(64) But thou mad World, what shall the Spirit say [of thee?] art thou not my Brother? The Essences of my Spirit stir thee, go forth out of thy Beast, and then I go with my Companions into the Garden of Roses, into the Lily of God. Why keepest thou back, and sufferest thyself to be held by the Devil? Is he not thy Enemy, he does but hunt after thy Pearl; and if he gets it, then thy Spirit becomes a Worm and Beast in its Figure. Why sufferest thou thy angelical Image to be taken away, for temporal Pleasure Sake? Thy Pleasure is only in the corruptible Beast. But what does that avail the Soul? If thou dost not go out from it, thou wilt get eternal Woe and Sorrow by it.

(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! '

(1) Another bird said to the Hoopoe: 'I believe that I have acquired for myself all the perfection that is possible, and I have acquired it by painful austerities. Since I have obtained here the result that I wish, it is difficult for me to set out for this place you speak of. Have you ever known anyone leave a treasure to go painfully wandering over the mountains, in the wilderness, and across the plains?'

The Hoopoe replied: 'O diabolical creature, full of conceit and self-pride! You who are sunk in egoism! You who have such an aversion to doing! You have been seduced by your imagination and you are now far from divine things. The body of desire has the upper hand of your spirit; the devil has stolen your brain. Pride has taken possession of you. The light you think you have in the Spiritual Way is only a flickering flame. Your taste for heavenly things is

imaginary. Do not let yourself be seduced by the glimmer which you see. So long as your body of desire confronts you, be aware of yourself. You must fight this enemy, sword in hand. When a false light shows itself from your body of desire you must look on it as the sting of a scorpion, for which you must use parsley. Do not despair because of the obscurity of the way which I shall show you, and because the light that you will see there will give you no pretension to be a companion of the sun. So long as you continue to live, O my dear, in the pride of life, your readings of books and your puny efforts are not worth an obol. Only when you give up this pride and vanity will you be able to leave this exterior life without regret. So long as you hold on to conceit and self-pride and the things of outer life, a hundred arrows of vexation will pierce you from every side.'

(144) Direct not thy mind to the vast surfaces of the Earth; for the Plant of Truth grows not upon the ground. Nor measure the motions of the Sun, collecting rules, for he is carded by the Eternal Will of the Father,. and not for your sake alone. Dismiss (from your mind) the impetuous course of the Moon, for she moveth always by the power of necessity. The progression of the Stars was not generated for your sake. The wide aërial flight of birds gives no true knowledge nor the dissection of the entrails of victims; they are all mere toys, the basis of mercenary fraud:, flee from these if you would enter the sacred paradise of piety, where Virtue, Wisdom, and Equity are assembled.

(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. '

(32) Thus that noble Jewel (and in it the Pearl) is sown. But observe it well; it is not instantly become a Tree; O how often does the Devil rush upon it, and would fain root up the Grain of Mustard- seed! How many hard Storms must the Soul undergo and endure! How often is it covered with Sins! For all that is in this World is against it, it is as it were left alone and forsaken; even the Children of God themselves rush upon it; for the Devil does plague the poor Soul thus, to try if he can lead it astray, either with Flattery and Hypocrisy, that the Soul might flatter itself, or else with Sins in the Conscience. He never ceases, and thou must always strive against him; for so the Tree of Pearl grows, as Corn does in the tempestuous Storms and Winds; but if it grows high, and comes to blossom, then thou wilt enjoy the Fruit well enough, and understand better what this Pen has written, and where it was born. For it was a long Time in this Condition, many Storms went over its Head; and therefore this shall be for a lasting Memorial, and continual Remembrance to it; seeing we must sit here in the murdering Den of the Devil; if we do but overcome, our great Reward will soon follow us.

(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) Such is the hateful cloak thou wearest - that throttles thee [and holds thee] down to it, in order that thou may'st not gaze above, and having seen the Beauty of the Truth, and Good that dwells therein, detest the bad of it; having found out the plot that it hath schemed against thee, by making void of sense those seeming things which men think senses. For that it hath with mass of matter blocked them up and crammed them full of loathsome lust, so that thou may'st not hear about the things that thou should'st hear, nor see the things thou should'st see.

(20) Thus the Soul desired the Pearl again, but it was gone, and must be generated anew, and be sown as a Grain of Mustard-seed, which is small and little, and afterwards there grows a great Tree out of it; and thus the Pearl grows in the Bosom of the Virgin in the Soul. Therefore keep what thou hast, for Misery is an ill Guest; regard not what Sugar the Devil strows, though the Kingdom of this World seems as sweet as Sugar, it is nothing else but Gall; consider that the poor Soul in this World, and in the Flesh and Blood, is not in its true Home, it must travel into another Country. Therefore suffer not the Devil to cover it thus with the Untowardness of the Flesh, for great Earnestness is requisite for the Driving away of the Devil; though that would not be in our Ability [and Power,] if the exceeding worthy Champion did not aid and assist us.

(34) Here the Tree of Pearl stands hidden; behold, my beloved Reason, the Tree of Pearl is not sown into the outward Man, he is not. worthy of it, he belongs to the Earth, and the Man of Sin sticks in him, and the Devil often makes his Seat therein, who heaps together Anger and Malice therein, and brings the poor Soul often into i Lusts, to which it does not consent, so that the Body meddles with that which the Soul is against; and now when this is so, it is not always the Soul that does it, but the Spirit of the Stars and Elements in Man; the Soul says it is not right, nor well; but the [outward] Body says, we must have it, that we may live and have enough; and so it is one Time after another. So that a true Christian knows not himself, how then should he be known by others? Also the Devil can cover him sufficiently, that he may not be known; and that is his Master-piece, when he can bring a true Christian into Wickedness, to fall into Sins, so that outwardly nothing, is discerned by him, but that he reproves the Sins of others, and yet sins outwardly himself.

(2) Someone asked a man of understanding: 'What is the world? What can it be compared to?' He replied: 'This world, which is compounded of horrors and crime, is like a palm-tree of wax, adorned with a hundred colours. If you squee2e the tree it becomes a lump of wax; therefore the colours and shapes you admire are not worth an obol. If there is unity there cannot be duality; neither "I" nor "Thou" has significance.

' But what is the use of my words, though they come from the depth of my soul, if you do not ponder over them. If you have fallen into the ocean of exterior life, like a partridge whose wings and feathers cannot support it, then never cease to think about how to reach the shore. '

(1) Another bird asked the Hoopoe: 'O you whose motives are without guile, tell me how I can be sincere on this path to God. Since I cannot give up the longing of my heart I spend all that I have to achieve my aim. What I had I lost; what I kept has turned to scorpions in my hands. I am bound by no ties and have cast off all shackles and impediments. I wish to be sincere in the spiritual Way in the hope of one day seeing the object of my worship face to face.'

The Hoopoe replied: 'The Way is not open to everyone; only the upright may tread it. He who strives in this Way must do so tranquilly and with a whole heart. When you have burnt all that you possess gather the ashes together and seat yourself upon them. Until you die to all the things of this world, one by one, you will not be free. And seeing that you will not be long in the prison of the world detach yourself from everything. When death comes, can the things that now enslave you turn him aside? To travel this road, selfsincerity is necessary - and to be sincere with oneself is more difficult than you think.'

ALLEGORICAL SAYING OF TARMAZ!

The saint of Turkestan said one day to himself: H love two things, my son and my piebald horse. If I should hear that my son had died I would surrender my horse as a thanksgiving, for these two things are as idols to my soul.'

K

Set light to your faults, your resentments, and your vanities. Burn them and do not flatter yourself that you are more sincere than others. He who prides himself on his sincerity should strive to see himself as he is.

(29) Therefore, my beloved Mind, look what thou dost; and judge not so hastily and unadvisedly, and do not turn Beast because of the Multitude of Opinions, to whom belongs only the Chaff of the noble Seed. The Spirit of God shows himself in one that seeks him, yet according to the Manner and Kind of his Essences; and yet the Seed of God is sown along in the Essences; and if the Seeker seeks in a divine Desire, then he finds the Pearl according to his Essences, and so the great Wonders of God are manifested thereby.

(1) When the birds had listened to this discourse of the Hoopoe their heads drooped down, and sorrow pierced their hearts. Now they understood how difficult it would be for a handful of dust like themselves to bend such a bow. So great was their agitation that numbers of them died then and there. But others, in spite of their distress, decided to set out on the long road. For years they travelled over mountains and

valleys, and a great part of their life flowed past on this journey. But how is it possible to relate all that happened to them? It would be necessary to go with them and see their difficulties for oneself, and to follow the wanderings of this long road. Only then could one realize what the birds suffered.

In the end, only a small number of all this great company arrived at that sublime place to which the Hoopoe had led them. Of the thousands of birds almost all had disappeared. Many had been lost in the ocean, others had perished on the summits of the high mountains, tortured by thirst; others had had their wings burnt and their hearts dried up by the fire of the sun; others were devoured by tigers and panthers; others died of fatigue in the deserts and in the wilderness, their lips parched and their bodies overcome by the heat; some went mad and killed each other for a grain of barley; others, enfeebled by suffering and weariness, dropped on the road unable to go further; others, bewildered by the things they saw, stopped where they were, stupefied; and many, who had started out from curiosity or pleasure, perished without an idea of what they had set out to find.

So then, out of all those thousands of birds, only thirty reached the end of the journey. And even these were bewildered, weary" and dejected, with neither feathers nor wings. But now they were at the door of this Majesty that cannot be described, whose essence is incomprehensible - that Being who is beyond human reason and knowledge. Then flashed the lightning of fulfilment, and a hundred worlds were consumed in a moment. They saw thousands of suns each more resplendent than the other, thousands of moons and stars all equally beautiful, and seeing all this they were amazed and agitated like a dancing atom of dust, and they cried out: 'O Thou who art more radiant than the sun! Thou, who hast reduced the sun to an atom, how can we appear before Thee? Ah, why have we so uselessly endured

(13 °)

all this suffering on the Way? Having renounced ourselves and all things, we now cannot obtain that for which we have striven. Here, it little matters whether we exist or not.'

Then the birds, who were so disheartened that they resembled a cock half-killed, sank into despair. A long time passed. When, at a propitious moment, the door suddenly opened, there stepped out a noble chamberlain, one of the courtiers of the Supreme Majesty. He looked them over and saw that out of thousands only these thirty birds were left.

He said: 'Now then, O Birds, where have you come from, and what are you doing here? What is your name? O you who are destitute of everything, where is your home? What do they call you in the world? What can be done with a feeble handful of dust like you?'

'We have come,' they said, 'to acknowledge the Simurgh as our king. Through love and desire for him we have lost our reason and our peace of mind. Very long ago, when we started on this journey, we were thousands, and now only thirty of us have arrived at this sublime court. We cannot believe that the King will scOrn us after all the sufferings we have gone through. Ah, no! He cannot but look on us with the eye of benevolence! '

The Chamberlain replied: 'O you whose minds and hearts are troubled, whether you exist or do not exist in the universe, the King has his being always and eternally. Thousands of worlds of creatures are no more than an ant at his gate. You bring nothing but moans and lamentations. Return then to whence you came, O vile handful of earth! ' At this, the birds were petrified with astonishment. Nevertheless, when they came to themselves a little, they said: 'Will this great king reject us so ignominiously? And if he really has this attitude to us may he not change it to one of honour? Remember Majnun who said, "If all the people who dwell on earth wished to sing my praises, I would not accept them; I would rather have the insults of Laila. One

of her insults is more to me than a hundred compliments from another woman! '' '

'The lightning of his glory manifests itself/ said the Chamberlain, 'and it lifts up the reason of all souls. What benefit is there if the soul be consumed by a hundred sorrows? What benefit is there at this moment in either greatness or littleness?'

The birds, on fire with love, said: 'How can the moth save itself from the flame when it wishes to be one with the flame? The friend we seek will content us by allowing us to be united to him. If now we are refused, what is there left for us to do? We are like the moth who wished for union with the flame of the candle. They bfegged him not to sacrifice himself so foolishly and for such an impossible aim, but he thanked them for their advice and told them that since his heart was given to the flame for ever, nothing else mattered.'

Then the Chamberlain, having tested them, opened the door; and as he drew aside a hundred curtains, one after the other, a new world beyond the veil was revealed. Now was the light of lights manifested, and all of them sat down on the masnad, the seat of the Majesty and Glor}' They were given a writing which they were told to read through; and reading this, and pondering, they were able to understand their state. When they were completely at peace and detached from all things they became aware that the Simurgh was there with them, and a new life began for them in the Simurgh. All that they had done previously was washed away. The sun of majesty sent forth his rays, and in the reflection of each other's faces these thirty birds (si-murgh) of the outer world, contemplated the face of the Simurgh of the inner world. This so astonished them that they did not know if they were still themselves or if they had become the Simurgh. At last, in a state of contemplation, they realized that they were the Simurgh and that the Simurgh was the thirty birds. W'hen they gazed at the Simurgh they

saw that it was truly the Simurgh who was there, and when they turned their eyes towards themselves they saw that they themselves were the Simurgh. And perceiving both at once, themselves and Him, they realized that they and the Simurgh were one and the same being. No one in the world has ever heard of anything to equal it.

Then they gave themselves up to meditation, and after a little they asked the Simurgh, without the use of tongues, to reveal to them the secret of the mystery of the unity and plurality of beings. The Simurgh, also without speaking, made this reply: ' The sun of my majesty is a mirror. He who sees himself therein sees his soul and his body, and sees them completely. Since you have come as thirty birds, si-murgh, you will see thirty birds in this mirror. If forty or fifty were to come, it would be the same. Although you are now completely changed you see yourselves as you were before.

'Can the sight of an ant reach to the far-off Pleiades? And can this insect lift an anvil? Have you ever seen a gnat seize an elephant in its teeth? All that you have known, all that you have seen, all that you have said or heard - all this is no longer that. When you crossed the valleys of the Spiritual Way and when you performed good tasks, you did aU this by my action; and you were able to see the valleys of my essence and my perfections. You, who are only thirty birds, did well to be astonished, impatient and wondering. But I am more than thirty birds. I am the very essence of the true Simurgh. Annihilate then yourselves gloriously and joyfully in me, and in me you shall find yourselves.'

Thereupon, the birds at last lost themselves for ever in the Simurgh - the shadow was lost in the sun, and that is all.

All that you have heard or seen or known is not even the beginning of what you must know, and since the ruined habitation of this world is not your place you must renounce it. Seek the trunk of the tree, and do not worry about whether the branches do or do not exist.

(2) Be ye then not carried off by the fierce flood, but using the shore-current , ye who can, make for Salvation's port, and, harboring there, seek ye for one to take you by the hand and lead you unto Gnosis' gates. Where shines clear Light, of every darkness clean; where not a single soul is drunk, but sober all they gaze with their hearts' eyes on Him who willeth to be seen. No ear can hear Him, nor can eye see Him, nor tongue speak of Him, but [only] mind and heart. But first thou must tear off from thee the cloak which thou dost wear - the web of ignorance, the ground of bad, corruption's chain, the carapace of darkness, the living death, sensation's corpse, the tomb thou carriest with thee, the robber in thy house, who through the things he loveth, hateth thee, and through the things he hateth, bears thee malice.