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1
567-591

  • The ear of the head is the cotton-wool of the ear of the conscience: until the former becomes deaf, that inward (ear) is deaf.
  • Become without sense and without ear and without thought, that ye may hear the call (of God to the soul), ‘Return!’”
  • So long as thou art (engaged) in the conversation of wakefulness, how wilt thou catch any scent of the conversation of sleep?
  • Our speech and action is the exterior journey: the interior journey is above the sky. 570
  • The (physical) sense saw (only) dryness, because it was born of dryness (earth): the Jesus of the spirit set foot on the sea.
  • The journey of the dry body befell on dry land, (but) the journey of the spirit set foot (took place) in the heart of the sea.
  • Since thy life has passed in travelling on land, now mountain, now river, now desert,
  • Whence wilt thou gain the Water of Life? Where wilt thou cleave the waves of the Sea?
  • The waves of earth are our imagination and understanding and thought; the waves of water are (mystical) self-effacement and intoxication and death (faná). 575
  • Whilst thou art in this (sensual) intoxication, thou art far from that (mystical) intoxication; whilst thou art drunken with this, thou art blind to that cup.
  • Outward speech and talk is as dust: do thou for a time make a habit of silence. Take heed!
  • How the disciples repeated their request that he should interrupt his seclusion.
  • They all said: “O sage who seekest a crevice (means of evasion), say not to us this (word of) guile and harshness.
  • Lay on the beast a burden in proportion to its endurance, lay on the weak a task in proportion to their strength.
  • The bait for every bird is according to its (the bird's) measure (capacity): how should a fig be the food (lure) for every bird? 580
  • If you give a babe bread instead of milk, take it (for granted) that the poor babe will die of the bread;
  • (Yet) afterwards, when it grows teeth, that babe will of its own accord its heart will crave bread.
  • When an unfledged bird begins to fly, it becomes a mouthful for any rapacious cat;
  • (But) when it grows wings, it will fly of itself without trouble and without whistling (prompting), good or bad.
  • Thy speech makes the Devil silent, thy words make our ears (full of) intelligence. 585
  • Our ears are (full of) intelligence when thou art speaking; our dry land is a river when thou art the ocean.
  • With thee, earth is better to us than heaven, O thou by whom (the world from) Arcturus to the Fish is illumined!
  • Without thee, darkness is over heaven for us, (but) compared with thee, O Moon, who is this heaven at all?
  • The heavens have the form of sublimity, (but) the essence of sublimity belongs to the pure spirit.
  • The form of sublimity is for bodies; beside the essence (reality) bodies are (mere) names.” 590
  • The refusal of the vizier to interrupt his seclusion.
  • He said: “Cut short your arguments, let my advice make its way into your souls and hearts.