Either receive light from contemporaries
1960
Or from the candles of past visionaries.
In explanation of the hadith: ‘Your Lord sends in the days of your era special breaths, so make sure to receive them!’
The Prophet said, ‘The breaths that God exhales
In our own present time that’s what prevails,
So always be attentive with your ears
To catch a breath before it disappears.’
A breath came, saw you, slowly travelled on,
Gave life to whom it wanted, then was gone,
Another breath will come soon, be prepared
So you don’t miss this other one He’s spared;
The mother of all fires this breath extinguished,
1965
A dead man inner motion thus distinguished:
The flame’s heart felt the loss of its existence,
The dead then wore new garments of subsistence,
Like movements of the Prophet’s heavenly tree,*
Not like those of this world’s menagerie;
If it should fall upon the earth and sky
Then it would terrify all passers by,
From fear of breath like this that’s infinite—
Recite: ‘But they refused to shoulder it!’
Why should ‘they shrank from it’* be mentioned here
1970
Unless the mountain turns to blood through fear?
Last night I found You in a different hue,
But then some morsels blocked the path to You,
For just a bite Loqman is held at bay,*
It’s now Loqman’s time—morsel go away!
The morsel’s what these pricks are set upon:
In Loqman’s sole they’re looking for a thorn—
There’s none at all, nor semblance of one, there:
Your greed stops you discerning things with care!
The thorn’s what you mistook to be a date
1975
Because you’re blind with lust, you low ingrate!
God’s rosary is in Loqman’s pure soul,
How can a thorn have pierced this sage’s sole?
This thorn-consuming realm’s a dromedary
That’s ridden by Mohammad’s progeny—
Camel, you’re bearing roses, you should know
That from their scent more roses soon will grow!
But you prefer to head for thorns and sand—
What roses will you find on barren land?
You who in search have travelled here and there
1980
For roses, why do you keep asking ‘where?’
From your own foot until you first remove
The thorn, you’re in the dark and you can’t move.
A man so great the world can’t hold his size
A thorn’s tip still can blinker from our eyes.
The Prophet came to bring us harmony:
‘Please speak, sweet redhead,* come and speak to me,
And throw a horseshoe in the fire as well*
So mountains turn to rubies by its spell!’
The redhead’s feminine, it’s Aisha’s name,
1985
Arabs make ‘soul’ in gender just the same,
It makes no difference if it’s feminine:
The soul is genderless, alone within,
It’s too sublime for either gender’s hold
For it’s not something which blows hot and cold;
The soul does not grow large by eating bread,
Nor turn like this and then like that instead,
Since it’s pure goodness, it does what is good.
Without it there’s no goodness—understood?
If it’s through sugar that you taste sweet too,
1990
Remember sugar may abandon you,
But when you turn to sugar through your state
Then how can sugar ever separate!
When lovers find within themselves the wine
They lose their intellect, dear friend of mine;
This intellect denies love, but would claim
It’s privy to love’s secrets all the same—
It’s just a know-all, fighting self-negation,
Angels are devils till annihilation,
It seems a friend by what it does and says
1995
But it is far apart from mystic ways—
It’s nothing, for it won’t leave self-existence,
Unwilling, it’s dissolved by our insistence.
The soul is perfect and so is its call,
Mohammad said, ‘Belal, refresh us all!
Lift up for us your powerful voice once more
With breath I breathed inside your big heart’s core,
That breath which once left Adam so amazed,
Made heaven’s fold feel mesmerized and dazed!’*
Mohammad lost himself in that fine voice,
2000
His prayer was not performed then by God’s choice:
He didn’t lift his head, asleep he lay,
His dawn prayer thus was subject to delay,*
But with the Bride alone that previous night
His soul kissed both her hands and saw Her Light:
Love and the soul are veiled in the unseen,
Because I called Him ‘Bride’ don’t scream ‘obscene!’
I broke my silence not to be a bore—
Would that He’d given me a little more!
He says, ‘Speak up, it’s not objectionable!
2005
Fate thus decreed in the Invisible.’*
Fault lies with those who only see what’s wrong,
With such as these, pure spirit can’t belong:
Fault lies with creatures who are ignorant
And have no link to the Omnipotent;
For God though unbelief is wisdom too,
It’s just a curse if held by me or you,
For if impurities are mixed with gold
It’s like the candy’s stick you have to hold:
They’re both weighed on the scales as if one whole,
2010
Together like the body and the soul.
The greats did not speak idly, they were sure
‘For pure-souled men, their body’s just as pure.’
Their speech, their soul, their body, and their face
Are absolute, pure soul that leaves no trace,
The soul’s mere body if it thinks them foes,
Worth naught, like backgammon dice overthrows;
That one returns to soil and turns to earth,
While others in white salt find pure rebirth;
Salt made Mohammad the most excellent,
2015
Than that well-formed hadith more eloquent:*
This salt’s his permanent inheritance,
His heirs are with you—seek them out at once!
One sits before you—which way do you face?
Where is the soul that contemplates each trace?
If you imagine you’ve a front and back,
Your body’s trapped you, soul inside you lack—
Bodies have fronts and sides in all directions
But the enlightened soul has no dimensions.
Open your eyes to vision through His light,
2020
Avoid the search that’s the short-sighted’s plight!
You’re trapped in joy and grief, completely blind—
In non-existence where’s front and behind?
Today it’s raining, walk until it’s night,
It’s special rain God sends to those with sight.
The story of Aisha’s asking the Prophet: ‘It rained today when you went to the graveyard, so how is it that your clothes aren’t wet?’
The Prophet visited a grave one day
Because one of his friends had passed away,
With handfuls of dry earth he filled the grave,
Thus to a precious seed new life he gave.
Just like interred men, plants we see around
2025
All lift their outstretched hands up from the ground,
To humans they give countless signs, so clear,
They speak to those of us with ears to hear,
With outstretched hands, or like a tongue that’s green
They share earth’s secrets which lie deep, unseen;
Like birds with heads in water that soon rose
As peacocks, though they used to be mere crows:
In winter He had locked those crows in gaol,
But now He’s given them a gorgeous tail;
In winter He grants death, and each one grieves,
2030
But then revives them in the spring with leaves.
‘They live on by themselves,’ deniers said,
‘Why then attribute this to God instead?’
Despite their blindness, in His friends who know
God’s planted orchards which will always grow,
Every sweet-smelling rose that you should see
Reveals God’s mysteries so openly,
Despite the sceptics’ claims, we smell their scent
Across the world wherever veils are rent.
Like bugs on roses, sceptics clamber off—
2035
Their ears can’t bear Truth’s drums, so they just scoff;
They act like they’re immersed in what we say
But when the lightning flashes, turn away—
They’ve turned their eyes away from what’s shown here:
The eye seeks safety first when ruled by fear.
To his wife Aisha then Mohammad turned
On coming home, to share what he had learned,
But when she saw his face she felt surprise
And touched him, just in case it was her eyes:
His turban, face, and hair she touched and felt,
2040
His collar and his sleeve she also smelt.
The Prophet asked, ‘What do you seek this way?’
She said, ‘I saw the rain pour down today;
I’ve checked your clothes in case they’re wet just now,
But there’s no trace of rain—I’m wondering how!’
He asked, ‘What’s that you’re wearing on your head?’
‘I made that scarf of yours a veil instead.’
He said, ‘This then is why the Lord made plain
To your pure eyes the special, hidden rain:
That rain did not come from those clouds, my love,
2045
Other clouds float in different skies above.’
Commentary on the verse of Hakim Sana’i:*
Other skies found beyond, up with the soul,
Command our own skies in their earthly role,
And ups and downs obstruct the spirit’s way
Like mountains and deep seas to cross each day.
Some other clouds and rain far from your view
Exist in the unseen, and more suns too,
Just His élite see this manifestation,
The rest feel doubt as to a new creation.*
Rain nurtures with its fresh, reviving spray,
But also causes ruin and decay:
The rain in spring is great, it makes things grow,
Autumnal rain is like a fever though:
The former nurtures tenderly like breath,
2050
The latter makes things sick and pale as death;
The wind and sun are just like this as well—
Find the point of their differences, then tell!
In the unseen too there’s variety
While here there’s barter, fraud, and usury!
From that spring comes each breath the saints emit,
Inside one’s heart a garden grows from it,
Spring rain’s effect, enabling trees to live,
Is found too in the grace their breath can give.
If there’s a tree that looks as dry as sand,
2055
Don’t blame the wind which helps each soul expand:
The wind first did its work, then moved ahead,
Those who had souls chose by it to be led.
Concerning the meaning of the hadith: ‘Take advantage of the coolness of the spring’
The Prophet told his friends once, ‘Please beware,
Don’t cover up yourself against spring air,
Because your soul will gain from that pure breeze
Which does to it what spring does to the trees,
But you must flee autumnal cold instead
For it will leave you like these gardens—dead!’
Transmitters brought us just the form outside
2060
And simply with that they were satisfied,
So unaware that there’s a soul to win—
They saw the mountain, not the mine within.
For God, the carnal soul’s lust is autumnal,
The Masnavi, Book One: Bk. 1 (Oxford World's Classics) Page 23