Makaleler Geri

The Life in Water

“We made from water every living thing.” [Qur'an, The Prophets: 30)

When a linguist was asked to define water, he asked for a few days’ time. He searched in numerous books, looked it up in scientific studies and tried to define water so many times night and day. He then defined it again and again. One morning, he wrote this on a piece of leather and then left the city:

“Water is water, my brother!”

Water is an eternal blessing that can explain itself. The Russians define water as their mother, in Latin “Water is meditation”. According to the Indians, you come to the Creator from water and go in the water.

İskender Pala defines water as such: “It is water that feeds both the rose and the thorn. It feeds both suffering and happiness. It is the fragrance in rosewater and the taste in meals. It is in the falling rain and in the vapor. Water is in the wandering black clouds and in the white clouds covering the mountains. It is water that cooks food for the fish and it is water again that brings food to the trees.

Water flows through our eyes with a burning. It evaporates, increases as it does so and cleans our spirits. The bitter water of the Healer becomes the cure in the body but the water that the enemy gives inflicts more pain.  

Wherever is water, it signals the sea; any drop runs toward the ocean to make its smallness complete in greatness and to attain unity by getting rid of multiplicity because water is one of the first things that God has created. Water represents God’s attributes of the Beauty and the Majesty. In other words it is the symbol of God’s infinite beauty and might. It also signals God’s attribute of ever-lasting life. God has withheld everything but set water free. That is why water is sacred. It is peaceful, tender, modest and silent. At times it may be just the opposite. That is where its power comes from. There is both power and beauty in water combined to manifest perfection (kamal), which symbolizes the perfected human being and God.

There is no limit to what has been said about water in every field of science. Chemists, physicists, musicians, botanists, engineers, philosophers, biologists, theologists, anthropologists, poets….All had difficulty understanding water. Some said it is air when water is invisible, and some said it is water when air is visible. Some thought it is existent with soil and called water as the unseen or inner and air as the evident or outer. Those who know the truth saw the human being in between the unseen and the evident, that is, between the air and the water. That is why defining water is as difficult as defining a human being.  The harmony gets deteriorated when you attempt to define human beings as they are the created that bear the secret of existence.The declaration of everything being created from water is by God. It is made known to us that everything is made from water but we haven’t been told what water is created from just like the spirit.” 

Yes! Water is life. As the Russian say “Water is the mother.” That is why talking about water suits women the best. When people of tasawwuf (Sufism) say, “our beginning is a drop of water and our end is a carcass” they are expressing the humbleness of water in our nothingness. The mighty water has learned about its humbleness and nothingness through mingling with earth and entered the body to bring it into life. As God sates in the Quran it is through water that we brought everything to life. [Qur'an, The Prophets: 30]

As Rumi states in his Masnavi, “Let us say that meaning and form resemble water and tree respectively. They are both two different materials with no resemblance at all. However, tree cannot exist without water and water cannot form a fruit without entering into the tree. Hence, tree is the form and water is the meaning. Just like the manifestation of water in the tree being the fruit, the manifestation of the meaning in one’s body is life, power and knowledge through which one can attain the Reality.”

Water is primordial and can always clean itself. All types of dirt may be thrown into this eternal water or it becomes salty and loses its purity in this world but when the light of Allah is reflected on it and it is transformed into vapor due to its love, it is purified in its own sky and rains as mercy and grace.

As it flows, this clean water makes wherever it reaches alive and green as paradise. That’s why whoever misses paradise seeks for water and water seeks the one like paradise... Fuzuli in his famous Qasida of Water and Goethe in his famous song of praise, “Mohamet Gesang” express their love for the Prophet which they resemble to the revitalizing water.

Water is so beautiful that God has created it colorless. Mavlana talks about the move from “colorlessness to having colored as a sign of differentiation and a move towards multiplicity. It is as if the colorlessness of water is a reminder of its undifferentiated and Divine origin. It is interesting that we get bored of everything that has color but water. It is also interesting that water has no form. It takes the form of its container. In other words, it takes the form of different egos, and gives life to the body but revives this person according to his/her traits. In some, properties such as lust, hatred, gossip, arrogance, jealousy, lying, injustice and superiority become evident whereas in others water brings life in the form of love, helping, modesty, forgiveness and patience. We see the quality of humility in water as it always flows from high ground to the low. We should be like this, tending to the low.

As one can see, each state of water contains various meanings. Sufis describe masters of unity/ oneness, in other words, the lovers of God as such:
When water is put into a cold place, it would freeze and become ice.  The nature of ice is being solid, hard and cold.  This sets an example for the toughness, firmness and cold states of those who are for unity.  

When ice is exposed to fire, sun or normal melting, it would be dissolved and transformed into water again.  This sets an example of the people of unity/oneness starting to be relaxed, soft, and moderate through love, zeal, or regular delights.

When ice is put on fire, it would first get heated, then boil and then evaporate. This state illustrates the people of unity attaining God with love and ecstasy by getting lighter through worshipping and suffering.

Vapor goes through so many states. If vapor enters into a layer of cold air, according to the temperature and situation of the cold air, it becomes rain, snow or hail. This sets an example of how the friends of God who have attained God turn back to humanity to serve. Some friends of God are as tender as the rain, some are as white as the snow and some are as harsh and vicious as the hail. 

Let us think that water is decomposed into oxygen and hydrogen. This is a very striking example. This is the transformation of water into its opposite.  Whereas water -under normal circumstances- is a substance which can be drunk for refreshment or used to put out fire, it will go through different phases and eventually appear in the form of two burning and destructive gases. This sets an example of the beloved ones not being understood easily by this world’s people. 

Ice, vapor, snow, rain and hail or oxygen and hydrogen are all states of water but their names and tastes are different. Their quality and quantity also differ. So are their impacts and reactions.

Let us think of a world that is totally composed by ice, vapor, snow, rain and hail. In such a world, there will be people that know what things are composed of but there will also be others who are not aware at all. When a knower who has attained the secrets of life says that in this world everything is made up of water and that we don’t exist but water, there will be people understanding him or not comprehending at all. 

Similarly, one can see that the sea, a different state of water, carries the one who has died of his ego and revitalized with the water of meaning within him and drowns the one who has assumed himself as superior and become the slave of his desires. Thus, those who fight against their bad temperament always swim in the sea of the secrets of the Truth. 

Actually the problems and troubles are like the dirt thrown in to the water. If accumulated, it develops a bad smell. However, water is always in an attempt to devastate them. The thunder causes trouble to waterless people as they aren’t aware of the coming of mercy and grace.

Do not ask whether water has a sound or not! What a lovely sound it makes when it is heated on a fire in a container.  As Rumi says such water is superior to the fire. In other words, men are influential over women. But only in form. In meaning, just as fire is superior to water, women are predominant over men. Men who possess the real intellect is -interestingly enough- beaten by women because women bear the light of God’s beauty. Being a woman is of a great degree. But the thing is to find a woman of this quality. For Rumi, a woman carrying such a beauty is not a created being but like a Creator.

In conclusion, water means the human being. It is the source of people’s existence and of creation. The reality of water is unity. How fortunate it is to be able to unite the differences and therefore attain unity because respect to the differences means respect to the creator. May this forum provide an opportunity to realize the unity in differences.

Cemalnur Sargut - World Water Forum - 20th March 2009

Haber Grubu
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