Laila and the Khalifa.
The Khalifa said to Laila, "Art thou really she
For whom Majnun lost his head and went distracted?
Thou art not fairer than many other fair ones."
She replied, "Be silent; thou art not Majnun!"
If thou hadst Majnun's eyes,
The two worlds would be within thy view.
Thou art in thy senses, but Majnun is beside himself.
In love to be wide awake is treason.
The more a man is awake, the more he sleeps (to love);
His (critical) wakefulness is worse than slumbering.
Our wakefulness fetters our spirits,
Then our souls are a prey to divers whims,
Thoughts of loss and gain and fears of misery.
They retain not purity, nor dignity, nor lustre,
Nor aspiration to soar heavenwards.
That one is really sleeping who hankers after each whim
[...] Read more
Ode 1957: An intellectual
An intellectual is all the time showing off.
Lovers dissolve and become bewildered.
Intellectuals try not to drown,
while the whole purpose of loves
is drowning.
Intellectual invent
ways to rest, and then lie down~
in those beds.
Lovers feel ashamed
of comforting ideas.
You’ve seen a glob
of oil on water? That’s how a lover
sits with intellectuals, there, but alone
in a circle of himself.
[...] Read more
Two Kinds of Intelligence
There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
[...] Read more
All through eternity
All through eternity
Beauty unveils His exquisite form
in the solitude of nothingness;
He holds a mirror to His Face
and beholds His own beauty.
he is the knower and the known,
the seer and the seen;
No eye but His own
has ever looked upon this Universe.
His every quality finds an expression:
Eternity becomes the verdant field of Time and Space;
Love, the life-giving garden of this world.
Every branch and leaf and fruit
Reveals an aspect of His perfection-
They cypress give hint of His majesty,
The rose gives tidings of His beauty.
Whenever Beauty looks,
Love is also there;
[...] Read more
Who Says Words With My Mouth?
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
[...] Read more
Whoever Brought Me Here
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.
[...] Read more
If a Tree could Wander
Oh, if a tree could wander
and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
and not the pain of saws!
For would the sun not wander
away in every night ?
How could at ev'ry morning
the world be lighted up?
And if the ocean's water
would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?
The drop that left its homeland,
the sea, and then returned ?
It found an oyster waiting
and grew into a pearl.
[...] Read more
I closed my eyes to creation
I closed my eyes to creation when I beheld his beauty, I became
intoxicated with his beauty and bestowed my soul.
For the sake of Solomon’s seal I became wax in all my body,
and in order to become illumined I rubbed my wax.
I saw his opinion and cast away my own twisted opinion; I
became his reed pipe and likewise lamented on his lip.
He was in my hand, and blindly I groped for him with my
hand; I was in his hand, and yet I inquired of those who were
misinformed.
I must have been either a simpleton or drunk or mad that
fearfully I was stealing from my own gold.
Like a thief I crept through a crack in the wall into my own
vine, like a thief I gathered jasmine from my own garden.
Enough, do not twist my secret upon your fingertips, for I have
twisted off out of your twisted fist.
Shams-e Tabriz, from whom comes the light of moon and
stars–though I am grieving with sorrow for him, I am like the
crescent of the festival.
If I weep
If I weep, if I come with excuses, my beloved puts cotton wool in his ears.
Every cruelty which he commits becomes him, every cruelty which he commits I endure.
If he accounts me nonexistent, I account his tyranny generosity.
The cure of the ache of my heart is the ache for him; how shall I not surrender my heart to his ache?
Only then are glory and respect mine, when his glorious love renders me contemptible.
Only then does the vine of my body become wine, when the wine-presser stamps on me and spurns me underfoot.
I yield my soul like grapes under the trampling, that my secret heart may make merry,
Though the grapes weep only blood, for I am vexed with this cruelty and tyranny.
He who pounds upon me puts cotton wool in his ears saying, “I do not press unwittingly.
If you disbelieve, you are excusable, but I am the Abu’l Hikam [the expert] in this affair.
When you burst under the labor of my feet, then you will render much thanks to me.”
Moving Water
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river
moving in you, a joy.
When actions come from another section, the feeling
disappears.
Don't let others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures.
Reach for the rope of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will.
Because of willfulness people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied,
fish sizzle in the skillet.
The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate
inflict visible punishment.
Now see the invisible. If you could leave your selfishness, you
would see how you've been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well.
How could we know what an open field of sunlight is?
[...] Read more
