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5
589-638

  • He (the lover) drives home the sword of Not in order to kill all other than God: thereupon consider what remains after Not.
  • There remains except God: all the rest is gone. Hail, O mighty Love, destroyer of polytheism! 590
  • Verily, He is the First and the Last: do not regard polytheism as arising from aught except the eye that sees double.
  • Oh, wonderful! Is there any beauty but from the reflexion of Him? The (human) body hath no movement but from the spirit.
  • The body that hath defect in its spirit will never become sweet, (even) if you smear it with honey.
  • This he knows who one day was (spiritually) alive and received a cup from this Soul of the soul;
  • While to him whose eye has not beheld those (beauteous) cheeks this smoky heat is (appears to be) the spirit. 595
  • Inasmuch as he never saw ‘Umar (ibn) ‘Abdu ’l-‘Azíz, to him even Hajjáj seems just.
  • Inasmuch as he never saw the firmness (unshakable strength) of the dragon of Moses, he fancies (there is) life in the magic cords.
  • The bird that has never drunk the limpid water keeps its wings and feathers in the briny water.
  • No opposite can be known except through its opposite: (only) when he (any one) suffers blows will he know (the value of) kindness.
  • Consequently the present life has come in front (first), in order that you may appreciate the realm of Alast. 600
  • When you are delivered from this place and go to that place, you will give thanks (to God) in the sugar-shop of everlastingness.
  • You will say, ‘There (in the world below) I was sifting dust, I was fleeing from this pure world.
  • Alas, would that I had died ere now, so that my (time of) being tormented in the mud might have been less!’
  • Commentary on the saying of the Prophet, on whom be peace, “None ever died without wishing, if he was a righteous man, that he had died before he (actually) died, in order that he might sooner attain unto felicity; and if he was a wicked man, in order that his wickedness might be less.”
  • Hence the wise Prophet has said that no one who dies and dismounts from (the steed of) the body
  • Feels grief on account of departure and death, but (only) grieves because of having failed (in good works) and missed his opportunities. 605
  • In sooth every one that dies wishes that the departure to his destination had been earlier:
  • If he be wicked, in order that his wickedness might have been less; and if devout, in order that he might have come home sooner.
  • The wicked man says, ‘I have been heedless, moment by moment I have been adding to the veil (of sin).
  • If my passing (from the world) had taken place sooner, this screen and veil of mine would have been less.’
  • Do not in covetousness rend the face of contentment, and do not in pride rend the visage of humility. 610
  • Likewise do not in avarice rend the face of munificence, and in devilishness the beauteous countenance of worship.
  • Do not tear out those feathers which are an ornament to Paradise: do not tear out those feathers which (enable thee to) traverse the Way.”
  • When he (the peacock) heard this counsel, he looked at him (the Sage) and, after that, began to lament and weep.
  • The long lamentation and weeping of the sorrowful (peacock) caused every one who was there to fall a-weeping;
  • And he who was asking the reason of (the peacock's) tearing out his feathers, (he too being left) without an answer repented (of having asked) and wept, 615
  • Saying, “Why did I impertinently ask him (that question)? He was full of grief: I made him distraught.”
  • From his (the peacock's) moist eyes the water (of tears) was trickling to the earth: in every drop were contained a hundred answers.
  • Sincere weeping touches the souls (of all), so that it makes (even) the sky and heaven to weep.
  • Without any doubt, intellects and hearts (spirits) are celestial, (though) they live debarred from the celestial light.
  • Explaining that the intellect and spirit are imprisoned in clay, like Hárút and Márút in the pit of Babylon.
  • Like Hárút and Márút, those two pure ones (the intellect and spirit) have been confined here (in this world) in a horrible pit. 620
  • They are in the low and sensual world: they have been confined in this pit on account of sin.
  • The good and the evil (alike) learn magic and the opposite of magic from these twain involuntarily;
  • But first they admonish him, saying, “Beware, do not learn and pick up magic from us:
  • We teach this magic, O such and such, for the purpose of trial and probation;
  • (But thou art free to choose), for probation necessarily involves free-will, and thou canst not have any (effective) free-will without the power (of action).” 625
  • Desires are like sleeping dogs: good and evil are hidden in them.
  • When there is no power (of action), this troop (of desires) are asleep and silent like faggots (smouldering in the fire),
  • Until (when) a carcase comes into view, the blast of the trumpet of greed strikes on (suddenly rouses) the dogs.
  • When the carcase of a donkey appears in the parish, a hundred sleeping dogs are awakened by it.
  • The greedy desires that had gone into the concealment of the Unseen rush out and display themselves. 630
  • Every hair on every dog becomes (like) a tooth, though they wag their tails (fawningly) for the sake of gaining their object.
  • His (the dog's) under-half is cunning, (while) the upper (half) is anger, like a poor fire that gets faggots (fuel);
  • Flame on flame reaches (it) from (the realm of) non-spatiality: the smoke of its blaze goes up to the sky.
  • In this body (of ours) a hundred such dogs are sleeping: when they have no prey (in sight), they are hidden.
  • Or they resemble falcons with eyes sealed (covered); (yet) in the veil (hood) consumed with passion for a prey, 635
  • Till he (the Falconer) lifts the hood and it (the falcon) sees the prey: then it circles the mountains (in pursuit).
  • The appetite of the sick man is quiescent: his thoughts are going (are turned) towards health.
  • When he sees bread and apples and water-melons, his relish and his fear of injury (to himself) come into conflict.