The Masnavi, Book Three
Page 15
They all stood waiting patiently outside
For their strong leader to go first inside,
For he was after all the great plan’s source:
The head will always lead the foot of course.
Don’t seek priority, you imitator,
Over the source of the sky’s light—He’s greater.
1550
That boy went in and said, ‘Teacher, hello!
Your face is paler than a day ago.’
‘I have no ailments, boy,’ the teacher said,
‘Sit down, remove that nonsense from your head!’
Though he dismissed it, still imaginings made
An impact on his heart, and soon that strayed.
Another pupil said he looked sick too,
And, due to this, his first misgivings grew.
The pupils carried on till his first doubt
Increased and health was all he thought about.
1555
How Pharaoh became sick owing to false imaginings caused by people’s reverence for him
To Pharaoh all his subjects would prostrate,
Putting his heart and health in a bad state.
‘Lord and king!’ said each woman, man, and child,
And this destroyed him, for he grew beguiled,
Such that he claimed divinity with pride,
A dragon that could not be satisfied.
The partial intellect leads to delusion
Because its dwelling place is dark confusion.
If there’s a narrow path here on the ground,
Without concern one follows that path round.
1560
But if you’re walking on a high brick wall,
Though it be wide, you’ll worry you might fall.
And when you fall it’s due to your heart’s tremblings—
Consider well this fear due to misgivings.
The teacher becomes sick owing to misgivings
The teacher felt weak due to doubt and fear,
And so took home the things he wanted near.
He raged at his wife, saying: ‘Her love’s weak!
I’m gravely ill, yet from her not a squeak:
She didn’t warn me of my pale complexion.
To see me die might be her real intention.
1565
Her good looks made her vain and so aloof,
Unaware I’ve come crashing through the roof.’
He reached his house and opened the front door,
Trailed by the children from the class before.
His wife asked, ‘Why so early? Is all well?
May nothing terrible make you unwell!’
‘Are you blind? Look at my pale face again.
Strangers feel worry that I suffer pain,
While you, here at my house, still fail to see
My anguish due to your hypocrisy.’
1570
‘There’s nothing wrong with you, sir,’ his wife said,
‘That’s only a vain thought inside your head.’
‘Are you still questioning me, whore?’ he then asked her.
‘Can’t you detect the changes and my tremor?
How did I earn a wife who’s deaf and blind?
I’m suffering agony of every kind.’
‘Sir, shall I bring a mirror here,’ she said,
‘To show I haven’t sinned and you’re misled?’
‘Damn you and damn your mirror!’ he replied,
‘You’re always filled with spite and must have lied.
1575
I want to sleep because pain fills my head,
So bring some sheets and quickly make my bed!’
He screamed when she would hesitate a bit:
‘Hurry, for you this job’s the perfect fit.’
The teacher lies in bed and grieves due to imaginings of being sick
That poor wife made the bed that he’d sleep in,
Thinking: ‘I’ll have to bury this within;
If I speak, he’ll accuse me and then curse.
And if I don’t the matter will grow worse.
An evil omen can make men feel ill;
Although they have no ailment it works still.
1580
The Prophet said, “If you act sick near me,
You’ll then become sick in reality!”
If I tell him, he will imagine then:
“My wife has plans to live alone again,
To throw me out of my home; now she dreams
Of wicked goals achieved by spells and schemes.”’
She made his bed and he retired alone,
Breathing a deep sigh, voicing a loud moan.
The children were still there, and secretly
While studying they felt anxiety,
1585
Thinking, ‘We’re prisoners here, and it’s our doing;
We are bad builders who made this vile building.’
The children made the teacher imagine for the second time that he was sick, saying that their recitation of the Qur’an would increase his headache
The clever boy then said, ‘Read each good fellow
In a loud voice—I want to hear you bellow!’
When they read out aloud, he said, ‘Good, boys.
The teacher will feel worse due to this noise;
His headache will increase from noise we make—
Should he endure more for his small fee’s sake?’
The teacher soon confirmed this: ‘Go away!
My headache’s worse, so that’s it for today.’
1590
How the children got out of school through this trick
They bowed and said, ‘O noble man, may you
Stay far from danger and affliction too.’
They then leapt out and headed home elated,
Like birds who found the seed for which they’d waited.
Their mothers grew enraged and shouted out:
‘A school day and you play and mess about?
It’s study time now, but you run away
From books and what your teacher has to say?’
Each made excuses: ‘Mother, please don’t bawl!
We’ve done naught wrong; it’s not our fault at all.
1595
It’s due to heaven’s wheel of destiny
Out teacher has become sick suddenly.’
‘That is a trick and lie!’ the mothers said,
‘They’d lie for trivial things—don’t be misled!
We’ll soon see if the teacher’s really sick
And then get to the bottom of your trick.’
The children said, ‘Go in God’s name, and you
Will find out whether it is false or true.’
The mothers of the children go to visit the teacher
The mothers went and found him the next day
Looking as if about to pass away.
1600
He sweated under covers in his bed,
His hands both bandaged, blankets on his head.
He kept on whimpering, and they would cry:
‘God give him strength! On God we all rely.
May you recover, teacher! We all swear
That of your headache we were not aware.’
He said, ‘I too was unaware until
Those sons of bitches showed me I was ill.
I was oblivious, busy with instruction,
Not knowing that I had a huge affliction.’
1605
When a man’s truly busy, he can’t see
His own pain or perceive his agony,
Like the Egyptian women who were blind
To their own selves when Joseph filled their mind:
They cut at their own hands, so unaware—
The stupefied soul cannot see what’s there.*
Many brave men in battle have ignored
The fact their limbs were cut off by a sword,
Still using that same limb while they attacked
With the be
lief that it was still intact.
1610
Later each sees his hand’s no longer there
And that blood pours while he is unaware.
Explanation that the body is a garment for the spirit and that the bodily hand is a sleeve for the hand of the spirit, while the bodily foot is the ‘boot of the boot’ of the spirit
The body you’re attached to is a garment—
Seek the one wearing it; break your attachment!
For souls, God’s unity is much more sweet
And it has different hands and different feet;
In dreams you see those ones and their connection—
View them as real, not mere imagination.
You have another body, so don’t grieve
When from your earthly one your soul takes leave.
1615
Story about the dervish who went into retreat in a mountain and explanation of the sweetness of seclusion and retreat and entering this station, for God has said in a sacred hadith, ‘I sit with those who remember Me and am friends with those who befriend Me.’ If you are with all, since you’re without Me you’re without all If you’re without all, since you’re with Me then you’re with all
There was a dervish in the mountains who
Chose solitude for sleep and waking too.
A breeze reached him from God, Lord of Creation,
For humans he then felt no inclination.
Staying home seems the easiest to some, brothers,
While travelling comes more easily to some others;
Just as you are in love with mastery,
That man’s in love with ironmongery.
Everyone’s made for his own kind of art
Or work, and leans towards it with his heart.
1620
Your limbs can’t move without your soul’s command;
Without wind straw won’t race across the land.
If your own yearning is towards the sky
Like the Homa* unfold royal wings and fly.
But if you lean towards the earth, my friend,
Lament and mourn from now until the end;
Wise ones lament before in preparation;
The stupid do it at the destination.
Discern the outcome from the start, so you
Won’t be regretful on the Last Day too.
1625
A goldsmith sees the outcome of an affair and speaks as befits that outcome to someone who wished to borrow his weighing scales
A man approached a goldsmith, whom he told:
‘Give me your scales, so I can weigh some gold!’
He said, ‘Begone, I have no sieve with me!’
That man said, ‘Give them! Stop this mockery!’
He answered, ‘I don’t have brooms at my shop.’
That man said, ‘That’s enough. You’d better stop!
Give me the scales that I’ve been asking for—
Don’t act deaf or evade this any more!’
He answered, ‘I’m not deaf. I heard it all,
So don’t imagine I’m nonsensical.
1630
I heard, but you’re a trembling old man who
Has shaky hands and a hunched body too:
Your gold’s made up of tiny bits that will,
When grabbed by your old, shaky hands, soon spill.
Then you’ll ask, “Fetch a broom, sir, for I must
Find my gold that has scattered in the dust.”
And when you sweep, you’ll gather dust up too
Then say: “I need to take a sieve from you.”
I said the outcome from the very start,
And so, farewell! I’d like you to depart.’
1635
Remainder of the story about that ascetic in the mountain who vowed: ‘I won’t pick fruit from the trees, or shake the trees, or tell anyone, neither openly nor in veiled terms, to shake them. I will eat only windfall’
On that high mountain many fruit trees grew
And countless mountain pears could be found too.
The dervish up there prayed, ‘O Lord, I swore
That I will not pick their fruit any more;
I won’t pick fruit from those tall trees at all
Apart from what the wind should cause to fall.’
For love, he kept his pledge so faithfully
Until there came the trials of destiny.
This is why God said, ‘You all must beware
To add “If God wills” to the oaths you swear
1640
I give hearts ever-changing leanings, and
I lay upon each one a different brand;
Each dawn I have a new activity*
To busy Me; naught sidesteps My decree.’
‘The heart’s a feather,’ Mohammad once revealed,
‘It’s led by the strong wind across the field.’
Wind drives the feather each way you can see:
Front, back, left, right, and changing frequently.
And one hadith says: ‘Deem this heart the same
As water boiling through a cauldron’s flame.’
1645
Each moment it may seem to change its mind—
Views come from somewhere else to it, you’ll find.
So why trust in the heart’s opinion, friend,
And make vows you’ll regret much in the end?
This too is the effect of the Lord’s will:
You see a pit, but can’t avoid it still.
It’s no surprise that birds can’t see the snare
And fall into destruction from the air;
It is surprising when it sees its place,
But goes into that snare in any case—
1650
With eyes and ears both open, and the trap
In front, its wings still give an extra flap!
A comparison showing that the shackles and snares of fate, though actually hidden, are visible through their effects
You’ll see in rags one from a noble race,
Bareheaded now he’s had a fall from grace;
He is consumed with passion and feels aimless:
He’s sold his property to leave him penniless.
Losing his household, he’s become disgraced
And walks like someone luckless and displaced.
To an ascetic he says, ‘Lord, help me
For God’s sake to make progress inwardly.
1655
I’ve fallen on hard times through paths I’ve taken,
And gold, wealth, and much bounty I’ve forsaken.
Give spiritual support to me today
So I can flee at last from this dark clay.’
He begs like this from everyone: ‘Help please
To give me what I seek: release, release!’
His hands and feet were free and were not bound
In iron, and no guards were then around.
‘From which chains do you seek release today?
From which gaol do you wish to get away?’
1660
Only one who is pure-souled now can see
The hidden chain of fate and destiny;
Though it’s invisible it’s harder than
Prison or iron chains for any man,
Because the ironsmith can break that sort
And diggers take out bricks from any fort.
No ironsmiths possess the strength to sever
The thick and heavy hidden chain, however.
Mohammad once was shown that by His Lord
Wrapped round a throat as a palm-fibre cord:*
1665
On Abu Lahab’s wife’s back he could see
Firewood—‘the carrier of fuel’* was she.
By him alone were cord and firewood seen—
To him was visible all that’s unseen.
Others must try interpreting, for this
Comes from being witless, not through cleverness.
That rich man’s son grew hunched due to strong chain
s
And now he weeps before you from his pains,
Saying: ‘Pray for me, so I might gain release
And flee this hidden chain that gives no peace.’
1670
Whoever sees signs and has understood
Can surely tell apart the bad from good.
He knows, but hides this due to God’s command;
To show God’s secrets has been strictly banned.
This talk is endless. That fakir through hunger
Became so weak he was his body’s prisoner.
The fakir who had made the vow becomes moved to pluck pears from the tree and God’s chastisement arrives without delay
For five days wind did not cause pears to drop;
His hunger’s flames soon made his patience stop.
He saw a few pears near a branch’s tip
But held back patiently and made no slip.