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5
768-817

  • Like Iblís, it (the crow) besought the holy and incomparable God for bodily life till the Resurrection.
  • He (Iblís) said, “Grant me a respite till the Day of Retribution.” Would that he had said, “We repent, O our Lord.”
  • Life without repentance is all agony of spirit: to be absent from God is present (instant) death. 770
  • Life and death—both these are sweet with (the presence of) God: without God the Water of Life is fire.
  • Moreover, ’twas from the effect of the (Divine) curse that in such a Presence he was requesting (long) life.
  • To crave of God aught other than God is (merely) the supposition of gain, and (in reality) it is entire loss;
  • Especially (to desire) a life sunk in estrangement (from God) is to behave like a fox in the presence of the lion,
  • (Saying), “Give me longer life that I may go farther back; grant me more time that I may become less.” 775
  • (The result is) that he (such an one) is a mark for the (Divine) curse: evil is that one who seeks to be accursed.
  • The goodly life is to nourish the spirit in nearness (to God); the crow's life is for the sake of eating dung.
  • (The crow says), “Give me more life that I may be ever eating dung: give me this always, for I am very evil-natured.”
  • Were it not that that foul-mouthed one is a dung-eater, he would say, “Deliver me from the nature of the crow!”
  • Prayer.
  • O Thou who hast transmuted one clod of earth into gold, and another clod into the Father of mankind, 780
  • Thy work is the transmutation of essences and (the showing of) munificence; my work is mistake and forgetfulness and error.
  • Transmute mistake and forgetfulness into knowledge: I am all choler, make me patience and forbearance.
  • O Thou who makest nitrous earth to be bread, and O Thou who makest dead bread to be life,
  • O Thou who makest the distracted soul to be a Guide, and O Thou who makest the wayless wanderer to be a Prophet,
  • Thou makest a piece of earth to be heaven, Thou givest increase in the earth from the stars. 785
  • Whosoever makes the Water of Life to consist of (the pleasures of) this world, death comes to him sooner than to the others.
  • The eye of the heart (the inward eye) that contemplated the (spiritual) firmament perceived that here (in the sensible world) is a continual alchemy.
  • The harmonious cohesion of the patched garment, (which is) the body, without being stitched (together), is (owing to) the transmutation of essences and (to) an all-embracing elixir.
  • From the day when thou camest into existence, thou wert fire or air or earth.
  • If thou hadst remained in that condition, how should this (present) height have been reached by thee? 790
  • The Transmuter did not leave thee in thy first (state of) existence: He established a better (state of) existence in the place of that (former one);
  • And so on till (He gave thee) a hundred thousand states of existence, one after the other, the second (always) better than the beginning.
  • Regard (all change as derived) from the Transmuter, leave (ignore) the intermediaries, for by (regarding) the intermediaries thou wilt be come far from their Origin.
  • Wherever the intermediaries increase, union (with the Origin) is removed: (in proportion as) the intermediaries are less, the delight of (attaining to) union is greater.
  • By knowing the intermediaries thy bewilderment (in God) is diminished: thy bewilderment gives thee admission to the (Divine) Presence. 795
  • Thou hast gained these (successive) lives from (successive) deaths: why hast thou averted thy face from dying in Him?
  • What loss was thine (what loss didst thou suffer) from those deaths, that thou hast clung (so tenaciously) to (this earthly) life, O rat?
  • Since thy second (life) is better than thy first, therefore seek to die (to the world), and worship the Transmuter.
  • O contumacious man, thou hast experienced a hundred thousand resurrections at every moment from the beginning of thy existence until now:
  • From inanimateness (thou didst move) unconsciously towards (vegetal) growth, and from (vegetal) growth towards (animal) life and tribulation; 800
  • Again, towards reason and goodly discernments; again, towards (what lies) outside of these five (senses) and six (directions).
  • These footprints are (extend) as far as the shore of the Ocean; then the footprints disappear in the Ocean;
  • Because, from (Divine) precaution, the resting-places (appointed for the traveller) on the dry land are (like) villages and dwellings and caravanserays,
  • (While) on the contrary the resting-places of the Ocean, when its billows swell, have no floor or roof (to shelter the traveller) during (his) stay and detention.
  • These (Oceanic) stages have no visible beacon: these resting-places have neither sign nor name. 805
  • Between every two resting-places Yonder there is (a distance) a hundred times as much as from the vegetal state to the Essential Spirit.
  • Thou hast seen this life (to be implicit) in (previous) deaths: how, (then), art thou (so) attached to the life of the body?
  • Come, O crow, give up this (animal) soul! Be a falcon, be self-sacrificing in the presence of the Divine transmutation.
  • Take the new and surrender the old, for every “this year” of thine is superior to three “last years.”
  • If thou wilt not be lavish (of thyself) like the date-palm, (then) pile old rags on old rags and make a heap, 810
  • And offer the stinking and rotten old rags to every blind man.
  • He that hath seen the new is not thy customer: he is God's prey, he is not thy captive.
  • (But) wherever is a flock of blind birds, they will gather around thee, O brackish flood-water,
  • That (their) blindness may be increased by (thy) brackish waters; for brackish water increases blindness.
  • Hence the worldly are blind of heart: they are drinkers of the brackish water of clay. 815
  • Continue to give brackish water and buy (the favour of) the blind in the world, since thou hast not the Water of Life within thee.
  • In such a (despicable) state (as has been described) thou wouldst fain live and be remembered: in blackness of face (shame and opprobrium), like a negro, thou art rejoicing.