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Stillness and humility, in fact, begin with a simple yet shattering reminder of not exaggerating yourself: a whole house fits inside a moving truck, and a whole lifetime fits inside a grave.
In the modern world, we all live within a grand illusion of expansion and growth. While chasing bigger houses, more luxurious cars, higher positions, and wider spheres of influence, we spare no effort in exaggerating our own existence and power. Yet the ordinary sights we encounter daily on the streets whisper to us the deepest metaphysical lessons about the limits of our place in this world. One of these lessons is hidden in a shattering insight I came across recently: “A whole house fits inside a moving truck, and a whole lifetime fits inside a grave; be calm and humble, do not exaggerate yourself.”
This simple yet profound statement presents two powerful images that demolish in one stroke the palaces of possession and ego that the human mind has built on earth: the moving truck and the grave. All material possessions we have accumulated throughout our lives, all the things we have claimed as “mine,” ultimately shrink to fit inside a single moving van—so small and fleeting. Moreover, that whole lifetime spent gathering, protecting, and expanding these possessions; with all its joys, ambitions, and struggles; ultimately fits inside a two-meter-deep grave beneath the earth. This truth, whispered for centuries by ancient wisdom and spiritual sources to humanity, calls us to abandon self-exaggeration, to grow still, and to embrace spiritual humility.
The Illusion of Matter and the Art of Letting Go
One of the greatest illusions of humanity is transforming matter from a “means” into an “end.” Those vast houses we have spent years laboring to build and filled with our most precious belongings are nothing more than ornate tents of temporary lodging. Guide spirits whose teachings illuminated the spiritual realm, such as Silver Birch, remind us in his work Wisdom from Beyond the Veil of this impermanence: “You cannot possess your earthly properties forever; you are merely temporary guardians and trustees of that wealth in the earthly world.” [1] No matter how much worldly wealth a person accumulates, when they abandon their physical body, they must leave it all behind [1].
Dr. Bedri Ruhselman, the pioneering figure of spiritual philosophy and experimental spiritualism in Turkey, details in his works Spatyom (The Space of the Other Realm) and Among Spirits how excessive attachment to matter weighs down the soul and how it plunges one into great confusion (teshavvus) in the early stages of the other realm [2]. According to Dr. Bedri Ruhselman, those who lived on earth only to satisfy their bodies and material desires, binding all their consciousness to passing values, after crossing the threshold of death imagine they are still living in the world and writhe in great emptiness, dissatisfaction, and torment [3]. For in the spiritual realm, those crude materials and physical gratification tools do not exist; the only currency valid there is the faculties of compassion, love, and sacrifice that the soul has accumulated during its earthly life [4].
To better understand this truth, a cautionary spiritual séance narrated in Dr. Bedri Ruhselman’s Among Spirits sheds light upon us:
Story: The Prisoner in the Golden Vault
In ancient times, there was a man who devoted his entire life to accumulating gold and wealth [5]. To hide his material riches from everyone, he constructed a deep and secret vault beneath his house and heaped all his wealth there [6]. Throughout his life, his sole purpose was to guard this gold, spending nights secretly descending into his vault to gaze upon it. One day, while alone with his treasures in the vault, he is struck by a severe fever, grows weak, and dies in solitude within this dark refuge, unknown to anyone [6]. Two centuries pass, his body decays, his vault remains buried underground [6].
Yet in the other realm of spatyom, the man’s soul begins to experience terrible bondage [7]. His attachment to matter and gold is so dense and heavy that he cannot ascend spiritually and his consciousness remains bound to that dark vault where he lost his gold for two hundred years [8]. He imagines himself still within that vault, trying to guard his treasures, and writhes continuously in the anguish of loss and deprivation [9]. Despite having no physical body, as a reflection of his earthly greed and covetousness, he experiences an indescribable thirst and heaviness in his spirit [10]. For two centuries, in the lowest stratum inhabited by heavy spirits unable to break free from worldly bonds, he suffers in longing for earthly possessions [9].
The Lesson
The lesson from this story is crystal clear: that man who accumulated a vault full of gold and wealth has imprisoned his soul within that narrow vault and material illusion, even though his physical body has turned to dust. The human’s belief that he possesses property on earth is merely a fleeting dream. Those minds that do not know how to let go, that cannot grasp that they will one day leave everything behind in that moving truck, become prisoners of their own self-imposed dungeons [11]. We explored the spiritual method of early liberation from this burden in detail in our article Lightening the Truck: “Renunciation” in the Spiritual Journey.
While a Whole Lifetime Fits in a Grave: Our False Identities and Death
The second part of the saying—“a whole lifetime fits in a grave”—invites us to shed not only our material possessions but also the false personalities we have carefully constructed throughout our lives. While living on earth, the human person weaves around themselves a massive armor consisting of titles, accomplishments, social roles, and egoic masks. They believe themselves to be so important and indispensable. Yet when death knocks at the door, all those glorious titles, egoic claims, and that grand story spanning a whole lifetime silently fit inside a narrow grave in the earth.
G. I. Gurdjieff, one of the greatest masters of esoteric teaching, argues in his work Views from the Real World that in order for man to awaken and realize his true essence, the false personalities must first die: “Death must come before rebirth. What must die is a person’s false confidence in his own knowledge, his self-conceit and selfishness. Our selfishness must be broken.” [12]
Gurdjieff’s student P. D. Ouspensky also expresses in his masterwork In Search of the Miraculous that the human belief of being “one” is the greatest illusion [13]. According to Ouspensky, man has no fixed and permanent “I”; rather, he is a crowd of hundreds of different small “selves” constantly changing with momentary desires, reactions, and external influences [14]. Eastern and Islamic mystical traditions have long held this insight, and it finds a parallel in Western philosophy: the memento mori (“remember you will die”) practice of the ancient Stoics, pursued for centuries, also teaches the same consciousness of stillness and humility, building awareness by never forgetting death. Man cannot awaken unless he perceives this multiplicity within himself and ceases to call these ever-changing mechanical reactions his “I” [15]. It is this illusory and false sense of “I” that leads us toward self-exaggeration and pride [16].
The Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thödol), one of the greatest treasures of ancient Eastern wisdom, teaches that at the moment of death, consciousness can only be liberated through the complete abandonment of false identities and material obsessions accumulated during earthly life [17]. The book addresses the dying person with these shattering warnings: “You are leaving this world, but you are not alone; death comes to all. Do not cling to this life with love and weakness. If you feel attached to the worldly possessions you are leaving behind and grow angry, such emotion influences your psychological moment so profoundly that it confines you to the lowest and most tormented dimensions. Therefore, abandon helplessness and poverty; cast them completely from your heart.” [17]
In this direction, a profound story conveyed by the great Melâmî master Seyyed Muhammad Nûr’ul-Arabi exemplifies powerfully how what we have occupied ourselves with throughout our lives will confront us at the moment of death:
Story: The Donkey Seller’s Mirror of Death
In ancient times, there was a man who spent his entire life buying and selling donkeys in the markets, engaged in donkey trading and acrobatics [18]. The man’s mind, every waking moment of his life, is occupied with the price of donkeys, their teeth, their load-carrying capacity, and the profit he would gain from them. The only value in his life is these commercial preoccupations that fill his mind; he has never done any inner spiritual work that would nourish his soul or direct it toward divine love and wisdom.
At last he reaches the end of his life and falls into the death agony on his deathbed [18]. At this moment, the Angel of Death, Azrael, a manifestation of the divine majesty of the Almighty, appears in his room to take his soul [18]. But the man begins to cry out in horror to the people at his bedside: “O people! Do you not see that black-sacked donkey standing over my head? The master has come; he wants to take my life!” [18] The man sees the Angel of Death himself in the form of that sack-laden black donkey that has filled his mind and heart throughout his life. After this story, Seyyed Muhammad Nûr’ul-Arabi makes this profound observation: “Whoever in this world loves something and concentrates upon it, appears at the moment of death and in the other world in that form.” [18]
The Lesson
The lesson we draw from this story is that what we fill our entire lifetime with becomes the sole mirror that will be held before us at the grave’s door. If we fill our lifetime with material lusts, exaggerating ourselves and driven by worldly ambitions, then at the moment of death and after, our consciousness cannot escape being enslaved to those narrow and crude forms [19]. The grave contains not only our body but also the idols we have nurtured in our hearts throughout our lifetime [10].
Stillness and Humility: The Station of Nothingness
The final and most healing part of the saying is this: “Be calm and humble, do not exaggerate yourself.” It is at this point that stillness and humility emerge as two sister virtues that nourish each other: one representing inner tranquility in the face of the world’s storms, the other representing a humility that accepts one’s own smallness.
In ancient Sufi teachings and modern spiritual philosophy, the path of humanity abandoning self-exaggeration and finding stillness passes through the station of “nothingness” and “stillness” [20]. The great Islamic mystic Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi notes in his work The Greater Commentary on Interpretations that the greatest trap into which man can fall on earth is “self-conceit” (ucb) and cites the following saying of the Prophet: “If you had never committed any sin, I would fear for you something more severe than sin: self-conceit…” [21] According to Ibn Arabi, as long as man attributes his deeds, good works, and accomplishments to himself, he remains proud and veiled from divine light; yet the source of all things is one, and man is in essence a “nothing” [22].
Similarly, Master Ergün Arıkdal, who continues the neo-spiritualist school of Bedri Ruhselman, argues in his work Know Thyself that in order for man to awaken on earth, he must “see the self as an enemy” and distinguish himself from that selfish egoism (ego) [23]. According to Master Ergün Arıkdal, mastery over the self does not mean completely destroying it but rather disciplining it and placing it under the command of the spirit and conscience [24]. The moment a human being stops identifying with their possessions, objects, and their own body on earth, they attain inner freedom [25]. The person who can say “I own a house but I am not the house; I drive a car but the car is not my true existence” succeeds in remaining undisturbed among the passing waves of the world [25]. (We explored the existential dimension of this virtue more deeply in our article Nothingness Within Being: Humility.)
Guide spirit White Eagle whispers in her works Light in the Darkness and Between the Two Worlds that the greatest key to the spiritual path is “composure” and “stillness” [26]: “Be still. Be utterly still and tranquil within yourselves. Ask, and God or your guide spirit will help you… The creative forces of the universe reside within silence. Like love and wisdom, stillness too is dynamic and carries great spiritual power.” [27]
One of the most beautiful symbols explaining our spiritual development’s process of calming on earth is the “Rough Stone” story used in ancient initiation schools:
Story: The Temple of the Polished Stone
In ancient initiatic temples, the spiritual journey of the soul on earth was explained to new students through this symbol: The human soul was conceived as a sublime temple in the heavens [28]. Each soul’s embodiment on earth was symbolized as a rough, jagged, and irregular stone block to be used in the construction of this temple [28].
Earthly life is a stone-cutting workshop [29]. All the difficulties, pains, and trials we encounter are in fact the blows of hammer and chisel descending to shape the rough stone, smoothing it and making it polished [29]. If a person meets these trials of life with patience, without rebellion, with stillness and trust in divine will, that rough stone slowly gains luster and becomes a perfect building stone worthy of being placed at the foundation of the celestial temple [30]. However, those stones that refuse to abandon their pride and resist the hammer blows with anger, that exaggerate themselves, do not fit the structure of the temple and are cast out [29].
The Lesson
Every sorrow we encounter in this world is actually a divine blessing sent to shape our stones of pride and roughness [28]. The person who exaggerates himself, who resists to preserve his roughness, remains behind and is wounded on the path [29]. Yet the smoothing of the stone, that is, the human being’s realization of his “nothingness” and demonstration of stillness and humility, makes him a part of universal wholeness and the divine temple [29].
Conclusion
“A whole house fits inside a moving truck, and a whole lifetime fits inside a grave.” This shattering truth should not lead us into despair or cause us to withdraw from life. On the contrary, this awareness is a tremendous gateway to freedom that allows us to remove the heavy burdens of the world from our souls and lighten ourselves [1].
When we understand that everything we possess on earth is a temporary trust, that our body and social roles are merely temporary clothes worn in this worldly school, a deep stillness settles within us [31]. Then there remains neither fear of loss in our hearts nor the ambition to be superior to others [32]. By abandoning self-exaggeration, we discover how small we are before the magnificent order of the universe, yet how valuable we are as part of that order [1].
Let us internalize the principle of stillness and humility and abandon self-exaggeration. For the possessions left behind in the moving truck and that false self which will decay in the grave’s darkness are not us [33]. We are the spirit that cannot fit into that narrow grave, the eternal and immortal soul [1]. To complete this brief sojourn in earth’s school by polishing our roughness with love and patience, in stillness, is the greatest wisdom [34].
Footnotes and Attribution Details
- [1] Silver Birch, Wisdom from Beyond the Veil, p. 18
- [2] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 20; Bedri Ruhselman, Spatyom, p. 11
- [3] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 21-22
- [4] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 25
- [5] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 90-95
- [6] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 92
- [7] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 93-94
- [8] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 92-94
- [9] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 94
- [10] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 95
- [11] Ergün Arıkdal, Know Thyself, p. 342
- [12] P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 47
- [13] P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 27
- [14] P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 27-28
- [15] P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 101, 155-157
- [16] P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 183-189
- [17] Tibetan Book of the Dead, Book II, Section 1
- [18] Seyyed Muhammad Nûr’ul-Arabi, Commentary on the Words of Imam Ali, p. 152-153
- [19] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 20; Seyyed Muhammad Nûr’ul-Arabi, Commentary on the Words of Imam Ali, p. 153
- [20] Ergün Arıkdal, Know Thyself, p. 76; Seyyed Muhammad Nûr’ul-Arabi, Commentary on the Words of Imam Ali, p. 153
- [21] Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, The Kernel of the Kernel, p. 36
- [22] Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi, The Kernel of the Kernel, p. 36-40
- [23] Ergün Arıkdal, Know Thyself, p. 76
- [24] Ergün Arıkdal, Know Thyself, p. 76, 168
- [25] Ergün Arıkdal, Know Thyself, p. 168
- [26] White Eagle, Light in the Darkness, p. 81-85
- [27] White Eagle, Between the Two Worlds, p. 70; White Eagle, Light in the Darkness, p. 81
- [28] White Eagle, Between the Two Worlds, p. 105
- [29] White Eagle, Between the Two Worlds, p. 106-110
- [30] White Eagle, Between the Two Worlds, p. 105-110
- [31] White Eagle, Light in the Darkness, p. 81; Tibetan Book of the Dead, Book II, Section 1
- [32] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 20
- [33] Bedri Ruhselman, Among Spirits, p. 20; Tibetan Book of the Dead, Book II, Section 1
- [34] White Eagle, Between the Two Worlds, p. 106-110; Silver Birch, Wisdom from Beyond the Veil, p. 18
Bibliography
- Arıkdal, Ergün. Know Thyself: Volumes 1, 2, 3. Istanbul: Spirit and Matter Press.
- Arıkdal, Ergün. Principles of Being. Istanbul: Bilyay Foundation Press.
- Beyaz Kartal (White Eagle, through Grace Cooke’s channeling). Between the Two Worlds. Istanbul: Spirit and Matter Press.
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- Cannon, Dolores. Beyond Death. Istanbul: Beyond Boundaries Press.
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- Ibn Arabi, Muhyiddin. The Greater Commentary on Interpretations (Volumes 1 and 2). Istanbul: Kabalci Press.
- Nicoll, Maurice. Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Volumes 1, 2, 3). Istanbul: Spirit and Matter Press.
- Ouspensky, P. D. In Search of the Miraculous. Istanbul: Spirit and Matter Press.
- Ruhselman, Bedri. Among Spirits. Istanbul: Gayret Press.
- Ruhselman, Bedri. Spatyom (The Space of the Other Realm). Istanbul: Spirit and Matter Press.
- Seyyed Muhammad Nûr’ul-Arabi. The Proof for Seekers (Commentary on the Words of Imam Ali). Istanbul: North Star Press.
- Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo Thödol). (Trans. Yalçın Alpay). Istanbul: Spirit and Matter Press.
