(Masnavi Book 1: 62) Mystical experiences must be kept hidden from the vulgar

Explaining that one must keep one's own (spiritual) state and (mystical) intoxication hidden from the ignorant.

Hearken to the words of the Sage (Hakím) who lived in seclusion, “Lay your head in the same place where you have drunk the wine.”

When the drunken man has gone astray from a tavern, he becomes the children's laughing-stock and plaything.

Whatever way he goes, he is falling in the mud, (now) on this side and (now) on that side, and every fool is laughing at him. He (goes on) like this, while the children at his heels are without knowledge of his intoxication and the taste of his wine.

3430. All mankind are children except him that is intoxicated with God; none is grownup except him that is freed from sensual desire.

He (God) said, “This world is a play and pastime, and ye are children”; and God speaks truth.

If you have not gone forth from (taken leave of) play, you are a child: without purity of spirit how will you be fully intelligent

(like an adult)?

Know, O youth, that the lust in which men are indulging here (in this world) is like the sexual intercourse of children.

What is the child's sexual intercourse? An idle play, compared with the sexual intercourse of a Rustam and a brave champion of Islam.

3435. The wars of mankind are like children's fights—all meaningless, pithless, and contemptible. All their fights are (fought) with wooden swords, all their purposes are (centred) in futility;

They all are riding on a reed-cane (hobby-horse), saying, “This is our Buráq or mule that goes like Duldul.”

They are (really) carrying (their hobby-horses), but in their folly they have raised themselves on high: they have fancied themselves to be riders carried along the road.

Wait till the day when those who are borne aloft by God shall pass, galloping, beyond the nine tiers (of Heaven)!

3440. “The spirit and the angels shall ascend to Him”: at the ascension of the spirit Heaven shall tremble.

Like children, ye all are riding on your skirts: ye have taken hold of the corner of your skirt (to serve) as a horse.

From God came (the text), “Verily, opinion doth not enable (you) to dispense (with the Truth)”: when did the steed of opinion run (mount) to the Heavens?

While preferring (in case of doubt) the stronger of the two (alternative) opinions, do not doubt whether you see the sun when it is shining!

At that time (when the spirit returns to God) behold your steeds! Ye have made a steed of your own foot.

3445. Come, recognise that your imagination and reflection and sense-perception and apprehension are like the reed-cane on which children ride.

The sciences of the mystics bear them (aloft); the sciences of sensual men are burdens to them.

When knowledge strikes on the heart (is acquired through mystical experience), it becomes a helper (yárí); when knowledge strikes on the body (is acquired through the senses), it becomes a burden (bárí).

God has said, “(Like an ass) laden with his books”: burdensome is the knowledge that is not from Himself. The knowledge that is not immediately from Himself does not endure, (it is) like the tire woman's paint.

3450. But when you carry this burden well, the burden will be removed and you will be given (spiritual) joy.

Beware! Do not carry this burden of knowledge for the sake of selfish desire (but mortify yourself), so that you may ride on the smooth-paced steed of knowledge,

So that you may mount the smooth-paced steed of knowledge, (and that) afterwards the burden may fall from your shoulder. How wilt you be freed from selfish desires without the cup of Hú (Him), O you who have become content with no more of Hú

than the name of Hú?

From attribute and name what comes to birth? Phantasy; and that phantasy shows the way to union with Him.

3455. have you ever seen a subject that shows without (the existence of) an object that is shown: unless there is the road, there can never be the ghoul (which entices travelers to stray from the road).

Have you ever seen a name without the reality (denoted by the name)? Or have you plucked a rose (gul) from the (letters) gáf

and lám of (the word) gul?

You have pronounced the name: go, seek the thing named. Know that the moon is on high, not in the water of the stream. If you wouldst pass beyond name and letter, oh, make yourself wholly purged of self.

Like (polished) iron, lose the ferruginous colour; become in your ascetic discipline (like) a mirror without rust.

3460. Make yourself pure from the attributes of self, that you mayst behold yours own pure untarnished essence, And behold within your heart (all) the sciences of the prophets, without book and without preceptor and master.

The Prophet said, “Amongst my people are some who are one with me in nature and aspiration: Their spirits behold me by the same light by which I am beholding them.”

Without the two Sahíhs and Traditions and Traditionists; nay, (they behold him) in the place where they drink the Water of Life.

3465. Know the secret of “In the evening I was a Kurd”; read the mystery of “In the morning I was an Arab.” And if you desire a parable of the hidden knowledge, relate the story of the Greeks and the Chinese.