عقل بفروش و هنر حیرت بخر ** رو به خواری نه بخارا ای پسر
Sell intellect and talent and buy bewilderment (in God): betake thyself to lowliness, O son, not to Bukhárá!
ما چه خود را در سخن آغشته‌ایم ** کز حکایت ما حکایت گشته‌ایم
Why have I steeped myself in the discourse, so that from story-telling I have become a story?
من عدم و افسانه گردم در حنین ** تا تقلب یابم اندر ساجدین
I become naught and (unsubstantial as) a fable in making moan (to God), in order that I may gain influence over (the hearts of) them that prostrate themselves in prayer.
این حکایت نیست پیش مرد کار ** وصف حالست و حضور یار غار
This (story of Moses and Pharaoh) is not a story in the eyes of the man of experience: it is a description of an actual (spiritual) state, and it is (equivalent to) the presence of the Friend of the Cave.
آن اساطیر اولین که گفت عاق ** حرف قرآن را بد آثار نفاق1150
That (phrase) “stories of the ancients,” which the disobedient (infidels) applied to the words of the Qur’án, was a mark of (their) hypocrisy.
لامکانی که درو نور خداست ** ماضی و مستقبل و حال از کجاست
The man transcending space, in whom is the Light of God— whence (what concern of his) is the past, the future, or the present?
ماضی و مستقبلش نسبت به تست ** هر دو یک چیزند پنداری که دوست
His being past or future is (only) in relation to thee: both are one thing, and thou thinkest they are two.
یک تنی او را پدر ما را پسر ** بام زیر زید و بر عمرو آن زبر
One individual is to him father and to us son: the roof is below Zayd and above ‘Amr.
نسبت زیر و زبر شد زان دو کس ** سقف سوی خویش یک چیزست بس
The relation of “below” and “above” arises from those two persons: as regards itself, the roof is one thing only.
نیست مثل آن مثالست این سخن ** قاصر از معنی نو حرف کهن1155
These expressions are not (exactly) similar to that (doctrine of spiritual timelessness): they are a comparison: the old words fall short of the new meaning.