(4) On this point there are the following verses: — Striking down in sleep what is bodily, Sleepless he looks down upon the sleeping [senses]. Having taken to himself light, there returns to his place The golden person, the one spirit (hamsd).

(4) People see his pleasure-ground; Him no one sees at all. " Therefore one should not wake him suddenly," they say. Hard is the curing for a man to whom He does not return. Now some people say: " That is just his waking state, for whatever things he sees when awake, those too he sees when asleep." [This is not so, for] there [i.e. in sleep] the person Is self-illuminated/ [Janaka said:] < I will give you, noble Sir, a thousand [cows]. Declare what is higher than this, for my release [from trans- migration].'

(1) 'When a man being asleep, reposing, and at perfect rest , sees no dreams, that is the Self, this is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.' Then Indra went away satisfied in his heart. But before he had returned to the Devas, he saw this difficulty. In truth he thus does not know himself (his self) that he is I, nor does he know anything that exists. He is gone to utter annihilation. I see no good in this.

(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. '