In a certain convent there lived a Sufi whose conduct gave just offence to the brethren. They brought him before their Shaikh and thus accused him, "This Sufi has three very bad qualities; he babbles exceedingly like a bell, at his meals he eats more than twenty men and when he sleeps he is as one of the Seven Sleepers." The Shaikh then admonished him, insisting on the obligation of keeping to the golden mean; and reminding him that even the prophet Moses was once rebuked by Khizr for speaking to excess. But the delinquent excused himself on the grounds that the mean is relative, what is excess in one man being moderation in another, that he who is led by the spirit is no longer subject to the outward law, and that, the "inner voice," which rules such an one s conduct, is its own evidence.

He said, "Though the path of the mean is wisdom, The water which is insufficient for a camel Whoso has four loaves as his daily allowance, Whether he eat two or three, he observes the mean. But if he eat all four he transgresses the mean, A very slave to greed, and voracious as a duck. Whoso has an appetite for ten loaves, Know, though he eat six, he observes the mean. If I have an appetite for fifty loaves, While you can manage only six, we are not on a par.

You are wearied with ten prostrations in prayer, Such an one goes barefoot to the Ka'ba, Whilst another faints with going to the mosque." "At times my state resembles a dream, Know my eyes sleep, but my heart is awake; My body, though torpid, is instinct with energy. The Prophet said, 'Mine eyes sleep, But my heart is awake with the Lord of mankind.' Your eyes are awake and your heart fast asleep, My eyes are closed, and my heart at the 'open door.'

My heart has other five senses of its own; Let not a weakling like you censure me, What, seems night to you is broad day to me; Your feet are in the mire, to me, mire is rose, While I seem on earth, abiding with you in the house, 'Tis not I who companion with you, 'tis my shadow; My exaltation transcends your thoughts, Because I have transcended thought, Yea, I have sped beyond reach of thought. I am lord of thought, not overlorded by thought,

All creatures are enslaved to thought; I send myself on an embassy to thought, And, at will, spring back again from thought. I am as the bird of heaven and thought as the fly, How can the fly lend a helping hand to me? Whoso has in him a spark of the light of Omnipotence, However much he eats, say ' Eat on;' 'tis lawful to him." To the spiritual man the "inner voice" is its own evidence, and needs no other proof. "If you are a true lover of my soul,

This truth-fraught saying of mine is no vain pretence, 'Though I talk half the night I am superior to you;' And again, 'Fear not the night; here am I, your kinsman.' These two assertions of mine will both seem true to you Superiority and kinsmanship are both mere assertions, The nearness of the voice proves to such an one The sweetness of the kinsman's voice, too, O beloved, But the uninspired fool who from ignorance Cannot tell the voice of a stranger from a friend's, To him the friend's saying seems a vain pretension,

To the wise, whose hearts are enlightened, The mere sound of that voice proves its truth." "When you say to a thirsty man, 'Come quickly; This is water in the cup, take and drink it,' Does the thirsty man say, 'This is a vain pretension; Go, remove yourself from me, O vain pretender, Or proceed to give proofs and evidence That this is generic water, and concrete water thereof'? Or when a mother cries to her sucking babe,

'Come, O son, I am thy mother,' Does the babe answer, 'O mother, show a proof That I shall find comfort from taking thy milk'? In the hearts of every sect that has a taste of the truth When the prophets raise their cry to the outward ear, The souls of each sect bow in devotion within; Because never in this world hath the soul's ear That poor man in that strange sweet voice Recognizes the voice of God, 'Verily I am nigh.'"