My friend, everything existing
exists through him;
your own existence is a mere pretense.
No more nonsense! Lose yourself,
and the hell of your heart becomes a heaven.
Lose yourself, and anything can be accomplished.
Your selfishness is an untrained colt.
You are what you are:
hence your loves and hates;
you are what you are:
hence faith and unbelief.
Hope and fear drive fortune from your door;
lose yourself, and they will be no more.
At his door, what is the difference
between Moslem and Christian,
virtuous and guilty?
At his door all are seekers
and he the sought.
God is without cause:
why are you looking for causes?
The sun of truth rises unbidden,
and with it sets the moon of learning.
In this halt of just a week,
to be is not to be,
and to come is to go.
And does the sun exist
for the cock to crow at?
What is it to him
whether you are there or not?
Many have come, just like you,
to his door.
You won't find your way
in this street; if there is a way,
it is on your road of sighs.
All of you are far
from the road of devotion:
sometimes you are virtuous,
sometimes you are wicked:
so you hope for yourselves, fear for yourselves;
but when your mask of wisdom and folly
at last turns white, you will see
that hope and fear are one.
In His presence, silence is the gift of tongues
From Him forgiveness comes so fast,
it reaches us before repentance
has even taken shape on our lips.
He is your shepherd,
and you prefer the wolf;
he invites you to him,
and yet you stay unfed;
he gives you his protection,
yet you are sound asleep:
Oh, well done,
you senseless upstart fool!
He heals our nature from within,
kinder to us than we ourselves are.
A mother does not love her child
with half the love that he bestows.
You have broken faith,
yet still he keeps his faith with you:
he is truer to you
than you are to yourself,
He created your mental powers;
yet his knowledge is innocent
of the passage of thought.
He knows what is in your heart;
or he made your heart along with your clay;
but if you think that he knows
in the same way that you do,
then you are stuck like a donkey
in your own mud.
exists through him;
your own existence is a mere pretense.
No more nonsense! Lose yourself,
and the hell of your heart becomes a heaven.
Lose yourself, and anything can be accomplished.
Your selfishness is an untrained colt.
You are what you are:
hence your loves and hates;
you are what you are:
hence faith and unbelief.
Hope and fear drive fortune from your door;
lose yourself, and they will be no more.
At his door, what is the difference
between Moslem and Christian,
virtuous and guilty?
At his door all are seekers
and he the sought.
God is without cause:
why are you looking for causes?
The sun of truth rises unbidden,
and with it sets the moon of learning.
In this halt of just a week,
to be is not to be,
and to come is to go.
And does the sun exist
for the cock to crow at?
What is it to him
whether you are there or not?
Many have come, just like you,
to his door.
You won't find your way
in this street; if there is a way,
it is on your road of sighs.
All of you are far
from the road of devotion:
sometimes you are virtuous,
sometimes you are wicked:
so you hope for yourselves, fear for yourselves;
but when your mask of wisdom and folly
at last turns white, you will see
that hope and fear are one.
In His presence, silence is the gift of tongues
From Him forgiveness comes so fast,
it reaches us before repentance
has even taken shape on our lips.
He is your shepherd,
and you prefer the wolf;
he invites you to him,
and yet you stay unfed;
he gives you his protection,
yet you are sound asleep:
Oh, well done,
you senseless upstart fool!
He heals our nature from within,
kinder to us than we ourselves are.
A mother does not love her child
with half the love that he bestows.
You have broken faith,
yet still he keeps his faith with you:
he is truer to you
than you are to yourself,
He created your mental powers;
yet his knowledge is innocent
of the passage of thought.
He knows what is in your heart;
or he made your heart along with your clay;
but if you think that he knows
in the same way that you do,
then you are stuck like a donkey
in your own mud.
No comments:
Post a Comment