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1
559-608

  • Thou art making a pretence while we in grief are heaving cold (fruitless) sighs from the burning heat of our hearts.
  • We have become accustomed to thy sweet discourse, we have drunk of the milk of thy wisdom. 560
  • Allah! Allah! do not thou (O vizier) treat us with such cruelty: show kindness to-day, do not (put off till) to-morrow.
  • Does thy heart give to thee (consent) that these who have lost their hearts (to thee) should at last, being without thee, become (numbered) amongst them that have nothing left?
  • They all are writhing like fishes on dry land: let loose the water, remove the dam from the stream.
  • O thou like whom there is none in the world, for God's sake, for God's sake, come to the aid of thy people!”
  • How the vizier refused the request of the disciples.
  • He said: “Beware, O ye enslaved by words and talk, ye who seek admonition and discourse (conveyed) by the tongue and (through the) ear. 565
  • Put cotton-wool in the ear of the low (physical) sense, take off the bandage of (that) sense from your eyes!
  • 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.
  • If I am trustworthy, the trustworthy is not doubted, even though I should call heaven earth.
  • If I am (endowed with) perfection, why (this) disbelief in my perfection? and if I am not (perfect), why this molestation and annoyance?
  • I will not go forth from this seclusion, because I am occupied with inward experiences.”
  • How the disciples raised objections against the vizier's secluding himself.
  • They all said: “O vizier, it is not disbelief: our words are not as the words of strangers. 595
  • The tears of our eyes are running because of our separation from thee; sigh after sigh is going (up) from the midst of our souls.
  • A babe does not contend with its nurse, but it weeps, although it knows neither evil nor good.
  • We are as the harp and thou art striking (it with) the plectrum (playing on it): the lamentation is not from us, it is thou that art making lamentation.
  • We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee; we are as the mountain, and the echo in us is from thee.
  • We are as pieces of chess (engaged) in victory and defeat: our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely! 600
  • Who are we, O thou soul of our souls, that we should remain in being beside thee?
  • We and our existences are (really) non-existences: thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable (causes phenomena to appear).
  • We all are lions, but lions on a banner: because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.
  • Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen: may that which is unseen never fail!
  • Our wind (that whereby we are moved) and our being are of thy gift; our whole existence is from thy bringing (us) into being. 605
  • Thou didst show the delightfulness of Being unto not-being, (after) thou hadst caused not-being to fall in love with thee.
  • Take not away the delightfulness of thy bounty; take not away thy dessert and wine and wine-cup!
  • And if thou take it away, who will make inquiry of thee? How should the picture strive with the painter?