But all lead to the One to whom they pray.
Sleep overcame the audience for a while,
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Water then bore their millstones for a mile—
This water comes from up beyond the mill,
For your sake it flows down here by God’s will,
When you don’t need to have mills any more
It then will flow above you as before.
To teach, this truthful speech comes to your tongue
Or else to its own course it could have clung;
It smoothly travels, so one wouldn’t know,
To gardens under which the rivers flow.*
That place to my soul, God, won’t you disclose
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Where speech without a word is born and grows,
So that the pure soul headlong then will race
To non-existence’s vast open space!
A wide and vast realm of magnificence
From which this false world gains its sustenance.
Tighter than non-existence is thought’s realm,
That’s why it causes griefs that overwhelm.
Temporal existence is more cramped than thought,
That’s why the moon shrinks almost to a dot;
The sensual world’s more cramped than this as well,
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It is the most restrictive prison cell.
What makes it narrow? Multiplicity:
Our senses drag us to plurality.
Unity’s not what senses can perceive—
If that’s your goal, then this realm you must leave;
Though ‘B’ and ‘e’ formed it, ‘Be!’* was one act—
The meaning was still pure and kept intact.
Let’s now return, though this is incomplete,
To see what fate that old wolf had to meet.
The lion teaches a lesson to the wolf who had shown disrespect in his division
That lion pulled apart the old wolf’s head
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To leave its wretched dualism dead—
So we took vengeance on them,* to be brief,
When they were not effaced near their own chief—
Then, to the fox the lion turned to say,
‘Divide this food up for us straight away!’
The fox replied, ‘This fat ox seems just right
To be your breakfast, king—you have such might;
And so the goat should be preserved till lunch—
Something, victorious king, for you to munch;
Your supper’s then the hare that’s left behind—
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An evening snack, king, since you are so kind.’
He said, ‘Fox, justice is what you display,
Who taught you how to share the spoils this way?
Where did you learn this, excellent dear friend?’
‘From witnessing the wolf’s most tragic end!’
The lion said, ‘You gambled all for me
So you can go and take with you all three!
Since you’ve behaved entirely for my sake,
If I harm you that would be my mistake.
I’m yours, and all the prey can be your prize,
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Step on the seventh heaven as you rise!
You took heed from that base wolf that I slew,
So, fox, you’re now a lion in my view!’
The wise take heed from deaths of friends, so they
Can sidestep tribulation in their way.
The fox gave thanks that he had been asked last,
After the wolf’s test had already passed:
‘If he had summoned me here first and said,
“Divide this up!” How could I then have fled!’
Praise be to God who made us too appear
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After our predecessors have been here,
To hear of punishments that He’d decreed
To those of them who failed then to take heed,
So trials of past wolves may cause alarm
And like the fox we may escape from harm.
That’s why the Prophet spoke so truthfully
When calling us ‘the blest community’.
Look at the dead wolves’ bones and fur, and then
Consider this a warning, worthy men!
Existence and pretence the wise forget
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On learning what the Aad and Pharaoh met,
If not their fates for other men one day
Will be a warning not to go astray.
Noah threatens his people, ‘Don’t argue with me, for you’ll be disobeying God by doing this, you abandoned men!’
‘Stubborn fools, I am not I,’ Noah said,
‘Through God I live, through my own soul I’m dead:
I’ve died to human senses like the night
So God is now my hearing, food, and sight.
Since I’m not I, this breath’s from Him as well,
He who himself breathes is an infidel!’
A lion’s in the fox’s form you see—
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Don’t walk up to him so audaciously!
If you’re not fooled by how he looks outside
You might then hear the lion’s roar inside.
If Noah never had God’s light within
How could he then have caused their world to spin?
A thousand lions in one frame of clay—
He was a fire, the world a stack of hay,
And since the stack did not give its tithe-share
A flame to burn the stack he lit in there.
Whoever like the wolf should dare to speak
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Before the hidden lion has a cheek—
Just like the wolf he’ll be gulped with one bite,
‘We took revenge,’* the lion will recite;
The lion’s blows will thus make him succumb,
The one who’s bold before him must be dumb!
If only just his body was attacked
So that his faith and heart could stay intact.
On reaching here, my strength has sapped away
So how can I reveal such truths today?
Think of your stomach as a worthless thing,
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In front of Him don’t try such bargaining!
Submit in front of Him your ‘I’ and ‘we’—
Give it to Him, for it’s His property!
On this path, once you are a poor fakir
The lion and his prey are yours—it’s clear!
That’s all because He’s pure and glorious
And has no need for what’s superfluous;
So all the prey and every grace that’s found
Straight to the servants of this King are bound—
He made all things, though He has no desire,
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Those who see this feel joy and may rise higher!
He made the two worlds, everything you see,
But still what use to Him is property!
So guard your hearts from every evil thought
When near Him, so to shame you won’t be brought:
He can detect your thoughts and inner soul
Like hair which floats on milk inside your bowl;
The one whose breast from images is clean
Becomes a mirror too for what’s unseen:
Without the need to think he reads your mind—
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A mirror for believers* of this kind;
If he should test us, he would soon find out
Who’s filled with certainty and who with doubt:
His soul’s the touchstone for the coins we hold,
So he sees what’s a heart and what’s false gold.
Kings seat Sufis in front of themselves so that their eyes may become illumined by them
The custom of the kings is as below,
You’ve heard of this, so really you should know:
Their warriors all stand on the left-hand si
de
Since their brave hearts are found that way inside;
The treasurer and scribes sit on the right
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Because that hand’s the one they use to write;
Sufis are seated straight in front—their role
Is serving as the mirror of the soul:
They’ve cleansed their hearts through mystic meditation,
Pure forms now fill their mirror-hearts’ reflection.
With righteous natures those who have been graced
In front of them want mirrors to be placed:
Beautiful faces want a mirror near—
It shows their hearts have goodness,* scrapes them clear.
A guest came to Joseph, and Joseph demanded a gift from him
To truthful Joseph came from the world’s end
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To be his guest, a generous loving friend;
They were so close in childhood that the pair
Would often share the seat of one small chair.
The friend asked of his brothers’ jealousy,
Joseph said, ‘They were like a chain round me:
The lion’s not ashamed bound in a chain—
About the Lord’s decree I don’t complain.’
Although the lion’s neck with chains is bound
He rules all chain-makers that can be found.
‘In gaol and in the well, how were those days?’
3175
‘Just like the moon when in its waning phase.’
Though when it wanes, it’s seen to shrink and bend,
Still it becomes a full moon in the end;
In mortars, pearls are ground and mixed with kohl
To grant sight to the eye inside the soul;
If seeds are planted firmly in the ground,
Wheat will eventually grow all around;
Then in the mill they grind it to make bread—
Its value soars now with it men are fed;
Next by men’s teeth the bread is ground again,
3180
Life, wisdom, and intelligence they gain,
And when in love that life becomes effaced
Farmers rejoice* the seed’s not gone to waste!
This discourse could go on, so let’s find out
What that good friend and Joseph talked about.
Joseph, on telling his biography,
Asked, ‘Friend, what present have you brought for me?’
Going empty-handed to a friend’s worse still
Than setting off without wheat to the mill,
For at the Gathering God then will say,
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‘So where’s your gift for Resurrection Day?*
Are you alone, without a present too,
In the same shape as I created you?*
Or have you brought with you a souvenir,
Knowing that you’d be resurrected here?
Perhaps you thought you’d not reach home again,
That promises about today were vain?’
Deniers of this day have brains so numb
That from His kitchen they won’t gain a crumb!
If you don’t disbelieve, how can you go
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To your friend empty-handed like a foe!
Sleep less, reduce too the amount you eat,
Take then a present when you’re due to meet—
Be of those who sleep little when they sleep,
At dawn seek his forgiveness,* truly weep!
Move just a little like a foetus, so
The sense which sees the light He’ll then bestow;
And when you step outside this womb-like place
You’ll leave the world for a much wider space:
They said, ‘God’s land is vast,’* and thus they meant
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The lofty realm of prophets He has sent;
Hearts don’t become depressed there, since they’re free;
You won’t see shrivel up a fresh, young tree.
The burden of your senses you now bear,
You’re weary, tired, and falling everywhere,
But when you sleep you’re carried off instead,
Free then of tiredness, injury, and dread—
Consider sleep’s state just a little taste
Of how the saints are borne when they’re effaced:
They are Companions of the Cave—you’ll learn
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That they’re asleep although they stand and turn;
Without them seeking it, He draws them there
First right, then left though they are unaware:
What is that right side? Proper and good action,
The left?* The body’s own source of distraction;
From all the prophets these two both flow out,
Though they don’t sense the echo of their shout:
The Masnavi, Book One: Bk. 1 (Oxford World's Classics) Page 34