The Masnavi, Book Four

by Jalal al-Din Rumi

  That you desire, then choose one who’s maturer,

  One free from veils of mere blind imitation2170

  Who sees the truth through God’s illumination.’

  His light, without an argument, can split

  The shell so it can deeply enter it.

  Form followers can’t tell real coin from base—

  How should they know which type they’re going to face?

  Much gold has turned black due to smoke’s trace and

  This has helped it escape the robber’s hand.

  Much copper has been gilded with real gold,

  So to the gullible it can be sold.

  Inward observers like us in each provincē2175

  See hearts and disregard the mere appearance.

  Judges who see appearances alone

  Make rulings based on them, which is well known.

  When someone shows faith and gives testimony,

  These people think he’s faithful instantly—

  Behind this form pretenders have stayed hidden

  Then secretly killed Muslims by the dozen.

  In faith and wisdom try to be most senior

  Like Universal Intellect, see deeper

  Within; when it appeared from nothingness,2180

  God gave it robes of honour as its dress,

  And many lovely names, the smallest one

  Of which means that it won’t need anyone.

  This Intellect shows its face physically—

  Next to its light, day seems dark stunningly.

  But if an ugly one is made apparent,

  Next to him suddenly the night seems radiant,

  For he is darker than the night. The bat,

  Being wretched, is a customer of that.

  Get used to daylight’s radiance gradually2185

  Or you’ll lose out like bats eternally.

  That one loves problem places and he hates

  Those that have lamps that give one joyful states;

  His heart seeks darkness of the sorriest plight

  So his achievements seem great in that light,

  So with that plight you’ll be preoccupied

  And overlook his ugliness inside.

  The mark of the wise and the half-wise one, the complete man and the half-complete man, and the worthless wretch.

  The one who has the lamp’s the real wise man,

  The guide and leader of the caravan.

  That leader follows his own light, lacks self,2190

  And that’s why he can follow just himself.

  He has self-confidence, and also you

  Believe in that light which feeds his soul, too.

  The second one who only is half-wise

  Uses the fully wise as his own eyes;

  Like a blind man he holds on to his guide

  To see through him and do what’s dignified.

  The donkey who lacks wisdom totally

  Ignores the wise through his own idiocy.

  He’s ignorant of this path and his pride2195

  Stops him from following a knowing guide.

  He goes into the desert all the same,

  Sometimes at pace, sometimes as though he’s lame.

  He has no candle to show the direction,

  Nor half of one from which to seek instruction.

  He lacks full wisdom for a living breath,

  Or even half, through which to seek sound death:

  The half-wise dies before the fully wise,

  So from his low start he can quickly rise;

  If you lack wisdom, then you should choose death,2200

  Protected by the wise with living breath.

  Others can’t breathe like Jesus—not alive yet—

  And can’t receive his pure breath—they’ve not died yet—

  Their blind souls step in every direction,

  But leap without escaping their location.

  Story about the lake, the fishermen, and the three fish—one wise; one half-wise; and one deluded, stupid, heedless, and worthless—and the outcome for all three fish.

  This tale about the lake in which were found

  Three special fish who liked to swim around

  Is in Kalila and Dimna* as well,

  But here’s the kernel—that book’s is the shell.

  Some fishermen passed by the lake one day2205

  And noticed deep inside it hidden prey.

  They rushed back to their net and brought it there;

  The fish all noticed and became aware.

  The wise one then resolved to move along

  The path that’s difficult and for the strong.

  He thought, ‘I won’t consult them, since they’re bound

  To weaken my resolve which now is sound.

  Love of their homeland holds them rigidly;

  Their sloth and ignorance both clash with me.

  I need somebody now for consultation2210

  Who can revive me, but where’s his location?’

  O traveller, consult one who’s the same—

  Consulting weaklings only makes you lame.

  Pass from love of the homeland ; don’t stop here—

  The homeland’s yonder; souls aren’t from this sphere.

  You want the homeland? Reach the other side;

  Don’t misread this hadith that’s verified.*

  The mystery of the recitation of specific prayers when one does ablutions. *

  For every part while you do your ablution,

  There is a different prayer and recitation:

  While rinsing out your nose, you’re meant to plead2215

  For heaven’s scent from God, Who’s free from need,

  So it draws you to paradise at once,

  Since scent is the rose bush’s evidence.

  When you wipe your arse clean of any shit,

  The prayer is: ‘O Lord, please cleanse me of it!

  My hand touched there while cleaning—that’s its role,

  But it is much too weak to clean the soul.

  You who can make a nobody’s soul worthy,

  Your grace’s hand can reach our spirits easily.

  This is my limit—I’ve done what I can.2220

  Most generous God, cleanse what’s beyond this man.

  O God, I cleansed my skin of its pollution—

  Cleanse this friend of the world’s events’ distraction!’

  Someone used to say while cleaning his arse: ‘O God, let me smell the scent of paradise!’ instead of ‘O God, make me a repenter and one of the purified!’ which is the proper recitation while cleaning one’s arse. He would also say the latter prayer instead when he was rinsing his nose. An esteemed man heard and could not tolerate it.

  While cleaning his arse once a man recited:

  ‘Join me with heaven’s scent, so I’m united!’

  A man said, ‘That’s a worthy recitation,

  But this is not a fitting situation:

  While rinsing out one’s nose that prayer is said—

  You’ve brought the nose prayer to your arse instead.

  One gains the scent of heaven through the nose—2225

  Can it be gained by arses, you suppose?’

  You who have made so humble every fool

  And given pride to all the kings who rule,

  Disdain towards base men’s appropriate—

  You’ll just get chained by doing the opposite.

  It is for nostrils that we have the rose—

  Its scent, wretch, is intended for the nose:

  For our olfactory sense comes rose’s scent;

  The dirty hole below is not what’s meant.

  Through there you can’t receive the scent of heaven;2230

  If you need it, seek scent through the right organ.

  Love for the homeland * is right similarly—

  Identify that land initially.

  The wise fish thought then, ‘I will now depart

  And I’ll detach from their advice my heart.’ />
  It’s not time to consult now, so just go!

  Like Ali scream it in the well below:*

  To find one fit to share that scream is hard,

  Move secretly at night like a skilled guard.

  Head from this lake towards the open sea.2235

  Seek that and leave this maelstrom rapidly.

  This wary fish set off in haste that night

  From danger’s area to the sea of light.

  Like deer being chased by dogs, he will not stop

  But run while his veins still contain one drop.

  Dozing while dogs chase is an obvious error—

  How can your eyes feel drowsy while in terror?

  That fish departed for the ocean fast,

  Taking the long path through a gulf so vast.

  He saw much suffering and eventually2240

  The path led him to calm security.

  He threw himself into the massive ocean

  That looked so limitless then to his vision.

  When those same fishermen brought their net later

  The half-wise fish began to feel so bitter:

  ‘I’ve lost the opportunity!’ it cried,

  ‘How did I fail to leave then with that guide?

  Though he went suddenly when he departed

  I should have rushed behind where he had darted.’

  Regretting what has passed is error, son;2245

  It’s pointless, for it won’t return once gone.

  Story about the captive bird which advised: ‘Don’t regret the past. Think about it in the present so you won’t waste time regretting.’

  A man once caught a bird inside a snare.

  The bird said, ‘Princely man beyond compare,

  You’ve eaten many cows and sheep, and you

  Have sacrificed so many camels too—

  You were not sated once by them and now

  You think my body will suffice somehow?

  Release me and I’ll give you three wise counsels—

  See if I’m wise or just one of the numbskulls.

  I’ll tell the first one while perched on your hand,2250

  The second after I hop off and land

  Upon your wall, the third while up a tree,

  Then from these counsels you’ll live fortunately.

  On your hand: don’t accept what you have heard

  From anyone if it should sound absurd.’

  Once it had said the first, perched on his hand,

  It hopped off to the wall, freed just as planned.

  It gave the second: ‘Don’t you ever fret

  About the past. It’s left you. Quit regret.’

  Then ‘Hidden in me’, that bird chose to state,2255

  ‘Is a rare pearl of ten dirhams in weight.

  I swear that jewel had always meant to be

  Your fortune and that of your progeny.

  But you have lost the pearl of such high worth.

  No other pearl like this exists on earth.’

  That man then started wailing like a mother

  About to give birth during painful labour.

  The bird continued, ‘Didn’t I just say

  Not to grieve over what passed yesterday?

  Since it has passed and gone, why are you grieving?2260

  Do you not get it? Are you hard of hearing?

  The other counsel that I have related

  Is: don’t believe when the absurd is stated—

  I weigh less than three dirhams, so how can

  Something that weighs ten be in me, brave man?’

  The man regained composure and then said,

  ‘Tell me your third good counsel. Go ahead.’

  It said, ‘Yeah right, you heeded the first two

  So well that I should tell the third to you!’

  Giving the dozy fool advice that’s sound2265

  Is scattering good seeds over barren ground.

  Stupidity’s rip can’t be sewn together—

  Don’t ever give it wisdom’s seed, good counsellor!

  The half-wise fish thinks of a solution and acts dead.

  In suffering’s hour the half-wise fish then said,

  While cut off from the wise fish’s safe shade:

  ‘He’s free from grief now he has reached the sea;

  Such a dear comrade has been lost to me.

  I’ll act myself and not dwell on that now—

  I’ll make myself look like I’m dead somehow:

  I’ll raise my stomach up by rolling over2270

  With my back upside down while on the water.

  Like twigs I’ll move across its surface then,

  Floating, not swimming like the living men:

  Corpse-like I will surrender to the water;

  The death before death spares you from the torture.’

  The death before death is security;

  It’s what Mohammad told of helpfully:

  ‘That all of you should now die is my teaching

  Before death comes and you die with much grieving. ’

  The fish played dead with stomach in the air;2275

  Water then carried that fish here and there.

  Each fisherman grew so upset and cried:

  ‘Alas the better of the two fish died!’

  The fish rejoiced at the ‘Alas!’ they said:

  ‘My trick worked and I have escaped the blade.’

  Then a skilled fisherman who’d come around

  Caught it, spat on it, threw it on the ground,

  But it rolled in seawater stealthily.

  The third fish stayed in torment stupidly;

  That simpleton fish leapt up left, then right,2280

  To flee through its own effort its sad plight.

  They cast their net and caught it easily,

  Flung on the fire by its own idiocy:

  Inside a skillet while above the flame,

  Stupidity’s bedfellow then became

  Completely burned by flames both hot and red—

  ‘Didn’t a warner reach you? ’* Wisdom said.

  While suffering grief and torture, it replied:

  ‘Yes.’ Like the souls of infidels who’ve died.

  Then it continued, ‘If on this occasion,2285

  I can escape this tortuous tribulation,

  I’ll have no home apart from the huge sea;

  I won’t stay in a lake as previously.

  I’ll be safe in the ocean that is boundless;

  From then on I’ll roam safely, free from all stress.’

  Explanation that the vow made by a fool at the time of difficulty and regret is faithless for ‘Though they should be rebutted, they’ll return to what they were prohibited from doing; they are liars.’ * The false dawn is not reliable.

  Wisdom replied, ‘You’re prone to idiocy

  And that breaks vows you make inevitably.

  To keep your vows you need intelligence;

  You lack that, donkey—get away at once!

  Intelligence enables your remembering2290

  Your vow, and tears the veils of all forgetting.

  Forgetting rules you, since you are not wise;

  It fights with your control and nullifies.

  The wretched moth as well lacked any wisdom,

  Forgetting fire, so burning was its outcome.

  Once its wings burn, it will repent, but then

  Lust and forgetfulness rule it again.

  Wisdom means noticing and memory,

  For wisdom raised these up originally.

  When there’s no pearl, how can you have its lustre?2295

  How can one be contrite without reminder?

  Lust is from lack of wisdom similarly,

  For it can’t see the facts on idiocy.

  And that contrition was just due to terror,

  Not from intelligence that gleams like treasure.

  Once torture stops, contrition leaves with it;

  Such false repentance isn’t worth a bit.

>   It was caused by grief’s darkness, and they say:

  “What’s said at night will be effaced by day. ”

  Pain’s darkness left and made that fool so happy;2300

  Its outcome left that fool’s heart just as quickly.

  While he repents, the master makes him learn:

  “If they should be rebutted they’ll return .” ’*

  Explaining that an imagining is the counterfeit of wisdom and its opposition, and resembles it but is not wisdom, and the story about the replies given to each other by Moses, possessor of wisdom, and Pharaoh, possessor of imaginings.

  Wisdom opposes lust like nothing can;

  Don’t call what’s lustful wisdom then, brave man.

  Beggars of lust are just imagining it,

  And that is wisdom’s gold coin’s counterfeit.

  Take them both to a touchstone rapidly

  Or you won’t tell the difference tragically.

  The touchstone’s the Qur’an, the Prophets’ ways;2305

  Like touchstones, each of these two sources says:

  ‘Come, see yourself through being involved with me;

  You can’t cope with my path’s itinerary.’

  If wisdom’s sawn into two halves, it will

  Keep smiling through the painful burning still.

  Imagining is of Pharaoh, that world-burner,

  While wisdom is of Moses, soul-illuminer.

  Moses went on the path towards non-being.

  Pharaoh asked, ‘Tell me, who are you?’ on seeing.

  ‘I’m wisdom, God’s own messenger,’ he answered,2310

  ‘I am God’s proof, secure from going wayward.’

  ‘Shut up! Stop this commotion,’ Pharaoh said;

  ‘Tell me your lineage and true name instead.’

  ‘I am one of His dust-pit’s own descendants,

  Originally named “the lowest of his servants”.

  I am the slave of that Lord who is singular,

  With slaves for both my father and my mother.

  My lineage comes from water, dust, and clay;

  God gave both heart and soul to these one day.

  Back to the earth my body will return,2315

  The same way that yours will, you nasty one.

  Our origin and that of all proud humans

  Is from the earth; the proofs run up to millions,

  Since from the earth your body gains help, wretch;

  Food from the earth helps your neck turn and stretch.

  When soul leaves, body turns to dust again