The Healing of the Soul: Said Nursi and the Promise of Existential Therapy

June 10, 2025

In a time marked by distraction, disconnection, and despair, many are quietly asking the most ancient of questions: 

• Why am I here? 
• What is the point of all this suffering? 
• How do I live with purpose in a world that often feels chaotic and empty?

These are not merely psychological or philosophical dilemmas—they are cries from the soul, seeking meaning in a world that often feels disoriented. 

As Viktor Frankl taught through his life and work, true healing comes not from comfort or distraction, but from discovering a deeper purpose. 

In the face of suffering, our search for meaning sustains us—not the absence of pain, but the presence of a reason to endure it.

This is where two unlikely companions meet: the modern practice of existential therapy and the spiritual wisdom of the 20th-century Islamic thinker Said Nursi. Though separated by time and context, both point to the same truth: that healing begins not by running away from life’s hard questions, but by turning toward them.

Existential Therapy: A Journey Through the Inner Desert

Existential therapy invites us to confront life honestly. Rooted in philosophical reflection, it asks us to sit with the questions we often avoid:

• What does it mean to be free?
• How do I live knowing that I will die?
• Where can I find meaning in a world that doesn’t promise answers?

This approach does not offer quick fixes or easy optimism. 

Instead, it leads us through the desert of the soul with courage, presence, and honesty. At its heart is the belief that we are not machines to be repaired but meaning-seeking beings. And when that meaning is missing, we suffer.

But this suffering, if embraced, can become a path. It can open us up to truths that lie beyond the surface of our daily routines.

Said Nursi: Belief as the Soul’s Greatest Joy

Long before existential therapy took shape in the West, Said Nursi offered a vision of healing grounded in the inner life. He wrote:

“Be certain of this: the highest aim of creation and its most important result is belief in God… The most radiant happiness and sweetest bounty for human beings is the love of God contained within the knowledge of God.”

For Nursi, the soul’s deepest wounds—anxiety, fear, loneliness, despair—are not signs of failure, but signs of longing. They point us back to our trustworthy source: the Creator. 

He believed that without knowing and loving God, even the world's wealth would feel empty. But with belief, even hardship becomes meaningful. In all its brokenness, the world becomes a garden of spiritual opportunity—a place not of exile, but of return.

When one knows God, Nursi says, the soul finds refuge. Suffering is no longer meaningless; it becomes a chance to grow closer to the Divine. Death is no longer terrifying; it becomes a passage home.

Two Paths, One Promise

Where existential therapy offers a method, Nursi offers a meaning. Where one teaches us how to ask the right questions, the other points us toward a sacred answer.

Both share a refusal to look away from life’s pain. Both affirm that we must go inward, not outward, to find healing. And both tell us this in their own way: our suffering is not the end of the story—it can be the beginning of a deeper one.

This is a radical message in a culture obsessed with speed, distraction, and surface-level fixes. And a hopeful one.

There is a way for the soul that seeks more and aches for something higher. Whether through philosophical inquiry or spiritual devotion, the path is absolute. 

And it leads not into despair, but into awakening.

Feel free to share your reflections or reach out through https://icounselor34.blogspot.com/ for spiritual and philosophical guidance.