Explaining that the animal spirit and the particular (discursive) reason and the imagination and the fancy may be compared to buttermilk, while the spirit, which is everlasting, is hidden in this buttermilk, like the butter.
3030. Thy true
substance is concealed in falsehood,
like the taste of
butter in the taste
of buttermilk.
Thy falsehood is
this perishable body; your truth is that lordly spirit.
(During many) years this
buttermilk, (which is) the body, is
visible
and manifest, (while) the
butter, (which is) the spirit, is perishing and naughted within it,
Till God send a messenger (prophet), a (chosen) servant, a shaker of the buttermilk in the churn, That he may shake (it) with method and skill, to the end
that I may know
that (my true) ego was
hidden;
3035. Or (till) the
speech of a (chosen)
servant, which
is
part is part of
(the speech of) him
(the prophet), enter into the ear of him who is seeking inspiration.
The true believer's
ear is retaining our inspiration: such an ear is closely linked
to the caller (the perfect saint)—
Just as (for example) the infant's
ear is filled
with its mother's words, (and then)
it
(the infant)
begins to speak
articulately;
And if the
infant have not a right (rightly-hearing) ear, it does not hear
its mother's words and
becomes a mute.
Every one born
deaf has always been dumb: (only)
that one
who heard (speech)
from his mother became a speaker.
3040. Know that the deaf
ear and the
dumb man are the
result of a certain
defect; for it (the
deaf ear) is not capable
of
(hearing) words and
being taught.
The (only) one
that possessed speech
without being
taught is God, whose
attributes are separated (exempt) from infirmities,
Or one like Adam whom
God
instructed without the screen
(mediation) of mother
and nurse and necessaries,
Or the Messiah (Christ) who, through being
taught by the Loving (God), at his birth came speaking into the world,
For the purpose
of repelling the suspicion as to his
birth (and proving) that
he was not born of
fornication and wickedness.
3045. A (great)
shaking was required
in the effort that
the buttermilk might
render back that butter from its (inmost)
heart.
The butter
in the buttermilk is (invisible)
like
non-existence; the buttermilk has raised its banner
(has become manifest) in existence.
That which
seems to you
to be
(really) existent
is (mere) skin,
while
that which seems to
have perished—that (in reality) is the root.
The buttermilk has not
(yet) taken (the
form of) butter
and is old: lay it (in store) and do not
squander it
till you pick out (the
butter from it).
Hark, turn it
knowingly from hand
to hand (side
to side), that
it may reveal that which it has hidden;
3050. For this perishable (body) is a proof of the
everlasting (spirit): the maundering
of the intoxicated is a
proof of (the
existence of) the
Cupbearer.
Another parable on the same subject.
The gambols of the lion on the
banner are indicative of winds concealed
(from view).
If there
were not the
movement of those winds, how would
the dead lion leap into the air?
By that
(means) you know whether the
wind is the
east-wind or the
westwind: this (movement of the
lion) is the explanation of that occult matter.
This body is like the lion on the banner: thought is causing it to move continually.
3055. The thought
that comes from the
east is (as) the
(refreshing) east-wind, and that
which
(comes) from the west is (as) the
west-wind
fraught with
pestilence.
The east of this wind of
thought is different; the west of
this wind of
thought is from
Yonder side. The moon is inanimate, and its east is inanimate: the heart's east is the soul of the soul of Soul. The east of that Sun which illumines the inward part—the sun of day
is (only) the husk
and reflexion thereof;
For when the body
is dead (and)
without the (vital) flame,
neither day nor
night appears to it;
3060. But though it
(the flame) be not
(there), (yet) when this (spiritual Sun) is (present) in perfection, it (the Sun) maintains itself intact without night and day,
Just as the eye, without moon and sun, sees moon and sun in dream.
Since our sleep is the
brother of death,
O such and such,
know (the
difference of)
that brother from this brother.
And if they tell you that that is the branch (derivative) of this, do not hear (believe) it,
O follower
of authority, without (having) certain knowledge.
During sleep your spirit is beholding the representation of a state (of things) which you
wilt not behold, whilst you art awake, in twenty years,
3065. And you art running, for (whole) lifetimes, to the
sagacious (spiritual) kings in
quest of
the interpretation thereof,
Saying, “Tell (me), what
is the interpretation of that dream?” To
call such a mystery
a “branch” is currishness.
This is the sleep
of the vulgar; but truly
the sleep of the elect is the root of (their) privilege and election.
There must needs be the elephant,
in order that, when he sleeps supinely,
he
may dream of
the land of Hindustán.
The ass does not dream of Hindustán at all: the ass has never
journeyed from Hindustán to a foreign
country.
3070. There is need of the elephant-like and very robust spirit, that in sleep it may be able to go speedily to Hindustán.
Because of desire the elephant remembers Hindustán; then by night
that remembrance of his
takes form.
(The worship
commanded in the text) Remember ye Allah is not
a (devotional) work
(that is within the reach) of every
rascal; (the
command) Return you is not (a
fetter) on the foot
of every reprobate.
But still do not
you despair, be an elephant;
and if you art not an elephant,
be in quest of transmutation.
Behold the alchemists of Heaven; hear at every moment the
sound (of the
words that come)
from the
(spiritual) makers
of
the philosophers' stone.
3075. They are designers in the
celestial atmosphere; they
are workers for me and
you. If you do not see
the musky-bosomed people, behold this touch
(laid upon thee),
O night- blind (purblind) one.
At every moment the touch is (laid) upon your apprehension:
behold the plants ever springing up anew
from your earth!
Of this
(sort) was Ibráhím son of Adham,
who beheld in sleep, without
veil, the unfolding of the spiritual Hindustán.
(Therefore), of necessity, he burst the (worldly) chains asunder
and dashed his kingdom to pieces and disappeared.
3080. The sign of beholding
Hindustán is that he (who beholds it) starts up from sleep and
becomes mad.
He will scatter dust upon (worldly) plans and will burst the links of the chains (that bind him),
Even as the Prophet said of the (Divine) light,
that the sign thereof
in (men's) breasts
Is that he (who
has the light)
withdraws
from the abode of delusion and
also turns back from the abode of joy.
For the exposition of this hadíth of Mustafá
(Mohammed),
hearken to a tale, O sincere friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment