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    "slug": "rumi-masnavi",
    "name": "Masnavi-i-Manavi (Rumi)"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 1,
    "slug": "01-the-masnavi-book-i",
    "title": "The Masnavi Book I",
    "of": 6,
    "words": 18650,
    "text": "## The Masnavi Book I\n\n\n\nTHE SPIRITUAL COUPLETS\nOF\nMAULANA JALALU-'D-DlN MUHAMMAD RUMI\n\nBook I.\n\nPROLOGUE.\n\nHEARKEN to the reed-flute, how it complains,\nLamenting its banishment from its home:\n\"Ever since they tore me from my osier bed,\nMy plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.\nI burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,\nAnd to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.\nHe who abides far away from his home\nIs ever longing for the day ho shall return.\nMy wailing is heard in every throng,\nIn concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.\nEach interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings,\nBut not one fathoms the secrets of my heart.\nMy secrets are not alien from my plaintive notes,\nYet they are not manifest to the sensual eye and ear.\nBody is not veiled from soul, neither soul from body,\nYet no man hath ever seen a soul.\"\nThis plaint of the flute is fire, not mere air.\nLet him who lacks this fire be accounted dead!\n'Tis the fire of love that inspires the flute,l\n'Tis the ferment of love that possesses the wine.\nThe flute is the confidant of all unhappy lovers;\nYea, its strains lay bare my inmost secrets.\nWho hath seen a poison and an antidote like the flute?\nWho hath seen a sympathetic consoler like the flute?\nThe flute tells the tale of love's bloodstained path,\nIt recounts the story of Majnun's love toils.\nNone is privy to these feelings save one distracted,\nAs ear inclines to the whispers of the tongue.\nThrough grief my days are as labor and sorrow,\nMy days move on, hand in hand with anguish.\nYet,, though my days vanish thus, 'tis no matter,\nDo thou abide, O Incomparable Pure One! 2\nBut all who are not fishes are soon tired of water;\nAnd they who lack daily bread find the day very long;\nSo the \"Raw\" comprehend not the state of the \"Ripe;\" 3\nTherefore it behoves me to shorten my discourse.\nArise, O son! burst thy bonds and be free!\nHow long wilt thou be captive to silver and gold?\nThough thou pour the ocean into thy pitcher,\nIt can hold no more than one day's store.\nThe pitcher of the desire of the covetous never fills,\nThe oyster-shell fills not with pearls till it is content;\nOnly he whose garment is rent by the violence of love\nIs wholly pure from covetousness and sin.\nHail to thee, then, O LOVE, sweet madness!\nThou who healest all our infirmities!\nWho art the physician of our pride and self-conceit!\nWho art our Plato and our Galen!\nLove exalts our earthly bodies to heaven,\nAnd makes the very hills to dance with joy!\nO Iover, 'twas love that gave life to Mount Sinai, 4\nWhen \"it quaked, and Moses fell down in a swoon.\"\nDid my Beloved only touch me with his lips,\nI too, like the flute, would burst out in melody.\nBut he who is parted from them that speak his tongue,\nThough he possess a hundred voices, is perforce dumb.\nWhen the rose has faded and the garden is withered,\nThe song of the nightingale is no longer to be heard.\nThe BELOVED is all in all, the lover only veils Him; 5\nThe BELOVED is all that lives, the lover a dead thing.\nWhen the lover feels no longer LOVE's quickening,\nHe becomes like a bird who has lost its wings. Alas!\nHow can I retain my senses about me,\nWhen the BELOVED shows not the light of His countenance?\nLOVE desires that this secret should be revealed,\nFor if a mirror reflects not, of what use is it?\nKnowest thou why thy mirror reflects not?\nBecause the rust has not been scoured from its face.\nIf it were purified from all rust and defilement,\nIt would reflect the shining of the SUN Of GOD.6\nO friends, ye have now heard this tale,\nWhich sets forth the very essence of my case.\n*NOTES:\n1. Love signifies the strong attraction that draws all creatures back to reunion with their Creator.\n2. Self-annihilation leads to eternal life in God the universal Noumenon, by whom all phenomena subsist. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 400.\n3. \"Raw\" and \"Ripe\" are terms for \"Men of externals\" and \"Men of heart\" or Mystics.\n4. Alluding to the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. Koran vii. 139.\n5. All phenomenal existences (man included) are but \"veils\" obscuring the face of the Divine Noumenon, the only real existence, and the moment His sustaining presence is withdrawn they at once relapse into their original nothingness. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 165.\n6. So Bernard of Clairvaux. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 435.\n\nSTORY I.\nThe Prince and the Handmaid.\nA prince, while engaged on a hunting excursion, espied a fair maiden, and by promises of gold induced her to accompany him. After a time she fell sick, and the prince had her tended by divers physicians. As, however, they all omitted to say, \"God willing,1 we will cure her,\" their treatment was of no avail. So the prince offered prayer, and in answer thereto a physician was sent from heaven. He at once condemned his predecessors' view of the case, and by a very skilful diagnosis, discovered that the real cause of the maiden's illness was her love for a certain goldsmith of Samarcand. In accordance with the physician's advice, the prince sent to Samarcand and fetched the goldsmith, and married him to the lovesick maiden, and for six months the pair lived together in the utmost harmony and happiness. At the end of that period the physician, by divine command, gave the goldsmith a poisonous draught, which caused his strength and beauty to decay, and he then lost favour with the maiden, and she was reunited to the king. This Divine command was precisely similar to God's command to Abraham to slay his son Ishmael, and to the act of the angel in slaying the servant of Moses,2 and is therefore beyond human criticism.\nDescription of Love.\nA true lover is proved such by his pain of heart;\nNo sickness is there like sickness of heart.\nThe lover's ailment is different from all ailments;\nLove is the astrolabe of God's mysteries.\nA lover may hanker after this love or that love,\nBut at the last he is drawn to the KING of love.\nHowever much we describe and explain love,\nWhen we fall in love we are ashamed of our words.\nExplanation by the tongue makes most things clear,\nBut love unexplained is clearer.\nWhen pen hasted to write,\nOn reaching the subject of love it split in twain.\nWhen the discourse touched on the matter of love,\nPen was broken and paper torn.\nIn explaining it Reason sticks fast, as an ass in mire;\nNaught but Love itself can explain love and lovers!\nNone but the sun can display the sun,\nIf you would see it displayed, turn not away from it.\nShadows, indeed, may indicate the sun's presence,\nBut only the sun displays the light of life.\nShadows induce slumber, like evening talks,\nBut when the sun arises the \"moon is split asunder.\" 3\nIn the world there is naught so wondrous as the sun,\nBut the Sun of the soul sets not and has no yesterday.\nThough the material sun is unique and single,\nWe can conceive similar suns like to it.\nBut the Sun of the soul, beyond this firmament,\nNo like thereof is seen in concrete or abstract.4\nWhere is there room in conception for His essence,\nSo that similitudes of HIM should be conceivable?\nShamsu-'d-Din of Tabriz importunes Jalalu-'d-Din\nto compose the Masnavi.\nThe sun (Shams) of Tabriz is a perfect light,\nA sun, yea, one of the beams of God!\nWhen the praise was heard of the \"Sun of Tabriz,\"\nThe sun of the fourth heaven bowed its head.\nNow that I have mentioned his name, it is but right\nTo set forth some indications of his beneficence.\nThat precious Soul caught my skirt,\nSmelling the perfume of the garment of Yusuf;\nAnd said, \"For the sake of our ancient friendship,\nTell forth a hint of those sweet states of ecstasy,\nThat earth and heaven may be rejoiced,\nAnd also Reason and Spirit, a hundredfold.\"\nI said, \"O thou who art far from ' The Friend,'\nLike a sick man who has strayed from his physician,\nImportune me not, for I am beside myself;\nMy understanding is gone, I cannot sing praises.\nWhatsoever one says, whose reason is thus astray,\nLet him not boast; his efforts are useless.\nWhatever he says is not to the point,\nAnd is clearly inapt and wide of the mark.\nWhat can I say when not a nerve of mine is sensible?\nCan I explain 'The Friend' to one to whom He is no Friend?\nVerily my singing His praise were dispraise,\nFor 'twould prove me existent, and existence is error.5\nCan I describe my separation and my bleeding heart?\nNay, put off this matter till another season.\"\nHe said, \" Feed me, for I am an hungered,\nAnd at once, for 'the time is a sharp sword.'\nO comrade, the Sufi is 'the son of time present.' 6\nIt is not the rule of his canon to say, 'To-morrow.'\nCan it be that thou art not a true Sufi?\nReady money is lost by giving credit.\"\nI said, \"'Tis best to veil the secrets of 'The Friend.'\nSo give good heed to the morals of these stories.\nThat is better than that the secrets of 'The Friend'\nShould be noised abroad in the talk of strangers.\"\nHe said, \"Without veil or covering or deception,\nSpeak out, and vex me not, O man of many words!\nStrip off the veil and speak out, for do not I\nEnter under the same coverlet as the Beloved?\"\nI said, \"If the Beloved were exposed to outward view,\nNeither wouldst thou endure, nor embrace, nor form.\nPress thy suit, yet with moderation;\nA blade of grass cannot, pierce a mountain.\nIf the sun that illumines the world\nWere to draw nigher, the world would be consumed.7\nClose thy mouth and shut the eyes of this matter,\nThat, the world's life be not made a bleeding heart.\nNo longer seek this peril, this bloodshed;\nHereafter impose silence on the 'Sun of Tabriz.'\"\nHe said, \"Thy words are endless. Now tell forth\nAll thy story from its beginning.\"\n*NOTES:\n1. As enjoined in Koran xviii. 23. One cannot converse with a strict Mosalman for five minutes without hearing the formula, \"In sha Allah Ta'alla,\" or D. V.\n2. Koran xviii. 73.\n3. Koran liv. I.\n4. There is a tradition, \"I know my Lord by my Lord.\"\n5. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 400. In the state of union self remains not.\n6. The Sufi is the \"son of the time present,\" because he is an Energumen, or passive instrument moved by the divine impulse of the moment. \"The time present is a sharp sword,\" because the divine impulse of the moment dominates the Energumen, and executes its decrees sharply. See Sohravardi quoted in Notices et Extraits des MSS., xii. 371 note.\n7. \"When its Lord appears in glory to the Mount of existence, Existence is laid low, like the dust of the road.\" Gulshan i Raz, I. 195.\n\nSTORY II.\nThe Oilman and his Parrot.\nAn oilman possessed a parrot which used to amuse him with its agreeable prattle, and to watch his shop when he went out. One day, when the parrot was alone in the shop, a cat upset one of the oil-jars. When the oilman returned home he thought that the parrot had done this mischief, and in his anger he smote the parrot such a blow on the head as made all its feathers drop off, and so stunned it that it lost the power of speech for several days. But one day the parrot saw a bald-headed man passing the shop, and recovering its speech, it cried out, \"Pray, whose oil-jar did you upset?\" The passers-by smiled at the parrot's mistake in confounding baldness caused by age with the loss of its own feathers due to a blow.\nConfusion of saints with hypocrites.\nWorldly senses are the ladder of earth,\nSpiritual senses are the ladder of heaven.\nThe health of the former is sought of the leech,\nThe health of the latter from \"The Friend.\"\nThe health of the former arises from tending the body,\nThat of the latter from mortifying the flesh.\nThe kingly soul lays waste the body,\nAnd after its destruction he builds it anew.\nHappy the soul who for love of God\nHas lavished family, wealth, and goods!\nHas destroyed its house to find the hidden treasure,\nAnd with that treasure has rebuilt it in fairer sort;\nHas dammed up the stream and cleansed the channel,\nAnd then turned a fresh stream into. the channel;\nHas cut its flesh to extract a spear-head,1\nCausing a fresh skin to grow again over the wound;\nHas razed the fort to oust, the infidel in possession,\nAnd then rebuilt it with a hundred towers and bulwarks.\nWho can describe the unique work of Grace?\nI have been forced to illustrate it by these similes.\nSometimes it presents one appearance, sometimes another.\nYea, the affair of religion is only bewilderment.\nNot, such as occurs when one turns one's back on God,\nBut such as when one is drowned and absorbed in Him.\nThe latter has his face ever turned to God,\nThe former's face shows his undisciplined self-will.\nWatch the face of each one, regard it well,\nIt may be by serving thou wilt recognize Truth's face.\nAs there are many demons with men's faces,\nIt is wrong to join hand with every one.\nWhen the fowler sounds his decoy whistle,\nThat the birds may be beguiled by that snare,\nThe birds hear that call simulating a bird's call,\nAnd, descending from the air, find net and knife.\nSo vile hypocrites steal the language of Darveshes,\nIn order to beguile the simple with their trickery.\nThe works of the righteous are light and heat,\nThe works of the evil treachery and shamelessness.\nThey make stuffed lions to scare the simple,\nThey give the title of Muhammad to false Musailima.\nBut Musailma retained the name of \"Liar,\"\nAnd Muhammad that of \"Sublimest of beings.\"\nThat wine of God (the righteous) yields a perfume of musk;\nOther wine (the evil) is reserved for penalties and pains.\n*NOTES:\n1. These are all figures and types of self-annihilation in order to the acquisition of eternal life in God.\n\nSTORY III.\nThe Jewish King, his Vazir, and the Christians.\nA certain Jewish king used to persecute the Christians, desiring to exterminate their faith. His Vazir persuaded him to try a stratagem, namely, to mutilate the Vazir himself, and expel him from his court, with the intent that he might take refuge with the Christians, and stir up mutual dissensions amongst them. The Vazir's suggestion was adopted.1 He fled to the Christians, and found no difficulty in persuading them that he had been treated in that barbarous way on account of his attachment to the Christian faith. He soon gained complete influence over them, and was accepted as a saintly martyr and a divine teacher. Only a few discerning men divined his treachery ; the majority were all deluded by him. The Christians were divided into twelve legions, and at the head of each was a captain. To each of these captains the Vazir gave secretly a volume of religious directions, taking care to make the directions in each volume different from and contradictory to those in the others. One volume enjoined fasting, another charity, another faith, another works, and so on. Afterwards the Vazir withdrew into a cave, and refused to come out to instruct his disciples, in spite of all their entreaties. Calling the captains to him, he gave secret instructions to each to set himself up as his successor, and to be guided by the instructions in the volume secretly confided to him, and to slay all other claimants of the apostolic office. Having given these directions, he slew himself. In the event each captain set himself up as the Vazir's successor, and the Christians were split up into many sects at enmity with one another, even as the Vazir had intended. But the malicious scheme did not, altogether succeed, as one faithful band cleaved to the name of \"Ahmad,\" mentioned in the Gospel,2 and were thus saved from sharing the ruin of the rest.\nThe Vazir's Teaching.\nMyriads of Christians flocked round him,\nOne after another they assembled in his street.\nThen he would preach to them of mysteries,\nMysteries of the Gospel, of stoles, of prayers.\nHe would preach to them with eloquent words\nConcerning the words and acts of the Messiah.\nOutwardly he was a preacher of religious duties,\nBut within a decoy call and a fowler's snare.\nTherefore the followers of the Prophet ('Isa)\nWere beguiled by the fraud of that demon soul.\nHe mingled in his discourses many secret doctrines\nConcerning devotion and sincerity of soul.\nHe taught them to make a fair show of devotion,\nBut to say of secret sins, \"What do they matter?\"\nHair by hair and jot by jot they learned of him\nFraud of soul, as roses might learn of garlic.\nHair-splitters and all their disciples\nAre darkened by similar preaching and discourse.\nThe Christians gave their hearts to him entirely,\nFor the blind faith of the vulgar has no discernment.\nIn their inmost breasts they planted love of him,\nAnd fancied him to be the Vicar of Christ;\nYea, him, that one-eyed and cursed Dajjal! 3\nSave us. O God ! who art our only defender!\nO God, there are hundreds of snares and baits,\nAnd we are even as greedy and foolish birds;\nEvery moment our feet are caught in a fresh snare ;\nYea, each one of us, though he be a falcon or Simurgh!\nThou dost release us every moment, and straightway\nWe again fly into the snare, O Almighty One!\nSleep of the body the soul's awakening.\nEvery night Thou freest our spirits from the body\nAnd its snare, making them pure as rased tablets.\nEvery night spirits are released from this cage,\nAnd set free, neither lording it nor lorded over.\nAt night prisoners are unaware of their prison,\nAt night kings are unaware of their majesty.\nThen there is no thought or care for loss or gain,\nNo regard to such an one or such an one.\nThe state of the \"Knower\" is such as this, even when awake.\nGod says,4 \"Thou wouldst deem him awake though asleep,\nSleeping to the affairs of the world, day and night,\nLike a pen in the directing hand of the writer.\nHe who sees not the hand which effects the writing\nFancies the effect proceeds from the motion of the pen.\nIf the \"Knower\" revealed the particulars of this state,\n'Twould rob the vulgar of their sensual sleep.\nHis soul wanders in the desert that has no similitude;\nLike his body, his spirit is enjoying perfect rest;\nFreed from desire of eating and drinking,\nLike a bird escaped from cage and snare.\nBut when he is again beguiled into the snare,\nHe cries for help to the Almighty.\nLaila and the Khalifa.\nThe Khalifa said to Laila, \"Art thou really she\nFor whom Majnun lost his head and went distracted?\nThou art not fairer than many other fair ones.\"\nShe replied, \"Be silent; thou art not Majnun!\"\nIf thou hadst Majnun's eyes,\nThe two worlds would be within thy view.\nThou art in thy senses, but Majnun is beside himself.\nIn love to be wide awake is treason.\nThe more a man is awake, the more he sleeps (to love);\nHis (critical) wakefulness is worse than slumbering.\nOur wakefulness fetters our spirits,\nThen our souls are a prey to divers whims,\nThoughts of loss and gain and fears of misery.\nThey retain not purity, nor dignity, nor lustre,\nNor aspiration to soar heavenwards.\nThat one is really sleeping who hankers after each whim\nAnd holds parley with each fancy.\nThe twelve volumes of theology.\n\nHe drew up a separate scroll to the address of each,\nThe contents of each scroll of a different tenor;\nThe rules of each of a different purport,\nThis contradictory of that, from beginning to end.\nIn one the road of fasting and asceticism\nWas made the pillar and condition of right devotion.\nIn one 'twas said, \"Abstinence profits not;\nSincerity in this path is naught but charity.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Thy fasting and thy charity\nAre both a making thyself equal with God;\nSave faith and utter resignation to God's will\nIn weal and woe, all virtues are fraud and snares.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Works are the one thing needful;\nThe doctrine of faith without works is a delusion.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Commands and prohibitions are\nNot for observance, but to demonstrate our weakness,\nThat we may see our own weakness (to carry them out),\nAnd thereby recognize and confess God's power.\" 5\nIn one 'twas said, \"Reference to thine own weakness\nIs ingratitude for God's mercies towards us.\nRather regard thy power, for thou hast power from God.\nKnow thy power to be God's grace, for 'tis of Him.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Leave power and weakness alone;\nWhatever withdraws thine eyes from God is an idol.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Quench not thy earthy torch,6\nThat it may be a light to lighten mankind.\nIf thou neglectest regard and care for it,\nThou wilt quench at midnight the lamp of union.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Quench that torch without fear,\nThat in lieu of one thou may'st see a thousand joys,\nFor by quenching the light the soul is rejoiced,\nAnd thy Laila is then as bold as her Majnun.\nWhoso to display his devotion renounces the world,\nThe world is ever with him, before and behind.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Whatsoever God has given thee\nIn His creation, that He has made sweet to thee;\nYea, pleasant to thee and allowable. Take it, then,\nAnd cast not thyself into the pangs of abstinence.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Give up all thou possessest,\nFor to be ruled by covetousness is grievous sin.\"\n(Ah! how many diverse roads are pointed out,\nAnd each followed by some sect for dear life!\nIf the right road were easily attainable,\nEvery Jew and Gueber would have hit on it!)\nIn one 'twas said, \"The right road is attainable,\nFor the heart's life is the food of the soul.\nWhatever is enjoyed by the carnal man\nYields no fruit, even as salt and waste land.\nIts result is naught but remorse,\nIts traffic yields only loss.\nIt is not profitable in the long run;\nIts name is called 'bankrupt' in the upshot.\nDiscern, then, the bankrupt from the profitable,\nConsider the eventual value of this and that.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"Choose ye a wise Director,\nBut foresight of results is not found in dignities.\"\n(Each sect looked to results in a different way,\nAnd so, perforce, became captive to errors.\nReal foresight of results is not simple jugglery,\nOtherwise all these differences would not have arisen.\nIn one 'twas said, \"Thyself art thy master,\nInasmuch as thou art acquainted with the Master of all;\nBe a man, and not another man's beast of burden!\nFollow thine own way and lose not thy head!\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"All we see is One.\nWhoever says 'tis two is suffering from double vision.\"\nIn one 'twas said, \"A hundred are even as one.\"7\nBut whoso thinks this is a. madman.\nEach scroll had its contrary piece of rhetoric,\nIn form and substance utterly opposed to it;\nThis contrary to that, from first to last,\nAs if each was compounded of poison and antidotes.\n*NOTES:\n1. Compare the story of Zopyrus, Herodotus, iii. 155.\n2. John xiv. 26: \"But the Comforter (parakletos) shall teach you all things.\" Mosalmans read periklytos, \"praised\" = Muhammad.\n3. Dajjal, i.e., Antichrist. Sale, Prelim. Discourse, p. 57.\n4. Said of the Seven Sleepers in the cave. Koran xviii. 17; \"Knower\" = the Gnostic who through ecstasy beholds divine verities.\n5. This was the doctrine of the Jabriyan or extreme predestinarians.\n6. i.e.. Hide not thy light (of good works or of self-denial) under a bushel.\n7. Alluding to the doctrine of the Trinity.\n\nSTORY IV.\nAnother Tyrannical Jewish King.\nA certain Jewish king, the same who is referred to in the Sura \"Signs of the Zodiac,\" I made up his mind to utterly exterminate the Christian faith, and with that view he set up a huge idol, and issued commands that all who refused to worship it should be cast into the fire. Thereupon his officers seized a Christian woman with her babe, and as she refused to worship it, they cast the babe into the fire. But the babe cried out to its mother, \"Be not afraid, the fire has no power to burn me; it is as cool as water!\" Hearing this, the rest of the Christians leapt into the fire, and found that it did not burn them. The king reproached the fire for failing to do its office, but the fire replied that it was God's servant, and that its consuming properties were not to be used for evil purposes. It then blazed up and consumed the king, and all his Jews with him.\nSecond causes only operate in subordination to,\nand form the impulsion of, the First Cause.\nAir, earth, water, and fire are God's servants.\nTo us they seem lifeless, but to God living.\nIn God's presence fire ever waits to do its service,\nLike a submissive lover with no will of its own.\nWhen you strike steel on flint fire leaps forth;\nBut 'tis by God's command it thus steps forth.\nStrike not together the flint and steel of wrong,\nFor the pair will generate more, like man and woman.\nThe flint and steel are themselves causes, yet\nLook higher for the First Cause, O righteous man!\nFor that Cause precedes this second cause.\nHow can a cause exist of itself without precedent cause?\nThat Cause makes this cause operative,\nAnd again helpless and inoperative.\nThat Cause, which is a guiding light to the prophets,\nThat, I say, is higher than these second causes.\nMen's minds recognize these second causes,\nBut only prophets perceive the action of the First Cause.\nPraise compared to vapour drawn upwards,\nand then descending in rain.\nThough water be enclosed in a reservoir,\nYet air will absorb it, for 'tis its supporter;\nIt sets it free and bears it to its source,\nLittle by little, so that you see not the process.\nIn like manner this breath of ours by degrees\nSteals away our souls from the prison-house of earth.\n\" The good word riseth up to Him,\"2\nRising from us whither He knoweth.\nOur breathings are lifted up in fear of God,\nOfferings from us to the throne of Eternity.\nThen come down to us rewards for our praises,\nThe double thereof, yea, mercies from the King of Glory.\nTherefore are we constrained to utter these praises\nThat slaves may attain the height of God's gifts.\nAnd so this rising and descent go on evermore,\nAnd cease not forever and aye.\nTo speak in plain Persian, this attraction\nComes from the same quarter whence comes this sweet savour.3\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran lxxxv.\n2. Koran, xxxv. II.\n3. Sweet savour, i.e., the joy of heart experienced by the offerer of prayer when his prayer is accepted of God. See Book II. Story XVII.\n\nSTORY V.\nThe Lion and the Beasts.\nIn the book of Kalila and Damna a story is told of a lion who held all the beasts of the neighborhood in subjection, and was in the habit of making constant raids upon them, to take and kill such of them as he required for his daily food. At last the beasts took counsel together, and agreed to deliver up one of their company every day, to satisfy the lion's hunger, if he, on his part, would cease to annoy them by his continual forays. The lion was at first unwilling to trust to their promise, remarking that he always preferred to rely on his own exertions; but the beasts succeeded in persuading him that he would do well to trust Providence and their word. To illustrate the thesis that human exertions are vain, they related a story of a man who got Solomon to transport him to Hindustan to escape the angel of death, but was smitten by the angel the moment he got there. Having carried their point, the beasts continued for some time to perform their engagement. One day it came to the turn of the hare to be delivered up as a victim to the lion; but he requested the others to let him practice a stratagem. They scoffed at him, asking how such silly beast as he could pretend to outwit the lion. The hare assured them that wisdom was of God, and God might choose weak things to confound the strong. At last they consented to let him try his luck. He took his way slowly to the lion, and found him sorely enraged. In excuse for his tardy arrival he represented that he and another hare had set out together to appear before the lion, but a strange lion had seized the second hare, and carried it off in spite of his remonstrances. On hearing this, the lion was exceeding wroth, and commanded the hare to show him the foe who had trespassed on his preserves. Pretending to be afraid, the hare got the lion to take him upon his back, and directed him to a well. On looking down the well, the lion saw in the water the reflection of himself and of the hare on his back; and thinking that he saw his foe with the stolen hare, he plunged in to attack him, and was drowned, while the hare sprang off his back and escaped. This folly on the part, of the lion was predestined to punish him for denying God's ruling providence. So Adam, though he knew the names of all things, in accordance with God's predestination, neglected to obey a single prohibition, and his disobedience cost him dearly.\nTrust in God, as opposed to human exertions.\nThe beasts said, \"O enlightened sage,\nLay aside caution; it cannot help thee against destiny;\nTo worry with precaution is toil and moil;\nGo, trust in Providence, trust is the better part.\nWar not with the divine decree, O hot-headed one,\nLest that decree enter into conflict with thee.\nMan should be as dead before the commands of God\nLest a blow befall him from the Lord of all creatures.\"\nHe said, \"True; but though trust be our mainstay,\nYet the Prophet teaches us to have regard to means.\nThe Prophet cried with a loud voice,\n'Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg.' l\nHear the adage, 'The worker is the friend of God;'2\nThrough trust in Providence neglect not to use means.\nGo, O Quietists, practice trust with self-exertion,\nExert yourself to attain your objects, bit by bit.\nIn order to succeed, strive and exert yourselves;\nIf ye strive not for your objects, ye are fools.\"\nThey said, \"What is gained from the poor by exertions\nIs a fraudulent morsel that will bring ill luck.\nAgain, know that self-exertion springs from weakness;\nRelying on other means is a blot upon perfect trust.\nSelf-exertion is not more noble than trust in God.\nWhat is more lovely than committing oneself to God?\nMany there are who flee from one danger to a worse;\nMany flee from a snake and meet a dragon.\nMan plans a stratagem, and thereby snares himself;\nWhat he takes for life turns out, to be destruction.\nHe shuts the door after his foe is in the house.\nAfter this sort were the schemes of Pharaoh.\nThat jealous king slew a myriad babes,\nWhile Moses, whom he sought, was in his house.\nOur eyes are subject to many infirmities;\nGo! annihilate your sight in God's sight.\nFor our foresight His foresight is a fair exchange;\nIn His sight is all that ye can desire.\nSo long as a babe cannot grasp or run,\nIt takes its father's back for its carriage.\nBut when it becomes independent and uses its hands,\nIt falls into grievous troubles and disgrace.\nThe souls of our first parents, even before their hands,\nFlew away from fidelity after vain pleasure.\nBeing made captives by the command, 'Get down hence,' 3\nThey became bond-slaves of enmity, lust, and vanity.\nWe are the family of the Lord and His sucking babes.\nThe Prophet said, 'The people are God's family;'\nHe who sends forth the rain from heaven,\nCan He not also provide us our daily bread?\"\nThe lion said, \"True; yet the Lord of creatures\nSets a ladder before our feet.\nStep by step must we mount up to the roof!\nThe notion of fatalism is groundless in this place.\nYe have feet why then pretend ye are lame?\nYe have hands why then conceal your claws?\nWhen a master places a spade in the hand of a slave,\nThe slave knows his meaning without being told.\nLike this spade, our hands are our Master's hints to us;\nYea, if ye consider, they are His directions to us.\nWhen ye have taken to heart His hints,\nYe will shape your life in reliance on their direction;\nWherefore these hints disclose His intent,\nTake the burden from you, and appoint your work.\nHe that bears it makes it bearable by you,\nHe that is able makes it within your ability.\nAccept His command, and you will be able to execute it;\nSeek union with Him, and you will find yourselves united.\nExertion is giving thanks for God's blessings;\nThink ye that your fatalism gives such thanks?\nGiving thanks for blessings increases blessings,\nBut fatalism snatches those blessings from your hands.\nYour fatalism is to sleep on the road; sleep not\nTill ye behold the gates of the King's palace.\nAh! sleep not, O unreflecting fatalists,\nTill ye have reached that fruit-laden Tree of Life\nWhose branches are ever shaken by the wind,\nAnd whose fruit is showered on the sleepers' heads.\nFatalism means sleeping amidst highwaymen.\nCan a cock who crows too soon expect peace?\nIf ye cavil at and accept not God's hints,\nThough ye count yourselves men, see, ye are women.\nThe quantum of reason ye possessed is lost,\nAnd the head whose reason has fled is a tail.\nInasmuch as the unthankful are despicable,\nThey are at last cast into the fiery pit.\nIf ye really have trust in God, exert yourselves,\nAnd strive, in constant reliance on the Almighty.\"\nWisdom is granted often times to the weak.\nHe said, \"O friends, God has given me inspiration.\nOften times strong counsel is suggested to the weak.\nThe wit taught by God to the bee\nIs withheld from the lion and the wild ass.\nIt fills its cells with liquid sweets,\nFor God opens the door of this knowledge to it.\nThe skill taught by God to the silkworm\nIs a learning beyond the reach of the elephant.\nThe earthly Adam was taught of God names, 4\nSo that his glory reached the seventh heaven.\nHe laid low the name and fame of the angels, 5\nYet blind indeed are they whom God dooms to doubt!\nThe devotee of seven hundred thousand years (Satan)\nWas made a muzzle for that yearling calf (Adam), 6\nLest he should suck milk of the knowledge of faith,\nAnd soar on high even to the towers of heaven.\nThe knowledge of men of external sense is a muzzle\nTo stop them sucking milk of that sublime knowledge.\nBut God drops into the heart a single pearl-drop\nWhich is not bestowed on oceans or skies!\"\n\"How long regard ye mere form, O form-worshippers?\nYour souls, void of substance, rest still in forms.\nIf the form of man were all that made man,\nAhmad and Abu Jahl would be upon a par.\nA painting on a wall resembles a man,\nBut see what it is lacking in that empty form.\n'Tis life that is lacking to that mere semblance of man.\nGo! seek for that pearl it never will find.\nThe heads of earth's lions were bowed down\nWhen God gave might to the Seven Sleepers' dog. 7\nWhat mattered its despised form\nWhen its soul was drowned in the sea of light?\"\nHuman wisdom, the manifestation of divine.\nOn his way to the lion the hare lingered,\nDevising a stratagem with himself.\nHe proceeded on his way after delaying long,\nIn order to have a secret or two for the lion.\nWhat worlds the principle of Reason embraces!\nHow broad is this ocean of Reason!\nYea, the Reason of man is a boundless ocean.\nO son, that ocean requires, as it were, a diver. 8\nOn this fair ocean our human forms\nFloat about, like bowls on the surface of water;\nYea like cups on the surface, till they are. filled;\nAnd when filled, these cups sink into the water.\nThe ocean of Reason is not seen ; reasoning men are seen;\nBut our forms (minds) are only as waves or spray thereof.\nWhatever form that ocean uses as its instrument,\nTherewith it casts its spray far and wide. 9\nTill the heart sees the Giver of the secret,\nTill it espies that Bowman shooting from afar,\nIt fancies its own steed lost, while in bewilderment\nIt is urging that steed hither and thither; 10\nIt fancies its own steed lost, when all the while\nThat swift steed is bearing it on like the wind.\nIn deep distress that blunder head\nRuns from door to door, searching and inquiring,\n\"Who and where is he that hath stolen my steed?\"\nThey say, \"What is this thou ridest on, O master?\"\nHe says, \"True, 'tis a steed; but where is mine?\"\nThey say, \"Look to thyself, O rider; thy steed is there.\"\nThe real Soul is lost to view, and seems far off; 11\nThou art like a pitcher with full belly but dry lip;\nHow canst thou ever see red, green, and scarlet\nUnless thou seest the light first of all?\nWhen thy sight is dazzled by colors,\nThese colors veil the light from thee.\nBut when night veils those colors from thee,\nThou seest that colors are seen only through light.\nAs there is no seeing outward colors without light,\nSo it is with the mental colors within.\nOutward colors arise from the light of sun and stars,\nAnd inward colors from the Light on high.\nThe light that lights the eye is also the heart's Light;\nThe eye's light proceeds from the Light of the heart.\nBut the light that lights the heart is the Light of God,\nWhich is distinct from the light of reason and sense.\nAt night there is no light, and colors are not seen;\nHence we know what light is by its opposite, darkness.\nAt night no colors are visible, for light is lacking.\nHow can color be the attribute of dark blackness?\nLooking on light is the same as looking on colors;\nOpposite shows up opposite, as a Frank a Negro.\nThe opposite of light shows what is light,\nHence colors too are known by their opposite.\nGod created pain and grief for this purpose,\nTo wit, to manifest happiness by its opposites. 12\nHidden things are manifested by their opposites;\nBut, as God has no opposite. He remains hidden.\nGod's light has no opposite in the range of creation\nWhereby it may be manifested to view.\nPerforce \"Our eyes see not Him, though He sees us.\" 13\nBehold this in the case of Moses and Mount Sinai. 14\nDiscern form from substance, as lion from desert,\nOr as sound and speech from the thought they convey.\nThe sound and speech arise from the thought;\nThou knowest not where is the Ocean of thought;\nYet when thou seest fair waves of speech,\nThou knowest there is a glorious Ocean beneath them.\nWhen waves of thought arise from the Ocean of Wisdom,\nThey assume the forms of sound and speech.\nThese forms of speech are born and die again,\nThese wa,ves cast themselves back into the Ocean.\nForm is born of That which is without form,\nAnd goes again, for, \"Verily to Him do we return.\" 15\nWherefore to thee every moment come death and \"return.\"\nMustafa saith, \"The world endureth only a moment.\"\nSo, thought is an arrow shot by God into the air.\nHow can it stay in the air? It returns to God.\nEvery moment the world and we are renewed, 16\nYet we are ignorant of this renewing forever and aye.\nLife, like a stream of water, is renewed and renewed,\nThough it wears the appearance of continuity in form.\nThat seeming continuity arises from its swift renewal,\nAs when a single spark of fire is whirled round swiftly. 17\nIf a single spark be whirled round swiftly,\nIt seems to the eye a continuous line of fire.\nThis apparent extension, owing to the quick motion,\nDemonstrates the rapidity with which it is moved.\nIf ye seek the deepest student of this mystery,\nLo! 'tis Husamu-'d-Din, the most exalted of creatures!\n*NOTES:\n1. \"Trust in God and keep your powder dry.\"\n2. \"Laborare est orare.\"\n3. Koran ii. 341.\n4. \"And He taught Adam the names of all things\" (Koran ii. 29).\n5. The angels said, \"We have no knowledge but what thou hast given us to know\" (Koran ii. 30).\n6. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 543.\n7. Koran xviii. 17.\n8. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 575: The ocean of Reason is the same as what is elsewhere called the ocean of Being, viz., the Noumenon, or Divine substratum of all phenomenal being and thought.\n9. \"Those arrows were God's, not vours\" (Koran viii. 17); i.e., Man's reason proceeds from God, the \"Only Real Agent.\"\n10. Alluding to the \"Believer's lost camel \" (Book II. Story XII., infra.). Men seek wisdom, and do not know that in themselves is the reflected wisdom of God (Gulshan i Raz, I. 435).\n11. The real Soul, i.e., the spirit which God \"breathed into man\" (Koran xv. 29). \"In yourselves are signs; will ye not behold them?\" (Koran li, 21).\n12. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 92. Mr. Mansel (Bampton Lectures, p. 49) says: \"A thing can be known as that which it is only by being distinguished from that which it is not.\" But the Infinite Deity ex hypothesi includes all things; so there is nothing to contrast Him with.\n13. Koran vi. 103.\n14. Koran vii. 139: \"He said, 'Thou shalt not see me.'\"\n15. Koran ii. 151.\n16. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 645: All phenomena are every moment renewed by fresh effluxes of being from the Divine Noumenon.\n17. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 710.\n\nSTORY VI.\nOmar and the Ambassador.\nThe hare, having delivered his companions from the tyranny of the lion, in the manner just described, proceeds to improve the occasion by exhorting them to engage in a greater and more arduous warfare, viz., the struggle against their inward enemy, the lusts of the flesh. He illustrates his meaning by the story of an ambassador who was sent by the Emperor of Rum to the Khalifa 'Omar. On approaching Medina this ambassador inquired for 'Omar's palace, and learned that 'Omar dwelt in no material palace, but in a spiritual tabernacle, only visible to purified hearts. At last he discerned 'Omar lying under a palm-tree, and drew near to him in fear and awe. 'Omar received him kindly, and instructed him in the doctrine of the mystical union with God. The ambassador heard him gladly, and asked him two questions, first, How can souls descend from heaven to earth? and secondly, With what object are souls imprisoned in the bonds of flesh and blood? 'Omar responded, and the ambassador accepted his teaching, and became a pure-hearted Sufi. The hare urged his companions to abjure lust and pride, and to go and do likewise.\nGod's agency reconciled with man's freewill.\nThe ambassador said, \"O Commander of the faithful,\nHow comes the soul down from above to earth?\nHow can so noble a bird be confined in a cage?\"\nHe said, \"God speaks words of power to souls,\nTo things of naught, without eyes or ears,\nAnd at these words they all spring into motion;\nAt His words of power these nothings arise quickly,\nAnd strong impulse urges them into existence.\nAgain, He speaks other spells to these creatures,\nAnd swiftly drives them back again into Not-being.\nHe speaks to the rose's ear, and causes it to bloom;\nHe speaks to the tulip, and makes it blossom.\nHe speaks a spell to body, and it becomes soul;\nHe speaks to the sun, and it becomes a fount of light.\nAgain, in its ear He whispers a word of power,\nAnd its face is darkened as by a hundred eclipses.\nWhat is it that God says to the ear of earth,\nThat it attends thereto and rests steadfast?\nWhat is it that Speaker says to the cloud,\nThat it pours forth rain-water like a water-skin?\nWhosoever is bewildered by wavering will, l\nIn his ear hath God whispered His riddle,\nThat He may bind him on the horns of a dilemma;\nFor he says, 'Shall I do this or its reverse?'\nAlso from God comes the preference of one alternative;\n'Tis from God's impulsion that man chooses one of the two.\nIf you desire sanity in this embarrassment,\nStuff not the ear of your mind with cotton.\nTake the cotton of evil suggestions from the mind's ear, 2\nThat the heavenly voice from above may enter it,\nThat you may understand that riddle of His,\nThat you may be cognisant of that open secret.\nThen the mind's ear becomes the sensorium of inspiration;\nFor what is this Divine voice but the inward voice? 3\nThe spirit's eye and ear possess this sense,\nThe eye and ear of reason and sense lack it.\nThe word 'compulsion' makes me impatient for love's sake;\n'Tis he who loves not who is fettered by compulsion.\nThis is close communion with God, not compulsion,\nThe shining of the sun, and not a dark cloud.\nOr, if it be compulsion, 'tis not common compulsion,\nIt is not the domination of wanton wilfulness.\nO son, they understand this compulsion\nFor whom God opens the eyes of the inner man.\nThings hidden and things future are plain to them;\nTo speak of the past seems to them despicable.\nThey possess freewill and compulsion besides, 4\nAs in oyster-shells raindrops are pearls.\nOutside the shell they are raindrops, great and small;\nInside they are precious pearls, big and little.\nThese men also resemble the musk deer's bag;\nOutside it is blood, but inside pure musk;\nYet, say not that outside 'twas mere blood,\nWhich on entering the bag becomes musk.\nNor say that outside the alembic 'twas mere copper,\nAnd becomes gold inside, when mixed with elixir.\nIn you freewill and compulsion are vain fancies,\nBut in them they are the light of Almighty power.\nOn the table bread is a mere lifeless thing,\nWhen taken into the body it is a life-giving spirit.\nThis transmutation occurs not in the table's heart,\n'Tis soul effects this transmutation with water of life.\nSuch is the power of the soul, O man of right views!\nThen what is the power of the Soul of souls? (God).\nBread is the food of the body, yet consider,\nHow can it be the food of the soul, O son?\nFlesh-born man by force of soul\nCleaves mountains with tunnels and mines.\nThe might of Ferhad's soul cleft a hill;\nThe might of the Soul's soul cleaves the moon; 5\nIf the heart opens the mouth of mystery's store,\nThe soul springs up swiftly to highest heaven.\nIf tongue discourses of hidden mysteries,\nIt kindles a fire that consumes the world.\nBehold, then, God's action and man's action;\nKnow, action does belong to us ; this is evident.\nIf no actions proceeded from men,\nHow could you say, 'Why act ye thus?'\nThe agency of God is the cause of our action,\nOur actions are the signs of God's agency;\nNevertheless our actions are freely willed by us,\nWhence our recompense is either hell or 'The Friend.'\"\n*NOTES:\n1. The poet's insistence on the doctrine of God being the Fa'il i Hakiki, or Only Real Agent, without whose word no being and no action can be, leads him to the question of freewill and compulsion of man's will (see Gulshan i Raz, I. 555).\n2. So Gulshan i Raz, I. 442.\n3. The leading principle of all mysticism is that, independently of sense and reason, man possesses an inward sense, or intuition, which conveys to him a knowledge of God by direct apprehension (see Gulshan i Raz. I. 431).\n4. Their wills are identified with God's will, as in the case of the saint Daquqi (infra, Book III. Story XII.)\n5. As a sign of the last day (Koran liv. 1).\n\nSTORY VII.\nThe Merchant and his Clever Parrot.\nThere was a certain merchant who kept a parrot in a cage. Being about to travel to Hindustan on business, he asked the parrot if he had any message to send to his kinsmen in that country, and the parrot desired him to tell them that he was kept confined in a cage. The merchant promised to deliver this message, and on reaching Hindustan, duly delivered it to the first flock of parrots he saw. On hearing it one of them at once fell down dead. The merchant was annoyed with his own parrot for having sent such a fatal message, and on his return home sharply rebuked his parrot for doing so. But the parrot no sooner heard the merchant's tale than ho too fell down dead in his cage. The merchant, after lamenting his death, took his corpse out of the cage and threw it away; but, to his surprise, the corpse immediately recovered life, and flew away, explaining that the Hindustani parrot had only feigned death to suggest this way of escaping from confinement in a cage.\nSaints are preserved from all harm 1.\nAs to a \"man of heart,\" he takes no hurt,\nEven though he should eat deadly poison.\nHe who gains health from practicing abstinence is safe;\nThe poor disciple is safe in the midst of fever.\nThe prophet said, \"O disciple, though you be bold,\nYet enter not into conflict with every foe.\"\nWithin you is a Nimrod; enter not his fire;\nBut if you must do so, first become an Abraham. 2\nIf you are neither swimmer nor seaman,\nCast not yourself into the sea out of self-conceit.\nA swimmer brings pearls from the deep sea;\nYea, he plucks gain from the midst of perils.\nIf the saint handles earth, it becomes gold;\nIf a sinner handles gold, it turns to dust.\nWhereas the saint is well-pleasing to God,\nIn his actions his hand is the hand of God.\nBut the sinner's hand is the hand of Satan and demons,\nBecause he is ensnared in falsity and fraud.\nIf folly meets him, he takes it for wisdom;\nYea, the learning gained by the wicked is folly.\nWhatever a sick man eats is a source of sickness,\nBut if a saint imbibe infidelity it becomes faith.\nAh! footman who contendest with horsemen,\nThou wilt not succeed in carrying the day!\nThe jealousy of God 3.\nThe whole world is jealous for this cause,\nThat God surpasseth the world in jealousy.\nGod is as a soul and the world as a body,\nAnd bodies derive their good and evil from souls.\nHe to whom the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed\nDeems it shameful to turn back to mere formal religion.\nHe who is master of the robes of a king\nBrings shame on his lord by petty huckstering.\nHe who is admitted to the king's presence-chamber\nWould show disrespect by tarrying at the doorway.\nIf the king grants him license to kiss his hand,\nHe would err were he to kiss merely the king's foot.\nThough to lay head at the king's feet is due obeisance,\nIn the case supposed it would be wrong to kiss the feet.\nThe king's jealousy would be kindled against him\nWho, after he had seen his face, preferred his mere perfume.\nGod's jealousy may be likened to a grain of wheat,\nBut man's jealousy is but empty chaff.\nFor know ye that the source of jealousy is in God,\nAnd man's jealousy is only an offshoot from God's.\nBut, let me now quit this subject, and make complaint\nOf the severity of That Fickle Fair One.\nComplaints of God's harsh dealings with His adoring slaves.\n\"Wherefore dost thou abandon thy creed and faith?\nWhat matters it if it be heathen or true?\nWhy hast thou forsaken thy Beloved?\nWhat matters it if she be fair or ugly?\" 4\nLet me then, I say, make complaint\nOf the severity of That Fickle Fair One.\nI cry, and my cries sound sweet in His ear;\nHe requires from the two worlds cries and groans.\nHow shall I not wail under His chastening hand?\nHow shall I not be in the number of those bewitched by Him?\nHow shall I be other than night without His day?\nWithout the vision of His face that illumes the day?\nHis bitters are very sweets to my soul,\nMy sad heart is a lively sacrifice to my Beloved.\nI am enamoured of my own grief and pain,\nFor it makes me well-pleasing to my peerless King.\nI use the dust of my grief as salve for my eyes,\nThat my eyes, like seas, may teem with pearls.\nThe tears which are shed because of His chastening\nAre very pearls, though men deem them mere tears.\n'Tis \"The Soul of souls\" of whom I am making complaint;\nYet I do not complain; I merely state my case.\nMy heart says, \"He has injured me,\"\nBut I laugh at these pretended injuries.\nDo me justice, O Thou who art the glory of the just,\nWho art the throne, and I the lintel of Thy door!\nBut, in sober truth, where are throne and doorway?\nWhere are \"We\" and \"I?\" There where our Beloved is!\nO Thou, who art exempt from \"Us\" and \"Me,\"\nWho pervadest the spirits of all men and women;\nWhen man and woman become one, Thou art that One!\nWhen their union is dissolved, lo! Thou abidest!\nThou hast made these \"Us\" and \"Me\" for this purpose,\nTo wit, to play chess with them by Thyself. 5\nWhen Thou shalt become one entity with \"Us\" and \"You.\"\nThen wilt Thou show true affection for these lovers.\nWhen these \"We\" and \"Ye\" shall all become one Soul,\nThen they will be lost and absorbed in the \"Beloved.\"\nThese are plain truths. Come then, O Lord!\nWho art exalted above description and explanation!\nIs it possible for the bodily eye to behold Thee?\nCan mind of man conceive Thy frowns and Thy smiles?\nAre hearts, when bewitched by Thy smiles and frowns, 6\nIn a fit state to see the vision of Thyself?\nWhen our hearts are bewitched by Thy smiles and frowns,\nCan we gain life from these two alternating states?\nThe fertile garden of love, as it is boundless,\nContains other fruits besides joy and sorrow.\nThe true lover is exalted above these two states,\nHe is fresh and green independently of autumn or spring!\nPay tithe on Thy beauty, O Beauteous One!\nTell forth the tale of the Beloved, every whit!\nFor through coquetry His glances\nAre still inflicting fresh wounds on my heart.\nI gave Him leave to shed my blood, if He willed it;\nI only said, \"Is it right? \" and He forsook me.\nWhy dost Thou flee from the cries of us on earth?\nWhy pourest Thou sorrow on the heart of the sorrowful?\nO Thou who, as each new morn dawns from the east,\nArt seen uprising anew, like a bright fountain!\nWhat excuse makest Thou for Thy witcheries?\nO Thou whose lips are sweeter than sugar,\nThou that ever renewest the life of this old world,\nHear the cry of this lifeless body and heart!\nBut, for God's sake, leave off telling of the Rose;\nTell of the Bulbul who is severed from his Rose.\nMy ardour arises not from joy or grief,\nMy sense mates not with illusion and fancy.\nMy condition is different, for it is strange.\nDeny it not ! God is all-powerful.\nArgue not from the condition of common men,\nStumble not at severity and at mercy.\nFor mercy and severity, joy and sorrow, are transient,\nAnd transient things die; \"God is heir of all.\" 7\n\"Tis dawn! O Protector and Asylum of the dawn!\nMake excuse for me to my lord Husamu-'d-Din!\nThou makest excuses for c(Universal Reason and Soul; 8\nSoul of souls and Gem of life art Thou!\nThe light of my dawn is a beam from Thy light,\nShining in the morning draught of Thy protection!\nSince Thy gift keeps me, as it were, intoxicated,\nWhat is this spiritual wine that causes me this joy?\nNatural wine lacks the ferment in my breast,\nThe spheres lag behind me in revolutions!\nWine is intoxicated with me, not I with it!\nThe world takes its being from me, not I from it!\nI am like bees, and earthly bodies like wax, 9\nI build up these bodies as with my own wax!\n*NOTES:\n1. This is a comment on the saying of Faridu-'d-Din Attar, \"Thou art a man of lusts, O fool! In dust eat blood! but if a man of heart eats poison, 'tis as honey.\"\n2. See Koran xxi. 68, and Rodwell's note.\n3. This is a comment on the Hadis, \"Verily Sa'd is a jealous man, and I am more jealous than he, and God is more jealous than I, and of His jealousy He prohibits 'All pollutions, both outward and inward.'\" (Koran vi. 152.)\n4. This is a quotation from Hakim Sanai, and forms the text of the following discourse.\n5. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 140, and Omar Khayyam Quatr., 270.\n6. See Gulshan i Raz, I. 745: Frowns are the occultation of the Beloved by the veil of phenomena; smiles, the revelation of Absolute Being to its votaries. Sa'di (Gulistan, Book II. Story XI.) says: \"The vision, of God to the pious consists of manifestation and occultation; He shows Himself, and again withdraws Himself from our sight.\"\n7. Koran xv. 23.\n8. i.e., the Logos, and First Soul, upposed to be referred to in the text: \"O men, fear your Lord, who hath created you from one Soul, and of him created his wife\" (Koran iv. I). See Gulshan i Raz, I. 203.\n9. i.e., in his spiritual exaltation he feels himself as the Logos, where from tho whole material creation emanates.\n\nSTORY VIII.\nThe Harper.\n\nIn the time of the Khalifa 'Omar there lived a harper, whose voice was as sweet as that of the angel Israfil, and who was in great request at all feasts. But he grew old, and his voice broke, and no one would employ him any longer. In despair he went to the burial-ground of\nYathrub, and there played his harp to God, looking to Him for recompense. Having finished his melody he fell asleep, and dreamed he was in heaven. The same night a divine voice came to 'Omar, directing him to go to the burial-ground, and relieve an old man whom he should find there. 'Omar proceeded to the place, found the harper, and gave him money, promising him more when he should need it. The harper cast away his harp, saying that it had diverted him from God, and expressed great contrition for his past sins. 'Omar then instructed him that his worldly journey was now over, and that he must not give way to contrition for the past, as he was now entered into the state of ecstasy and intoxication of union with God, and in this exalted state regard to past and future should be swept away. The harper acted on his instructions, and sang no more.\nApology for applying the term \"Bride\" to God.\nMustafa became beside himself at that sweet call,\nHis prayer failed on \"the night of the early morning halt.\"\nHe lifted not head from that blissful sleep,\" 1\nSo that his morning prayer was put off till noon.\nOn that, his wedding night, in presence of his bride,\nHis pure soul attained to kiss her hands.\nLove and mistress are both veiled and hidden,\nImpute it not as a fault if I call Him \"Bride.\"\nI would have kept silence from fear of my Beloved,\nIf He had granted me but a moment's respite.\nBut He said, \"Speak on, 'tis no fault,\n'Tis naught but the necessary result of the hidden decree,\n'Tis a fault only to him who only sees faults.\nHow can the Pure Hidden Spirit notice faults?\"\nFaults seem so to ignorant creatures,\nNot in the sight of the Lord of Benignity.\nBlasphemy even may be wisdom in the Creator's si ht,\nWhereas from our point of view it is grievous sin.\nIf one fault occur among a hundred beauties\n'Tis as one dry stick in a garden of green herbs.\nBoth weigh equally in the scales\nFor the two resemble body and soul.\nWherefore the sages have said not idly,\n\" The bodies of the righteous are as pure souls.\"\nTheir words, their actions, their praises,\nAre all as a pure soul without spot or blemish.\n'Omar rebukes the Harper for brooding over\nand bewailing the past.\nThen 'Omar said to him, \"This wailing of thine\nShows thou art still in a state of ' sobriety.\"'\nAfterwards he thus urged him to quit that state\nAnd called him out of his beggary to absorption in God:\n\"Sobriety savours of memory of the past;\nPast and future are what veil God from our sight.\nBurn up both of them with fire! How long\nWilt thou be partitioned by these segments as a reed?\nSo long as a reed has partitions 'tis not privy to secrets,\nNor is it vocal in response to lip and breathing.\nWhile circumambulating the house thou art a stranger;\nWhen thou enterest in thou art at home.\nThou whose knowledge is ignorance of the Giver of knowledge,\nThy wailing contrition is worse than thy sin.\nThe road of the 'annihilated' is another road;\nSobriety is wrong, and a straying from that other road.\nO thou who seekest to be contrite for the past,\nHow wilt thou be contrite for this contrition?\nAt one time thou adorest the music of the lute,\nAt another embracest wailing and weeping.\"\nWhile the \"Discerner\" reflected these mysteries,\nThe heart of the harper was emancipated.\nLike a soul he was freed from weeping and rejoicing,\nHis old life died, and he was regenerated.\nAmazement fell upon him at that moment,\nFor he was exalted above earth and heaven,\nAn uplifting of the heart surpassing all uplifting;\nI cannot describe it ; if you can, say on!\nEcstasy and words beyond all ecstatic words;\nImmersion in the glory of the Lord of glory!\nImmersion wherefrom was no extrication,\nAs it were identification with the Very Ocean!\nPartial Reason is as naught to Universal Reason,\nIf one impulse dependent on another impulse be naught;\nBut when that impulse moves this impulse,\nThe waves of that sea rise to this point; 2\n*NOTES:\n1. The night of his marriage with Safiyya.\n2. i.e., he is possessed by the Deity as an \"Energumen,\" and the Deity works these ecstatic states in him.\n\nSTORY IX.\nThe Arab and his Wife.\nAn Arab lived with his wife in the desert in extreme poverty, so that they became a reproach to their neighbours. The wife at last lost patience, and began to abuse her husband, and to urge him to improve their condition. The Arab rebuked her for her covetousness, reminding her that the Prophet had said, \"Poverty is my glory,\" and showing her how poverty was a better preparation for death than riches, and finally threatening to divorce her if she persisted in her querulous ways. The wife, however, by blandishments reduced her husband to obedience, as wives always do, and made him promise to carry out her wishes. She directed him to go and represent their case to the Khalifa at Bagdad, and to make him an offering of a pot of water, that being the only present they could afford to make. Accordingly the Arab travelled to Bagdad, and laid his offering at the feet of the Khalifa, who received it graciously, and in return filled the pot with pieces of gold, and then sent him back to his home in a boat up the river Tigris. The Arab was lost in wonder at the benignity of the Khalifa, who had recompensed him so bountifully for his petty offering of a drop of water. The story contains several digressions, on Pharaoh, on the prophet Salih, and on Adam and the angels, and the poet, apropos of its disconnectedness, compares it to eternity, as it has no beginning and no end.\nMen subdued by women's wiles.\nIn this manner she pleaded with gentle coaxing,\nThe while her tears fell upon her cheeks.\nHow could his firmness and endurance abide\nWhen even without tears she could charm his heart?\nThat rain brought forth a flash of lightning\nWhich kindled a spark in the heart of that poor man.\nSince the man was the slave of her fair face,\nHow was it when she stooped to slavish entreaties?\nWhen she whose airs set thy heart a-quaking,\nWhen she weeps, how feelest thou then?\nWhen she whose coquetry makes thy heart bleed\nCondescends to entreaties, how is it then?\nShe who subdues us with her pride and severity,\nWhat plea is left us when she begins to plead?\nWhen she who traded in naught but bloodshed\nSubmits at last, ah! what a profit she makes!\nGod has adorned them \"fair in the sight of men;\" 1\nFrom her whom God has adorned how can man escape?\nSince He created him \"to dwell together with her,\" 2\nHow can Adam sever himself from his Eve?\nThough he be Rustum, son of Zal, and braver than Hamza,\nYet he is submissive to the behests of his dame.\nHe by whose preaching the world was entranced\nWas he who spake the two words, \"O Humaira!\" 3\nThough water prevails over fire in might,\nYet it boils by fire when in a cauldron.\nWhen the cauldron intervenes between these two,\nAir (desire) makes as naught the action of the water.\nApparently thou art the ruler of thy wife, like water;\nIn reality thou art ruled by and suppliant to her.\nSuch is the peculiarity of man,\nHe cannot withstand animal desire; that is his failing.\nThe Prophet said that women hold dominion\nOver sages and over men of heart,\nBut that fools, again, hold the upper hand over women,\nBecause fools are violent and exceedingly froward.\nThey have no tenderness or gentleness or amity,\nBecause the animal nature sways their temperament.\nLove and tenderness are qualities of humanity,\nPassion and lust are qualities of animality.\nWoman is a ray of God, not a mere mistress,\nThe Creator's self, as it were, not a mere creature!\nMoses and Pharaoh, alike doers of God's will,\nas Light and Darkness. Poison and Antidote.\nVerily, both Moses and Pharaoh walked in the right way,\nThough seemingly the one did so, and the other not.\nBy day Moses wept before God,\nAt midnight Pharaoh lifted up his cry,\nSaying, \"What a yoke is this upon my neck, O God!\nWere it not for this yoke who would boast, 'I am ?'\nBecause Thou hast made Moses' face bright as the moon,\nAnd hast made the moon of my face black in the face.\nCan my star ever shine brighter than the moon?\nIf it be eclipsed, what remedy have I?\nThough princes and kings beat drums,\nAnd men beat cymbals because of my eclipse, 4\nThey beat their brass dishes and raise a clamour,\nAnd make my moon ashamed thereby,\nI, who am Pharaoh, woe is me! The people's clamour\nConfounds my boast, 'I am Lord Supreme!' 5\nMoses and I are Thy nurslings both alike,\nYet Thy axe cuts down tho branches in Thy woods.\nSome of these branches Thou plantest in the ground,\nOthers Thou castest away as useless.\nCan branch strive against axe? Not so.\nCan branch elude the power of the axe? Nay,\nO Lord of the power that dwells in Thy axe,\nIn mercy make these crooked things straight!\"\nMan and wife types of the spirit and the flesh.\nThe dissension of this husband and wife is a parable;\nThey are types of thy animal and rational souls.\nThis husband and wife are the reason and the flesh,\nA couple joined together for good and for evil.\nAnd in this earthly house this linked pair\nDay and night are ever at variance and strife.\nThe wife is ever seeking dainties for domestic needs,\nNamely, bread and meat and her own dignity and position.\nLike the wife, the animal soul seeks comfort,\nSometimes carnal, sometimes ambitious;\nReason has no care for these matters,\nIn its mind is naught but regard to Allah.\nThough the secret moral hereof is a bait and snare,\nHear its outward form to the end.\nIf spiritual manifestations had been sufficient,\nThe creation of the world had been needless and vain.\nIf spiritual thought were equivalent to love of God,\nOutward forms of temples and prayers would not exist.\nPresents which friends make one to another\nAre naught but signs and indications,\nTo give outward testimony and witness\nOf the love concealed within the heart.\nBecause outward attentions are evidence\nOf secret love, O beloved!\nThe witness may be true or false,\nNow drunk with real wine, now with sour whey;\nHe who drinks fermented whey displays drunkenness,\nMakes a noise, and reels to and fro.\nThat hypocrite in prayers and fasts\nDisplays exceeding diligence,\nThat men may think him drunk with love of God;\nBut if you look into the truth, he is drowned in hypocrisy.\nIn fine, outward actions are guides\nTo show the way to what is concealed within.\nSometimes the guide is true, sometimes false,\nSometimes a help, and at other times a hindrance.\nO Lord, grant, in answer to my prayers, discernment,\nThat I may know such false signs from the true!\nKnow you how discernment accrues to the sense?\n'Tis when sense \"sees by the light of Allah.\"\nIf effects are obscure, still causes testify;\nKindred, for instance, shows that there is love.\nBut he to whom God's light is the guide\nIs no longer a slave to effects and causes.\nWhen the light of Allah illumes his senses,\nA man is no longer a slave to effects.\nWhen love of God kindles a flame in the inward man,\nHe burns, and is freed from effects.\nHe has no need of signs to assure him of love,\nFor love casts its own light up to heaven.\nOther details are wanting to complete this subject,\nBut take this much, and all hail to you!\nThough reality is exposed to view in this form,\nForm is at once nigh to and far from reality.\nFor instance, these two resemble water and a tree;\nWhen you look to their essence they are far apart;\nYet see how quickly a seed becomes a high tree\nOut of water, along with earth and sunshine!\nIf you turn your eyes to their real essence,\nThese two are far, far apart from each other!\nBut let us quit this talk of essences and properties,\nAnd return to the story of those two wealth-seekers.\nHow God made Adam superior to the Angels\nin wisdom and honour.\nHe said, \"By Allah, who knoweth hidden secrets,\nWho created pure Adam out of dust;\nIn the form, three cubits high, which he gave him,\nHe displayed the contents of all spirits, all decrees!\nCommunicated to him the indelible tablet of existence, 6\nThat he might know all that is written on those tablets,\nA11 that should be first and last to endless eternity\nHe taught him, with the knowledge of his own 'names,' 7\nSo that the angels were beside themselves at his instruction,\nAnd gained more sanctity from his sanctification.\nThe expansion of their minds, which Adam brought about,\nWas a thing unequalled by the expansion of the heavens.\nFor the wide expanse of that pure mind\nThe wide space of the seven heavens was not enough.\"\nThe Prophet said that God has declared,\n\"I am not contained in aught above or below,\nI am not contained in earth or sky, or even\nIn highest heaven. Know this for a surety. O beloved!\nYet am I contained in the believer's heart!\nIf ye seek me, search in such hearts!\"\nHe said also, \"Enter the hearts of my servants 8\nTo gain the paradise of beholding Me, O fearer of God.\"\nHighest heaven, with all its light and wide expanse,\nWhen it beheld Adam, was shaken from its place!\nHighest heaven is greatness itself revealed;\nBut what is form when reality draws nigh?\nEvery angel declared, \"In times of yore\nWe bore friendship to the plains of earth;\nWe were wont to sow the seed of service on the earth,\nWherefore we bore a wondrous attachment to it.\nWhat was this attachment to that house of earth\nWhen our own natures are heavenly?\nWhat was the friendship of lights like us to darkness?\nHow can light dwell together with darkness?\nO Adam! that friendship arose from the scent of thee,\nBecause the earth is the warp and weft of thy body.\nThy earthly body was taken from there,\nThy pure spirit of light was shed down from here!\nBut our souls were enlightened by thy spirit 9\nLong, long before earth had diverted it to itself.\nWe used to be on earth, ignorant of tho earth,\nIgnorant of the treasure buried within it.\nWhen we were commanded to depart from that place,\nWe felt sorrow at turning our steps away from it.\nSo that we raised many questions, saying,\n' O Lord! who will come to take our place?\nWilt Thou barter the glory of our praises and homage\nFor the vain babble (of men)?'\nThe commands of God then diffused joy upon us; He said,\n'What are ye saying at such length?\nWhat ye give tongue to so foolishly\nIs as the words of spoiled children to their father.\nI knew of myself what ye thought,\nBut I desired that ye should speak it;\nAs this boasting of yours is very improper,\nSo shall my mercy be shown to prevail over my wrath:\nO angels, in order to show forth that prevailing,\nI inspired that pretension to cavil and doubt;\nIf you say your say, and I forbear to punish you,\nThe gainsayers of my mercy must hold their peace.\nMy mercy equals that of a hundred fathers and mothers;\nEvery soul that is born is amazed thereat.\nTheir mercy is as the foam of the sea of my mercy;\nIt is mere foam of waves, but the sea abides ever!\nWhat more shall I say? In that earthly shell\nThere is naught but foam of foam of foam of foam!'\"\nGod is that foam; God is also that pure sea,\nFor His words are neither a temptation nor a vain boast.\nPlurality and Partial Evil, though seemingly\nopposed to Unity, subserve Good.\nThe story is now concluded, with its ups and downs,\nLike lovers' musings, without beginning or ending.\nIt has no beginning, even as eternity,\nNor ending, for 'tis akin to world without end.\nOr like water, each drop whereof is at once\nBeginning and end, and also has no beginning or end.\nBut God forbid! This story is not a vain fable,\n'Tis the ready money of your state and mine, be sure!\nBefore every Sufi who is enlightened\nWhatever is past is never mentioned.\nWhen his whole thoughts are absorbed in present ecstasy,\nNo thought of consequences enters his mind. l0\nArab, water-pot, and angels are all ourselves!\n\"Whatsoever turneth from God is turned from Him.\" 11\nKnow the husband is reason, the wife lust and greed;\nShe is vested with darkness and a gainsayer of reason.\nLearn now whence springs the root of this circumstance,\nFrom this, that the Whole has parts of divers kinds.\nThese parts of the Whole are not parts in relation to it,\nNot in the way that rose's scent is a part of the rose.\nThe beauty of the green shoot is part of the rose's beauty,\nBut the turtle-dove's cooing is a part of that Bulbuls music.\nBut if I engage in doubts and answers,\nHow can I give water to thirsty souls?\nYet, if you are perplexed by Whole and finite parts,\nHave patience, for c( patience is the key of joy.\"\nBe abstinent, abstinent from vague thoughts,\nSince there are lions in that desert (of thoughts).\nAbstinence is the prince of medicines,\nAs scratching only aggravates a scab.\nAbstinence is certainly the root of medicine;\nPractise abstinence, see how it invigorates thy soul!\nAccept this counsel and give ear thereto,\nThat it may be to thee as an earring of gold!\nNay, not a mere earring, but that thou mayest be a mine of gold,\nOr that thou mayest surpass moon and Pleiades.\nFirst, know creation is in various forms;\nSouls are as various as the letters from Alif to Ya.\nIn this variety of letters there seems disorder,\nThough in fact they agree in an integral unity.\nIn one aspect they are opposed, in another united;\nIn one aspect capricious, in another serious.\nThe day of judgment is the day of tho great review;\nWhoso is fair and enlightened longs for that review;\nWhoso, like a Hindoo, is black (with sin),\nThe day of review will sound the knell of his disgrace.\nSince he has not a face like a sun,\nHe desires only night like to a veil!\nIf his thorn puts not forth a single rosebud,\nThe spring in disclosing him is his foe.\nBut he who is from head to foot a perfect rose or lily,\nTo him spring brings rejoicing.\nThe useless thorn desires the autumn,\nThat autumn may associate itself with the garden;\nAnd hide the rose's beauty and the thorn's shame,\nThat men may not see the bloom of the one and the other's shame,\nThat common stone and pure ruby may appear all as one.\nTrue, the Gardener knows the difference even in autumn,\nBut the sight of One is better than the world's sight.\nThat One Person is Himself the world, as He is the sun,\nAnd every star in heaven is a part of the sun.\nThat One Person is Himself the world, and the rest\nAre all His dependents and parasites, O man!\nHe is the perfect world, yet He is single;\nHe holds in hand the writing of the whole of existence.\nWherefore all forms and colours of beauty cry out,\n\" Good news! good news! Lo! the spring is at hand!\"\nIf the blossoms did not shine as bright helmets,\nHow could the fruits display their globes?\nWhen the blossoms are shed the fruits come to a head,\nWhen tho body is destroyed the soul lifts up its head.\nThe fruit is the substance, the blossom only its form,\nBlossom the good news, and fruit the promised boon.\nWhen the blossoms fall the fruit appears,\nWhen the former vanish the fruit is tasted.\nTill bread is broken, how can it serve as food?\nTill the grapes are crushed, how can they yield wine?\nTill citrons be pounded up with drugs,\nHow can they afford healing to the sick?\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran iii. 12.\n2. Koran iii. 189.\n3. Muhammad said these words to his wife, Ayisha.\n4. Compare the ancient custom of ringing bells to still thunder.\n5. Koran lxxix. 24. Pharaoh's boast.\n6. The tablet on which God writes His eternal decrees.\n7. Koran ii. 29.\n8. Koran lxxxix. 29.\n9. The Logos, the first of created beings, was afterwards embodied in Adam, the \"Perfect Man,\" or Microcosm.\n10. He is the \"son of the time present and instant,\" as said above.\n11. Koran li. 9.\n\nSTORY X.\nThe Man who was Tattooed.\nIt was the custom of the men of Qazwin to have various devices tattooed upon their bodies. A certain coward went to the artist to have such a device tattooed on his back, and desired that it might be the figure of a lion. But when he felt the pricks of the needles he roared with pain, and said to the artist, \"What part of the lion are you now painting?\" The artist replied, \"I am doing the tail.\" The patient cried, \"Never mind the tail; go on with another part.\" The artist accordingly began in another part, but the patient again cried out and told him to try somewhere else. Wherever the artist applied his needles, the patient raised similar objections, till at last the artist dashed all his needles and pigments on the ground, and refused to proceed any further.\nThe Prophet's counsels to 'Ali to follow the direction of the Pir or Spiritual Guide, and to endure his chastisements patiently.\nThe Prophet said to 'Ali, \"O 'Ali,\nThou art the Lion of God, a hero most valiant;\nYet confide not in thy lion-like valour,\nBut seek refuge under the palm-trees of the 'Truth.'\nWhoso takes obedience as his exemplar\nShares its proximity to the ineffable Presence.\nDo thou seek to draw near to Reason; let not thy heart\nRely, like others, on thy own virtue and piety.\nCome under the shadow of the Man of Reason, l\nThou canst not find it in the road of the traditionists.\nThat man enjoys close proximity to Allah;\nTurn not away from obedience to him in any wise;\nFor he makes the thorn a bed of roses,\nAnd gives sight to the eyes of the blind.\nHis shadow on earth is as that of Mount Qaf,\nHis spirit is as a Simurgh soaring on high.\nHe lends aid to the slaves of the friends of God,\nAnd advances to high place them who seek him.\nWere I to tell his praises till the last day,\nMy words would not be too many nor admit of curtailment,\nHe is the sun of the spirit, not that of the sky,\nFor from his light men and angels draw life.\nThat sun is hidden in the form of a man,\nUnderstand me! Allah knows the truth.\nO 'Ali, out of all forms of religious service\nChoose thou the shadow of that dear friend of God!\nEvery man takes refuge in some form of service,\nAnd chooses for himself some asylum;\nDo thou seek refuge in the shadow of the wise man,\nThat thou mayest escape thy fierce secret foes.\nOf all forms of service this is fittest for thee;\nThou shalt surpass all who were before thee.\nHaving chosen thy Director, be submissive to him,\nEven as Moses submitted to the commands of Khizr; 2\nHave patience with Khizr's actions, O sincere one!\nLest he say, 'There is a partition between us.'\nThough he stave in thy boat, yet hold thy peace;\nThough he slay a young man, heave not a sigh.\nGod declares his hand to be even as God's hand,\nFor He saith, ( The hand of God is over their hands.' 3\nThe hand of God impels him and gives him life;\nNay, not life only, but an eternal soul.\nA friend is needed; travel not the road alone,\nTake not thy own way through this desert!\nWhoso travels this road alone\nOnly does so by aid of the might of holy men.\nThe hand of the Director is not weaker than theirs;\nHis hand is none other than the grasp of Allah!\nIf absent saints can confer such protection,\nDoubtless present saints are more powerful than absent.\nIf such food be bestowed on the absent,\nWhat dainties may not the guest who is present expect?\nThe courtier who attends in the presence of the king\nIs served better than the stranger outside the gate.\nThe difference between them is beyond calculation;\nOne sees the light, the other on]y the veil.\nStrive to obtain entrance within,\nIf thou wouldst not remain as a ring outside the door.\nHaving chosen thy Director, be not weak of heart,\nNor yet sluggish and lax as water and mud;\nBut if thou takest umbrage at every rub,\nHow wilt thou become a polished mirror?\"\n*NOTES:\n1. i.e., the Pir, or Perfect Shaikh, or Spiritual Director. So St. John of the Cross and St. Theresa enjoin obedience to the Director (Vaughan, xii. 122).\n2. See Koran xviii. 77 for the story of Moses and Khizr. It is also given in Parnell's 'Hermit.'\n3. Koran xlviii. 10.\n\nSTORY XI.\nThe Lion who Hunted with the Wolf and the Fox.\nA lion took a wolf and a fox with him on a hunting excursion, and succeeded in catching a wild ox, an ibex, and a hare. He then directed the wolf to divide the prey. The wolf proposed to award the ox to the lion, the ibex to himself, and the hare to the fox. The lion was enraged with the wolf because he had presumed to talk of \"I\" and \"Thou,\" and \"My share\" and \"Thy share\" when it all belonged of right to the lion, and he slew the wolf with one blow of his paw. Then, turning to the fox, he ordered him to make the division. The fox, rendered wary by the fate of the wolf, replied that the whole should be the portion of the lion. The lion, pleased with his self-abnegation, gave it all up to him, saying, \"Thou art no longer a fox, but myself.\"\nTill man destroys \"self\" he is no true friend of God.\nOnce a man came and knocked at the door of his friend.\nHis friend said, \"who art thou. O faithful one?\"\nHe said, \"'Tis I.\" He answered, \"There is no admittance.\nThere is no room for the 'raw' at my well-cooked feast.\nNaught but fire of separation and absence\nCan cook the raw one and free him from hypocrisy!\nSince thy 'self' has not yet left thee,\nThou must be burned in fiery flames.\"\nThe poor man went away, and for one whole year\nJourneyed burning with grief for his friend's absence.\nHis heart burned till it was cooked; then he went again\nAnd drew near to the house of his friend.\nHe knocked at the door in fear and trepidation\nLest some careless word might fall from his lips.\nHis friend shouted, \"Who is that at the door?\"\nHe answered, \"'Tis Thou who art at the door. O Beloved!\"\nThe friend said, \"Since 'tis I, let me come in,\nThere is not room for two 'I's' in one house.\"\n\nSTORY XII.\nJoseph a‚Žd the Mirror.\nAn old friend came to pay his respects to Joseph, and, after some remarks upon the bad behaviour of his brethren, Joseph asked him what present he had brought to show his respect. The friend replied that he had long considered what gift would be most suitable to offer, and at last had fixed upon a mirror, which he accordingly produced from his pocket and presented to Joseph, at the same time begging him to admire his own beauteous face in it.\nDefect and Not-being the Mirror wherein\nAbsolute Perfect Being is reflected 1.\nHe drew forth a mirror from his side\nA mirror is what Beauty busies itself with.\nSince Not-being is tho mirror of Being,\nIf you are wise, choose Not-being (self-abnegation).\nBeing may be displayed in that Not-being,\nWealthy men show their liberality on the poor.\nHe who is an hungered is the clear mirror of bread,\nThe tinder is the mirror of the flint and steel.\nNot-being and Defect, wherever they occur,\nAre the mirrors of the Beauty of all beings.\nBecause Not-being is a clear filtered essence,\nWherein all these beings are infused.\nWhen a garment is made by a good tailor,\n'Tis an evidence of the tailor's art.\nLogs of wood would not be duly shaped\nDid not the carpenter plan outline and detail.\nThe leech skilled in setting bones goes\nWhere lies the patient with a broken leg.\nIf there were no sick and infirm,\nHow could the excellence of the leech's art be seen?\nIf vile base copper were not mingled,\nHow could the alchemist show his skill?\nDefects are the mirrors of the attributes of Beauty,\nThe base is the mirror of the High and Glorious One,\nBecause one contrary shows forth its contrary, 2\nAs honey's sweetness is shown by vinegar's sourness.\nWhoso recognizes and confesses his own defects\nIs hastening in the way that leads to perfection!\nBut he advances not towards the Almighty\nWho fancies himself to be perfect.\nNo sickness worse than fancying thyself perfect\nCan infect thy soul, O arrogant misguided one!\nShed many tears of blood from eyes and heart,\nThat this self-satisfaction may be driven out.\nThe fault of Iblis lay in saying, \"I am better than he,\" 3\nAnd this same weakness lurks in the soul of all creatures.\n*NOTES:\n1. Compare the parallel passage in Gulshan i Raz, 1. 135, and the notes thereon.\n2. Cp. \"Religio Medici,\" Sect. 35: \"Herein is divinity conformant unto philosophy, and not only generation founded on contrarieties, but also creation. God, being all things, is contrary unto nothing; out of which were made all things, and so nothing became something, and Omneity informed nullity into existence.\"\n3. Koran vii. II.\n\nSTORY XIII.\nThe Prophet's Scribe.\nThe Prophet had a scribe who used to write down the texts that fell from his lips. At last this scribe became so conceited that he imagined all this heavenly wisdom proceeded from his own wit, and not from the Prophet. Puffed up with self-importance, he fancied himself inspired, and his heart was hardened against his master, and he became a renegade, like the fallen angels Harut and Marut. He took his own foolish surmises to be the truth, whereas they were all wide of the mark, as those of the deaf man who went to condole with a sick neighbour and answered all his remarks at cross purposes.\nHow philosophers deceive themselves.\nOn the last day, 1 \"when Earth shall quake with quaking,\"\nThis earth shall give witness of her condition.\nFor she \"shall tell out her tidings openly,\"\nYea, earth and her rocks shall tell them forth!\nThe philosopher reasons from base analogies\n(True reason comes not out of a dark corner) ;\nThe philosopher (I say) denies this in his pride of intellect.\nSay to him, \"Go, dash thy head against a wall!\"\nThe speech of water, of earth, of mire,\nIs audible by the ears of men of heart!\nTho philosopher, who denies Divine Providence,\nIs a stranger to the perceptions of saints.\nHe says that the flashes of men's morbid imaginations\nInstil many vain fancies into men's minds.\nBut, on the contrary, 'tis his perverseness and want of faith\nWhich implant in himself this vain fancy of negation.\nThe philosopher denies the existence of the Devil;\nAt the same time he is the Devil's laughing-stock.\nIf thou hast not seen the Devil, look at thyself,\nWithout demon's aid how came that blue turban 2 on thy brow?\nWhosoever has a doubt or disquietude in his heart\nIs a secret denier and philosopher.\nNow and then he displays firm belief,\nBut that slight dash of philosophy blackens his face.\nBeware, O believers! That lurks in you too;\nYou may develop innumerable states of mind.\nAll the seventy and two heresies lurk in you;\nHave a care lest one day they prevail over you!\nHe in whose breast the leaf of true faith is grown\nMust tremble as a leaf from fear of such a catastrophe.\nThou makest a mock of Iblis and the Devil,\nBecause thou art a fine man in thy own sight;\nBut when thy soul shall tell thy wretched faults,\nWhat lamentation thou wilt cause to the faithful!\nThe sellers of base gold sit smiling in their shops,\nBecause the touchstone is not as yet in their sight.\nO Veiler of sins! strip not the veil from us;\nLend us aid on the day of trial!\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran xcix. 1-4.\n2. Blue turbans were considered a sign of hypocrisy (Hafiz, Ode 5).\n\nSTORY XIV.\nThe Chinese and the Greek Artists.\nThe Chinese and the Greeks disputed before the Sultan which of them were the better painters; and, in order to settle the dispute, the Sultan allotted to each a house to be painted by them. The Chinese procured all kinds of paints, and coloured their house in the most elaborate way. The Greeks, on the other hand, used no colours at all, but contented themselves with cleansing the walls of their house from all filth, and burnishing them till they were as clear and bright as the heavens. When the two houses were offered to tho Sultan's inspection, that painted by tho Chinese was much admired; but the Greek house carried off the palm, as all the colours of the other house were reflected on its walls with an endless variety of shades and hues.\nKnowledge of the heart preferable\nto the knowledge of the schools.\nThe knowledge of men of heart bears them up,\nThe knowledge of men of the body weighs them down.\nWhen 'tis knowledge of the heart, it is a friend;\nWhen knowledge of the body, it is a burden.\nGod saith, \"As an ass bearing a load of books,\" 1\nThe knowledge which is not of Him is a burden.\nKnowledge which comes not immediately from Him\nEndures no longer than the rouge of the tirewoman.\nNevertheless, if you bear this burden in a right spirit\n'Twill be removed, and you will obtain joy.\nSee you bear not that burden out of vainglory,\nThen you will behold a store of true knowledge within.\nWhen you mount the steed of this true knowledge,\nStraightway the burden will fall from your back.\nIf you drink not His cup, how will you escape lusts?\nYou, who seek no more of Him than to name His name?\nWhat do His name and fame suggest? The idea of Him.\nAnd the idea of Him guides you to union with Him.\nKnow you a guide without something to which it guides?\nWere there no roads there would be no ghouls.\nKnow you a name without a thing answering to it?\nHave you ever plucked a rose (Gul) from Gaf and Lam?\nYou name His name; go, seek the reality named by it!\nLook for the moon in heaven, not in the water!\nIf you desire to rise above mere names and letters,\nMake yourself free from self at one stroke!\nLike a sword be without trace of soft iron;\nLike a steel mirror, scour off all rust with contrition;\nMake yourself pure from all attributes of self,\nThat you may see your own pure bright essence!\nYea, see in your heart the knowledge of the Prophet,\nWithout book, without tutor, without preceptor.\nThe Prophet saith, \"He is one of my people,\nWhoso is of like temper and spirit with me.\nHis soul beholds me by the selfsame light\nWhereby I myself behold him,\nWithout traditions and scriptures and histories,\nIn the fount of the water of life.\"\nLearn the mystery, \"I was last night a Kurd,\nAnd this morning am become an Arab.\" 2\nThis mystery of \"last night\" and \"this morning\"\nLeads you into the road that brings you to God.\nBut if you want an instance of this secret knowledge,\nHear the story of the Greeks and the Chinese.\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran lxii. 5.\n2. Syad Abu'l Wafa, an unlettered Kurd, found a paper with the words Bismillah upon it, and, after spending the night in prayer, found himself able to understand Arabic (Luck-now Commentator).\n\nSTORY XV.\nCounsels of Reserve given by the Prophet to his Freedman Zaid.\nAt dawn the Prophet said to Zaid,\n\"How is it with thee this morning, O pure disciple?\"\nHe replied, \"Thy faithful slave am I.\" Again he said,\n\"If the garden of faith has bloomed, show a token of it.\"\nHe answered, \"I was athirst many days,\nBy night I slept not for the burning pangs of love;\nSo that I passed by days and nights,\nAs the point of a spear glances off a shield.\nFor in that state all faith is one,\nA hundred thousand years and a moment are all one;\nWorld without beginning and world without end are one;\nReason finds no entrance when mind is thus lost.\"\nThe Prophet again urged Zaid to deliver to him a present from that celestial region, as a token that he had really been there in the spirit. Zaid answered that he had seen the eight heavens and the seven hells, and the destinies of all men, whether bound to heaven or hell. The body, he said, is as a mother, and the soul as her infant, and death is the time of parturition, when it becomes manifest to what class the infant soul belongs. As, on the day of judgment it will be manifest to all men whether a soul belongs to the saved or to the lost, so now it was plain and manifest to him. He went on to ask the Prophet if he should publish this secret knowledge of his to all men, or hold his peace. The Prophet told him to hold his peace. Zaid, however, proceeded to detail the vision of the last judgment, which he had seen when in the spirit; and the Prophet again commanded him to pause, adding that\" God is never ashamed to say the truth,\" l and allows His Prophet to speak forth the truth, but that for Zaid to blab forth the secrets seen in ecstatic vision would be wrong. Zaid replied that it was impossible for one who had once beheld the Sun of \"The Truth\" to keep his vision a secret. But the Prophet in reply instructed him that all men are masters of their own wills, and that he must not reveal what God has determined to keep secret till the last day, in order to leave men till then under the stimulus of hope and fear, and to give them the credit of \"believing what is not seen.\" 2 More honour is given to the warder of a castle who faithfully executes his trust at a distance from the court than to those courtiers who serve constantly under the king's own eye. Zaid submitted to tho Prophet's injunctions, and remained self-contained in his ecstatic visions. Anecdotes of the sage Luqman, of King Solomon, and of a conflagration in the days of the Khalifa 'Omar complete the section.\nThe Prophet's final counsels of \"Reserve\".\nThe Prophet said, \"My companions are as the stars,\nLights to them that walk aright, missiles against Satan.\nIf every man had strength of eyesight\nTo look straight at the light of the sun in heaven,\nWhat need were there of stars, O humble one,\nTo one who was guided by the light of the sun?\nNeither moon nor planets would be needed\nBy one who saw directly the Sun of 'The Truth.'\nThe Moon 3 declares, as also the clouds and shadows,\n' I am a man, yet it hath been revealed to me.' 4\nLike you, I was naturally dark,\n'Twas the Sun's revelation that gave me such light.\nI still am dark compared to the Sun,\nThough I am light compared to the dark souls of men.\nTherefore is my light weak, that you may bear it,\nFor you are not strong enough to bear the dazzling Sun.\nI have, as it were, mixed honey with vinegar,\nTo succour the sickness of your hearts.\nWhen you are cured of your sickness, O invalid,\nThen leave out the vinegar and eat pure honey.\nWhen the heart is garnished and swept clear of lust,\nTherein 'The God of Mercy sitteth on His throne.' 5\nThen God rules the heart immediately,\nWhen it has gained this immediate connection with Him.\nThis subject is endless; but where is Zaid,\nThat I may tell him again not to seek notoriety?\n'Tis not wise to publish these mysteries,\nSince the last day is approaching to reveal all things.\"\nNow you will not find Zaid, for he is fled,\nHe sprang from the place where the shoes were left, 6\nScattering the shoes in his hurry.\nIf you had been Zaid, you too would have been lost,\nAs a star is lost when tho sun shines on it;\nFor then you see no trace or sign of it,\nNo place or track of it in tho milky way.\nOur senses and our endless discourses\nAre annihilated in the light of the knowledge of our King.\nOur senses and our reason within us\nAre as waves on waves \"assembled before us.\" 7\nWhen night returns and 'tis the time of the sky's levee,\nThe stars that were hidden come forth to their work.\nThe people of the world lie unconscious,\nWith veils drawn over their faces, and asleep;\nBut when the morn shall burst forth and the sun arise\nEvery creature will raise its head from its couch;\nTo the unconscious God will restore consciousness;\nThey will stand in rings as slaves with rings in ears;\nDancing and clapping hands with songs of praise,\nSinging with joy, \"Our Lord hath restored us to life!\"\nShedding their old skins and bones,\nAs horsemen stirring up a cloud of dust.\nAll pressing on from Not-being to Being,\nOn the last day, as well the thankful as the unthankful.\n*NOTES:\n1. Koran xxxiii. 53.\n2. Koran ii. 2.\n3. i.e., the Prophet.\n4. Koran xviii. 110.\n5. Koran xx. 4.\n6. i.e., the vestibule of the house.\n7. Koran xxxvi. 53.\n\nSTORY XVI.\n'Ali's Forbearance.\n'Ali, the \"Lion of God,\" was once engaged in conflict with a Magian chief, and in the midst of the struggle the Magian spat in his face. 'Ali, instead of taking vengeance on him, at once dropped his sword, to the Magian's great astonishment. On his inquiring the reason of such forbearance, 'Ali informed him that the \"Lion of God\" did not destroy life for the satisfaction of his own vengeance, but simply to carry out God's will, and that whenever he saw just cause, he held his hand even in the midst of the strife, and spared the foe. The Prophet, 'Ali continued, had long since informed him that he would die by the hand of his own stirrup-bearer (Ibn Maljun), and the stirrup-bearer had frequently implored 'Ali to kill him, and thus save him from the commission of that great crime; but 'Ali said he always refused to do so, as to him death was as sweet as life, and he felt no anger against his destined assassin, who was only the instrument of God's eternal purpose. The Magian chief, on hearing 'Ali's discourse, was so much affected that he embraced Islam, together with all his family, to the number of fifty souls.\nHow the Prophet whispered to 'Ali's stirrup-bearer\nthat he would one day assassinate his master.\n\"The Prophet whispered in the ear of my servant\nThat one day he would sever my head from my neck.\nThe Prophet also warned by inspiration me, his friend,\nThat the hand of my servant would destroy me.\nMy servant cried, \"O kill me first,\nThat I may not become guilty of so grievous a sin!\"\nI replied, \"Since my death is to come from thee,\nHow can I balk the fateful decree?\"\nHe fell at my feet and cried, \"O gracious lord,\nFor God's sake cleave now my body in twain,\nThat such an evil deed may not be wrought by me,\nAnd my soul burn with anguish for its beloved.\"\nI replied, \"What God's pen has written, it has written;\nIn presence of its writings knowledge is confounded;\nThere is no anger in my soul against thee,\nBecause I attribute not this deed to thee;\nThou art God's instrument. God's hand is the agent.\nHow can I chide or fret at God's instrument?\"\nHe said, \"If this be so, why is there retaliation?\" 1\nI answered, \"'Tis from God, and 'tis God's secret;\nIf He shows displeasure at His own acts,\nFrom His displeasure He evolves a Paradise;\nHe feels displeasure at His own acts,\nBecause He is a God of vengeance as of mercy.\nIn this city of events He is the Lord,\nIn this realm He is the King who plans all events.\nIf He crushes His own instruments,\nHe makes those crushed ones fair in His sight.\nKnow the great mystery of 'whatever verses we cancel,\nOr cause you to forget, we substitute better for them.' 2\nWhatever law God cancels, He makes as a weed,\nAnd in its stead He brings forth a rose.\nSo night cancels the business of the daytime,\nWhen the reason that lights our minds becomes inanimate.\nAgain, night is cancelled by the light of day,\nAnd inanimate reason is rekindled to life by its rays.\nThough darkness produces this sleep and quiet,\nIs not the 'water of life' in the darkness? 3\nAre not spirits refreshed in that very darkness?\nIs not that silence the season of heavenly voices?\nFor from contraries contraries are brought forth,\nOut of darkness was created light.\nThe Prophet's wars brought about the present peace,\nThe peace of these latter days resulted from those wars.\nThat conqueror of hearts cut off a thousand heads,\nThat the heads of his people might rest in peace.\"\nGod's rebuke to Adam for scorning Iblis.\nTo whomsoever God's order comes,\nHe must smite with his sword even his own child.\nFear then, and revile not the wicked,\nFor the wicked are impotent under God's commands.\nIn presence of God's commands bow down the neck of pride.\nScoff not nor chide even them that go astray!\nOne day Adam cast a look of contempt and scorn\nUpon Iblis, thinking what a wretch he was.\nHe felt self-important and proud of himself,\nAnd he smiled at the actions of cursed Iblis.\nGod Almighty cried out to him, \"O pure one,\nThou art wholly ignorant of hidden mysteries.\nIf I were to blab the faults of the unfortunate,\nI should root up the mountains from their bases,\nAnd lay bare the secrets of a hundred Adams,\nAnd convert a hundred fresh Iblises into Mosalmans.\"\nAdam answered, \"I repent me of my scornful looks;\nSuch arrogant thoughts shall not be mine again.\nO Lord, pardon this rashness in Thy slave;\nI repent; chastise me not for these words!\"\nO Aider of aid-seekers, guide us,\nFor there is no security in knowledge or wealth;\n\"Lead not our hearts astray after Thou hast guided us,\" 4\nAnd avert the evil that the \"Pen\" has written.\nTurn aside from our souls the evil written in our fates,\nRepel us not from the tables of purity!\nO God, Thy grace is the proper object of our desire;\nTo couple others with Thee is not proper.\nNothing is bitterer than severance from Thee,\nWithout Thy shelter there is naught but perplexity.\nOur worldly goods rob us of our heavenly goods,\nOur body rends the garment of our soul.\nOur hands, as it were, prey on our feet;\nWithout reliance on Thee how can we live?\nAnd if the soul escapes these great perils,\nIt is made captive as a victim of misfortunes and fears,\nInasmuch as when the soul lacks union with the Beloved,\nIt abides forever blind and darkened by itself.\nIf Thou showest not the way, our life is lost;\nA life living without Thee esteem as dead!\nIf Thou findest fault with Thy slaves,\nVerily it is right in Thee, O Blessed One!\nIf Thou shouldst call sun and moon obscure,\nIf Thou shouldst call the straight cypress crooked,\nIf Thou shouldst declare the highest heaven base,\nOr rich mines and oceans paupers,\nAll this is the truth in relation to Thy perfection!\nThine is the dominion and the glory and the wealth!\nFor Thou art exempt from defect and not-being,\nThou givest existence to things non-existent, and again\nThou makest them non-existent.\n*NOTES:\n1. i,e., why is the rule \"an eye for an eye\" enjoined in the Koran, ii. 173?\n2. Koran ii, 100.\n3. Alluding to the \"water of life\" in the land of darkness discovered by Khizr.\n4. Koran iii. 6.\n\nEpilogue to Book I.\nAlas! the forbidden fruits were eaten,\nAnd thereby the warm life of reason was congealed.\nA grain of wheat eclipsed the sun Of Adam, l\nLike as the Dragon's tail 2 dulls the brightness of the moon.\nBehold how delicate is the heart, that a morsel of dust\nClouded its moon with foul obscurity!\nWhen bread is \"substance,\" to eat it nourishes us;\nWhen 'tis empty \"form,\" it profits nothing.\nLike as the green thorn which is cropped by the camel,\nAnd then yields him pleasure and nutriment;\nWhen its greenness has gone and it becomes dry,\nIf the camel crops that same thorn in the desert,\nIt wounds his palate and mouth without pity,\nAs if conserve of roses should turn to sharp swords.\nWhen bread is \"substance,\" it is as a green thorn;\nWhen 'tis \"form,\" 'tis as the dry and coarse thorn.\nAnd thou eatest it in the same way as of yore\nThou wert wont to eat it, O helpless being,\nEatest this dry thing in the same manner,\nAfter the real \"substance\" is mingled with dust;\nIt has become mingled with dust, dry in pith and rind.\nO camel, now beware of that herb!\nThe Word is become foul with mingled earth;\nThe water is become muddy; close the mouth of the well,\nTill God makes it again pure and sweet;\nYea, till He purifies what He has made foul.\nPatience will accomplish thy desire, not haste.\nBe patient, God knows what is best.\n*NOTES:\n1. Muhammadans think the forbidden fruit to have been wheat.\n2. The descending node of the moon (see Gulshan i Raz, I. 233).",
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