(Masnavi Book 1: 53) Description of Unification

Description of Unification.    

His friend said to him, “Come in, O you who art entirely myself, not different like the rose and thorn in the garden.” The thread has become single. Do not now fall into error if you seest that the letters K and N are two.’

K and N are pulling like a noose, that they may draw non-existence into great affairs.

3080. Hence the noose must be double in (the world of) forms, though those two (letters) are single in effect. Whether the feet be two or four, they traverse one road, like the double shears (which) makes (but) one cut. Look at those two fellow-washermen: there is apparently a difference between that one and this:

The one has thrown the cotton garments into the water, while the other partner is drying them.

Again the former makes the dry clothes wet: It is as though he were spitefully thwarting his opposite;

3085. Yet these two opposites, who seem to be at strife, are of one mind and acting together in agreement.

Every prophet and every saint has a way (of religious doctrine and practice), but it leads to God: all (the ways) are (really) one.

When slumber (heedlessness) overtook the concentration (attention) of the listener, the water carried the millstones away. The course of this water is above the mill: its going into the mill is for your sakes.

Since ye had no further need of the mill, he (the prophet or saint) made the water flow back into the original stream.

3090. The rational spirit (the Logos) is (coming) to the mouth for the purpose of teaching: else (it would not come, for) truly that speech has a channel apart:

It is moving without noise and without repetitions (of sound) to the rose-gardens beneath which are the rivers.

O God, do you reveal to the soul that place where speech is growing without letters,

That the pure soul may make of its head a foot (fly headlong) towards the far stretching expanse of non-existence— An expanse very ample and spacious; and from it this phantasy and being (of ours) is fed.

3095. (The realm of) phantasies is narrower than non-existence (potential existence): on that account phantasy is the cause of pain.

(The realm of actual) existence, again, was (ever) narrower than (the realm of) phantasy: hence in it moons become like the moon that has waned.

Again, the existence of the world of sense and colour is narrower (than this), for It is a narrow prison.

The cause of narrowness is composition (compoundness) and number (plurality): the senses are moving towards composition. Know that the world of Unification lies beyond sense: if you want Unity, march in that direction.

3100. The (Divine) Command KuN (Be) was a single act, and the (two letters) N and K occurred (only) in speech, while the

(inward) meaning was pure (uncompounded).

This discourse has no end. Return, that (we may see) what happened to the wolf in combat (with the lion).

How the lion punished the wolf who had shown disrespect in dividing (the prey).

That haughty one tore off the head of the wolf, in order that two-headedness (dualism) and distinction might not remain (in being).

It is (the meaning of) So we took vengeance on them, O old wolf, inasmuch as you wert not dead in the presence of the Amír. After that, the lion turned to the fox and said, “Divide it (the prey) for breakfast.”

3105. He bowed low and said, “This fat ox will be your food at breakfast, O excellent King, And this goat will be a portion reserved for the victorious King at midday,

And the hare too for supper—(to be) the repast at nightfall of the gracious and bountiful King.”

Said the lion, “O fox, you have made justice shine forth: from whom didst you learn to divide in such a manner?

Whence didst you learn this, O eminent one?” “O King of the world,” he replied, “(I learned it) from the fate of the wolf.”

3110. The lion said, “Inasmuch as you have become pledged to love of me, pick up all the three (animals), and take (them)

and depart.

O fox, since you have become entirely mine, how should I hurt you when you have become myself?

I am yours, and all the beasts of chase are yours: set your foot on the Seventh Heaven and mount (beyond)! Since you have taken warning from (the fate of) the vile wolf, you art not a fox: you art my own lion.

The wise man is he that in (the hour of) the shunned tribulation takes warning from the death of his friends.”

3115. The fox said (to himself), “A hundred thanks to the lion for having called me up after that wolf.

If he had bidden me first, saying, ‘Do you divide this,’ who would have escaped from him with his life?” Thanks be to Him (God), then, that He caused us to appear (be born) in the world after those of old,

So that we heard of the chastisements which God inflicted upon the past generations in the preceding time,

That we, like the fox, may keep better watch over ourselves from (considering) the fate of those ancient wolves.

3120. On this account he that is God's prophet and veracious in explanation called us “a people on which God has taken mercy.”

Behold with clear vision the bones and fur of those wolves, and take warning, O mighty ones!

The wise man will put off from his head (lay aside) this self-existence and wind (of vanity), since he heard (what was) the end of the Pharaohs and ‘Ád;

And if he do not put it off, others will take warning from what befell him in consequence of his being misguided.