| The free man who knows
good and evil, |
| his spirit cannot be
contained in Paradise. |
| The mullah’s
Paradise is wine and houris and page boys, |
| the Paradise of free
men is eternal voyaging; |
| the mullah’s
Paradise is eating and sleeping and singing, |
2195 |
| the lover’s
Paradise is the contemplation of Being. |
| The mullah’s
Resurrection is the splitting of the tomb and the trumpet’s blast, |
| tumult-arousing Love is
itself the Dawn of Resurrection. |
| Science is founded upon
fear and hope, |
| lovers are troubled by
neither hope nor fear; |
2200 |
| science is fearful of
the grandeur of creation, |
| Love is immersed in the
beauty of creation; |
| science gazes upon the
past and the present, |
| love cries, ‘Look
upon what is coming!’ |
| Science has made
compact with the canon of constraint |
2205 |
| and has no other
resource but constraint and resignation; |
| Love is free and proud
and intolerant |
| and boldly investigates
the whole of Being. |
| Our love is a stranger
to complaining |
| even though it weeps
the tears of drunkenness. |
2210 |
| Our constrained heart
is not truly constrained, |
| our arrow is not shot
by any houri’s glance; |
| our fire augments out
of separation, |
| separation is congenial
to our soul. |
| Life without prickings
is no true life; |
2215 |
| one must live with a
fire under one’s feet. |
| Such living is the
destiny of the self |
| and through this
destiny the self is built up. |
| A mote through infinite
yearning becomes the envy of the sun, |
| in its breast the nine
spheres cannot be contained; |
2220 |
| when yearning makes
assault upon a world |
| it transforms momentary
beings into immortals. |
| Whoever possesses the
apparatus of destiny, |
2225 |
| IbIis and death tremble
before his might. |
| Predestination is the
religion of men of zeal, |
| predestination for
heroes is the perfection of power. |
| Ripe souls become yet
riper through constraint |
| which for raw men is
the embrace of the tomb. |
2230 |
| Khalid constrained
turns a world upside down; |
| for us, constraint
tears us up by the roots. |
| The business of true
men is resignation and submission; |
| this garment does not
suit the weaklings. |
| You who know the
station of the Sage of Rum, |
2235 |
| do you not know the
words of the Sage of Rum? |
| ‘A fire-worshipper
there was in the time of Ba Yazid; |
| a blessed Moslem said
to him, |
| "Better were it if
you accepted the Faith |
| so that salvation and
the excellence would be yours. " |
2240 |
| The other said,
"Disciple, if this be faith |
| that the Shaikh of the
World Ba Yazid possesses, |
| I cannot endure its
glowing heat |
| which is too great for
the strivings of my soul." |
| Our concern is only
with hope and fear; |
2245 |
| not every man has the
zeal to surrender. |
| You who say, ‘This
was to be, and so happened, |
| all things were
tethered to a divine decree, and so happened,’ |
| you have little
understood the meaning of destiny, |
| you have seen neither
selfhood nor God. |
2250 |
| The believer true thus
petitions God: |
| ‘We accord with
you, so accord with us.’ |
| His resolution is the
creator of God’s determination |
| and on the day of
battle his arrow is God’s arrow. |
| The sound of the Last
Trump was in my breast; |
| I saw a people
hastening to the tomb, |
| believers with the
character and colour of infidels |
| who cried ‘No god
but God’ and denied the Self. |
| ‘God’s
bidding’ they called a vain image |
| because it was bound to
water and clay. |
| I kindled in my self
the fire of life |
2265 |
| and spoke to the dead
of the mysteries of life. |
| The whole world has
been founded on Selfhood, |
| love therein has been
compounded with violence; |
| Selfhood is everywhere
visible, yet invisible, |
| our gaze cannot endure
to look on Selfhood; |
2270 |
| within its light many
fires lurk hidden, |
| from its Sinai
creation’s epiphanies shine. |
| Every moment every
heart in this ancient convent |
| discourses, albeit
secretly, of the Self; |
| whoever has not taken
his share of its fire |
2275 |
| has died in the world,
a stranger to himself. |
| India and Iran alike
are privy to its light, |
| but few there are who
also know its fire. |
| I have spoken of its
light and its fire; |
| confidant of my secret,
see now my crime. |
2280 |
| What I have done you
too have done; beware! |
| You have sought to
resurrect the dead: beware! |
| From the sin of a
frenzied servant of God |
| new creatures come into
being; |
| unbounded passion rends
veils apart, |
2285 |
| removes from the vision
the old and stale, |
| and in the end meets
its portion in rope and gallows |
| neither turns back
living from the Beloved’s street. |
| Behold Love’s
glory in city and fields, |
| lest you suppose it has
passed away from the world; |
2290 |
| it lies concealed in
the breast of its own time— |
| how could it be
contained in such a closet as this? |
| The lament that rises
out of a broken heart— |
| I have seen its effect
different in every place; |
| the dove is consumed
through its influence, |
| the nightingale daubed
with colours as its result. |
2300 |
| In it, death is in the
embrace of life, |
| one moment here is
life, there is death; |
| such a colour as glowed
in Mani’s abode, |
| such a colour as begets
colourlessness. |
| You know not, this is
the station of colour and scent; |
2305 |
| the portion of every
heart is according to its ululation. |
| Either enter colour, or
pass into colourlessness, |
| that you may grasp a
token of the broken heart. |
| Before him the whole
world bows prostrate, |
| before him who called
himself His servant. |
2340 |
| ‘His servant’
surpasses your understanding |
| because he is man, and
at the same time essence. |
| His essence is neither
Arab nor non-Arab; |
| he is a man, yet more
ancient than man. |
| ‘His servant’
is the shaper of destinies, |
2345 |
| in him are deserts and
flourishing cultivations; |
| ‘His servant’
both increases life and destroys it, |
| ‘His servant’
is both glass and heavy stone. |
| ‘Servant’ is
one thing, ‘His servant’ is another; |
| we are all expectancy,
he is the expectation. |
2350 |
| ‘His servant’
is time, and time is of ‘His servant’; |
| we all are colour, he
is without colour and scent. |
| ‘His servant’
had beginning, but has no end; |
| what have our morn and
eve to do with ‘His servant’? |
| No man knows the secret
of ‘His servant’, |
2355 |
| ‘His servant’
is naught but the secret of ‘save God’. |
| ‘Save God’ is
the sword whose edge is ‘His servant’; |
| do you want it plainer?
Say, He is ‘His servant’. |
| ‘His servant’
is the how and why of creation, |
| ‘His servant’
is the inward mystery of creation. |
2360 |
| The true meaning of
these two verses becomes not clear |
| until you behold from
the station of Thou threwest not. |
| Zinda-Rud, have done
now with speaking and listening, |
| become drowned in the
ocean of being, Zinda-Rud. |
| First, to implant on
one’s soul the image of God, |
2375 |
| then next to implant it
on the world; |
| when the soul’s
image is perfected in the world, |
| to behold the commons
is to behold God. |
| Blessed is the man
whose single sigh |
| causes the nine heavens
to circle about his dwelling; |
2380 |
| woe to the dervish who,
having uttered a sigh, |
| then closes his lips
and draws back his breath! |
| Such a one never made
God’s rule to run in the world; |
| he ate barley-bread,
but never fought like Ali; |
| he sought a convent and
fled from Khaibar, |
2385 |
| he practised monkhood
and never saw royal power. |
| Do you possess
God’s image? The world is your prey; |
| destiny shares the same
reins as your design. |
| The present age seeks
to war with you; |
| imprint God’s
image on this infidel’s tablet! |
2390 |
| Speak little of that
Leader of those in separation, |
| throat athirst, and
eternally a blood-filled cup. |
| We are ignorant, he
knows being and not-being; |
| his infidelity revealed
to us this mystery, |
| how that from falling
comes the delight of rising, |
2415 |
| from the pain of waning
springs the joy of waxing. |
| Love is to burn in his
fire; |
| without his fire,
burning is no burning. |
| Because he is more
ancient in love and service, |
| Adam is not privy to
his secrets. |
2420 |
| Tear off the skirt of
blind conformity |
| that you may learn
God’s Unity from him. |