as long as your desire is pleasure, and you cherish your desire, carry on playing like a child: you are not man enough for this

Once one is one, 

no more, no less: 

error begins with duality; 

unity knows no error. 

 

Place itself has no place: 

how could there be place 

for the creator of place, 

heaven for the maker of heaven? 

 

He said: 

'I was a hidden treasure; 

creation was created 

so that you might know me.'

 

Why, tell me, if what you seek 

does not exist in any place, 

do you propose to travel there on foot? 

The road your self must journey on 

lies in polishing the mirror of your heart. 

 

It is not by rebellion and discord 

that the heart's mirror is polished free 

of the rust of hypocrisy and unbelief: 

your mirror is polished by your certitude, 

—by the unalloyed purity of your faith. 

 

If you want the mirror to reflect the face, 

hold it straight and keep it polished bright; 

although the sun does not begrudge its light, 

when seen in a mist it only looks like glass; 

and creatures comelier than angels even 

seem in a dagger to have devils faces. 

 

Your dagger will never tell you true from false: 

it will never serve you as a mirror. 

Better to seek your image in your heart 

than in your mortal clay, break free 

from the chains you have forged about yourself; 

for you will be free when you are free of clay. 

The body is dark—the heart is shining bright; 

the body is mere compost—the heart a blooming
garden.

 

 * * * 

 

The way is not far 

from you to the friend: 

you yourself are that way: 

so set out along it. 

 

You who know nothing of the life 

that comes from the juice of the grape, 

how long will you remain intoxicated 

by the outward form of the grape? 

Why do you lie that you are drunk? 

 

If you drink wine, keep quiet about it: 

a milk-drinker says nothing, so why should you? 

Whenever you drink a cup of wine 

in this ruined house, take my advice: 

don't step outside the door of your drunkenness, 

but lay your head down where you have drunk; 

drink in concealment, and when you have drunk, 

rub soil in your lips; and not until 

you've twice drunk wine and headache to the lees, 

will I say of you, 'There goes a man!' 

 

How can you go forward? 

There is no place to go; 

how will you leap? 

You have no foot. 

 

It is not just today 

that the non-existent have come to serve 

at the door of true being; 

since time began, bereft of wealth and power, 

servants have swarmed like ants 

to wait at love's door. 

 

Arrange things so that when death calls, 

he finds your soul waiting in the street. 

Leave this house of vagabonds: 

if you are at God's door, stay there; 

if not, make your way there now. 

 

No one knows how far it is 

from nothingness to God. 

As long as you cling to your self 

you will wander right and left, 

day and night, for thousands of years; 

and when, after all that effort, 

you finally open your eyes, 

you will see your self through inherent defects, 

wandering round itself like the ox in a mill, 

but, if, once freed from your self, 

you finally get down to work, 

this door will open to you within two minutes.

 

 * * * 

 

The head has two ears; 

love has just one: 

this hears certitude, 

whilst those hear doubt. 

 

Until you throw your sword away, 

you'll not become a shield, 

until you lay your crown aside, 

you'll not be fit to lead. 

 

The death of soul 

is the destruction of life; 

but death of life 

is the soul's salvation. 

 

Never stand still on the path: 

become non-existent; non-existent even 

to the notion of becoming non-existent. 

And when you have abandoned both 

individuality and understanding, 

this world will become that. 

 

Up now, pass this world of baseness by, 

and find your way to the ineffable; 

pass life and body, faith and reason by, 

and on the road to God acquire a soul. 

 

Just as your outward form conceals your attributes, 

your attributes dam up your inmost essence. 

Form and attributes are the niche and glass 

from which the light of essence shines. 

 

Till you have endured dire straits on that road, 

your soul is two-faced, though your form is one.

 

 * * * 

 

When the sunlight falls on water, 

the ripples' movement is reflected, 

and throws a brilliant picture on the wall: 

remember that this secondary reflection 

is also from the sun. 

 

Whether you exist or not 

is indifferent to the working of God's power. 

Everything is the work of God alone, 

—and happy is the man that knows it! 

 

Reason was the pen, self the paper; 

matter was given form; bodies received their shapes. 

To love he said 'Fear none but me'. 

To reason his words were, 'Know yourself.'

 

Whilst you live in this residence, 

this tomb allotted to you, 

this home of distraction and deceit, 

look upon the willow with your earthly eye, 

and with your soul upon the tree of paradise. 

Read the letters with your tongue, 

read their meaning with your soul. 

 

As long as your desire is pleasure, 

and you cherish your desire, 

carry on playing like a child: 

you are not man enough for this. 

 

You, who have brought nothing back 

but foam from the ocean, you, with your possessions 

arrayed around you, 

you have not grasped the essence of the pearl, 

being forever engrossed in the oyster shell. 

Leave these muddy shells alone; 

bring up the pure pearl from the ocean depths. 

 

The arrow's worth lies in hitting the mark. 

If you are pure, the hidden sense 

will emerge from the framework 

of the written word; 

for until a man steps out from impurity, 

how can the Quran step out from the page? 

As long as you are veiled in self, 

how can you discriminate 

between good and evil? 

The letter of the Quran is in itself 

no panacea for the soul: 

Goats don't grow fat on the goatherd's call. 

 

[Sanai {1087?-1131}, from 'The Walled Garden of Truth', in Persian Poets {Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets}]