone will hate you because of my name.” (Luke 21:16-17)—the prophecies that go thus will surely come true, reaching their peak in the last days.

All these are things that are the fruits of what we sowed, that grow. When I first read these verses I was astonished; I kept saying, “Can such a thing ever happen!” And while we do all these things, we say, “There is no God, He does not see.” A nation that once spoke these very words, though not as bad as we now are, though better than us—look what God said to them:

… “Jehovah has forsaken the land, and Jehovah does not see,” they say. And I too, my eye will not spare and I will have no pity, and I will bring their ways upon their own heads. Ezekiel 9:9b-10

If you read what deeds the nation to whom God spoke these words did to anger God (it is enough to read chapters 8 and 9 in the book written by the prophet Ezekiel), beside us they remain utterly clean, like angels. When, looking at the deeds of our present world, we compare the people of that time with ourselves, in astonishment we say: “Is it for this that God grew so angry with them?” Consider then what God is feeling toward us now. That God whom we made blind, whom, saying “Sometimes He sees and sometimes He does not,” we likened to radio channels—is it when He gives each of us the recompense according to our deeds that we will understand He was seeing? Will this understanding still save us?

And besides, the real issue does not depend on the belief in whether or not God always sees us either. Satan and his demons are already in this consciousness. That is why:

“You believe that God is one; you do well, the demons also believe and shudder” (James 2:19)—it is not for nothing that it is written in the writing.

Just as they know the existence of God, they also know His attributes very well. But all this knowledge does not make them good and acceptable in God's sight and change them. There is no rule that we too will change if we know. Rather than knowing, what is important is how much we love and apply what we know. I used to believe absolutely that everyone who knows God would love Him, but unfortunately from the knowledge and experiences I have gained I saw that I was much mistaken. I paid attention to people who suppose they do many things for their religion. Because he goes to the mosque, to the church, because he fasts and celebrates Christmas, because he is always present in the front rows at worship, if he is in a religion that preaches door to door, because he is in the aim of doing the most hours per month, because he died in panic while stoning the devil, and however many more sacrifices by which he can show himself—these too he was always doing in order to put someone under obligation and obtain gain. Sometimes a Witness, preaching door to door, is filling the hours that will give him the pioneer label each month; if he is young he is doing this to marry, to find a spouse, or because he expects esteem or material things from his congregation, or, if his mother and father have money, in order to get it from them. And his mother and father too are giving him these encouragements merely so that they might boast among those around them. And do not suppose that the people I speak of are only young or children or such; sometimes they are grown people over 40. They resemble the Muslims in Germany who open their prayer-rug in a parking lot and perform the ritual prayer while looking around. On this subject look what God says to Muhammad:

They want to put you under obligation by becoming Muslim (or by believing). Say to them: “Do not suppose that you put me under obligation by becoming Muslim. Rather, if you are true in your faith, you are under obligation to God for His guiding you to the right way.” Al-Hujurat (49):17

For some reason we always expect our sorrow and the things that grieve us to be understood by others—but from God? I do not mean to say that God has need of consolation. On the road we go, a perishing awaits us, and this too God will do not with pleasure but with sorrow. All of us, as all humanity, ought long since to have repented and turned back from those detestable deeds of ours. Yet we are going at such a speed that only an end that will come from the heavens can put a brake on all these detestable, ugly, and repulsive deeds of ours. (Revelation 6:10; 9:20-21; 16:21)

“…He who sins against ME wrongs (does violence to) his own soul;

All those who hate ME love death.” (The Proverbs of Solomon 8:36)

If only our eyes could see, if only our heart could understand, if only we would discern and repent and turn back from all our evils. Perhaps, yes perhaps, Jehovah will show us favor and turn back from His burning anger.

Stay well.

Ihsan Kiper Germany, Wednesday, 12 October 2005

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