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6
2211-2260

  • If you do not perceive the ark and the sea (flood) before you, (then) consider (whence come) the tremors in all your limbs.
  • Since his (the trembling man's) eyes do not perceive the source of his fear, he is affrighted by diverse kinds of phantasy.
  • (For example), a drunken boor strikes a blind man with his fist: the blind man thinks it is a kicking camel,
  • Because at that moment he heard a camel's cry: the ear, not the eye, is the mirror for the blind.
  • (But) then again the blind man says, “No, it was a stone (which some one threw at me), or perhaps it was (a brick) from an echoing dome.” 2215
  • It was neither this nor that nor that: He who created fear produced these (phantasies).
  • Certainly fear and trembling are (produced) by another: nobody is frightened by himself, O sorrowful man.
  • The miserable philosopher calls fear “imagination” (wahm): he has wrongly understood this lesson.
  • How should there be any imagination without reality? How should any false coin pass (into circulation) without a genuine one?
  • How should a lie fetch a price (have value) without truth? Every lie in both worlds has arisen from truth. 2220
  • He (the liar) saw the currency and prestige enjoyed by truth: he set going (circulated) the lie in hope of (its enjoying) the same.
  • O (incarnate) lie, whose fortune is (derived) from veracity, give thanks for the bounty and do not deny the truth!
  • Shall I speak of the philosopher and his mad fancy, or of His (God's) ships (arks) and seas (floods)?
  • Nay, (I will speak) of His arks, which are the spiritual counsel (given by the saints); I will speak of the whole: the part is included in the whole.
  • Know every saint to be a Noah and captain of the Ark; know companionship with these (worldly) people to be the Flood. 2225
  • Do not flee from lions and fierce dragons, (but) beware of friends and kinsmen.
  • They waste your time (when you are) face to face (with them), and your recollections of them devour (the time of) your absence (from them).
  • Like a thirsty ass, the image of each one (in your phantasy) is licking up the sherbet of (spiritual) thought from the flagon of the body.
  • The (mental) image of those talebearers has sucked out of you the dew that you have (derived) from the Sea of Life.
  • The sign, then, of the absorption (drying up) of the water (sap) in the boughs is that they are not moved to sway (to and fro). 2230
  • The limb of him who is free (detached from the world) is (like) a moist fresh bough: (if) you pull it in any direction, it is (easily) pulled.
  • If you want a basket, you can make it (a basket); you can also make its neck a hoop;
  • (But) when it has been sucked dry by the draining of (the sap from) its root, it does not come (readily) in the direction to which (your) command is pulling it.
  • Recite, then, from the Qur’án (the words) they stand up languidly, when the bough gets no medicinal (curative) treatment from its root.
  • This symbol (allegory) is fiery, (but) I will cut it short and resume (the story of) the fakir and the treasure and the circumstances connected with it. 2235
  • You have seen the fire that burns every (dry) sapling; (now) see the fire of the Spirit by which phantasy is burnt.
  • Neither for phantasy nor for reality is there any protection against a fire like this which flamed forth from the Spirit.
  • He is the adversary of every lion and every fox: everything is perishing except His Face.
  • Go into His aspects (attributes) and Face (Essence), become spent (emptied of self): go in, become enveloped (suppressed), like the alif in bism.
  • In bism the alif has stayed hidden: it is in bism and also it is not in bism. 2240
  • Such is the case with all the letters that disappear when they are elided for the purpose of (effecting) conjunctions.
  • It (the suppressed alif in bism) is a sila (means of conjunction) and through it the b and the s have attained to union: the union of the b and the s could not bear the (external intervention of the) alif.
  • Since this union cannot bear (the intervention of) a single letter, it behoves me to cut short the discourse.
  • Since a single letter is the cause of separation between the s and the b, here silence is a most urgent duty.
  • When the alif has passed away from self(-existence), taking shelter (in self-abandonment), the b and the s say “alif” without it. 2245
  • (The words) thou didst not throw when thou threwest are (an utterance spoken) without him (the Prophet); likewise (the words) God said sprang from his silence.
  • So long as a drug exists (independently), it has no effect; it removes diseases (only) when it has perished (has been dissolved and assimilated).
  • (Even) if (all) the forest should become pens and (all) the ocean ink, (yet) there is no hope of bringing the Mathnawí to an end.
  • So long as the Brick-maker's mould is (filled with) earth, the scansion of its (the Mathnawí's) poetry, too, will be kept up.
  • When earth remains no more and He (God) dries (withers and destroys) its existence, His sea when it foams will make (fresh) earth. 2250
  • When the forest remains no more and disappears (from existence), (other) forests will raise their heads from the essence of the Sea.
  • Hence that Lord of relief (from sorrow) said, “Relate Traditions (drawn) from our Sea, since there is no harm (in doing so).”
  • (Now) turn back from the Sea and set thy face towards dry land: talk only of the plaything, for it is better (more suitable) for the child,
  • So that in his boyhood, (advancing) little by little beyond the plaything, his spirit may become acquainted with the ocean of Reason.
  • By means of that play the boy is (gradually) acquiring reason, though superficially it (his play) is repugnant (to reason). 2255
  • How can a demented child play? There must be (in the child) a part (of reason) in order that it (the part) may attain to the whole.
  • Returning to the Story of the dome and the treasure.
  • Lo, the idea of that fakir with (his cries) “Come! come!” has rendered me unfeignedly (really) unable (to resist his appeal).
  • You do not hear his cry, (but) I hear it, because I am his confidant in my inmost thoughts.
  • Do not regard him as a seeker of the treasure; he is the treasure himself, how should the lover in reality be other than the beloved?
  • At even moment he is bowing down (in worship) to himself: the bowing is (performed) in front of the mirror for the sake of (beholding) the face. 2260