The Masnavi, Book One: Bk. 1 (Oxford World's Classics)
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And nothing ever grows from barren land:
Its produce is regret for farming it,
Its sale results in a huge deficit,
It gives no beneficial fruit at all
So as ‘deficient’ it is known to all,
Choose what is favourable from what is not
To know the end-result before it’s sought!’
‘Seek out a trusty guide,’ the next one said,
‘You can’t tell what’s in front just by your head!
Each sect had thought that they could see the goal
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Then fell in error deep inside a hole!
If everyone could know what to expect
There wouldn’t be disputes between each sect.’
The next said, ‘You’re the perfect guide, please rise,
For others only you can recognize,
Become a man, don’t be a foolish clown,
Hold up your head, don’t turn your gaze back down!’
The next said, ‘All around is unity,
Just cross-eyed wretches see duality!’
The next said, ‘How can millions equal one?
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That’s just what madmen like to claim for fun!’
And so their rivals’ views each group would blame,
One’s meat and poison never judged the same:
Until you can transcend the differences
You’ll never breathe in union’s fragrances;
Such different scrolls, each written in this style,
The foe of Jesus wrote with all his guile.
Explanation of how the differences are apparent in form, but not in the reality of the way
Not seeing Jesus’s one-colouredness
About his vat of dye he didn’t guess:*
A multi-coloured garment placed in there
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Comes out one-coloured, clearer than the air,
Not that one-colouredness which seems a bore
But like pure water which all fish adore:
A thousand colours decorate the land
But dryness on the shore no fish can stand,
So who’s the fish and what is water here
That the Almighty should like them appear!
Thousands of fish and seas lie down prostrate
Before the Lord, obeying his dictate!
How many rains have poured down filled with grace
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And scattered pearls up from the ocean’s base,
And through His grace how many suns have shone
The clouds and seas with care to smile upon:
A ray of knowledge shone on soil and clay
To teach them how to nurture seeds this way,
Such ground is pure no matter what you sow,
Without a defect plants will quickly grow,
Its soundness comes from the primordial trust*—
That’s why it gets its light from the All-Just,
But spring must give a signal from the Lord
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Before the soil reveals its hidden horde.
He’s given to inanimate things too
Knowledge, a trust and rectitude—it’s true!
His grace schools even things without a mind,
His wrath leaves educated scholars blind!
Your heart and soul can’t take the heat at all,
No ears to hear these truths, whom shall I call?
He changes every ear into an eye
And every stone into a gem you’d buy,
Compared with this what then is alchemy!
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Next to His miracles what’s sorcery!
My uttering praise is really ceasing praise,
It proves my being—what I must erase!
Before His being please leave yours behind!
What is our own existence, blue and blind:
Except the blind, all melt before his feet
The moment that the sun emits its heat,
And if from mourning it has not turned blue*
How come it’s freezing standing next to you!
How the vizier lost his way in his plot
The king’s vizier, like him a heedless fool,
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Sought to contest divine eternal rule,
To punch Almighty God, who out of naught,
In moments, worlds like ours to life has brought!
A hundred worlds in seconds He’ll display
When your own eyes, through Him, can look this way;
To you this world seems vast and limitless,
To Him compared with atoms it’s worth less.
This world’s a gaol, your souls are locked inside,
Head that way for the open countryside!
This world has limits, that one’s limit-free,
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Form is a barrier to reality:
The thousand spears of Pharaoh Moses knew,
With just one rod how to split them in two;
Medical sciences once Galen taught
But next to Jesus’s breath* they’re worth naught;
The finest poetry was put to shame
The day illiterate Mohammad came—
With such an overwhelming lord, how then
Can you not die unless you’re wretched men!
Men’s hearts like Sinai fall drunk at His words,
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He hangs up by their claws such clever birds—
To hone the intellect is not the way,
The destitute alone the king will pay!
Truth’s treasure-hunters with their stores of gold
The foolish thought were donkeys they could scold:
How can a donkey be compared with you,
As if you have a tail and four legs too!
Sins made a woman’s olive face turn white,
But God made her like Venus shining bright:*
This change in her was a great transformation,
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While turning back to clay is degradation!
Your spirit urged you to the highest sphere,
You’ve turned to clay instead by falling here,
Transformed yourself by sinking from above
From an existence that great men would love;
The value of this change of course below
Compared with her change is extremely low:
You urged ambition’s steed towards the sun
But then snubbed Adam, the most honoured one,*
Despite the fact you’re Adam’s progeny—
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How long will you think baseness majesty!
‘I’ll rule a world,’ how long will you declare,
‘And let my massive ego fill the air!’
The world each year gets covered up with snow
Until it’s melted by the sun’s warm glow:
His sins, like those of any sly vizier,
With just one spark from God soon disappear;
To wisdom God can turn what idiots think
And poisoned water to a wholesome drink!
The cause of doubts He turns to certainty,
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To love He changes spite and enmity,
Like saving Abraham from flames that roar*
He’ll change fear to security once more;
He burnt all logic, leaving me ecstatic,
While idle fancies just made you a sceptic!
The vizier devises another plot to lead the people astray
Then the vizier devised another plot,
Retreated from the Christians whom he’d taught
And set his students’ longing hearts ablaze
By staying there for more than forty days.
Pining for him the people all went mad,
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Missing tales of experiences he’d had;
They’d all lament and then they’d supplicate
While in seclusion he would simply wait:
They said, ‘Without you
we have lost the light,
With blind men lacking guides we share this plight!
For God’s sake and to spare us, we implore,
Don’t keep your distance from us any more!
We’re children needing you as nursing-maid,
Spread over us your calm, protective shade.’
He said, ‘Dear lovers, though my soul is near,
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It’s not permitted to step out of here.’
The twelve group-leaders tried to intercede
While his disciples wept in desperate need:
‘Master, what a misfortune for us all,
Orphaned of love and faith, and left to fall!
You give excuses while we suffer pain,
Our burning hearts breathe desperate sighs in vain;
Accustomed to the marvellous way you teach
We now need daily doses of your speech—
For God’s sake, please don’t torture us this way,
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Our needs until tomorrow don’t delay!
Have you the heart to leave us in this strife,
Barren without you, robbed of our own life?
Don’t leave us writhing just like fish on land,
Open the floodgates with your generous hand!
Since in this age you’re totally unique,
For God’s sake, give your people what they seek!’
The vizier’s rebuttal of the disciples
He said, ‘Heed well you easily influenced men
Longing for preaching and advice again,
Plug up your baser senses’ ears, be wise,
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Unbind the senses’ blindfold from your eyes!
Ears in your head plug up the spirit’s ear
So that those ears themselves no longer hear,
Hearing, all thought and senses you must spurn
So you will hear when God tells you, “Return!”*
If you pay heed to what the idle say
You’ll have no clue what truthful dreams convey:
While outward travelling lies in words and deeds
Beyond the sky the inner journey leads,
While bodily senses only know things dry,
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Like Jesus, over water souls pass by;
The body’s journey takes place on dry land
While souls dive into seas when they expand,
But since the land is all you’ve ever known,
The barren mountains, desert sand, and stone,
You’ll not find Water of Eternal Life,*
Nor part the waves like butter with a knife;
From dryness come vain thoughts and contemplation,
From seas effacement, thanks, annihilation,
While you are drunk you’re far from ecstasy,
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The actual goblet drunks can’t even see,
Your outward talk’s worth less than dust, take heed—
Maintaining silence now is what you need!’
The disciples ask him again to end his seclusion
They said, ‘O sage who loves such loopholes, please
Stop torturing us like this, and please don’t tease!
Give every mule a load that it can bear,
Observe the limits of the weak, be fair!
Each bird’s own seed provides its every need,
For birds you don’t put out your figs as feed!
Instead of milk if you give babies bread
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You’re bound to find the helpless creatures dead,
But later when each baby’s teeth have grown
They’ll ask for bread and eat it on their own;
When fledglings start to practise how to fly
They’re easy prey for cats they hobble by,
But once their wings have grown they’ll fly in peace
Without the need for prompting or release.
Demons are stunned to silence by your speech,
Your words bring wisdom’s truths within our reach,
When you should speak our ears hear consciously,
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Since you’re the ocean we become a sea!
Earth’s better now than heaven since you’re near,
It’s you who makes the world so bright and clear—
For us, without you heaven has no light,
To be compared with you it has no right!
Though heaven has the form of loftiness,
Its essence only spirits can possess,
Though outward greatness is each body’s aim,
Next to the essence, form is just a name.’
The vizier’s answer that he won’t end his seclusion
‘Cut short your proofs,’ the sly vizier then said,
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‘Let these words penetrate your skulls instead: