The policeman is always in search of thieves to capture them, and the thieves are running away from him. It happens rarely indeed that a thief should be in search of a policeman, and want to capture the policeman and get him into his hands.
God most High said to Ba Yazid, 'What do you desire, Ba Yazid?' He answered, 'I desire not to desire.'
Now mortal man can be in one of two states: either he desires, or he does not desire. To be wholly without desire -- that is not a human attribute for then a man has become empty of himself, and wholly ceased to be; for had he continued to be, that human attribute would have remained in him, to desire and not to desire. But God most High desired to perfect Ba Yazid and to make him a complete shaikh, so that thereafter a state should supervene in him wherein there was no room for duality and separation, and complete union and unity should prevail.
For all pains arise out of the fact that you desire something, and that is not attainable. When you no more desire, the pain no more remains.
Men are divided into various classes, and have different ranks on this Way. Some labour and strive to the end that what they desire in their hearts and thoughts they should not bring into action. That is within the scope of men. But that within the heart no itch of desire and thought should enter -- that is not within the scope of man; only God's drawing can take that out of him.
Say: 'The truth has come, and falsehood has vanished away.'
'Enter, O believer, for thy light has extinguished My fire: When the faith of the believer is perfect and true, he does what God does, whether it be himself or God drawing.
When it is stated that after Muhammad and the other prophets, upon whom be peace, revelation is not sent down upon any others, the fact is that it is sent down, only it is not called revelation. This is what the Prophet meant when he said, 'The believer sees with the Light of God: When a man sees with God's Light he descries all things, the first and the last, the absent and the present; for how can anything be hidden from God's Light? If anything is hidden, then that is not God's Light. So the true meaning is revelation, even though they do not call it revelation.
When 'Uthman, God be pleased with him, became caliph he went into the pulpit. The people waited to see what he would say. He kept silent and said nothing; he looked steadily at the people, and caused a state of ecstasy to descend upon the people so that they had no power to go out, and knew not where one another were sitting. Not by a hundred preachings and sermons and predications would have such an excellent state been brought about in them; precious lessons were imparted to them and secrets were revealed, that could not have been communicated by so much labour and preaching. To the end of the assembly he continued to look at them thus, saying not one word. When he desired to descend from the pulpit, he said, 'It is better for you to have a working Imam than a speaking Imam.'
What he said was the truth. If the purpose of speaking is to communicate instruction delicately and to effect a change of character, that had been accomplished without words many times better than might have been achieved by words. So what 'Uthman said was perfectly correct. To resume: with reference to his description of himself as a 'working' Imam, during the time he was in the pulpit he did no external 'work' such as might have been visible; he did not pray, he did not go on the pilgrimage, he did not give in alms, he did not commemorate God, he did not even pronounce the caliph's address. We therefore realise that 'work' and 'action' are not confined to this form only; rather, these forms of work are merely the form of that true 'work' which is of the soul.
The Prophet, God bless him and give him peace, said: 'My Companions are as stars. Whomsoever of them you follow, you will be guided aright.' When a man looks at a star and finds his way by it, the star does not speak any word to that man; yet by merely looking at the star the man knows the road from roadlessness and reaches his goal. In the same way it is possible that by merely looking at God's saints they exercise control over you; without words, without questioning, without speech the purpose is achieved and you are brought to the goal of union.
So let who will regard me: my regard
Warns him who deems desire an easy thing.
In God's world there is nothing more difficult than enduring the ridiculous. Suppose for instance that you have read a certain book, corrected, emended, and fully vocalised it. Then someone sitting beside you reads that book all wrongly. Can you endure that? No, it is impossible. If however you have not read the book, it makes no difference to you whether the other man reads it wrongly or reads it right, you cannot distinguish wrong from right. So enduring the ridiculous is a great discipline.
The saints do not shirk discipline. The first discipline in their quest has been to slay the self and to eschew all desires and lusts. That is the 'greater struggle.' When they achieved and arrived and abode in the station of security, wrong and right became revealed to them. They know and see right from wrong. Still they are engaged in a great discipline; for these mortals do all things wrongly, and they see this and endure it. For if they do not so, and speak out and declare those mortals to be wrong, not one person will stay before them or give them the Muslim salute. But God most High has bestowed on them a great and mighty power and capacity to endure: out of a hundred wrongnesses they mention one, so that it will not come difficult to the man. His other wrongnesses they conceal; indeed they praise him, saying, 'That wrong of yours is right,' so that by degrees they may expel from him these wrongnesses, one by one.
So, a teacher is teaching a child how to write. When he comes to writing a whole line, the child writes a line and shows it to the teacher. In the teacher's eyes that is all wrong and bad. The teacher speaks to the child kindly and cajolingly: 'That is all very good, and you have written well. Bravo, bravo! Only this letter you have written badly, this is how it ought to be. That letter too you have written badly.' The teacher calls bad a few letters out of that line, and shows the child how they ought to be written; the rest he praises, so that the child may not lose heart. The child's weakness gathers strength from that approval, and so gradually he is taught and assisted on his way.
God most High willing, we are hopeful that God most High will grant the Amir realisation of his designs and of all that he has in his heart. Those good fortunes too which he has not in his heart, knowing not what: thing that is so as to desire it -- we hope that those too will be realised; so that when he sees that, and those gifts of God come to him, he will be ashamed of these former wishes and desires. 'Such a thing lay before me. With the existence of such a fortune and such a grace, good gracious, how did I desire those things?' So he will feel ashamed.
That is called a 'gift' which does not enter the imagination of a man and does not pass by that way at all. For whatever passes into a man's imagination is the measure of his ambition and the measure of his capacity. But God's gift is the measure of God's capacity. Therefore that is a 'gift' which is worthy of God, not worthy of man's imagination and ambition. 'What eye has not seen, neither ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of a man'; what you expect of My bounty, that the eyes have seen and the ears have heard the like of it, and the like of it has been conceived in the hearts. But My bounty transcends all that.
Discourse 32
The attribute of certainty is the perfect shaikh; good and true thoughts are his disciples according to their different degrees -- first thought, then prevailing thought, then most prevailing thought, and so forth. Every thought as it expands becomes nearer to certainty and farther from doubt. 'If the faith of Abu Bakr were weighed'; all thoughts suck milk at the breast of certainty, and increase. That milk-sucking and increase is a sign of the acquiring of an augmentation of thought through theory and practice, until each thought becomes certainty and all pass away entirely into certainty. For when they become certainty, thought no longer remains.
This shaikh and his disciples manifested in the physical world are forms of that shaikh of certainty. His disciples are a proof that those forms become changed age after age and generation after generation; whilst that shaikh of certainty and his sons, which are right thoughts, abide constant in the world, unchanging through the succession of ages and generations.
Again, erroneous, erring, doubting thoughts are the rejected of the shaikh of certainty. Every day they become farther away from him and more debased; for every day they increase in the acquisition of that which increases the evil thought.
In their hearts is a sickness,
and God has increased their sickness.
The masters eat dates, and the prisoners eat thorns. God most High says:
What, do they not consider how the camel was created?
Save him who repents, and believes, and
does a righteous deed.
Those, God will
change their evil deeds into good deeds.
Every acquisition such a man has made in corrupting thought now becomes a power in reforming thought. Thus, a cunning thief repented and became a policeman. All the trickeries of thieving which he practised now became a power for beneficence and justice. He is superior to all other policemen who were not thieves to begin with; for the policeman who has committed acts of theft knows the ways of thieves; the habits of thieves are not hidden from him. If such a man becomes a shaikh, he will be perfect, the Elder of the world and the Mahdi of the age.
Discourse 33
They said, 'Keep away from us and approach us not':
How shall I keep away, seeing you are my need?
It must of course be realised that everyone, wherever he is, is inseparably alongside of his own need. Every living creature is alongside of his own need and constantly attached to it. 'His need is closer to him than his father and mother and cleaves to him.' That need is his fetter, drawing him in this direction and that just like a nose-ring or toggle. Now it is absurd that anyone should make a fetter for himself; for he is seeking to escape from his fetters, and it is absurd that one who seeks to escape should seek the fetter. So it necessarily follows that someone else has made the fetter for him. For instance, he seeks after health; so he would not have made himself sick, for it would be absurd for him to be both a seeker after sickness and a seeker after his own health.
If a man is alongside of his own need, he will also be alongside of the one who gives him that need; if he is constantly attached to his own toggle, he will be constantly attached to the one who draws the toggle. Except that his eyes are fixed on the toggle, so that he is without might and strength; if his eyes were fixed on him who draws the toggle, he would escape from the toggle, the toggle now being the one who draws his toggle. For he was toggled so that he should not proceed towards the toggle-drawer without the toggle. His eyes are not fixed upon Him who draws the toggle, so of course
We shall brand him upon the muzzle.
'We shall fix a toggle upon his nose and draw him against his will, since without a toggle he does not come towards Us.'
They say, 'When a man is past eighty, shall he play?'
I said, 'Shall he play before he is eighty, pray?'
God most High bestows of His grace upon elders a youthful passion whereof youths have no knowledge. For youthful passion brings a freshness and causes a man to leap and laugh and gives him the desire to play, because he sees the world as new and has not grown weary of the world. When such an elder sees the world as new, he is given a desire to play, and he bounds, and his skin and flesh augment.
Great is the glory of age, if the white grey hairs
Appear, the steed of playfulness runs amok.
So the glory of old age is greater than the glory of God! For it is in the spring that the glory of God appears, and in autumn old age prevails over that, not abandoning its autumnal nature. So the frailty of spring is the bounty of God; for with every shedding of teeth the smile of God's spring diminishes, and with every white hair the freshness of God's bounty is lost; with every weeping of autumnal rain the garden of Realities is despoiled. God is exalted above what the evildoers say!
Discourse 34
I saw him in the form of a wild animal, upon him the skin of a fox. I made to seize him, and he was on a small balcony, looking down the stairs. He raised his hands, leaping about like this and that. Then I saw Jalal al-Tibrizi with him in the form of a stoat. He shied away, and I seized him, while he was making to bite me. I put his head under my foot and squeezed it hard, until all its contents came out. I looked at the fineness of his skin and said, 'This deserves to be filled with gold and precious stones, pearls and rubies, and things even more excellent than that.' Then I said, 'I have taken what I wanted. Shy away, shy one, where you will, and leap in whatever direction you see fit!'
He leaped about because he feared to be mastered; and in being mastered his true happiness resided. Doubtless he was formed of meteor fragments and the like, and his heart was drenched, and he desired to apprehend everything. He set out upon that road which he struggled hard to keep to and took refuge in, but that he could not do. For the gnostic is in such a case that he is not to be snared with those nets, nor is this game apt to be captured with these nets. If he is sound and straight, the gnostic is completely free to determine who shall capture him; no one can capture him except with his free consent.
You sat in your covert, watching for that prey, whilst that prey beheld you and your hidyhole and your cunning, a free agent. The ways by which he may pass are not restricted; he passes not by your covert, he only passes by ways which he has himself laid down.
And God's earth is wide.
And they comprehend not anything of His knowledge
save such as He wills.
Moreover when those subtleties fell upon your tongue and comprehension, they were subtleties no more; on the contrary, they were corrupted because of connexion with you. So everything, be it corrupt or sound, when it falls in the mouth and comprehension of the gnostic remains no more as it was but becomes something other, wrapt up and swathed in graces and miracles. Do you not see how the rod was wrapt up in the hand of Moses and did not remain as it was in the quiddity of a rod? So too with the Moaning Pillar and the Stick in the hand of the Prophet, and prayer in the mouth of Moses, and iron in David's hand, and the mountains with him -- they did not remain in their quiddity but became something other, different from what they were. So too with subtleties and invocations, when they fall into the hand of the creature of darkness and brute body they remain not as they were.
The Kaaba is a tavern at your prayers,
So long as it is yours, your essence shares.
The unbeliever eats in seven stomachs; and that ass chosen by the ignorant houseboy eats in seventy stomachs. Even if he had eaten in one stomach, he would have been an eater in seventy stomachs; for everything that is of the hateful is hateful, just as everything that is of the beloved is beloved. If the houseboy had been here, I would have gone into him and counselled him and not left him until he drove him out and put him far away. For he is a corrupter of his faith, his heart, his spirit and his reason. Would that he had induced him to corrupt practices other than this, such as drinking wine and singing girls; for that would have been put right when treated by a man of Divine grace. But he filled the house with prayer rugs -- would that he were rolled up in them and burned, so that the houseboy might escape from him and his mischief! For he corrupts his faith in the man of Divine grace and backbites him in his presence, while he holds his tongue and destroys himself. He has snared him with rosaries and litanies and prayer carpets.
Perchance one day God will open the eyes of the houseboy, and he will see what ruined him and drove him far from the compassion of the man of Divine grace. Then he will strike his neck with his own hand, saying, 'You destroyed me, so that there were gathered upon me my heavy loads of sin and my evil acts, even as they saw in their revelations the foulness of my deeds and my corrupt and sinful beliefs, gathered together behind my back in the corner of the house. I myself was concealing them from the man of Divine grace and putting them behind my back, whilst he was looking down on what I was hiding from him and saying, "What are you hiding? By Him in whose hand my soul rests, if I had summoned those foul forms they would have come forward unto me one by one and visibly, uncovering themselves and telling of their true state and of what was concealed in them."' May God save all those who are wronged from the like of these highwaymen, who bar from the path of God by way of 'devotion'!
Kings play with the polo-stick in the maidan, to show the inhabitants of the city who cannot be present at the battle and the fighting a representation of the sallying forth of the champions and the cutting off of the enemies' heads, and their rolling about just as the balls roll in the maidan, their frontal charge and attack and retreat. This play in the maidan is as the astrolabe for the serious business in the fighting. In like manner, with the people of God prayer and spiritual concerts are a manner of showing the spectators how in secret they accord with God's commandments and forbiddings special to them. The singer in the concert is as the Imam at the ritual prayer. The people follow his lead. If he sings slowly, they dance slowly; if he sings briskly, they dance briskly -- a representation of how in their inner hearts they follow the summons of commandment and forbidding.
Discourse 35
I am amazed how these who have the Koran by heart understand nothing of the spiritual states of the gnostics. As the Koran states,
And obey thou not every mean swearer,
(The slanderer is precisely the man who says, 'Do not listen to So-and-so, whatever he may say, for he is just like that with you.')
backbiter, going about with slander,
hinderer of good.
The Koran is indeed a marvellous magician and a jealous, so contriving that he recites clearly into the ear of the adversary in such wise that he understands, but is no whit wiser and has no inkling of the delight thereof, or he snatches it away himself.
God has set a seal --
How wonderfully gracious He is! He sets a seal on him, who listens and does not understand, argues and does not understand. God is gracious, and His wrath is gracious, and His lock is gracious, but not like His lock is His unlocking, for the grace of that is indescribable. If I break myself into pieces, that will be through the infinite grace and will of His unlocking and incomparable opening.
Beware, do not suppose that I am sick and dying. That is by way of a veil. My slayer will be this grace of His, and His incomparableness. That dagger or sword which flashes forth is in order to repel the eyes of strangers, so that no ill-omened, profane, defiled eyes may perceive this slaying.
Discourse 36
Form came as a branch of Love; for without Love this form would have no worth. A branch is that which cannot exist without the root. Therefore God is not called a form: since form is the branch, He cannot be called the branch.
One said: Love too cannot take form and be compacted without form. Hence it is the branch of form.
We say: Why cannot Love take form without form? On the contrary, Love is the artificer of form. A hundred thousand forms are raised up by Love, pictured alike and realised. Though the picture does not exist without the painter, neither the painter without the picture, yet the painting is the branch and the painter is the root. It is like the moving of the finger with the moving of the ring.
So long as there exists no love for a house, no architect makes the form and conception of the house. In like manner one year corn is at the price of gold, another year it is at the price of dust. The form of the corn is the same; therefore the worth and value of the form of the corn came through love. Again, that science which you pursue with such love -- in your eyes it is valuable, but: in times when no one pursues any science no one learns and professes that science.
They say that Love is after all the want and need for a certain thing; hence the need is the root, and the thing needed is the branch. I say: After all, these words which you speak you speak out of need. After all, these words came into existence out of your need. When you had the inclination for these words, these words were born. Therefore the need was prior, and these words were born from it. Therefore the need existed without, the words. Therefore love and need are not a branch of the words.
One said: After all, the object or that need was these words, so how can the object be the branch?
I said: The object is always the branch. For the object or the root of the tree is the branch of the tree.
Discourse 37
The Master said: The allegation which they made against this girl is a lie and will not go farther. But something settled in the imagination of this company. The human imagination and heart are like a vestibule -- first they enter the vestibule, then they go into the house. This whole world is like one house: everything that comes into the interior of it, which is the portico, must necessarily appear and become visible in the house. For instance, this house in which we are seated -- the form of it became visible in the heart of the architect, then this house came into being. So we said that this whole world is one house. Imagination and cogitation and thought are the vestibule of this house. Whatever you saw appearing in the vestibule, be sure that it becomes visible in the house. And all these things, good alike and evil, which appear in the world, all first appeared in the vestibule, then here.
When God most high wishes to produce in this world all manner of rare and wonderful things, orchards, gardens, meadows, sciences, compositions of various kinds, He first implants the desire and demand for them in the inward hearts, so that thence they may become visible. Similarly every thing which you see in this world, be sure that it exists in that world. For instance, whatever you see in the dew, be sure that it will be in the ocean, for this dew is of that ocean. In the same way this creation of heaven and earth, Throne and Footstool, and the other marvels -- God implanted the demand for that in the spirits of the ancients, and so of course the world became visible accordingly.
People who say that the world is eternal -- how should their words be listened to? Some say it is created in time: they are the saints and the prophets, who are more ancient than the world. God most High implanted the demand for the creation of the world in their spirits, and then the world appeared. So they know for a fact, and report on their own high authority, that the world is created in time. For instance, we who have dwelt in this house, our age is sixty or seventy. We have seen that this house did not exist; it is now a number of years since this house has existed. If living creatures are born in this house out of the doors and walls of this house, such as scorpions and mice and snakes and other mean creatures which live in this house, they were born and saw the house already constructed. If they should say, 'This house is eternal,' that would be no proof for us, since we ourselves have seen that this house is created in time. Just like those living things which have sprung out of the doors and walls of this house and neither know anything nor see anything apart from this house, so there are mortal creatures who have sprung out of this house of the world. They have no true essence within them; they have grown out of this place, and likewise they go down into this world. If they say that the world is eternal, that will be no proof against the prophets and saints, who existed millions of years before the world: why speak of years and numbers of years, when they are infinite and innumerable? They have seen the creation of the world in time, just as you have seen the creation in time of this house.
After that, the philosophaster says to the theologian, 'How do you know that the world was created in time?' You donkey, how do you know that the world is eternal? After all, your statement that the world is eternal simply means that it is not created in time, and that is testimony based upon a negative. Yet testimony based upon a positive is easier than testimony based upon a negative. For the meaning of testimony based upon a negative is this: this man has not done such and such a deed. Information regarding this is difficult. The person making such a statement must have been closely attached to the other from the beginning to the end of his life, night and day, sleeping and waking, for him to be able to say he never did this deed at all. Even so it may not be true: it is possible that the man making the statement has once been overtaken by sleep; or the other person may have gone to the privy, where the first man could not keep close to him. For this reason testimony based upon a negative is not admissible, since it goes beyond the bounds of possibility. But testimony based upon the positive is both possible and easy. A man simply says, 'I was with him for a moment, and he said this and did that.' Undoubtedly such testimony is acceptable, because it is within the bounds of human possibility. So now, you dog, it is easier to testify to creation in time, than for you to testify to the eternity of the world. For the upshot of your testimony is this, that the world is not created in time; therefore you will have given testimony based upon a negative. Now inasmuch as neither can be actually proved, and you have not yourselves seen that the world is created in time or eternal, you say to him, 'How do you know that it is created in time?' And he rejoins, 'You wittol, how do you know that it is eternal? After all, your claim is the more difficult and the more unlikely.'
The Prophet, God bless him and give him peace, was seated with his Companions. The unbelievers began to cavil with him. He said, 'Well, you are all agreed that there is one person in the world who is the recipient of revelation. Revelation descends on him; it does not descend upon everyone. That person has certain marks and signs, in his actions and in his words, in his mien and in every part of him the token and mark may be seen. Since you have seen those tokens, turn your faces towards him and hold firmly to him, that he may be your protector.'
They were all confounded by his argument and were left with nothing more to say. They put their hands to the sword and continued to come and vex and molest and insult his Companions. The Prophet, God bless him and give him peace, said, 'Be patient, so that they may not say that they have prevailed over us. They desire by force to make the religion manifest. God will make manifest this religion.'
For some time the Companions prayed secretly and pronounced in secret the name of Muhammad, God bless him and give him peace. Then after a while the revelation came: 'You too unsheathe the sword and make war!'
Muhammad, upon whom be peace, is called 'unlettered'; not because he was incapable of writing and learning. He was called 'unlettered' because with him writing and learning and wisdom were innate, not acquired. He who inscribes characters on the face of the moon, is such a man unable to write? And what is there in all the world that he does not know, seeing that all men learn from him? What thing, pray, should appertain to the partial Intellect that the Universal intellect does not possess? The partial intellect is not capable of inventing anything of its own accord which it has not seen.
The fact that men compose books and set up new skills and buildings is no new composition. They have seen the likeness of that, and merely make additions to it. Those who invent something new on their own account, they are the Universal Intellect. The partial intellect is capable of learning, and is in need of teaching; the Universal Intellect is the teacher, and is not in need. So, when you investigate all trades, the root and origin of them was revelation; men have learned them from the prophets, and they are the Universal Intellect. There is the story of the raven: when Cain slew Abel and did not know what to do, the raven slew a raven and dug the earth and buried that raven and scattered dust on its head. Cain learned from the raven how to make a grave and how to bury. So it is with all the professions. Everyone who possesses a partial intellect is in need of teaching, and the Universal Intellect is the founder of every thing. It is the prophets and saints who have effected union between partial intellect and Universal Intellect so that they have become one.
For instance, the hand and foot, the eye and ear and all the human senses are capable of learning from the heart and the intellect. The foot learns from the intellect how to walk, the hand learns from the heart and the intellect how to grasp, the eye and ear learn how to see and hear. If the heart and intellect did not exist, would these senses function or be able to operate?
Just as this body in comparison with the intellect and the heart is coarse and gross whilst they are subtle, and the gross subsists through the subtle; if it has any subtlety and freshness, it derives it from the subtle, and without the subtle it is useless and foul and gross and unseemly; so the partial intellect in comparison with the Universal Intellect is a tool, learning from it and deriving instruction from it, coarse and gross in comparison with the Universal Intellect.
Someone said: Remember us in your intention. Intention is the root of the matter. If there be no words, let there be no words; words are the branch.
The Master said: Well, this intention existed in the world of spirits before the world of bodies. So we were brought into the world of bodies without a good purpose! This is surely absurd; therefore words have their function and are full of utility. If you plant in the earth only the kernel of an apricot stone, nothing will grow; if you plant it along with its husk, then it will grow. From this we realise that the form also has a function. Prayer too is an inward matter. 'There is no prayer without the heart being present.' But it is necessary for you to bring the prayer into form, by making outward genuflection and prostration; then you derive benefit and attain your desire.
And they continue at their prayers.
This refers to the prayer of the spirit. The prayer of form is temporary and will not be continual. For the Spirit of the world is an infinite ocean; the body is the shore, finite and limited dry land. So continual prayer belongs only to the spirit. So the spirit also has its genuflection and prostration, but that genuflection and prostration must be manifested in form. For there is a union between meaning and form; until the two come together, they are of no benefit.
When you say that form is the branch of meaning, that form is the subject and the heart the monarch, after all these are only relative terms. When you say that this is a branch of that, until the branch exists how does the term 'root' become applicable to the other? So it became root out of this branch; if the branch had not existed, it would not even have had a name. When you speak of woman, there must necessarily be man; when you speak of Master, there must be one mastered; when you speak of Ruler, there must be one ruled.
Discourse 39
Husam al-Din Arzanjani before entering the service and society of the dervishes was a great disputer. Wherever he went and seated himself, he engaged vigorously in disputation and controversy. He used to do it well and spoke excellently; but when he took up the company of dervishes his heart turned completely against that.
It takes another love
The end of one to prove
'Whoever desires to sit with God most High, let him sit with the people of Sufism.' These intellectual sciences are a game and a waste of life, compared with the spiritual experiences of dervishes.
The Present life is naught but a sport.
When a man has reached the age of discretion and is intelligent and completely formed, he no longer plays; or if he does, he keeps it secret out of exceeding shame so that no one may see him. This intellectual science and discussion and worldly whims are as the wind, and man is dust; when the wind tangles with the dust, wherever it reaches it makes the eyes sore, and nothing but conturbation and protestation accrues from its existence. But although man is dust, with every word he hears he weeps, and his tears are as running water.
Thou seest their eyes
overflowing with tears.
Now when instead of wind, water descends upon the dust, undoubtedly the exact opposite comes to pass. When dust gets water, fruit and grass and fragrant herbs and violets and roses grow.
This way of poverty is a way in which you attain all your desires. Whatsoever thing you have longed for will certainly come to you on this way, whether it be the shattering of armies, victory over the enemy, capturing kingdoms, reducing people to subjection, excelling your contemporaries, elegance of speech, eloquence, and all that is like to this. When you have chosen the way of poverty, all these things come to you. No man has ever travelled on this way and had cause to complain; contrary to other ways, for whoever has travelled on such a way and toiled, out of a hundred thousand only one objective has been gained, and that too not in such a manner that his heart should be happy and find repose. For every such way has its subsidiary means and paths to the attainment of that objective, and the objective cannot be attained save by way of those subsidiary means. That way is a distant way, and full of pitfalls and obstacles; it may be that those subsidiary means will fall short of the objective.
When however you have entered the world of poverty and practised it, God most High bestows upon you kingdoms and worlds that you never imagined; and you become quite ashamed of what you longed for and desired at first. 'Ah!' you cry. 'With such a thing in existence, how could I seek after such a mean thing?' But God most High says, 'If only you had risen above such a thing, not desiring it and disdaining it, all would have been well. But at the time when it entered into your thoughts, you eschewed it for My sake. My goodness is infinite, so of course I make that thing attainable to you too.'
So it happened with the Prophet, God bless him and give him peace. Before he attained his goal and became famous, observing the elegant speech and eloquence of the Arabs he always wished that he too might be endowed with the like elegance and eloquence. When the unseen world became revealed to him and he became drunk with God, his heart turned completely against that desire and longing. God most High declared, 'I have given thee that elegance and eloquence which thou soughtest.' The Prophet answered, 'Lord, of what use are they to me? I am indifferent to them and do not desire them.' God most High replied, 'Do not grieve. That too shall come to pass, and yet thy indifference shall still obtain and it will harm thee nothing.' God most High bestowed on him such speech that all the world, from his time down to the present day, have composed and still compose so many volumes expounding it, and still men fall short of comprehending it entirely. God most High also declared, 'Thy Companions out of weakness and fear for their lives and because of the envious, used to pronounce thy name secretly into the ear. I will publish thy greatness abroad to such a point that men will shout it aloud in sweet intonations five times daily on the high minarets in all regions of the world, so that it will be famous in the east and the west.'
So every man who has gambled himself upon this way, to him all objectives whether religious or mundane have become attainable, and none has ever had cause to complain of this way.
Our words are all the true coin, and the words of other men are but imitation. This imitation is a branch of the true coin. The true coin is like the foot of a man, and the imitation is as a wooden mould in the shape of a human foot; that wooden foot has been filched from the original foot and shaped to its measure. If no foot had existed in the world, whence would they have known of this imitation? Some speech therefore is true coin, and some imitation. They resemble each other, and there is need of a discriminator to recognise the true coin from the imitation. That discrimination is faith, and unbelief is lack of discrimination.
Do you not see how in the time of Pharaoh, when Moses' rod became a serpent and the rods and ropes of the magicians also became serpents, he who lacked discrimination saw all to be of the same kind and made no distinction between them; but he who possessed discrimination understood the magic from the true, and through discrimination became a believer? Hence we realise that faith is discrimination.
After all, the root of our jurisprudence is Divine revelation. But when it became mingled with the thoughts and senses and application of mortal men, that original grace vanished. In this moment, in what respect does it resemble the delicacy of the revelation?
Consider likewise this water which flows in Turut towards the city. There, where its fountainhead is, see how pure and fine it is! But when it enters the city and passes through the gardens and various quarters and the houses of the inhabitants, so many people wash their hands and faces and feet and other parts in it, and their clothes and carpets, and the urine of all the quarters and dung of horses and mules are poured into it and mixed up with it. Look at it when it passes out of the other side of the city! Though it is still the same water, turning the dust to clay, slaking the thirsty, making the plain verdant, yet it requires a discriminator to discover that the water has not retained its former clarity and that disagreeable things have been mingled with it. 'The believer is sagacious, discriminating, understanding, intelligent.'
The elder is not intelligent if he is preoccupied with playing; though he be a hundred years old, he is still raw and a child. A child, if he is not preoccupied with playing, is in reality an elder. Here age is of no consideration. Water unstaling -- that is what is required. Water unstaling is that which cleanses all the impurities of the world, and they leave no trace in it. It remains limpid and clear as it was, not dwindling away in the stomach and not becoming adulterated and fetid. That is the Water of Life.
'Aman shouted out when at prayer and wept. Is his prayer void or not?'
The answer to this question differs according to the circumstances. If he wept because he was shown another world beyond sensible things, that after all is called 'water of the eyes'; when he has seen a thing which is a congener and perfecter of prayer, that is the object of prayer and his prayer is in order and even more perfect. If on the other hand he wept on account of worldly things, or out of wrath because an enemy prevailed over him, or envy of another man because he possessed such abundance whilst he himself possessed none, then his prayer is docked and defective and void.
So we realise that faith is discrimination, distinguishing between truth and falsehood, true coin and imitation. Whoever is without discrimination remains deprived. These words which we speak are enjoyed by every man of discrimination, but are wasted on him who is without discrimination.
Two intelligent and well qualified townsmen out of compassion go and give testimony for the benefit of a countryman. But the countryman out of ignorance says something at variance with those two, so that their testimony yields no results and their labours are wasted. In this sense they say that the countryman has his testimony with him, but being overcome by a state of drunkenness and intoxicated he does not consider whether there is any discriminator present worthy and deserving of these words, so that he pours them out at random. In like manner a woman whose breasts are very full and painful will collect the dogs of the quarter and pour out her milk upon them.
Now these words have fallen into the hands of one without discrimination. It is as though you have given a precious pearl into the hand of a child who does not know its value. When he goes farther on, an apple is placed in his hand and the pearl is taken from him since he has no discrimination. So discrimination is a great possession.
Abu Yazid when a child was taken by his father to school to learn jurisprudence. When he brought him before the schoolmaster he said, 'This is the jurisprudence of God.' They said, 'This is the jurisprudence of Abu Hanifa.' He said, 'I want the jurisprudence of God.' When he brought him before the grammar-teacher he said, 'This is the grammar of God.' The teacher said, 'This is the grammar of Sibawaihi.' Abu Yazid said, 'I do not want it.' So he spoke wherever his father took him. His father could do nothing with him, and let him be. Later he came to Baghdad upon this quest, and as soon as he saw Junaid he shouted, 'This is the jurisprudence of God!'
How can it happen that a lamb should not recognise its own mother on whose milk it has been suckled? That is born of reason and discrimination. So let the form go.
There was a certain shaikh who used to leave his disciples standing with their hands folded in service. They said to him, 'Shaikh, why do you not let this class sit down? This is not the practice of dervishes, this is the custom of princes and kings.' He replied, 'No. Be silent. I desire that they should respect this way, so that they may derive full benefit. Though respect lies within the heart, yet "the outward is the frontispiece of the inward." What is the meaning of "frontispiece"? The meaning of the frontispiece is that by it men may know for whom and to whom the letter is written. From the frontispiece of a book people may know what chapters and sections it contains. From outward respect, bowing the head and standing on the feet, it may be realised what respect they have inwardly, and in what manner they respect God. If they do not show respect outwardly, it becomes known that inwardly they are impudent and do not respect the men of God.'
Discourse 40
Jauhar the Sultan's servant asked: During his lifetime a man is five times made to repeat the Muslim credo. He does not understand the words and does not memorise them correctly. After death what questions will he be asked, seeing that after death he forgets even the questions which he has learned?
I answered: If he forgets what he has learned, then of course he becomes tabula rasa and suitable for questions which have not been learned. You now this minute -- from that minute to the present moment you are listening to me. Some part of what I say you accept, because you have heard the like of it before and accepted it; some you half accept; regarding some you hesitate. No one hears this rejection and acceptance and inward disputation on your part, for there is no instrument. Though you are listening, no sound comes to your ear from within you. If you search inwardly, you will find no speaker. This coming of yours to visit me is itself a question without throat and tongue, namely, 'Show me a way, and make clearer that which you have shown.' My sitting with you, whether silent or speaking, is an answer to your hidden questions. When you go back from here to wait upon the king, that is a question addressed to the king and an answer. Every day the king questions his servants without tongue: 'How do you stand? How do you eat? How do you look?' If anyone has a wry look within him, his answer inevitably comes awry and he cannot manage to give a straight answer. In the same way a man who stammers, however much he wishes to speak straight, is unable to do so. A goldsmith who rubs gold against the stone is questioning the gold, and the gold answers, 'This is I. I am pure,' or, 'I am alloyed.'
The crucible tells you itself, when you have been strained,
That you are gold, or mere copper with gold stained.
Hunger is a questioning of nature: 'There is a crack in the body's house. Give a brick. Give clay.' Eating is an answer: 'Take.' Not eating is also an answer: 'Now there is no need. That brick is not dry yet; it is not suitable to tap that brick.' The physician comes and takes the pulse. That is a question; the throbbing of the vein is the answer. Examination of the urine is an unostentatious question and answer. To cast a seed into the ground is a question: 'I want such and such fruit.' The growing of the tree is an answer without ostentation of tongue. Because the answer is wordless, the question must be wordless. Though the seed decays, the tree does not grow: that too is a question and an answer. 'Do you know not that the refusing of an answer is itself an answer?'
A king read a letter thrice, and did not write an answer. The subject wrote a complaint, saying, 'Thrice now I have petitioned your majesty. Let your majesty at least say whether my petition is accepted or rejected.' The king wrote on the back of the letter, 'Do you not know that the refusing of an answer is itself an answer, and that the answer to a fool is silence?'
The tree's not growing is a refusal to answer, therefore it is an answer. Every motion that a man makes is a question; whatever occurs to him, be it sorrow or joy, is an answer. If he hears a pleasant answer, he must show his thanks. Thanks is expressed by repeating the same kind of question to the one which received this answer. If he hears an unpleasant answer, he quickly asks God's forgiveness and does not repeat that kind of question.
If only, when Our might came upon them, they
had been humble! But their hearts were hard.
That is to say, they did not understand that the answer corresponds with their question.
And Satan decked out fair to them
what they were doing.
That is to say, they saw the answer to their question and said, 'This ugly answer is not appropriate to this question.' They did not realise that the smoke came from the fuel, not the fire: the drier the fuel, the less the smoke. You have entrusted a garden to a gardener: if a disagreeable odour is emitted there, suspect the gardener and not the garden.
A man said, 'Why did you kill your mother?' The other answered, 'I saw a thing that was not seemly.' The first man said, 'You ought to have killed the stranger.' The second man said, 'Then every day I would be killing someone.'
Now therefore, whatever happens to you, school your own soul, for then you will not have to fight with someone every day. If they say, Everything is from God, we reply: Then of necessity to reproach one's own self, and to let the world go, is also from God.
That is like the story of the man who shook down apricots from a tree and ate them. The owner of the orchard demanded of him, saying, 'Are you not afraid of God?' The man said, 'Why should I fear? The tree belongs to God, and I am God's servant. God's servant ate God's property!' The owner said, 'Wait and see what answer I shall give you. Fetch a rope, and tie him to this tree and beat him, till the answer is made dead' The man said, 'Are you not afraid of God?' The owner answered, 'Why should I be afraid? You are God's servant, and this is God's stick. I am beating God's servant with God's stick!'
The moral is, that the world is like a mountain; whatever you say, whether it be good or evil, you hear the same from the mountain. If you conceive the idea, 'I spoke prettily and the mountain gave an ugly answer,' this would be impossible. When the nightingale sings in the mountain, does there return from the mountain the voice of a raven or the voice of a man or the voice of a donkey? Know for certain then that you have spoken like a donkey!
Speak pleasantly, when by the mountain you pass;
Why do you bray at the mountain like an ass?
The azure sky sends back the note
Of sweetness issued by your throat.