Explaining that the people of Hell are hungry and make lamentable entreaty
to God, saying, “Cause our portions to be fat and let the provender reach us quickly, for we can endure no more.”
This discourse has no end. (God
said), “Hark, O Moses, let those
asses go to the grass,
That they may all be fattened
by that goodly fodder. Hark, (let them in), for We have
wrathful wolves.
3670. We surely know the plaintive cry of Our wolves: We make these asses a means of livelihood for them.
The gracious alchemy
breathed from your lips wished
to make these asses human.
Much kindness and
favour didst you show in calling them (to God), (but) it was
not the fortune and provision allotted
to
those asses.
Therefore let the
quilt of bounty
cover them, that
the slumber of forgetfulness may
overtake them speedily,
So that, when
this troop (of
asses) shall start up from
suchlike slumber,
the
candle will have
been extinguished and the cup-bearer will have gone.
3675. Their
rebellious disobedience kept
you in a (great) perplexity:
therefore they
shall suffer in retribution
a (great) sorrow,
To the end
that Our justice may step forth and
bestow in retribution
what is appropriate to every evil-doer;
For the King, whom they
were not seeing openly, was
(always) with them
secretly in their lives.” Inasmuch as the intellect is with you, overseeing your body, and though this perception of thine
is unable to apprehend it,
(Yet) its perception, O
such and such, is not unable to apprehend your
motion and rest when it tries,
3680. What wonder if the Creator of that intellect too is with thee? How art you
not conceding (the truth of that)?
He (some one) pays no
heed to his intellect and
embarks on evil; afterwards
his intellect rebukes him.
You forgot your
intellect, your intellect did not (forget you), since that act of rebuke
is the result of its
presence (attention).
If it had
not been present
(attentive) and
had
been heedless,
how should it have slapped you
in rebuke?
And if your carnal soul had not
been inattentive to it,
how should
your madness and heat
have
acted thus?
3685. Hence you and
your intellect are
like the astrolabe: by this means you may
know the nearness of
the Sun of existence.
Your intellect is
indescribably near to you:
it is neither to the left
nor to the right
nor behind nor in front.
How (then) should not the
King be indescribably near? for intellectual search
cannot find the
way
(to Him).
The motion
that you have in your finger is not in front of your finger or behind it or to the left or to the right.
At the time of sleep
and death it (the
motion) goes from
it (the finger);
at the time of waking
it
rejoins it.
3690. By what way
doth it come into your finger,
(that motion) without
which your finger has no use?
The light of the eye and
pupil, by what other way than the six directions doth it come into your eye?
The world of
creation is endued
with (diverse) quarters and directions,
(but) know that
the world of the
(Divine) Command and
Attributes is
without (beyond) direction.
Know, O beloved,
that the world of the Command is without direction: of necessity the
Commander is (even) more without direction.
The intellect
was (ever) without
direction, and the Knower of the
exposition is more intelligent than intellect and more spiritual even than spirit.
3695. No created being is unconnected
with Him: that connexion, O uncle, is indescribable, Because in the spirit there is no separating and uniting, while (our) thought cannot think except of separating and uniting.
Pursue that which is without separation
and union by (aid
of)
a spiritual
guide; but the
pursuit
will not allay your thirst.
(Yet) pursue incessantly, if you
are far from
the Source, that the
vein of (true) manhood (in you)
may bring you to the attainment (of your desire).
How should the intellect
find the way to this
connexion? This intellect is in bondage
to separation and union.
3700. Hence Mustafá
(Mohammed) enjoined us,
saying, “Do not seek to
investigate the
Essence of God.”
(As regards) that One whose
Essence is an object of
thought, in
reality the (thinker's) speculation is not concerning the Essence.
It is (only)
his (false)
opinion, because on the way to God there are a
hundred
thousand veils. Every one is naturally
attached to some veil and
judges that it is in sooth
the identity (‘ayn) of
Him.
Therefore the Prophet banished this (false) judgement from him (the thinker), lest he should be
conceiving
in
error a vain imagination.
3705. And (as
for) him in whose
judgement
(conception of God)
there is irreverence, the Lord has doomed
the irreverent to fall headlong.
To fall headlong is that he goes downward
and thinks that he is superior,
Because such is the case of the
drunken man who does not know
heaven from earth.
Go ye and think
upon His wonders, become lost (to yourselves) from the majesty
and awe (of
Him).
When he (who
beholds the
wonders of God)
loses beard and
moustache (abandons pride and
egoism) from (contemplating) His work, he will know his (proper) station
and will be silent
concerning the
Worker (Maker).
3710. He will only
say from his soul, “I cannot (praise you duly),” because the declaration
thereof is beyond reckoning and bound.
No comments:
Post a Comment