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5
1255-1304

  • Thou hast done all (else), (but) thou hast not died, thou art living. Hark, die, if thou art a self-sacrificing friend!” 1255
  • Instantly he laid himself at full length (on the ground) and gave up the ghost: like the rose, he played away his head (life), laughing and rejoicing.
  • That laughter remained with him as an endowment unto everlasting, like the untroubled spirit and reason of the gnostic.
  • How should the light of the moon ever become defiled, though its light strike on everything good and evil?
  • Pure of all (defilements) it returns to the moon, even as the light of the spirit and reason (returns) unto God.
  • The quality of purity is an endowment (settled) on the light of the moon, though its radiance is (falling) on the defilements of the way. 1260
  • Malignity does not accrue to the light of the moon from those defilements of the way or from pollution.
  • The light of the sun heard (the call) Return! and came back in haste to its source.
  • No disgrace remained with it from the ashpits, no colour remained with it from the rose-gardens.
  • The light of the eye and the seer of the light returned (to their source): the desert and plain were left in passionate desire thereof.
  • A certain man asked a mystic theologian, “If any one weep loudly during the ritual prayer and moan and lament, is his prayer rendered void?” He replied, “The name of those (tears) is ‘water of the eye’: consider what that weeper has seen: if he has seen (felt) longing for God or repentance for a sin and weeps, his prayer is not spoilt; nay, it attains perfection, for ‘there is no prayer without presence of the heart’; but if he has (inwardly) seen bodily sickness or the loss of a son, his prayer is spoilt, for the foundation of prayer is the abandonment of the body and the abandonment of sons, like Abraham, who was offering his son as a sacrifice in order to perfect his prayer and giving up his body to Nimrod's fire; and Mustafá (Mohammed), on whom be peace, was commanded (by God) to act after these manners: “follow the religion of Abraham.” “Verily ye have had a good example in Abraham.”
  • A certain man asked a mufti in private, “If any one weep lamentably during the ritual prayer, 1265
  • I wonder, will his prayer be rendered void, or will his prayer be licit and perfect?”
  • He replied, “Wherefore is it named ‘the water of the eye’? You should consider what it (the eye) saw and (then) wept.
  • Consider what the water of the eye saw in secret, so that on that account it began to flow from its spring.
  • If the supplicant has seen yonder world, that prayer (of his) gains a lustre from (his) lamentation;
  • But if that weeping was caused by bodily pain or by mourning (for the dead), the thread is snapped and the spindle too is broken.” 1270
  • A disciple came in to pay his respects to the Shaykh—and by this (word) “Shaykh” I do not mean one old in years, but one old in understanding and knowledge (of God), even if he is Jesus, on whom be peace, in the cradle, or Yahyá (John the Baptist), on whom be peace, in the children's school. The disciple saw the Shaykh weeping; he too acted in conformity (with the Shaykh) and wept. When he had finished and gone forth (from the Shaykh's presence), another disciple, who was more cognisant of the Shaykh's spiritual state, impelled by (noble) jealousy, went out quickly after him and said to him, “O brother, (whatever may happen) I shall have told you: for God's sake, for God's sake, beware of thinking or saying that the Shaykh wept and you wept likewise; you must practise self-discipline without hypocrisy for thirty years, and you must traverse ravines and seas full of leviathans, and lofty mountains full of lions and leopards, that you may attain to that weeping of the Shaykh or not attain. If you attain, you will often utter thanksgiving (as immense as is the extent of the earth, described in the words of the Tradition), ‘The earth was gathered together for me.’”
  • A disciple came into the presence of the Pír: the Pír was (engaged) in weeping and lamentation.
  • When the disciple saw the Shaykh weeping, he began to weep: the tears ran from his eyes.
  • The man possessed of an ear (sense of hearing) laughs once, when a friend repeats a joke to a friend; the deaf man (laughs) twice:
  • The first time by way of conformity and affectation, because he sees the company laughing.
  • The deaf man laughs then like them, without knowing the (inward) state of the laughers. 1275
  • Afterwards he inquires what the laughter was about, and then, having heard, he laughs a second time.
  • Hence the mere imitator (of a Shaykh), too, resembles the deaf man in respect of the (feeling of) joy that is in his head.
  • It is the Shaykh's reflexion, and its source is in the Shaykh: the overflow of joy is not (derived) from the disciples; nay, it is from the Shaykh.
  • Like a basket in water or a (ray of) light on glass: if they think it (comes) from themselves, ’tis (owing to) defect (of intelligence).
  • When it (the basket) is separated from the river, that perverse one will recognise that the sweet water within it was from the river; 1280
  • The glass also will recognise, at the setting (of the moon), that those beams (of light) were from the beauteous shining moon.
  • When the (Divine) command “Arise!” opens his (the imitator's) eye, then he will laugh, like the (true) dawn, a second time.
  • He will even laugh at his own (former) laughter which was produced in him in that (period of) imitation,
  • And will say (to himself), “(Travelling) by all these far and long ways, and thinking that this was the Reality and that this was the Mystery and Secret,
  • How forsooth, in that valley (of imitation), did I rejoice from afar through blindness and confusion? 1285
  • What was I fancying, and what was it (in truth)? My weak perception was showing (only) a weak image (of the reality).”
  • Where is the thought of the (holy) men in relation to the child of the (mystic) Way? Where is his fancy in comparison with true realisation?
  • The thought of children is (of) the nurse or milk or raisins and walnuts or weeping and crying.
  • The imitator is like a sick child, although he may have (at his disposal) subtle argumentation and (logical) proofs.
  • That profundity in (dealing with) proofs and difficult problems is severing him from (spiritual) insight. 1290
  • It took away (from him) the stock (of insight), which is the collyrium of his inmost consciousness, and applied itself to the discussion of (formal) problems.
  • O imitator, turn back from Bukhárá: go to self-abasement (ba-khwárí) that thou mayst become a (spiritual) hero,
  • And that thou mayst behold within (thee) another Bukhárá, in the assembly-place whereof the champions are unlearned.
  • Although the courier is a swift runner on land, when he goes to sea his sinews are broken.
  • He is only (like those of whom God says in the Qur’án) We have borne them on the land; (but) that one who is borne on the sea—he is somebody. 1295
  • The King (God) hath great bounty: run (to receive it), O thou who hast become in pawn to an imagination and fancy.
  • From conformity that simple disciple, too, was weeping in concert with the venerable (Shaykh);
  • (For), like the deaf man, he regarded the (Shaykh's) weeping in the manner of a conformist and was unaware of the cause.
  • When he had wept a long while, he paid his respects and departed: the (Shaykh's) favourite disciple came quickly after him,
  • And said, “O thou who art weeping like a witless cloud in concert with the weeping of the Shaykh (possessed) of insight, 1300
  • For God's sake, for God's sake, for God's sake, O loyal disciple, although in (thy) conformity thou art seeking (spiritual) profit,
  • Take heed not to say, ‘I saw that (spiritual) king weeping, and I wept like him’; for that is denial (of his exalted state).”
  • A weeping full of ignorance and conformity and (mere) opinion is not like the weeping of that trusted one.
  • Do not judge (one) weeping by the analogy of (another) weeping: ’tis a long way from this weeping to that (weeping).