How Shaykh Abu ’l-Hasan, may God be well-pleased with him, heard Báyazíd's announcement of his coming into existence and of what should happen to him.
1925. It came to pass
just as he (Báyazíd) had said.
Bu ’l-Hasan
heard from the people that
(prediction),
(Namely), “Hasan
will be
my disciple
and my true follower (umma), and will receive lessons
from my tomb at every dawn.”
He (Abu ’l-Hasan) said,
“I have also
seen him in a dream and
have heard this from
the spirit of
the Shaykh.”
Every dawn
he would set his face
towards the
grave and stand (there)
in attention till
the forenoon,
And either the apparition of the Shaykh would come to him, or without anything spoken his difficulty would be solved,
1930. Till one day he came
auspiciously (to visit
the grave): the graves
were covered with new-fallen snow.
He saw the snows, wreath
on wreath like
flags, mound (piled)
on mound;
and his soul was grieved.
From the shrine
of the (spiritually)
living Shaykh came to him a cry, “Hark, I call you that you mayst run to me.
Hey, come quickly
in this direction,
towards my voice: if the
world is (full of) snow, (yet) do
not turn your face away
from me.”
From that day his (spiritual)
state became excellent,
and
he saw (experienced)
those wondrous
things which at first
he was (only) hearing (knowing by hearsay).
How the slave wrote another letter to the king when he received no reply to the first letter.
1935. That evil-thinking one
wrote another letter, full of vituperation and clamour and loud complaint.
He said, “I wrote a letter to the king; oh, I wonder
if it arrived
there and found its
way (to him).” The fair-cheeked
(king) read that second
one also,
and
as before he gave him no reply and
kept silence.
The king
was withholding all favour
from him:
he (the slave)
repeated the letter five times.
“After all,”
said the chamberlain,
“he
is your (Majesty’s) slave: if you write a reply
to
him, tis fitting.
1940. What diminution
of your
sovereignty will occur
if you cast looks (of
favour) on your slave
and servant?”
He (the king) said, “This is easy;
but he is fool: a foolish man is foul
and rejected of God.
Though I pardon his sin and fault,
his disease will
infect me also.
From (contact with)
an itchy
person
a whole hundred become
itchy, especially (in
the
case of)
this loathsome reprobate itch.
May the itch, lack of intelligence, not befall (even) the infidel His (the fool’s) ill-starredness keeps the cloud rainless.
1945. On account
of his ill-starredness the cloud sheds no
moisture:
by his owlishness
the city is made a desert.
Because of the
itch of those
foolish ones the Flood of
Noah devastated a whole world (of
people)
in disgrace.
The Prophet said,
‘Whosoever is foolish, he is our
enemy and a
ghoul who waylays
(the traveller).
Whoso is intelligent, he is (dear to us as) our soul :his breeze and wind is our sweet basil.’
(If) intelligence
revile
me, I am well-pleased, because
it possesses something
that has emanated from my emanative
activity.
1950. Its revilement is not without use, its hospitality
is not without a table;
(But) if the fool put sweetmeat
on my lip, I am in a fever from (tasting) his sweetmeat.”
If you are
goodly and enlightened,
know this for sure, (that) kissing the
arse of an ass has no
(delicious) savour.
He (the unsavoury fool) uselessly makes your
moustache
fetid; your dress is blackened
by his
kettle without (there being) a table (of food).
Intelligence is the table, not bread
and roast-meat: the light of intelligence,
O son, is the nutriment for the soul.
1955. Man has no food but the light: the soul does not obtain nourishment from aught but that.
Little by little cut (yourself) off from
these (material) foods—
for these are the
nutriment of an ass,
nQt that of a free (noble)
man— So that you may become
capable of (absorbing) the
original nutriment and may eat habitually the dainty morsels of the light.
It is (from) the reflexion of that light that
this bread has become
bread; it is (from) the overflowing of
that (rational) soul that this (animal) soul has become
soul.
When you eat once
of the light you will
pour earth over the
(material) bread and
oven.
1960. Intelligence consists of two intelligences; the former is the acquired one which you
learn, like a boy at school,
From book
and teacher and reflexion and (committing
to)
memory, and from
concepts, and from
excellent and virgin (hitherto unstudied) sciences.
(By this means) your intelligence becomes
superior to (that of) others; but through preserving
(retaining in your mind) that
(knowledge) you are heavily burdened.
You, (occupied) in wandering and
going about (in search of knowledge), are a preserving
(recording) tablet;
the
preserved tablet is
he that has passed beyond
this.
The other intelligence is the gift of God: its fountain
is in the midst of the soul.
1965. When the
water of (God-given) knowledge gushes from the
breast, it does
not become fetid or old
or
yellow (impure);
And if its way of issue (to outside) be stopped,
what harm? for it gushes continually
from the house (of the
heart).
The acquired intelligence is like the conduits which run into a house from the streets:
(If) its (the house’s) water-way is
blocked, it is without any supply (of water)
Seek the fountain from within yourself!
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