(3) An old woman offered Bu All a piece of gold saying: 'Accept this from me.' He replied: 'I can accept things only from God.' The old woman retorted: 'Where did you learn to see double? You are not a man of power to bind and unbind. If you were not squint-eyed would you see several things at once?'

There is neither Ka'aba nor Pagoda. Learn from my mouth the true doctrine - the eternal existence of Being. We

must not see anyone other than Him. We are in Him, by Him, and with Him. We may also be outside these states. Whoever is not immersed in the Ocean of Unity is not worthy of the race of men.

The day will come when the Sun will draw' aside the veil which covers it. So long as you are separate, good and evil will arise in you, but when you lose yourself in the sun of the divine essence they will be transcended by love. While you loiter on the road you will be held back by faults and weaknesses. Have you not yet realized that in your body there are conceit, vanity, self-pride, selflove and other dirty things! Though the serpent and the scorpion may seem to be dead within you they are only asleep; and if something touches them they will wake up with the strength of a hundred dragons. In each of us is a Hell of serpents. If you make yourself secure against these unclean creatures you may remain tranquil; if not, they will sting you even in the dust of the tomb until the day of reckoning.

And now, O Attar, leave your metaphorical discourses and return to the description of the mysterious Valley of Unity.

The Hoopoe continued: 'When the spiritual traveller enters this valley he will disappear and be lost to sight because the Unique Being will manifest himself; he will be silent because this Being wiU speak.

'The part will become the whole, or rather, there will be neither part nor whole. In the School of the Secret you will see thousands of men with intellectual knowledge, their lips parted in silence. What is intellectual knowledge here? It stops on the threshold of the door like a blind child. He who discovers something of this secret turns his face from the kingdom of the tuo worlds. The Being I speak of does not exist separately; everyone is this Being, existence and nonexistence is this Being. '

(5) Shaikh Mahnah was in a state of great perplexity, his heart broken in two, when he saw in the distance an old villager of pious appearance, walking leisurely, while from his body emanated a bright light. The shaikh saluted him and then

told him about the sad state he was in. The old villager listened, and after thinking a little said: 'O Bu Sa'id, if they were to fill with millet, not once but a hundred times, the space from lowest earth to the throne of God, and if a bird took one grain of millet in a thousand years, and then flew a hundred times round the world, even in all that time your soul would have no news of the celestial court and Bu Sa'id would still be far off.'

Great patience is necessary for those who suffer; but no one is patient. When the quest is diverted from the inner to the outer, even if it should extend over the universe, in the end it will be unsatisfying. He who is not engaged in the quest of the inner life is no more than an animal - what shall I say? He does not even exist, he is a non-entity, a form without a soul.

(4) A Sufi was sauntering leisurely along when he was struck from behind. He turned round and said to the rogue who had hit him: ' He whom you struck has been dead more than thirty years.' The rogue replied: 'How can a dead man speak? Be ashamed, you are not united to God. If you are separated from him even by one hair it is as if you were a hundred worlds away.'

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When you are reduced to ashes, including your baggage, you will have not the least feeling of existence; but if there remains to you, as to Jesus, only a simple needle, a hundred thieves will lie in wait for you on the road. Although Jesus had thrown down his baggage, the needle was still able to scratch his face.

When existence disappears, neither riches nor empire, honours nor dignity, have any meaning.

(2) The beloved of Tus, that ocean of spiritual secrets, said to one of his disciples: 'Melt yourself in the fire of love until you become as thin as a hair, then you will be fit to take your place among the locks of your beloved. If your eyes are turned towards the Way and if you are clear-seeing, then contemplate and ponder, hair by hair.

'He who leaves the world to follow this Way, finds death; he who finds death finds immortality. O my heart, if you have been turned inside out, cross the bridge Sirat and the burning fire; for when the oil in the lamp is burning it produces smoke as black as an old crow, but when it has been consumed by fire it ceases to have a coarse existence.

'If you wish to arrive at that high place first get rid of yourself; then go out from nothing as another Borak. Put on the khirka of nothingness and drink of the cup of annihilation, then cover your breast with the belt of belittlement

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and put on your head the burnous of non-existence. Place your foot in the stirrup of non-attachment, and urge your useless steed towards the place where there is nothing. But if there remains in you the least egoism the seven seas will be, for you, full of adversity.'

(3) Rabi'ah, although a woman, was the crown of men. She once spent eight years making a pilgrimage to the Ka'aba by measuring her length on the ground. When at last she reached the door of the sacred temple she thought: ' Now at last, have I performed my task.' On the consecrated day, when she was to go in to the Ka'aba, her women deserted her. So Rabi'ah retraced her steps and said: 'O God, possessor of glory, for eight years I have measured the way with the length of my body, and now, when the longed-for day has come in answer to my prayers, you put thorns in my way!'

To understand the importance of such an incident it is necessary to discover a lover of God like Rabi'ah. So long as you float on the deep ocean of the world its waves will receive and repel you, turn by tura At times you will be admitted into the Ka'aba, sometimes you will sigh in a pagoda. If you succeed in withdrawing from the attachments of the world you will enjoy felicity; but if you

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remain attached your head will turn like the grindstone of a mill. Not for a moment will you be tranquil; you will be upset by a single fly.

(1) The Hoopoe continued: 'After the valley of which I have spoken, there comes another - The Valley of Understanding, which has neither beginning nor end. No way is equal to this way, and the distance to be travelled to cross it is beyond reckoning.

'Understanding, for each traveller, is enduring; but knowledge is temporary. The soul, like the body, is in a state of progress or decline; and the Spiritual Way reveals itself only in the degree to which the traveller has overcome his faults and weaknesses, his sleep and his inertia, and each will approach nearer to his aim according to his effort. Even if a gnat were to fly with all its might could it equal the speed of the wind? There are different ways of crossing this Valley, and all birds do not fly alike. Understanding can be arrived at variously - some have found the Mihrab, others the idol. When the sun of understanding brightens this road each receives light according to his merit and he finds the degree assigned to him in the understanding of truth. When the mystery of the essence of beings reveals itself clearly to him

the furnace of this world becomes a garden of flowers. He who is striving will be able to see the almond in its hard shell. He will no longer be pre-occupied with himself, but will look up at the face of his friend. In each atom he will see the whole; he will ponder over thousands of bright secrets.

' But, how many have lost their way in this search for one who has found the mysteries! It is necessary to have a deep and lasting wish to become as we ought to be in order to cross this difficult valley. Once you have tasted the secrets you will have a real wish to understand them. But, whatever you may attain, never forget the words of the Koran, "Is there anything more?"

'As for you who are asleep I cannot commend you for this), why not put on mourning? You, who have not seen the beauty of your friend, get up and search! How long will you stay as you are, like a donkey without a halter! '

(3) One night, when the Angel Gabriel was in the Sidrah he heard God pronounce the words of consent, and he said to himself: 'A servant of God at this moment invokes the Eternal, but who can he be? I only know that he must be of great merit, that his body of desire is dead and that his spirit is living.' And at once he set off to find this happy mortal. But though he searched the earth and the islands, the mountains and the plains, he could not find him. So he returned to God, and again heard a favourable response to the prayer.

Once more he flew over earth and sea, but at last he had to ask: 'O God, which way will lead me to }Our servant?' God said: 'Go to the country of Rum, and in a certain Christian monastery you will find him.' Gabriel flew off to the monastery" and there he saw the object of celestial favours bowing before an idol. 'O master of the world,' said Gabriel, ' draw aside the veil from this mystery. How can you answer the prayer of an idolworshipper in a monastery?' God said: 'His heart is darkened. He is unaware that he has lost his

way. Since he strays through ignorance my loving-kindness pardons him and I have opened the way for him to a high estate.' Then the Most High unloosed the man's tongue so that he could pronounce the name of God.

One must not neglect the smallest thing. Renunciation is not bought in a shop; neither can you reach the court of the Most High by paying a small sum.

(4) In the time of Moses there was a dervish who spent days and nights in a state of adoration, yet experienced no feeling for spiritual things. He had a beautiful long beard, and often while praying would stop to comb it. One day, seeing Moses, he went to him and said: 'O Pasha of Mount Sinai,

ask God, I pray you, to tell me why I experience neither spiritual satisfaction nor ecstasy.'

The next time Moses went up on Sinai he spoke to God about the dervish, and God said, in a tone of displeasure: 'Although this dervish has sought union with me, nevertheless he is constantly thinking about his long beard.' When Moses came down he told the Sufi what God had said. The Sufi thereupon began tearing out his beard, weeping bitterly. Gabriel then came along to Moses and said: ' Even now your Sufi is thinking about his beard. He thought of nothing else while praying, and is even more attached to it while he is tearing it out!'

O you who think you have ceased to be pre-occupied with your beard, you are plunged in an ocean of affliction. When you can regard it with detachment you will have a right to sail across this ocean. But if you plunge in with your beard you will have difficulty in getting out.

(1) Another bird said to the Hoopoe: 'O you whose faith is sincere, I have not a breath of good will. I have spent my life in vexation, desiring the ball of the world. There is such a sadness in my heart that I never cease to mourn. I am always in a state of bewilderment and impotence; and when for a moment I have been content, then am I unbelieving. In consequence, I have become a dervish. But now I hesitate to start out on the road of spiritual knowledge. If my heart were not so full of sorrow I would be charmed with this journey. As it is I am in a state of perplexity. Now that I have put my case before you tell me what I ought to do.'

The Hoopoe said: 'You, who are given over to pride, who are swallowed up in self-pity, you do well to be disturbed. Seeing that the world passes, you yourself should pass it by. Abandon it, for whoever becomes identified with transient things can have no part in the things that are lasting. The sufferings you endure can be made glorious and not humiliating. That which in outward appearance is suffering can be a treasure for the seer. A hundred blessings will come to you if you make effort on the Path. But as you are, you are only a skin covering a dull brain.'

(3) Sultan Mahmud once took prisoner an old rajah, who, experiencing the love of God, became a Musulman and renounced the two worlds. Sitting alone in his tent he becamequite absorbed by this, weeping bitter tears and heaving sighs of longing - in the day more than in the night, and in the night more than in the day. At last Mahmud heard of this and summoned him: ' Do not weep and lament,' he said, 'you are a Rajah and I will give you a hundred kingdoms for the one you have lost.' 'O Padishah,' replied the Hindu, 'I do not weep for my lost kingdom or my dignity. I weep, because on the day of resurrection, God, the possessor of glory, will say to me: "O disloyal man, you have sown against me the grain of insult. Before Mahmud attacked you, you never thought of me. Only when you had to bring your army against him and lost everything did you remember me. Do you think this is just?" O, young king, it is because I am ashamed that I weep in my old age.'

Listen to the words of justice and faith; listen to the teaching in the Diwan of the Sacred Books. If you have faith, then undertake the journey to which I invite you.

But shall he who is not in the index of fidelity be found in the chapter of generosity!