Passages similar to: The Masnavi — The Sufi and the Qazi
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Sufi
The Masnavi
The Sufi and the Qazi (Summary)
A sick man laboring under an incurable disease went to a physician for advice. The physician felt his pulse, and perceived that no treatment would cure him, and therefore told him to go away and do whatever he had a fancy for. This was the advice given by God to the Israelites when they were seen to be incurable by the admonitions of the prophets. "Do what you will, but God's eye is on all your doings." The sick man blessed the physician for his agreeable prescription, and at once went to a stream, where he saw a Sufi bathing his feet. He was seized with a desire to hit the Sufi on the back, and, calling to mind the physician's advice, at once carried his wish into effect. The Sufi jumped up, and was about to return the blow, but when he saw the weakly and infirm condition of his assailant he restrained himself. He disregarded his present angry impulse, and had regard to the future, so that the non-existent future became to him more really existent than the existing present. Here the poet digresses to point out that when wise men recognize the true relative importance of the present and the future they cease to shrink from death and annihilation, which lifts them to a higher and nobler life. This is illustrated by an anecdote of Mahmud of Ghazni, quoted from Faridu- 'd-Din 'Attar. Mahmud, in one of his campaigns, took prisoner a Hindu boy, who at first regarded him with the greatest dread, in consequence of the stories he had heard of him from his mother, but afterwards experienced Mahmud's kindness and tenderness, and came to know him and love him. So it is with death. According to the Hadis "Those who have passed away do not grieve because of death, but because of wasted opportunities in life." The Masnavi is "a shop of poverty and self-abnegation," and a treasury containing only the doctrines of "Unity;" and if its stories suggest aught else, that is due to the evil promptings of Iblis, who also misled the Prophet himself to attribute undue power to the idols Lat and 'Uzza and Manat, in a verse which was afterwards cancelled. The Sufi, being full of the spirit of self-abnegation, did not retaliate on his weak, assailant but led him before the Qazi. On learning the facts of the case the Qazi said, "This Faqir is sick to death, and you, being a Sufi, are, according to your profession, dead to the world. How, then, can I award a penalty against him in your favor? I am a judge, not of the dead, but of the living." The Sufi was dissatisfied with this view of the case, and again pressed the Qazi to do him justice. On this the Qazi asked the sick Faqir how much money he had, and on his replying, "Six dirhams," took pity on him, and let him off with a fine of three dirhams only. The moment the sentence was pronounced the sick Faqir went up to the Qazi and struck him a blow on the back, and cried out, "Now take the other three dirhams and let me go!" The Sufi then pointed out to the Qazi that by his ill-timed leniency to the Faqir he had brought this blow upon himself, and urged him to apply in his own case those principles of mercy and forgiveness which he had proposed in the case of another. The Qazi said that, for his part, he recognized every blow and misfortune that might befall him as divinely ordained, and sent for his good, according to the text, "Laugh little and weep much," and that his judgment in the matter of the Faqir had not been dictated by impulse, but by inspiration. The Sufi again asked him how evils and misfortunes could proceed from the divine fount of good, and the Qazi replied that what seems good and evil to us has no absolute existence, but is merely as the foam on the surface of the vast ocean. Moreover, every misfortune occurring to the faithful in this life will be amply compensated for in the life to come. The Sufi asked why this world should not be so arranged that only good should be experienced in it, and the Qazi replied by telling him an anecdote of a Turk and a tailor. The Turk, who typifies the careless pleasure-seeker, was so intent on listening to the jokes and amusing stories of the tailor, typifying the seductive world, that he allowed himself to be robbed of the silk which was to furnish him with a vesture for eternity. The Sufi again retorted that he did not see why the world would not get on better without the evil in it, and the Qazi replied with the poet's favorite argument that there would be no possibility of being virtuous if there were no temptations to be vicious. As Bishop Butler says, this life is a state of probation, and such a state necessarily involves trials and difficulties and dangers to be resisted and overcome.
This may be illustrated by the following anecdote: A certain scavenger went into the perfume sellers' bazaar, and, smelling the sweet scents, fell...
(23) This may be illustrated by the following anecdote: A certain scavenger went into the perfume sellers' bazaar, and, smelling the sweet scents, fell down unconscious. People came round him and sprinkled rose-water upon him and held musk to his nose, but he only became worse. At last one came who had been a scavenger himself; he held a little filth under the man's nose and he revived instantly, exclaiming, with a sigh of satisfaction, "Ah! this is perfume indeed!" Thus in the next life a worlding will no longer find the filthy lucre and the filthy pleasures of the world; the spiritual joys of that world will be altogether alien to him and but increase his wretchedness. For the next world is a world of Spirit and of the manifestation of the Beauty of God; happy is that man who has aimed at and acquired affinity with it. All austerities, devotions, studies have the acquirement of that affinity for their aim, and that affinity is love. This is the meaning of that saying of the Koran, "He who has purified his soul is happy." Sins and lusts directly oppose the attainment of this affinity; therefore the Koran goes on to say, "and he who has corrupted his soul is miserable." Those who are gifted with spiritual insight have really grasped this truth as a fact of experience, and not a merely traditional maxim. Their clear perception of it leads them to the conviction that he by whom it was spoken was a prophet indeed, just as a man who has studied medicine knows when he is listening to a physician. This is a kind of certainty which requires no support from miracles such as the conversion of a rod into a snake, the credit of which may be shaken by apparently equally extraordinary miracles performed by magicians.
Question of the Twenty-Second Bird and the Description of the First Valley or The Valley of the Quest (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...
(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.
As a Sufi was hurrying to Baghdad he heard someone say: ' I have a lot of honey which I would sell very reasonably if there were anyone to buy it.'...
(4) As a Sufi was hurrying to Baghdad he heard someone say: ' I have a lot of honey which I would sell very reasonably if there were anyone to buy it.' The Sufi said: 'My good fellow, wouldn't you like to give me a little for nothing?' The man angrily replied: 'Go away. Are you mad as well as greedy? Don't you know that one always gets nothing for nothing?' Then an inner voice said to the Sufi: 'Leave this place and I will give you that which money cannot buy: all good fortune and all that you desire. God's mercy is a burning sun which reaches to the smallest atom. God even rebuked the prophet Moses because of an unbeliever.'
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...
(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!
The Fourth Valley or The Valley of Independence and Detachment (2)
In my village there was a young man beautiful as Joseph, who fell into a pit and the earth caved in on him. When they got him out he was in a sad...
(2) In my village there was a young man beautiful as Joseph, who fell into a pit and the earth caved in on him. When they got him out he was in a sad state. This excellent young man was called Muhammad, and was liked by every"one. His father groaned when he saw him and said: ' O Muhammad, you are the light of my eyes and the soul of your father. O my son, say one word to your father!' The son said one word and gave up the ghost, and that is all.
O you who are a young pupil on the path of spiritual knowledge and who are able to observe and ponder, think about Muhammad and Adam; think about Adam and the atoms, the whole and the particles of the whole; speak of the earth and heavens, of the mountains and the ocean; speak of the fairies and the gods, of men and angels, of a hundred thousand pure souls; speak of the painful moment of the giving up of the soul; say that every individual, soul and body, are nothing. If you reduce the two worlds to dust and sift them a hundred times, what will it be for you? It will be
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like a palace upside down, and you will find nothing on the surface of the siftings.
This Vallet is not so easy to cross as you in vour simplicity perhaps think. Even when the blood of your heart shall fill Ae ocean, you will only be able to make the first stage. Even if you were to journey over all the ways of the world you would still find yourself at the first step. No traveller has seen the limit of this journey neither has he found a remedy for love. If you halt you are petrified, or you may even die; if you continue on your way, always advancing, you will hear until eternity the cr'; Go still further.' You can neither go nor stay. It is no advantage either to live or to die.
What profit have you derived from all that has befallen you? What have you gained from the difficulties you have been able to endure? It matters little whether you beat your head or no. O you who hear me, remain silent, and work actively.
Give up your useless aims and pursue the essential things. Be occupied as little as possible with things of the outer world but much with things of the inner world; then right action will overcome inaction. But those who find no remedy in acting, had better do nothing since you must know when to act and when to refrain from action. But how to know what you cannot know? And yet it is possible to act as you should, even without knowing. Forget all that you have done up till now, and strive to be independent and sufficient in yourself, though sometimes you will weep and sometimes rejoice. In this Fourth Valley the lightning of power, which is the discovery of your own resources, of selfsufficiency, blazes up so that the heat consumes a hundred worlds. Since hundreds of worlds are reduced to powder is it strange that yours also will disappear?
the astrologer
Have you ever seen a wise man set out a tablet and cover it with sand? There he traces figures and designs, and places
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the stars and planets, the heavens and the earth. Sometimes he makes a prediction from the heavens, sometimes from earth. He also draws the constellations and the signs of the Zodiac and indicates the rising and setting of the stars, and from this he deduces good or bad auguries. When he has cast a horoscope, of good or bad fortune, he takes the tablet by a corner and scatters the sand, and it is as if all those signs and figures had never existed.
The accidental surface of this world is like the tablet. If you have not the strength to resist the longing for the superficial things of this world turn away from it and sit in a corner. Men and women come into life without any idea of the inner and the outer worlds.
A madman, a fool of God, went naked when other men went clothed. He said: 'O God, give me a beautiful garment, then I shall be content as other men.'...
(2) A madman, a fool of God, went naked when other men went clothed. He said: 'O God, give me a beautiful garment, then I shall be content as other men.' A voice from the unseen world answered him: ' I have given you a warm sun, sit down and revel in it.' The madman said: 'Why punish
me? Haven't you a better garment than the sun?' The voice said: 'Wait patiently for ten days, and without more ado I will give you another garment.' The sun scorched him for eight days; then a poor man came along and gave him a garment which had a thousand patches. The fool said to God: 'O you who have knowledge of hidden things, why have you given me this patched-up garment? Have you burnt all your garments and had to patch up this old one? You have sewn together a thousand garments. From whom have you learned this art?'
It is not easy to have dealings at the Court of God. A man must become as the dust of the road which leads there. After a long struggle he thinks he has reached the goal only to discover that it is still to be attained.
The Seventh Valley or The Valley of Deprivation and Death (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...
(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.
The Hoopoe Tells Them About the Proposed Journey (2)
The Shaikh San'an was a saintly man in his day, and had perfected himself to a high degree. For fifty years he had remained in his retreat with four...
(2) The Shaikh San'an was a saintly man in his day, and had perfected himself to a high degree. For fifty years he had remained in his retreat with four hundred disciples, who worked on themselves day and night. He had great knowIr-dge, and benefited by outer and inner revelation. Much of his life had been spent in making pilgrimages to Mecca. His prayers and fasts were without number and he omitted none of the practices of the Sunnites. He could work miracles, and his breath healed the sick and depressed.
One night he dreamed that he went from Mecca to Greece and there worshipped an idol; and waking grief-stricken from this oppressive dream he said to his disciples: 'I must set out at once for Greece to see if I can discover the meaning of this dream.'
With his four hundred disciples he left the Ka'aba and in time arrived in Greece. They travelled from end to end of that country, and one day by chance came to where a young girl was sitting on a balcony. This girl was a Christian, and the expression of her face showed that she possessed the faculty of pondering on the things of God. Her beauty was like the sun in splendour, and her dignity as the Signs of the Zodiac. From jealousy of her radiance the morning star loitered above her house. Who caught his heart in her hair put on the belt of a Christian; whose desire lighted on the ruby of her lips lost his head. The morn took on a darker tint because of her black hair, the land of Greece wrinkled up because of the beauty of her freckles. Her two eyes were a lure for lovers; her arched brows formed tender sickles over twin moons. When power lighted the pupils of her eyes a hundred hearts became her prey. Her face sparkled like a living flame, and the moist rubies of her lips could make a whole world thirst. Her languorous lashes were a hundred daggers, and her mouth was so small that even words could not pass. Her waist, slender as a hair, was
squeezed through her zunnar; and the silver dimple of her chin was as vivifying as the discourses of Jesus.
When she lifted a corner of her veil the heart of the shaikh took fire; and a single hair bound his loins with a hundred zunnars. He could not take his eyes from this young Christian, and such was his love that his will slipped from his hands. Unbelief from her hair strewed itself on his faith. He cried out: "Oh, how terrible is this love that I have for her. When religion leaves you, of what good is the heart!'
When his companions understood what had happened, and saw the state he was in, they held their heads in their hands. Some began to reason with him, but he refused to listen. He could only stand day and night, his eyes fixed on the balcony and his mouth open. The stars that glowed like lamps borrowed heat from this holy man whose heart was on fire. His love grew until he was beside himself. "O Lord,' he prayed, 'in my life I have fasted and suffered, but never have I suffered like this; I am in torment. The night is as long and as black as her hair. Where is the lamp of Heaven? Have my sighs extinguished it or has it hidden itself from jealousy? Where is my good fortune? Why does it not help me to get the love of this girl? Where is my reason to make use of my knowledge? Where is my hand to put dust on my head? Where is my foot to walk to my beloved, and my eye to see her face? Where is my beloved to give me her heart? What is this love, this grief, this pain?'
The friends of the shaikh came again to him. One said: 'O worthy shaikh, lift yourself up and drive away this temptation. Take hold of yourself and perform the ordained ablutions.' He replied: 'Do you not know that this night I have made a hundred ablutions, and with my heart's blood?' Another said: 'Where is your chaplet? How can you pray without it?' He replied: 'I have thrown away my chaplet so that I may girdle myself with a Christian zunnar.' Another
said: 'O saintly old man, if you have sinned repent without delay.' 'I repent now,' he replied, 'of having followed the true law, and I only wish to give up that absurdity.' Another said: 'Leave this place and go and worship God.' He replied: 'If my idol were here it would become me to bow down before her.' Another said: 'Then, you will not even try to repent! Are you no longer a follower of Islam?' The shaikh replied: 'No one repents more than I that I was not in love until now.' Another said: 'The infernal regions are waiting for you if you continue on this path; but watch yourself, and you will avoid them.' He replied: 'If heU is there it is only from my sighs, which would feed seven hells.'
Seeing that their words produced no effect on the shaikh, although they pleaded with him all night, his friends went away. Meanwhile the Turk of the Morning, with sabre and golden buckler, cut off the head of Black Night, so that the world of illusion was bathed in the radiance of the Sun. The shaikh, plaything of his love, wandered with the dogs, and for a month sat in the street hoping to see her face. The dust was his bed and her doorstep his pillow.
Then the beautiful Christian, seeing that he was hopelessly in love, veiled herself, and went out and said to him: 'O shaikh, how is it that you, an ascetic, are so drunk with the wine of polytheism, and sit in a Christian street in such a state? If you adore me like this you will go mad.' The shaikh replied: 'It is because you have stolen my heart. Either give it back or accept my love. If you wish I will lay down my life for you, but you may restore that life by a touch of your lips. Because of you my heart is on fire. I have shed tears like rain and my eyes have lost their sight. Where my heart was there is only blood. If I were united to you my life would be restored. You are the sun, I the shadow. I am a lost man, but if you will incline to me I will take under my wing the seven cupolas of the world. Do not leave me, I implore you 1 '
'O you old driveller!' she said, 'aren't you ashamed to use camphor for your winding sheet? You should blush for suggesting intimacy with me with your cold breath! You had better wrap yourself in a shroud than spend your time on me. You cannot inspire love. Go away!'
The shaikh replied: ' Say what you will, I still love you. What does it matter whether one is young or old, love affects all hearts.'
She said: 'Very well, if you are not to be denied, listen to me. You must wash your hands of Islam; for love which is not identified with its beloved is only colour and perfume.'
He said: 'I will do all that you wish. I will undertake all that you command, you, whose body is like silver. I am your slave. Put a lock of your hair on my neck to remind me of my slavery.'
'If you are a man of action,' said the young Christian, 'you must do four things: prostrate yourself before the idols, burn the Koran, drink wine, and shut your eyes to your religion.'
He said: ' I will drink wine to your beauty but the other three things I cannot do,' 'Very well,' she said, 'come and drink wine with me, then you will soon accept the other conditions.'
She led him to a temple of magicians, where he saw a very strange gathering. They sat down to a banquet at which the hostess was distinguished by her beauty. His beloved handed him a cup of wine, and when he took it and looked at the smiling rubies of her lips, like two lids of a casket, the fire blazed in his heart and a stream of blood rushed to his eyes. He tried to recall the sacred books he had read and written on religion, and the Koran that he knew so well; but when the wine passed from the cup into his stomach he forgot them all; his spiritual knowledge was washed away. He lost his free will and let slip his heart from his hand. When he tried to put his hand on her neck, she said: 'You only pretend to love. You do not understand the mystery
of love. If you are sure of your love you may find the way to my curled locks. Lose yourself in unbelief by the way of my tangled ringlets; follow the locks of my hair, and you may put your hand on my neck. But if you do not wish to follow my way, get up and go; and take the cloak and staff of a faquir.'
At this, the amorous shaikh was crestfallen; and now he yielded without more ado to his destiny. The wine he had drunk made his head as uncertain as a compass. The wine was old and his love was young. How could he have been otherwise than drunk and in love?
'O Splendour of the Moon,' he said, 'tell me what you wish. If I was not an idolater before I lost my wits, now that I am drunk I will burn the Koran before the idol.'
The young beauty said: 'You are now really my man. You are worthy of me. Till now you were uncooked in love, but having acquired experience you are roasted. Good!'
When the Christians heard that the shaikh had embraced their faith they carried him, still drunk, into the church and told him to girdle himself with a zunnar. He did this and threw his dervdsh mantle into the fire, forsook the Faith, and delivered himself up to the practices of the Christian religion.
He said to the girl: 'O charming lady, no one has ever done as much for a woman as I have done. I have worshipped your idols, I have drunk wine, and I have given up the true Faith. All this I have done for love of you, and that I may have you.'
Again she said to him: 'Old driveller, slave of love, how can a woman such as I be united to a faquir? I need silver and gold, and since you have none, take your head and go.'
The shaikh said: 'O lovely woman, your body is a cypress and your breasts are silver. If you repulse me you will drive me to despair. The thought of possessing you has thrown me into a turmoil. On account of you my friends have
become my enemies. As you are, so are they; what shall I do? O my beloved, I had rather be in hell with you than in paradise without you.'
At last she relented, and the shaikh became her man, and she too began to feel the flame of love. But to try him further she said: 'Now, for my dowry, O imperfect man, go and look after my herd of pigs for the space of a year, and then we shall pass our lives together in joy or sadness!' Without a protest, this shaikh of the Ka'aba, this saint, resigned himself to becoming a hog-ward.
In the nature of each of us there are a hundred pigs. O you, who are non-entities, you are thinking only of the danger that the shaikh was in 1 The danger is to be found in each one of us, and it raises its head from the moment we start out on the path of self-knowledge. If you do not know your own pigs then you do not know the Path. But if you do set out you will meet a thousand pigs - a thousand idols. Drive away these pigs, burn these idols on the plain of love; or else be like the shaikh, dishonoured by love.
Well, then, when the news spread that the shaikh had become a Christian, his companions were in great distress and all but one went away, who said to him: 'Tell us the secret of this matter so that we may become Christians with you. We do not wish you to remain an apostate alone, so we will take the Christian zunnar. If you do not agree we shall return to the Ka'aba and spend our time in prayer in order not to see that which we* see now.'
The shaikh said: 'My soul is full of sadness. Go where your wishes carry you. As for me, the church is my place, and the young Christian my destiny. Do you know why you are free? It is because you are not in my position. If you were, I should have a companion in my unhappy love. Return then, dear friend, to the Ka'aba, for no one can share my present state. If they should ask about me say: "His eyes are full of blood, his mouth full of poison; he remains
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in the jaws of the dragons of violence. No infidel wQuld consent to do what this proud Musulman has done by the effect of destiny. A young Christian has caught his neck in a noose of her hair." If they reproach me, say that many fall by the way on this road which has neither beginning nor end, but some by chknce will be safe from descent and danger.' With this he turned his face from his friend and went back to the herd.
His followers, who had been watching from a distance, wept bitterly. Finally, they journeyed back to the Ka'aba, and ashamed and bewildered hid themselves in a corner.
Now in the Ka'aba there was a friend of the shaikh who was a seer, and who was on the true path. No one knew the shaikh better than he, though he had not accompanied him to Greece. When this man asked for news the disciples related all that had happened to the shaikh, and they asked what ugly branch of a tree had pierced his breast, and whether this had happened by the will of fate. They said that a young infidel had bound him with a single hair and barred him from the hundred ways of Islam. "He dallies with her ringlets and freckles, and has burnt his khirka. He has forsaken his religion and now girdled with a zunnar he looks after a herd of pigs. But though he has staked his very soul we feel there is still hope.'
Hearing this, the disciple's face turned the colour of gold, and he began to lament bitterly. Then he said: 'Companions in misfortune, in religion there is neither man nor woman. When an unfortunate friend needs help it sometimes happens that only a single person in a thousand can be of use.' He then reproached them for leaving the shaikh and said that they should even have become Christians for his sake. He added: 'A friend must remain a friend. It is in misfortune that you discover on whom you can rely; for in good fortune you will have a thousand friends. Now that the shaikh has fallen into the crocodile's jaws everyone stays
away from him in order to keep their reputation. If you shun him because of this strange happening you will have been tried and found wanting.'
'We offered to stay with him/ they said, 'and even agreed to become idolaters. But he is an experienced and learned man, and we trust him, so when he told us to go, we returned here.'
The faithful disciple replied: 'If you really wish to act you must knock on the door of God; then, by prayer, you will be admitted to his presence. You should have been pleading with God for your shaikh, each reciting a different prayer; and God, seeing your bewildered state, would have given him back to you. Why have you refrained from knocking at the door of God?'
At this they were ashamed to raise their heads. But he said: 'This is no time for regrets. Let us go now to the court of God. Let us lie in the dust, and cover ourselves with the garment of supplication that we may recover our leader! '
The disciples at once set out for Greece, and having arrived there remained near the shaikh. For forty days and forty nights they prayed. During these forty days and forty nights they neither ate nor slept; they tasted neither bread nor water. At last the power of the prayers of these sincere men made itself felt in Heaven. Angels and archangels and all the Saints robed in green oii the heights and in the valleys, now arrayed themselves in the garments of mourning. The arrow of prayer had reached its mark. When morning came, a musk-laden zephyr blew softly upon the faithful disciple at prayer in his cell, and the world was unveiled to his spirit. He saw the Prophet Muhammad approaching, radiant as the morn, two locks of hair falling upon his breast; the shadow of God was the sun of his countenance, the desire of a hundred worlds was attached to each of his hairs. His gracious smile drew all men to him. The disciple rose up and said: 'O messenger of God, the guide of all creatures, help
D
me! Our shaikh has strayed. Show him the way, I implore you in the name of the Most High I '
Muhammad said: 'O you who see things with the inner eye, because of your efforts your pure desires shall be gratified. Between the shaikh and God there has been for a long time a black speck; but I have poured out the dew of supplication and have scattered it on the dust of his existence. He has repented and his sin is wiped away. The faults of a hundred worlds can disappear in the vapour of a moment of repentance. When the ocean of good-will is moved its waves wash out the sins of men and women.'
The disciple uttered a cry that moved all heaven. He ran and told his companions the good news, then weeping for joy hastened to where the shaikh was keeping the pigs. But the shaikh was as a fire, as one illumined. He had cast off the Christian belt, thrown away the girdle, torn the bonnet of drunkenness from his head and renounced Christianity. He saw himself as he was and shedding tears of remorse lifted his hands to heaven; all that he had forsaken - the Koran, the mysteries and prophecies, came back to him, and he was delivered from his misery and folly. They said to him: 'Now is the hour of gratitude and thankfulness. The Prophet has interceded for you. Thanks be to God that he has lifted you out of an ocean of pitch and placed your foot on the way of the Sun.'
The shaikh thereupon resumed his khirka, performed his ablutions, and set out for the Hejaz.
While this was happening the Christian girl saw in a dream the sun descending to her, and heard these words: 'Follow your shaikh, embrace his faith, be his dust. You who are soiled, be pure as he is now. You led him in your way, enter now in his.'
She woke; a light broke on her spirit, and she longed to set out on her quest. Her hand seized her heart, and her heart fell from her hand. But when she realized that she was
alone, and had no idea of the way, her joy was changed to weeping and she ran out to throw dust on her head. Then she started out in pursuit of the shaikh and his disciples; but growing wear}' and distraught, covered with sweat, she threw herself on the ground and cried out: 'May God the Creator forgive me! I am a woman, disgusted with life. Do not strike me down, for I struck you in ignorance and through ignorance committed many faults. Forget the ill I have done. I accept the true Faith.'
An inner voice apprised the shaikh of this. He 'stopped, and said: 'That young girl is no longer an infidel. Light has come to her and she has entered our Way. Let us go back. One can now be intimately bound to one's idol without sin.'
But his companions said: 'Now what is the use of all your repentance and remorse! Are you going back to your love?' He told them of the voice he had heard, and reminded them that he had renounced his former ways. So they went back until they came to where the girl lay. Her face had gone the colour of yellow gold, her feet were bare, her dress torn. As the shaikh bent down to her she swooned away. When she came to herself her tears fell like dew from roses, and she said: 'I am consumed with shame because of you. Lift the veil of the secret and instruct me in Islam so that I may walk in the Way.'
When this fair idol was at last numbered among the faithful, the companions shed tears of joy. But her heart was impatient to be delivered from sorrow. 'O shaikh,' she said, 'my strength is gone. I wish to leave this dusty deafening world. Farewell, Shaikh San'an. I confess my faults. Pardon me, and let me go.'
So this moon of beauty who had had no more than half a life, shook it from her hand. The sun hid itself behind the clouds while her sweet soul separated itself from her body. She, a drop in the ocean of illusion, had returned to the true ocean.
We all leave as the wind; she is gone and we also shall go. Such things often happen in the way of love. There is despair and mercy, illusion and security. Though the body of desire cannot understand the secrets, adversity cannot knock away the polo ball of good fortune. One must hear with the ear of the mind and the heart, not with that of the body. The struggle of the spirit with the body of desire is unending. Lament! For there is cause to mourn.
ALL this equipment the Sage has ordained for the sake of wisdom; so he that seeks to still sorrow must get him wisdom. We deem that there are two...
ALL this equipment the Sage has ordained for the sake of wisdom; so he that seeks to still sorrow must get him wisdom. We deem that there are two verities, the Veiled Truth and the Transcendent Reality. The Reality is beyond the range of the understanding; the understanding is called Veiled Truth.... Thus there is never either cessation or existence; the universe neither comes to be nor halts in being. Life's courses, if thou considerest them, are like dreams and as the plantain's branches; in reality there is no distinction between those that are at rest and those that are not at rest. Since then the forms of being are empty, what can be gained, and what lost? who can be honoured or despised, and by whom? Whence should come joy or sorrow? What is sweet, what bitter? What is desire, and where shall this desire in verity be sought? If thou considerest the world of living things, who shall die therein? who shall be born, who is born? who is a kinsman and who a friend, and to whom? Would that my fellow-creatures should understand that all is as the void! They are angered and delighted by their matters of strife and rejoicing; with grief and labour, with despair, with rending and stabbing one another, they wearily pass their days in sin as they seek their own pleasure; they die and fall into hells of long and bitter anguish; they return again and again to happy births after births and grow wonted to joy.... In life are oceans of sorrow, fierce and boundless beyond compare, a scant measure of power, a brief term of years; our years are spent in vain strivings for existence and health, in hunger, faintness, and labour, in sleep, in vexation, in fruitless commerce with fools, and discernment is hard to win; how shall we come to restrain the spirit from its wont of wandering? There, too, the Spirit of Desire is labouring to cast us into deep hells; there evil paths abound, and unbelief can scarce be overcome; it is hard to win j, a brief return, exceeding hard for the Enlightened « to arise to us; the torrent of passion can scarce be stayed. Alas, how sorrow follows on sorrow! Alas, how lamentable is the estate of them that are borne down in the floods of affliction, and in their sore distress see not how sad their plight is, like one who should again and again come forth from the waters of his bath and cast himself into fire, and so in their sore trouble deem themselves to be in happy estate! As thus they live in sport that knows not of age and dissolution, dire afflictions will come upon them, with Death in their forefront. Then when will the day come when I may bring peace to them that are tortured in the fire of sorrow by my ministrations of sweetness born from the rain-clouds of my righteousness, and when I may reverently declare to the souls who imagine a real world that all is void, and righteousness is gathered by looking beyond the Veiled Truth?
Some Sufis have had the unseen world of heaven and hell revealed to them when in a state of death-like trance. On their recovering consciousness...
(7) Some Sufis have had the unseen world of heaven and hell revealed to them when in a state of death-like trance. On their recovering consciousness their faces betray the nature of the revelations they have had by marks of joy or terror. But no visions are necessary to prove what will occur to every thinking man, that when death has stripped him for his senses and left him nothing but his bare personality, if while on earth he has too closely attached himself to objects perceived by the senses, such as wives, children, wealth, lands, slaves, male and female, etc., he must necessarily suffer when bereft of those objects. Whereas, on the contrary, if he has as far as possible turned his back on all earthly objects and fixed his supreme affection upon God, he will welcome death as a means of escape from worldly entanglements, and of union with Him whom he loves. In his case the Prophet's sayings will be verified: "Death is a bridge which unites friend to friend," and "The world is a paradise for infidels, but a prison for the faithful."
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...
(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.'
The Third Valley or The Valley of Understanding (5)
One day, in the desert, Mahmud saw a faquir whose head was bowed in sadness and whose back was bent with sorrow. When the sultan went up to him the...
(5) One day, in the desert, Mahmud saw a faquir whose head was bowed in sadness and whose back was bent with sorrow. When the sultan went up to him the man said: 'Begone! or I will give you a hundred blows. Go away, I tell you, you are no monarch but a man of vile thinking, an unbeliever in the grace of God.' Mahmud answered sharply: 'Speak to me as befits a sultan, not in that fashion.' The faquir replied: 'If you knew, O ignorant one, how you are turned upside down, earth and ashes would not suffice; you would lament without ceasing and put fire on your head.'
And only by cultivating such repose can man attain to the constant. "Those who are constant are sought after by men and assisted by God. Those who are...
(7) "Those whose hearts are in a state of repose give forth a divine radiance, by the light of which they see themselves as they are. And only by cultivating such repose can man attain to the constant. "Those who are constant are sought after by men and assisted by God. Those who are sought after by men are the people of God; those who are assisted by God are his chosen children. "To study this is to study what cannot be learnt. To practise this is to practise what cannot be accomplished. To discuss this is to discuss what can never be proved. Let knowledge stop at the unknowable. That is perfection. And for those who do not follow this, God will destroy them! "With such defences for the body, ever prepared for the unexpected, deferential to the rights of others,—if then calamities overtake you, these are from God, not from man. Let them not disturb what you have already achieved. Let them not penetrate into the soul's abode. For there resides the Will. And if the will knows not what to will, it will not be able to will. "Whatsoever is not said in all sincerity, is wrongly said. And not to be able to rid oneself of this vice is only to sink deeper towards perdition. "Those who do evil in the open light of day,—men will punish them. Those who do evil in secret,—God will punish them. Who fears both man and God, he is fit to walk alone.
Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to Be Evil (9)
Wealth and poverty, and all inequalities of that order, are made ground of complaint. But this is to ignore that the Sage demands no equality in such...
(9) Wealth and poverty, and all inequalities of that order, are made ground of complaint. But this is to ignore that the Sage demands no equality in such matters: he cannot think that to own many things is to be richer or that the powerful have the better of the simple; he leaves all such preoccupations to another kind of man. He has learned that life on earth has two distinct forms, the way of the Sage and the way of the mass, the Sage intent upon the sublimest, upon the realm above, while those of the more strictly human type fall, again, under two classes, the one reminiscent of virtue and therefore not without touch with good, the other mere populace, serving to provide necessaries to the better sort.
But what of murder? What of the feebleness that brings men under slavery to the passions?
Is it any wonder that there should be failing and error, not in the highest, the intellectual, Principle but in Souls that are like undeveloped children? And is not life justified even so if it is a training ground with its victors and its vanquished?
You are wronged; need that trouble an immortal? You are put to death; you have attained your desire. And from the moment your citizenship of the world becomes irksome you are not bound to it.
Our adversaries do not deny that even here there is a system of law and penalty: and surely we cannot in justice blame a dominion which awards to every one his due, where virtue has its honour, and vice comes to its fitting shame, in which there are not merely representations of the gods, but the gods themselves, watchers from above, and- as we read- easily rebutting human reproaches, since they lead all things in order from a beginning to an end, allotting to each human being, as life follows life, a fortune shaped to all that has preceded- the destiny which, to those that do not penetrate it, becomes the matter of boorish insolence upon things divine.
A man's one task is to strive towards making himself perfect- though not in the idea- really fatal to perfection- that to be perfect is possible to himself alone.
We must recognize that other men have attained the heights of goodness; we must admit the goodness of the celestial spirits, and above all of the gods- those whose presence is here but their contemplation in the Supreme, and loftiest of them, the lord of this All, the most blessed Soul. Rising still higher, we hymn the divinities of the Intellectual Sphere, and, above all these, the mighty King of that dominion, whose majesty is made patent in the very multitude of the gods.
It is not by crushing the divine unto a unity but by displaying its exuberance- as the Supreme himself has displayed it- that we show knowledge of the might of God, who, abidingly what He is, yet creates that multitude, all dependent on Him, existing by Him and from Him.
This Universe, too, exists by Him and looks to Him- the Universe as a whole and every God within it- and tells of Him to men, all alike revealing the plan and will of the Supreme.
These, in the nature of things, cannot be what He is, but that does not justify you in contempt of them, in pushing yourself forward as not inferior to them.
The more perfect the man, the more compliant he is, even towards his fellows; we must temper our importance, not thrusting insolently beyond what our nature warrants; we must allow other beings, also, their place in the presence of the Godhead; we may not set ourselves alone next after the First in a dream-flight which deprives us of our power of attaining identity with the Godhead in the measure possible to the human Soul, that is to say, to the point of likeness to which the Intellectual-Principle leads us; to exalt ourselves above the Intellectual-Principle is to fall from it.
Yet imbeciles are found to accept such teaching at the mere sound of the words "You, yourself, are to be nobler than all else, nobler than men, nobler than even gods." Human audacity is very great: a man once modest, restrained and simple hears, "You, yourself, are the child of God; those men whom you used to venerate, those beings whose worship they inherit from antiquity, none of these are His children; you without lifting a hand are nobler than the very heavens"; others take up the cry: the issue will be much as if in a crowd all equally ignorant of figures, one man were told that he stands a thousand cubic feet; he will naturally accept his thousand cubits even though the others present are said to measure only five cubits; he will merely tell himself that the thousand indicates a considerable figure.
Another point: God has care for you; how then can He be indifferent to the entire Universe in which you exist?
We may be told that He is too much occupied to look upon the Universe, and that it would not be right for Him to do so; yet, when He looks down and upon these people, is He not looking outside Himself and upon the Universe in which they exist? If He cannot look outside Himself so as to survey the Kosmos, then neither does He look upon them.
But they have no need of Him?
The Universe has need of Him, and He knows its ordering and its indwellers and how far they belong to it and how far to the Supreme, and which of the men upon it are friends of God, mildly acquiescing with the Kosmic dispensation when in the total course of things some pain must be brought to them- for we are to look not to the single will of any man but to the universe entire, regarding every one according to worth but not stopping for such things where all that may is hastening onward.
Not one only kind of being is bent upon this quest, which brings bliss to whatsoever achieves, and earns for the others a future destiny in accord with their power. No man, therefore, may flatter himself that he alone is competent; a pretension is not a possession; many boast though fully conscious of their lack and many imagine themselves to possess what was never theirs and even to be alone in possessing what they alone of men never had.