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6
124-148

  • (Yet) all these (evil) qualities of theirs may become good: evil does not remain when it turns to seeking good.
  • If egoism is foul-smelling like semen, (yet) when it attains unto the spirit (spirituality) it gains light. 125
  • Every mineral that sets its face towards (aspires to evolve into) the plant (the vegetative state)—life grows from the tree of its fortune.
  • Every plant that turns its face towards the (animal) spirit drinks, like Khizr, from the Fountain of Life.
  • Once more, when the (animal) spirit sets its face towards the (Divine) Beloved, it lays down its baggage (and passes) into the life without end.
  • How an inquirer asked (a preacher) about a bird that was supposed to have settled on the wall of a city—“Is its head more excellent and estimable and noble and honourable or its tail?”—and how the preacher gave him a reply suited to the measure of his understanding.
  • One day an inquirer said to a preacher, “O thou who art the pulpit's most eminent expounder,
  • I have a question to ask. Answer my question in this assembly-place, O possessor of the marrow (of wisdom). 130
  • A bird has settled on the city-wall: which is better—its head or its tail?”
  • He replied, “If its face is to the town and its tail to the country, know that its face is better than its tail;
  • But if its tail is towards the town and its face to the country, be the dust on that tail and spring away from its face.”
  • A bird flies to its nest by means of wings: the wings of Man are aspiration, O people.
  • (In the case of) the lover who is soiled with good and evil, do not regard the good and evil; (only) regard the aspiration. 135
  • If a falcon be white and beyond compare, (yet) it becomes despicable when it hunts a mouse;
  • And if there be an owl that has desire for the king, it is (noble as) the falcon's head: do not regard the hood.
  • Man, no bigger than a kneading-trough (scooped in a log), has surpassed (in glory) the heavens and the aether (the empyrean).
  • Did this heaven ever hear (the words) We have honoured which this sorrowful Man heard (from God)?
  • Did any one offer to earth and sky (his) beauty and reason and eloquence and fond affection? 140
  • Didst thou ever display to heaven thy beauty of countenance and thy sureness of judgement in (matters of) opinion?
  • Didst thou ever, O son, offer thy silvery limbs to the pictured forms in the bath-house?
  • (No); thou leavest those houri-like figures and displayest thyself to a half-blind old woman.
  • What is there in the old woman that was not in them, so that she rapt thee away from those figures (and attracted thee) to herself?
  • (If) thou wilt not say (what it is), I will tell (thee) plainly: ’tis reason and sense and perception and consideration and soul. 145
  • In the old woman there is a soul that mingles (with the body): the pictured forms in the hot-baths have no (rational) spirit.
  • If the pictured form in the hot-bath should move, it would at once separate thee from the old woman.
  • What is soul? (Soul is) conscious of good and evil, rejoicing on account of kindness, weeping on account of injury.