The Masnavi, Book Four

by Jalal al-Din Rumi

  They had discernment, but they lost their mind,

  For greed and lust makes people deaf and blind.

  The physically blind still deserve God’s mercy,

  Greed’s blindness though does not deserve our pity.

  The hangman of the king’s forgivable,

  But jealous killers are too terrible.

  Observe the ending; watch out for the hook.

  Greed won’t let your far-sighted eye now look.

  With two eyes see what’s last and what comes first.1710

  Don’t be one-eyed like Satan, who was cursed.*

  One-eyed men see what is immediate only,

  Clueless like beasts about what follows shortly:

  A cow’s two eyes are worth one human eye

  In the religious laws, which nullify

  Their value—they’re worth half since they both need

  One of their human rider’s eyes to lead.

  Destroy a human eye and laws dictate

  Half of his life’s blood-price to compensate,

  For human eyes are independent, freē1715

  From need for others’ eyes and company.

  The donkey’s eyes see just the start, my friend;

  They’re deemed one-eyed for they don’t see the end.

  This talk could go on, but that feeble weakling

  Out of desire for food has started scribbling:

  Remainder of the story about that young man writing a letter to request a wage.

  That poet met the kitchen head to say

  ‘Miser of the king’s kitchen, it’s some way

  Beneath him for this matter that I mention

  About my wage to have reached his attention.’

  The kitchen head: ‘It’s his decree no less,1720

  And not from miserly tight-fistedness.’

  He said, ‘By God, this is just tale-spinning—

  Even rare gold has dust’s worth to this king.’

  The kitchen head showed proofs so he’d take heed,

  But he rejected them all due to greed,

  And when that afternoon his pay was cut,

  He cursed to no avail, disconsolate.

  ‘You’re doing this on purpose!’ he then cried.

  ‘No, by the king’s command our hands are tied.

  This comes straight from the source, so understand1725

  The arrow is released by his own hand.’

  ‘You did not throw when you threw ’* is a test;

  Don’t blame the Prophet. God did it. It’s blessed.

  Enraged one, from the source the water’s murky—

  Open your eyes, look at the water closely!

  Due to his grief and rage that servant went

  To write a letter in which he could vent,

  But in this letter he expressed much praise

  For the king, threading pearls in skilful ways:

  ‘Your hand is greater than the clouds and sea1730

  In meeting needs and solving poverty;

  The cloud gives just while weeping, but for free

  Your hands lay feasts with smiles continually.’

  It was praise on the surface, but his rage

  Came through like a bad smell from every page.

  Your actions are devoid of light and ugly,

  For you have lost all your innate light sadly.

  Just as fresh fruit rots in a week or less

  The good acts of vile men turn valueless.

  The splendour of the world, too, fades away,1735

  For it’s from this corrupt world of decay.

  When the one praising feels much spite inside

  His praise won’t fill a breast with joy and pride.

  Heart, cleanse yourself of spite and hatred! Say:

  ‘Praise be to God!’ Get busy straight away.

  Your tongue is uttering just pretence and fraud

  If hatred hides within while you praise God.

  God has said, ‘I don’t look at the outside

  Appearance, but instead at what’s inside.’

  Story about the praiser who thanked his object of praise to keep his reputation, but the whiff of his inward grief and sorrow and the raggedness of his outward garb showed that those thanks were lies and pretence.

  Wearing a rough cloak once a man came back1740

  And friends asked of his time spent in Iraq.

  He said, ‘Yes, exile was so tough, but it

  Helped me gain blessings and much benefit.

  The caliph gave me robes of honour there—

  May praises follow that man everywhere!’

  He kept repeating thanks and praise this way,

  So they believed he’d gone too far that day

  And said, ‘Your awful state before our eyes

  Is proof to us that all your words are lies.

  Bareheaded, almost naked and so broken,1745

  These thanks are either memorized or stolen.

  Where is the proof that all your praise is fair

  On your head and your feet, which are now bare?

  Your tongue may praise that king without restraint,

  But all your body parts express complaint.

  In that king’s generosity to you

  Was there no pair of trousers or a shoe?’

  ‘I passed to others what he gave,’ he claimed,

  ‘For falling short that ruler can’t be blamed.

  I took all of that ruler’s generous presents 1750

  And gave them to the orphans and poor peasants.

  I gained long life by giving wealth away,

  Rewarded for I gambled all away.’

  They said, ‘Congratulations now seem due.

  The wealth has gone, but what’s this stench in you?

  There is inside you so much thorn-like hating—

  How can grief be the sign of celebrating?

  Where are the signs of love and charity

  If what you now claim is reality?

  The wealth has gone, but where’s the new strong ardour?1755

  If a flood passed, where are the signs of water?

  Your eyes were dark and soul-expanding too,

  But now they’re not—why are they deathly blue?

  Where is the sign you gambled self away?

  Shut up! We sniff false claims in what you say.

  Charity shows a hundred signs in fact

  And they are also shown by each good act.

  If you give wealth in charity, it’s true

  That in return come rebirths inside you.

  Who’s cultivated God’s land with good deeds1760

  And not gained profit, left with obvious needs?

  For if God’s gardens don’t grow one corn ear

  How can God’s earth be vast ?* We want to hear.

  The transient world does not lack crops that sprout—

  How can God’s vaster earth then be without?

  The latter’s crops will last for evermore;

  Each seed produces seven hundred more.

  You praised, but where’s the praiser’s sign to view?

  There’s no trace outside and none inside you.’

  The mystic’s praise of God is true, for his1765

  Hands and feet even act as witnesses.

  It raised him from the body’s pit, and bail

  Arrived to free him from this earthly gaol.

  Praise’s sign’s on his shoulders visibly,

  Intimacy’s light, silk of piety.

  Having escaped the transient world, he’s living

  In the rose garden with the spring that’s gushing .*

  This lofty mystic’s ranking, seat, and station

  Are all the throne of souls with aspiration,

  Fidelity’s seat where God’s Friends are placed,1770

  Where all are blooming, joyful, and fresh-faced.

  Like the rose garden’s praise of spring, their praise

  Shows up in numerous signs and other ways:

  Th
e proofs are rose beds, herbs, springs, and palm trees,

  And lovely scenery each person sees,

  Thousands of witnesses in each direction

  Like the pearl in the shell deep in the ocean.

  Through your foul breath one smells your bad soul’s trace

  And your grief, boaster, shines across your face.

  Those sensitive to such smells recognize,1775

  So stop pretending with ecstatic cries.

  Don’t boast of musk when your breath’s onion smell

  Reveals the secret truth so all can tell.

  You claim, ‘I’ve had rose candy’, but that stink

  Of garlic says, ‘That’s nonsense, don’t you think?’

  The heart is like a house: despite its size

  Surrounding houses hide it from our eyes.

  A few men see the secrets, and not all,

  Through window slits and cracks within the wall,

  Despite the fact the owner’s not awarē1780

  Of them and in this knowledge lacks a share.

  The scripture says, ‘The Devil and his evil

  Followers smelt the hidden state of people

  Through means about which most have been oblivious,

  Since it’s not part of this world of the senses.’*

  Don’t try fraud near detectives seeking it.

  Don’t boast to touchstones, O base counterfeit.

  This touchstone has a way to tell apart

  True from false; God made him chief of the heart.

  The devils with their kinds of thuggishness1785

  Can read our thoughts and secrets nonetheless

  And have a route inside for robbery:

  We are thrown headlong by them tragically.

  Each moment they cause damage and mishaps,

  For they have tunnels and small window gaps—

  Why then should the enlightened souls not see

  Men’s hidden states as well so easily?

  Have spirits who have pitched their tents in heaven

  Less power than devils have in penetration?

  The Devil heads to heaven like a robber1790

  And he becomes speared by a burning meteor.

  He falls headlong from heaven the same way

  A wretch is speared in war from far away.

  Possessiveness of spirits whom all love

  Throws down the devils headlong from above.

  If you are paralysed, lame, deaf, and blind,

  Don’t think less of the spirits of this kind.

  Stop bragging, feel ashamed, and realize

  Beyond the body there are many spies.

  How divine physicians detect diseases of the heart and faith from the faces of followers or strangers, and their voice and the colour of their eyes, and even without any of these through the heart, for the Prophet said: ‘They are spies of the heart and so be sincere when sitting with them.’

  Physicians have much knowledge obviously:1795

  They know more than you of your malady;

  They can tell from your urine how your health is,

  Though you can’t through that means detect the illness.

  From your pulse, pallor, and your breath as well

  They see diseases in you and will tell.

  How should the world’s own spiritual physicians

  Not know though you don’t tell them your conditions?

  A hundred ailments they’ll identify

  From your pulse, your complexion, and your eye.

  Only novice physicians really need1800

  Such signs in you that they can clearly read,

  Since the perfected ones know who you are

  And enter in your being’s depths from afar.

  In fact some years before your birth they see

  You and all of your life’s course easily.

  How Abu Yazid predicted the birth of Abo ’l-Hasan Kharaqani * years ahead of time as well as signs of his appearance and behaviour, one by one, and how the historians wrote about it for the purpose of observation.

  About great Bayazid here’s a narration

  On what he saw of Abo ’l-Hasan’s station:

  That mystic king went to a barren plain

  With students following behind in train.

  A sweet scent suddenly arrived his way1805

  From Kharaqan to where he stood near Rayy.

  Then he let out right there an ardent cry,

  Inhaling that scent as the wind blew by:

  He lovingly breathed in that sweetest scent;

  His spirit tasted wine in what was sent.

  When condensation forms on the outside

  Of a pot that contains much ice inside,

  This is because of coldness in the air—

  Moisture has not escaped from ice in there.

  Scent-filled air turned to water similarly;1810

  Water then turned to pure wine mystically.

  Due to effects of his intoxication,

  A student asked about that inhalation:

  ‘These lovely ecstasies seen in your person

  Which all transcend the physical dimension—

  Your face turns red, then yellow, and then white—

  What is this? What’s the message of this sight?

  You breathe in scent, but flowers can’t be seen—

  No doubt it’s God’s rose garden that’s unseen.

  You are what every soul aspires to be;1815

  God’s messages reach you continuously.

  Each moment, as with Jacob, remedies

  From Joseph reach your nose, so share one please.*

  Pour from that pitcher one drop over us;

  Share one scent from that garden far from us.

  It’s strange for us, O beauty who ranks high,

  That you should drink and let our lips stay dry.

  Swift climber up to heaven, won’t you share

  A swig of what you drank from over there?

  There is no prince of any gathering1820

  As great as you—look at your following!

  How can one drink this wine and hide the action?

  Wine powerfully exposes every human.

  Though one might find a way to hide the smell,

  How can one hide one’s drunken eyes as well?

  Even a million veils can’t cover up

  This most distinctive smell—one should give up.

  This smell can fill the desert and the plain,

  Even heaven’s nine spheres, so it’s in vain.

  The naked can’t be clothed—learning from that,1825

  Don’t plaster up the opening of this vat.

  You know all mysteries, so be kind today.

  Show what your falcon has made its new prey.’

  Bayazid said, ‘A wondrous scent came close,

  Like what from Yemen reached the Prophet’s nose

  When he said, “On a breeze God’s scent somehow

  Reached me from distant Yemen’s lands just now.

  Ramin’s scent travelled from the soul of Vays;*

  The scent of God arrives now from Ovays.” ’*

  A scent from Qarani that is so marvellous1830

  Had made the Prophet drunkenly feel rapturous.

  Ovays had been effaced, so the terrestrial,

  Once self-annihilated, turned celestial.

  Myrobalan that’s been conserved in sugar

  Will then no longer taste extremely bitter.

  Myrobalan that has been self-effaced

  Looks like myrobalan, but lacks that taste.

  We could go on and on with this discussion,

  So let’s hear his words on God’s revelation.

  The words of the Prophet, ‘I perceive the breath of the Merciful from the direction of Yemen.’

  Bayazid said, ‘From that way comes a scent1835

  Which says that there a monarch will be sent:

  A king will be born after many years

  Who’ll pitch his tent above
the heavens’ spheres.

  His face so rosy from the Lord’s rose garden,

  He will traverse beyond my mystic station.’

  ‘What is his name?’ ‘Abo ’l-Hasan,’ he said,

  And then from brow to chin described his head,

  Then his hair, his fine stature, and his figure

  In so much detail, then his face and pallor.

  He also showed his spiritual description,1840

  From attributes to methods and high station.

  Bodily descriptions are just there to borrow—

  Don’t set your heart on them! They’re gone tomorrow.

  The natural spirit’s features also die—

  Seek the soul that is far above the sky.

  Though bodies are on earth like lamps, their light

  Reaches beyond the heavens, far from sight:

  The sun’s rays come inside each person’s home,

  Its orb though is above the sky’s high dome.

  If roses’ forms touch your nose, it’s in vain,1845

  Because their scent can’t reach up to your brain.

  A sleeping man has dreamt of something gory;

  It will appear as sweat now on his body.

  The shirt was kept in Egypt in safe hands,

  But nonetheless its scent filled Canaan’s lands.*

  The followers wrote down the time and date,

  Like skewering kebabs prepared for fate.

  The king was born on that date with precision

  Starting the game of monarchy’s backgammon.

  Years later, Bo ’l-Hasan came there one day 1850

  After great Bayazid had passed away,

  And this man’s every single quality

  Appeared just as that monarch said they’d be.

  The Tablet that’s preserved * was his director;

  From what is that preserved? From any error,

  Not through stars, sorcery, or dreams at night,

  But God’s own words, and He knows best what’s right.

  Sufis sometimes call this ‘heart inspiration’,

  To hide it from the general population—

  Accept this other ‘heart’ term seeing as Hē1855

  Is manifested there; it’s error-free.*

  You can as well see by God’s light , believer—

  The Prophet said this; then you’re free from error.

  The reduction of the allowance of God’s food for the heart and soul of the Sufi.

  Poverty shouldn’t worry dervishes;

  Its essence is their food and wet-nurses,