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5
767-791

  • The cawing and noisy cry of the black crow is ever asking for (long) life in this world.
  • Like Iblís, it (the crow) besought the holy and incomparable God for bodily life till the Resurrection.
  • He (Iblís) said, “Grant me a respite till the Day of Retribution.” Would that he had said, “We repent, O our Lord.”
  • Life without repentance is all agony of spirit: to be absent from God is present (instant) death. 770
  • Life and death—both these are sweet with (the presence of) God: without God the Water of Life is fire.
  • Moreover, ’twas from the effect of the (Divine) curse that in such a Presence he was requesting (long) life.
  • To crave of God aught other than God is (merely) the supposition of gain, and (in reality) it is entire loss;
  • Especially (to desire) a life sunk in estrangement (from God) is to behave like a fox in the presence of the lion,
  • (Saying), “Give me longer life that I may go farther back; grant me more time that I may become less.” 775
  • (The result is) that he (such an one) is a mark for the (Divine) curse: evil is that one who seeks to be accursed.
  • The goodly life is to nourish the spirit in nearness (to God); the crow's life is for the sake of eating dung.
  • (The crow says), “Give me more life that I may be ever eating dung: give me this always, for I am very evil-natured.”
  • Were it not that that foul-mouthed one is a dung-eater, he would say, “Deliver me from the nature of the crow!”
  • Prayer.
  • O Thou who hast transmuted one clod of earth into gold, and another clod into the Father of mankind, 780
  • Thy work is the transmutation of essences and (the showing of) munificence; my work is mistake and forgetfulness and error.
  • Transmute mistake and forgetfulness into knowledge: I am all choler, make me patience and forbearance.
  • O Thou who makest nitrous earth to be bread, and O Thou who makest dead bread to be life,
  • O Thou who makest the distracted soul to be a Guide, and O Thou who makest the wayless wanderer to be a Prophet,
  • Thou makest a piece of earth to be heaven, Thou givest increase in the earth from the stars. 785
  • Whosoever makes the Water of Life to consist of (the pleasures of) this world, death comes to him sooner than to the others.
  • The eye of the heart (the inward eye) that contemplated the (spiritual) firmament perceived that here (in the sensible world) is a continual alchemy.
  • The harmonious cohesion of the patched garment, (which is) the body, without being stitched (together), is (owing to) the transmutation of essences and (to) an all-embracing elixir.
  • From the day when thou camest into existence, thou wert fire or air or earth.
  • If thou hadst remained in that condition, how should this (present) height have been reached by thee? 790
  • The Transmuter did not leave thee in thy first (state of) existence: He established a better (state of) existence in the place of that (former one);