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1
1865-1914

  • Since it does not endure (perceptibly), it endures imperceptibly: recognise every opposite by means of its opposite. 1865

  • When the effect of sugar endures (remains latent), after a while it produces boils that call for the lancet.

  • The fleshly soul was made a Pharaoh by (receiving) many praises: be lowly of spirit through meekness, do not domineer.

  • So far as you can, become a slave, do not be a monarch. Suffer blows: become like the ball, do not be the bat.

  • Otherwise, when this elegance and beauty remains with you no more, you will be loathed by those companions.

  • The set of people who used to flatter you deceitfully, when they behold you will call you a devil. 1870

  • When they see you at their doors, they all will cry, “Truly a dead man has risen from the grave.”

  • (You will be) like the beardless youth whom they address as “Lord” that by this hypocrisy they may make entrap him.

  • As soon as he has grown a beard in infamy, the Devil is ashamed to search after him.

  • The Devil approaches Man for the sake of wickedness: he does not approach you because you are worse than the Devil.

  • So long as you were a man the Devil was running at your heels and bidding you taste (his) wine. 1875

  • Since you have become confirmed in devilry, the good-for-nothing Devil is fleeing from you!

  • He who (formerly) clung to your skirt fled from you when you became like this.

  • Explanation of (the Tradition) “Whatsoever God wills cometh to pass.”

  • We have spoken all these words, but in preparing ourselves (for the journey before us) we are naught, naught without the favours of God.

  • Without the favours of God and God's elect ones, angel though he be, his page is black.

  • O God, O Thou whose bounty fulfils (every) need, it is not allowable to mention any one beside Thee. 1880

  • This amount of guidance Thou hast bestowed (upon us); till this (present time) Thou hast covered up many a fault of ours.

  • Cause the drop of knowledge which Thou gavest (us) heretofore to become united with Thy seas.

  • In my soul there is a drop of knowledge: deliver it from sensuality and from the body's clay,

  • Before these clays drink it up, before these winds absorb it,

  • Although, when they absorb it, Thou art able to take it back from them and redeem it. 1885

  • The drop that vanished in the air or was spilled (on the earth)—when did it flee (escape) from the storehouse of Thy omnipotence?

  • If it enter into non-existence or a hundred non-existences, it will make a foot of its head (will return in headlong haste) when Thou callest it.

  • Hundreds of thousands of opposites are killing their opposites: Thy decree is drawing them forth again (from non-existence).

  • There is caravan on caravan, O Lord, (speeding) continually from non-existence towards existence.

  • In particular, every night all thoughts and understandings become naught, plunged in the deep Sea; 1890

  • Again at the time of dawn those Divine ones lift up their heads from the Sea, like fishes.

  • In autumn the myriads of boughs and leaves go in rout into the sea of Death,

  • (While) in the garden the crow clothed in black like a mourner makes lament over the (withered) greenery.

  • Again from the Lord of the land comes the edict (saying) to Non-existence, “Give back what thou hast devoured!

  • Give up, O black Death, what thou hast devoured of plants and healing herbs and leaves and grass!” 1895

  • O brother, collect thy wits for an instant (and think): from moment to moment (incessantly) there is autumn and spring within thee.

  • Behold the garden of the heart, green and moist and fresh, full f buds and roses and ctpresses and jasmines;

  • Boughs hidden by the multitude of leaves, vast plain and high palace hidden by the multitude of flowers.

  • These words, which are from Universal Reason, are the scent of those flowers and cypresses and hyacinths.

  • Didst thou (ever) smell the scent of a rose where no rose was? Didst thou (ever) see the foaming of wine where no wine was? 1900

  • The scent is thy guide and conducts thee on thy way: it will bring thee to Eden and Kawthar.

  • The scent is a remedy for the (sightless) eye; (it is) light-making: the eye of Jacob was opened by a scent.

  • The foul scent darkens the eye, the scent of Joseph succours the eye.

  • Thou who art not a Joseph, be a Jacob: be (familiar), like him, with weeping and sore distress.

  • Hearken to this counsel from the Sage of Ghazna, that thou mayst feel freshness in thy old body: 1905

  • “Disdain needs a face like the rose; when thou hast not (such a face), do not indulge in ill-temper.

  • Ugly is disdain in an uncomely face, grievous is eye-ache in an unseeing eye.”

  • In the presence of Joseph do not give thyself airs and behave like a beauty: offer nothing but the supplication and sighs of Jacob.

  • The meaning of dying (as conveyed) by the parrot was supplication (self-abasement): make thyself dead in supplication and poverty (of spirit),

  • That the breath of Jesus may revive thee and make thee fair and blessed as itself. 1910

  • How should a rock be covered with verdure by the Spring? Become earth, that thou mayst display flowers of many a hue.

  • Years hast thou been a heart-jagging rock: once, for the sake of experiment, be earth!

  • The story of the old harper who in the time of ‘Umar, may God be well-pleased with him, on a day when he was starving played the harp for God's sake in the graveyard.

  • Hast thou heard that in the time of ‘Umar there was a harper, a fine and glorious minstrel?

  • The nightingale would be made beside herself by his voice: by his beautiful voice one rapture would be turned into a hundred.