Explaining (the Verse), “O ye that believe, do not put (yourselves) forward in the presence of God and His Apostle.” Since you art not the Prophet, be one of the religious community; since you art not the sovereign, be a subject.
Go therefore, be silent in submission beneath the shade of the command of the Shaykh and
Master;
Otherwise, though you art
predisposed and capable, you wilt become
deformed through boasting of (your) perfection.
3350. You wilt be deprived even
of (thy good)
predisposition, if you rebel against the
Master of the
mystery who is
endowed with knowledge.
Do you still have patience in cobbling; for if you
be impatient,
you wilt become a rag-stitcher. If
the stitchers of old clothes had
patience and forbearance, all of them
too would
become stitchers
of new garments through
(acquisition
of)
knowledge.
You strivest much, and at last even
you yourself sayest
in weariness that the intellect is a fetter,
Like the
philosopher
(who) on the
day of his death perceived
his intellect to be very poor and feeble,
3355. And in that hour disinterestedly confessed (the truth), saying, “(Impelled) by acuteness of mind we
galloped in vain.
In delusion we drew
(scornfully)
away from the holy men, we swam in
the
sea of phantasy.”
In the
spiritual Sea swimming is naught (of no
avail): here is no resource but the ship (ark)
of
Noah.
Thus said that king of the prophets, “I am the ship
in this universal Sea,
Or that person who, in respect
of my (inward)
clairvoyances,
has become a true vicegerent in my
stead.”
3360. We (saints) are the
ship (ark) of
Noah in the Sea, in order that
you mayst not turn your face away from the ship, O youth.
Go not, like Canaan, to every mountain:
hear from the Qur’án (the
warning), “There is naught that will protect (you) to-day.”
This ship, because of the bandage
(on your vision), seems to you low, (while)
the mountain of
(intellectual) thought seems very high.
Beware, beware! Do not regard
this “low” with contempt:
regard the grace of God that
is attached (to it).
Do not regard the
height of the
mountain of thought,
for a single wave
turns it upside down.
3365. If you art
(like) Canaan, you wilt not believe me though
I foster (for your sake) two hundred times as many counsels.
How should
Canaan's ear accept
these words? for God's seal and signet is upon it.
How should admonition pass through
God's seal? How should the new (admonition) avert
the
(eternal) pre-ordainment?
But I am telling the news of good
fortune in the
hope that you art
not (like) Canaan. You wilt make this
confession at last. Hark, from the first day do you behold the last!
3370. You canst see the end: do not make blind
and old yours eye that sees the end. Whosoever is blessedly a seer of the end will
never stumble in wayfaring.
Unless you desire this incessant lying down and rising up (this stumbling on the way), sharpen yours eye with the dust on the foot of a holy man.
Make the dust
of his foot collyrium for yours eye, that you mayst strike off the
head of the blackguards;
For through
this pupilage and this poverty (of spirit), (though) you be (as) a needle,
you wilt become (a trenchant
sword like) Dhu ’l-faqár.
3375. Use the dust of every elect one as
collyrium: it will both burn
the eye and do it
good. The eye of the
camel is very luminous because
he (the camel) eats thorns for the sake of
(increasing) the light of his eye.
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