by Farid ud-Din Attar

Farid ud-Din Attar of Nishapur (c. 1145–c. 1221) is remembered for the Conference of the Birds and the Book of Secrets — but the Mokhtar-nama, the Book of the Chosen, is his collection of mystical quatrains, organized into fifty chapters that move from divine theology through the agonies of the lover to the symbolism of candle and moth. Each quatrain is a rubā'ī — four lines in the AABA rhyme scheme that Omar Khayyam made famous — and each is a self-contained world: a compressed explosion of paradox, prayer, image, or cry.

All fifty chapters are presented here: 1,679 quatrains moving from divine unity and praise of the Prophet, through annihilation, bewilderment, the unspeakable secret of the spirit, complaint against the self, condemnation of the world, silence, aspiration, humility, trust in God, renunciation, fear of death, elegy, despair, hope, longing for the Beloved, the Beloved's face and form, the lover's affliction, wine poetry, the rose, the dawn, and at last the great dialogue of candle and moth — ending with Attar's own voice sealing the book: "if they are scholars they will write it in gold; if they are lovers they will write it in blood."

No complete English translation of the Mokhtar-nama has ever existed until this project. This is the first, translated from Classical Persian by thirty-two tulkus across nineteen runs. The source text is from Ganjoor.net.

1

O — Your purity transcends every purity.
Your holiness is sacred beyond all perception.
On Your path, a hundred thousand worlds are dust.
In Your lane, a hundred thousand Adams are dirt.

2

In describing You, the intellect went mad.
The soul fell silent and took helplessness as its companion.
When the candle of Your manifestation appeared —
the peacock of heaven adopted the way of the moth.

3

O — the eight heavens, a single offering at Your door.
The seven spheres, curtain-keepers of Your threshold.
The radiant sun, its face sallow and its robe blue,
dazed by a single mote of dust at Your door.

4

Your description is not within the measure of any ancient mind.
Whatever has been said of You is merely words.
In both worlds, every flower of praise that has bloomed for You
is still a thorn-bush in the valley of Your unity.

5

The soul dissolved, and by no means recognized You.
The heart bled, and could not fathom the dust of Your lane.
O You who from the tip of one hair brought two worlds into being —
no one in two worlds has known a single hair's breadth of You.

6

The heart comes alive when it seeks life from You.
The soul is set free when it seeks salvation from You.
If Your shadow should fall on the head of a mote,
the sun itself would beg alms from that mote.

7

An intellect whose least capital is the entire world —
in describing You, its highest station is helplessness.
Any mote that chose Your desire for a single moment —
truly, a hundred suns stand in its shadow.

8

Your description, at which every heaven is bewildered,
is not fit for the heartburn of every tasteless fool.
Beside You, how could both worlds weigh anything at all?
Where You are, both worlds and a single mote are one.

9

The hand of the wisest intellect does not reach Your description.
The perception of the seeing soul's inner eye does not reach.
The Throne — whose grandeur casts two worlds as its reflection —
what wonder that an ant cannot arrive there?

10

O You — because of You, the sky is sleepless and without food.
From longing for You, it spins like quicksilver.
Every moment, a hundred thousand hearts bleed because of You.
What is a heart? A hundred thousand souls have melted.

11

The sun, which turns over and over,
turns for You — in the hope of one glance.
The parrot of heaven, since it tasted
the sugar of gratitude for You, has been spinning on its head ever since.

12

The world, whose capital is pure annihilation —
since it is six days old, Your grace is its wet-nurse.
Every mote that sat in the shade of Your kindness
casts its shadow over eight heavens forever.

13

Every heart that finds a trace of Your grace
finds the thread of its own self across both worlds again.
Whoever gives half a soul on Your path
finds a hundred thousand souls returned from Your kindness.

14

Every dot in the circle of Your apportioning
is at the margin of the table of Your bounty.
If they split open the breast of a single mote —
oceans upon oceans, worlds upon worlds, Your mercy.

15

You are the pearl of the shoreless sea of grace.
You are the treasure sealed behind the veil of both worlds.
So manifest — because so hidden.
Beyond the world and within the soul.

16

Neither does the intellect reach the core of Your eternity,
nor does thought reach the end of Your beauty.
No one reaches the core of Your perfection —
for who else is there to reach Your perfection but You?

17

Neither does the intellect reach that eternal court,
nor does the soul reach the pavilion of Your glory.
Whether a shadow moves or stands still,
it cannot possibly reach Your beauty.

18

Where You are, no champion arrives.
The courier of sight and the equipped intellect do not arrive.
In short, to Your essence — to which there is no road —
no one has ever arrived, and no one ever will.

19

No journey that exists is fit for Your lane.
No good that exists is even suited to it.
Never allow a single mote of thought of anything else —
what a pity, every thought of otherness that exists.

20

If nothing else exists alongside You, what of it?
If not a single mote exists even in the shadow — what of it?
In a place where a thousand Thrones are a pebble,
what does it matter if a handful of pebbles does not exist?

21

O — apart from You, not a hair exists in all the world.
Except Your face, no face exists in all the world.
From every direction I look, in both worlds,
that direction is You — but You are not that direction.

22

There is no one in both worlds who is not beneath You.
All are drowned in that court of the How-less.
No, no — how long will we speak of worlds and courts?
Whatever is outside You is not outside You.

23

O — before You, a hundred thousand souls are one hair's breadth.
In nearness to You, seven heavens are one hair's breadth.
Since not one hair's breadth of both worlds is visible,
nothing in both worlds is even one hair's breadth but You.

24

In describing You, our intellect and knowledge do not reach.
A drop of water cannot circle seven seas.
When eighteen thousand worlds, where You are,
are a fly's wing — no one arrives there.

25

In knowing You, even to breathe is a deficiency,
for You can only be known through You.
The sun, whose vision is luminous —
before Your essence, even its dawn is a penalty.

26

Without You, the sky was nothing but a headless, footless thing.
These two worlds, without You, were nothing but a body.
The great ones of the world said much about You —
but all of it, without doubt, was nothing but words.

27

One moment You enter speech and hearing —
You become the key to a hundred locked worlds.
What is not manifest is hidden.
You are more manifest than manifestation itself.

28

Without You, one cannot rest in existence.
With You, one cannot choose anything but nothingness.
What a strange affair — one cannot reach You,
and yet one cannot be cut from You for a single moment.

29

The sky has turned so long in waiting for You
that all night till dawn it is drenched in blood from the twilight.
When it found no path to You, forward or back,
it spun within itself for a hundred thousand ages more.

30

In Your kingdom there is no duality — O You who are all.
Your kingdom is one, spiritually — O You who are all.
In the secret of secrets of our soul, You know
that the core of what the soul truly is, is You — O You who are all.

31

O Lord — all secrets, You know. You.
The measure of every matter, You know. You.
Of this secret that turns within our nature,
no one is aware — You know. You.

32

Your essence, from eternity to eternity, stands alone.
Outside You, all are ignorant — You alone know.
If the hand of seeking does not reach Your court,
perpetual glorification from Your court is enough.

33

Where is the intellect that could traverse Your path?
Where is the soul that could speak of Your glory?
Look at the presumption — that we are seeking You.
When all is You, who could seek You?

34

O essence of permanence — in what permanence You are hidden!
Not in a place — and in what soul You are hidden!
O You whose spirit is beyond place and direction —
where are You, after all? And where are You not?

35

We have spoken about Your essence for years.
We have read and studied many books.
And still we have arrived at the old women's saying:
"O You who are all — You! We are all entirely lost."

36

On Your path, we found that knowledge was an error.
What path? What knowledge? Whom did we know?
There was one finding of You — and the cry of both worlds:
"This is not the kind of thing we thought we knew."

37

Where is the eye that could see a mote of Your beauty?
Where is the mind that could glimpse the threshold of Your perfection?
If every atom in the world became an eye,
it could not possibly see into union with You.

38

Your secrets cannot be held in letters.
Your numbers cannot be held in thousands.
Forever, no one will ever
have understanding of Your wisdom.

39

O You who bring faith out of unbelief,
and from thorns bring forth manna,
from clay You bring the delicate rose,
and from mountain and stone You bring the jewel.

40

The world that I see full of Your wisdom —
I see it as one circle full of Your bounty.
Devoting my whole life to each individual mote,
I see oceans upon oceans of Your power.

41

O — infinite mercy and generosity are from You.
In every particle, a thousand signs from You.
If all the horizons should fall into error,
nothing would be possible from You but guidance.

42

O — a whiff of Your grace kindles paradise.
Hell burns from the heat of Your wrath's fire.
If the scroll of Your pain must be read aloud,
I have a fifty-thousand-year day ahead of me.

43

You can rule a kingdom on the Loving One's palm.
You can remain with all, and without all.
If I place the seal of silence on my lips,
You can read the sealed letter anyway.

44

O You who know the perfection of the subtle knowers,
who know the qualities of old and young alike —
if in describing You my tongue has failed,
I know that You understand the tongue of the tongueless.

45

O You who rule the kingdom by command,
who read from the heart what was never written —
if I do not tell You, what shall I say in my heart?
Unsaid and unheard, You know it already.

46

The soul speaks Your praise from within the soul.
Drowned in You — both worlds proclaim it.
If this tongue of mine cannot speak Your thanks,
each hair of mine speaks it in a hundred tongues.

47

If grief for You comes for one moment — better.
That moment, since it is worth more than two worlds — better.
Since no tongue exists that can praise You,
I have left You to Yourself — and that too is better.

48

You have those You have called to Your breast.
You have those You have driven from Your door.
Both the called and the driven are bewildered.
O how many bewildered ones You have.

49

O — the madman and the sage are both lost in You.
The thread of every mote's meaning is found in You.
When the dawn of union with You broke in my heart,
both worlds vanished in my heart — and my heart in You.

50

The intellect seeks a sign of Your essence.
Understanding seeks You around the world.
O comfort of the soul and heart — I am amazed:
You are in the heart, and the heart seeks You with the soul.

51

Since there is no one in two worlds who is Your companion,
no one can ever know Your secret.
In Your presence I have become absent from myself —
O present-absent One — from whom shall I seek You back?

52

Since You are present-absent, upon what shall I cry out?
Since there is no sign of You, upon what shall I place a sign?
After all, since You are with me and I with You —
upon what shall I place this eternal pain of separation?

53

O — every creature in both worlds chants Your remembrance.
All of creation moves toward You.
Though by striving one cannot reach You,
You are with everyone — and everyone seeks You.

54

O You who, as You see fit,
manage the affairs of small and great with wisdom —
Provider and protector of every living thing,
maker of the affairs of bewildered creation.

55

Since my abasement is from me, and glory is from You —
how can this helpless heart seek glory from You?
Since everything You hold has no visible end,
I will never be satisfied with anything less from You.

56

Sometimes You give a gift for a cry at dawn.
Sometimes You grant me honor for a single sigh.
That is why I seek my own self-loss — because You
first make one lose oneself, and then give the way back.

57

In the realm of both worlds, reign.
Dedicate our soul and heart to the divine.
Since I cannot say "You belong to me" —
I belong to You. Do with me as You will.

58

O You who sit within my heart — are You a soul, or not?
From Your very manifestation, are You thus hidden, or not?
That thing I will never come to know —
tell Your servant: are You that, or not?

59

The kingdom of grief for You is worth more than both worlds.
Your pain is worth more than eternal healing.
I am the dust of Your door — for the dust of Your door,
one mote of it, is worth more than a hundred thousand souls.

60

O Soul — You were always in the midst of the soul.
To creation, You were neither manifest nor hidden.
We burned both worlds and gave their ashes
to the wind — and in the midst, there You were.

61

Every drop does not reach the pearl's core in the sea.
Every mote does not reach the exalted sun.
On Your path, all steps have arrived —
yet who has ever arrived at You, or not?

62

For thirty years we ran with a hundred thousand sprints
until by Your road we reached Your court.
For thirty years more we circled Your door —
we saw the crier on the roof and the guard at the gate.

63

I ran and searched, without number, much.
From the dust of Your road I found no trace.
Suppose it is true that You cannot be known —
then tell Your servant: who am I, at least?

64

O — those who have eaten Your grief, one by one, so many.
In longing for You, humans and angels, so many.
Since the sky cannot reach You by a single mote,
what use is all its turning — so many times?

65

When all souls burn from longing for You,
they sew shut their eyes to their own existence.
In Your presence — which is the sun of eternity —
all souls are like stars in daylight.

66

The soul seeking Your face turns to water.
The wakefulness of the heart before You turns to sleep.
If Your face should emerge from behind the veil,
every mote would certainly become a sun.

67

Bleed the heart, if it had no head for Your affliction.
Burn the soul, if it had no loyalty to You.
Though heart and soul had nothing worthy of You —
everything that was not for You is unbelief.

68

The one thing I know that is beyond unbelief and faith —
that is Your love. This I know with certainty.
In my soul, that chain You have cast —
it will never break. This I know.

69

Every soul that did not find the way behind the veil of mystery —
even if it found the veil, found nothing but a sound.
Blind is the one who does not find the copy of each single thing
reflected back in the mirror of Your beauty.

70

Whoever holds a sign from Your secret
will be occupied with eternal presence.
If a single breath rises from the heart today without You,
tomorrow the grief of it will be the soul's hell.

71

Losing myself — as a sign from You — was enough for me.
My passion for You — as a loss from You — was enough for me.
How much of two worlds? For two worlds were enough for me.
The thought of You as the qibla of the soul — enough for me.

72

Without remembrance of You, the heart is a shadow in the sun.
With remembrance of You, it is at the peak of hope.
Every seed I have sown in the field of the heart —
except the memory of You — is the seed of eternal regret.

73

Since my companion from the world of sorrow was You,
my heart's joy in every grief was sorrow for You.
The pain of my sorrowful heart, in all my life —
if it ever had a remedy, that remedy too was sorrow for You.

74

O — the intellect is humbled in describing Your essence.
All this shortfall has passed beyond all measure.
What would it be — since it is in Your hand — if from generosity
You took the hand of a barefoot, bare-headed handful?

75

Since Your forgiveness can be taken for granted,
how long must we mourn over the grief of sin?
You know it is a small thing — from the ocean of Your generosity —
to scatter one drop as a gift over both worlds.

76

If the intellect cannot be certain of Your grace,
it is because it will not sharpen the eye of faith.
If You forgave all of creation —
I know that it would cost You nothing.

77

One mote of Your guidance is needed — and nothing more.
One moment of Your protection is needed — and nothing more.
For all these bewildered ones with soiled hems,
the rain of Your favor is needed — and nothing more.

78

Since Your pain has become the cure for the soul,
Your pain is enough for this incurable heart.
Since from generosity You show the way to all,
show a way to all these bewildered ones.

79

O Soul — who could take Your place?
What could the heart possess that could take Your place?
In both worlds, it is not possible for anyone
to have anything that could be worthy of You.

80

Without You I cannot rest for a single breath.
Your kindnesses I cannot count.
If every hair on my body became a tongue,
I could not give You one thanks in a thousand.

81

Since I am unaware of what destiny holds for me,
my madness has brought me in chains.
Since You do not deal by cause with bad and good —
abandon bad and good, and accept me.

82

I have no standing in the ranks of the truthful.
I have no name on the road of lovers.
That door which no one but You can open —
open it, for I have a tightly knotted affair.

83

O Lord — do not make us exiles from the court.
Do not leave us bewildered and broken on this road.
I know we did not live a single breath as we should have.
If You wish, take the reckoning now — or do not.

84

The face we wash five times a day,
and wash now and then with the blood of both eyes —
do not burn it with fire, so that with the water of regret
we may wash our scroll of sin clean before Your face.

85

Since the day we appeared from nonexistence,
we have come into vain talk and hearing.
You said: "Come gathered!" — but we have become scattered.
You said: "Come clean!" — but we have come filthy.

86

O Lord — we have come weeping with a hundred laments.
If You forgive, we have come with hope.
And from our own shamelessness, before Your door,
we have come burning with humiliation, ashamed.

87

O — the circle of Your decree is bewilderment.
The desert of Your judgment is perplexity.
Would someone like You stain their hand with my blood?
After all, You are You and I am I — You know.

88

O You who are the loosening of all my bonds,
the helper of my yearning soul —
whether I am good or not, I am the servant of Your decree.
Whether You show grace or not — You are my Lord.

89

When will this wounded heart of mine be full of You?
When will the road to You be closed to me?
If You drag me in wrath from bond to bond,
when will my hope in You be broken?

90

O — my soul with its burnt heart is alive through You,
and from shame at its own deeds hangs its head before You.
Accept me — for besides You, I have no one.
If You do not accept me, where shall Your servant go?

91

O Lord — help me with Your own friendship.
Cross out my sins from Your own good works.
If You lift the hand of generosity from my head,
I will never be free from my own ruin.

92

From awe of You, this grief-eating heart has burned.
The heart? — what is the heart? The helpless soul itself has burned.
O Lord, do not burn this bewildered body —
it has burned a hundred times already in the fire of shame before You.

93

O — the memory of You is the balm of my wounded heart.
Every breath, grief for You is my constant companion.
If You do not remember me with the kindness that is Yours,
who will open this shut door of mine?

94

O Lord — how shall I measure my grief for You?
Life has slipped from my hands — what plan shall I make?
From my guilt and Your forgiveness, shame has seized me —
how long shall I be negligent in Your service?

95

You keep the robe of grace around me.
You keep the crown of protection on my head.
Though You see more wickedness from me each day,
each moment, by Your generosity, You hold me higher.

96

O — to serve You is to reign.
Your only work is divine giving.
I, in heedlessness, have spent my life.
I did this — now what will You do?

97

O Lord — the soul fears for the sinners.
Day and night, the heart mourns for the departed.
You said: "Come in helplessness and weakness."
Helplessness and weakness we have — by the cartload.

98

If I am left with a thousand demons again,
it is better than being left with my own ego.
Save me from myself — for I am helpless.
Do not leave me left alone with myself again.

99

O — in every breath, two hundred worlds full of remedy
wander in the valley of searching for You.
Set free the fire-temple of my heart
from the company of the fire-worshipping infidel ego.

100

The soul in both worlds had no one in Your place.
The heart kept its eyes on the road for none but You.
O Lord — burn the dog of the ego with a hundred pains,
for that faithless wretch had no loyalty to You.

101

Your pain has always been my source of healing.
Your longing has always been the life of my soul.
Reverence for You has always been abundant in my heart —
but the dog of my ego was never obedient.

102

O Lord — free me from this enemy-natured ego.
Lead me out of this furnace-natured body.
See my heart's brokenness — for I am broken-hearted indeed.
Give me courage — for I have been all too cowardly.

103

How long will this body be the veil of my helplessness?
How long will I drink the draught of sorrow?
It is time You took my hand and freed me —
for I have fallen once and for all.

104

Since the entire road and its caravan belong to You and me,
and wherever there is darkness, it is between You and me —
do not tear my veil, for every sin that passed
is a secret behind the curtain between You and me.

105

Where is the heart that could bear the affliction of Your time?
Where is the soul that could endure the punishment of Your reckoning?
I have become the shame of the unclean —
where is the neck of the strong that could carry Your burden?

106

O Lord — do not take me from this world veiled.
Do not take my soul except with faith at death.
I have made a broom for Your door from my beard —
so that You will not drag me by the hair into hell.

107

I come — and I come with a blackened heart.
Bewildered and fallen from the road, I come.
O Pure One — give me purity from my pollution!
For I come stained with every kind of sin.

108

O Lord — since I had no profit from my own ego,
and it too was never pleased with me for anything —
free me from this dog in this long life,
not one breath of which held Your pleasure.

109

O — the seven earths and heavens are full of You.
Why are mouths and tongues not full of You?
O life of my heart — do You permit this:
I stand empty-handed, both worlds full of You?

110

If I repent of sin a thousand times over,
until You grant the repentance, I am nowhere.
Whether I am good or bad, I am Yours.
Free me from the infidel of my ego — once and for all.

111

Neither in worse nor in better am I dying.
Neither beginner nor arrival am I dying.
Look at me — O You whose door is the dust of both worlds —
from both worlds, empty-handed, I am dying.

Chapter Two: In Praise of the Chief of Messengers

1

A man of vision, never once cast down —
yet none was alive without the gaze of his intercession.
He is the Sultan of both worlds, and God's chosen servant:
that servant — no master was ever more a servant.

2

A chief who was higher than all that existed.
He was the purpose of both accident and substance.
There — where Adam was between water and clay —
in the world of soul and heart, the Messenger was already he.

3

A chief who, beyond both worlds, was in excess —
in the Presence of God, drowned in selflessness.
With all this rank and worth and nearness that he held,
his one boast among all of them was poverty.

4

Before the nine tents of the heavens were raised,
before this tent was pitched around a heap of dust —
in the world of souls, they sat before him as equals,
and on the palace of eternity, struck the drum of "Were it not for you."

5

You are a mercy to the worlds — "We sent you" —
and the cause of creation — "Were it not for you."
God called out to your soul, O pure jewel:
"Were it not for you, We would not have created the heavens."

6

That beauty hidden behind the veil of the unseen —
from whose reflection all beauty in both worlds flows —
if a single mote of that beauty were revealed,
a hundred suns would blaze from a single soul.

7

Commander of the realm of prophets — who is it? You.
Proof of "You exalt whom You will" — who is it? You.
The bright-eyed one of "He truly saw" — who is it? You.
The hem of the intimacy of "He drew near" — who is it? You.

8

At God's gate, who holds this glory but you?
From the holy realm, who has this readiness but you?
Truly — no prophet of God has ever attained
this station, this rank, this miracle that is yours.

9

O mercy of the worlds — mercy is from you.
Rebellion is from us, as protection is from you.
Show grace, and do not turn your face from us,
for the backing of the sinners of your community is from you.

10

If in your community there were no obedient soul,
it would be no great wonder — for backing like yours exists.
Blood should weep from the eyes of any
who had, in truth, no intercessor like you.

11

Since there is an intercessor like you — a lord of generosity —
no one in all creation need carry grief.
If you take one step, out of grace,
you will settle the case of every sinner in a breath.

12

So long as the moon has a path from your finger,
the moon of heaven splits itself each month.
Until the Day of Judgment, when it collapses from its course,
your hand will hold it up — for you will intercede.

13

The four elements, too, are servants at your gate.
The seven heavens, too, are rings on the arch of your court.
The souls of all the world's inhabitants, in this prison of the senses,
are drawing wages from the deputies of your tribunal.

Chapter Three: On the Virtue of the Companions

1

A chief whose truthfulness made him the foremost of both worlds —
in the Law, the first, the comfort of its eye.
With the Master of all creation, in that private retreat —
God Himself says he was the "second of the two."

2

That leader from whom the Law took its name —
demons, in fear of him, seized the world at a single stride.
From his majesty, earthquakes fell into the earth,
and from his whip, earthquakes found their peace.

3

O you whose rule was modesty and forbearance,
the Quran, from the station of nearness, was your companion.
Your blood was worthy of the "dye of God" — for
the dyeing of the dye of God was from your blood.

4

A chief who swept the dust from the vault of meaning,
who pierced the pearl of the shell of the ocean of piety.
Both worlds were beggars at his door,
and he was the one who said to all of them: "Ask me."

5

O moon — from the beauty of your face, the world had its share.
Filled with musk from the perfume of your character, all of time.
And from both worlds, where can one bear this anguish?
That they killed the Water of Life with poison.

6

O jewel of the mine of virtue, ocean of knowledge.
From your counsel, the pearls of heaven's casket are strung.
On seven heavens, and in eight paradises,
the nine spheres never saw a leader like you among the Ten Immaculate.

Chapter Four: On Meanings Related to Divine Unity

1

An ocean whose heaven is the earth itself —
the same here and there, this very one it shall be.
From the heights of the Throne to the farthest depth: one drop of it.
Such is the measure of that ocean's single drop.

2

That ocean which in its oneness is truly one —
against a single drop of it, no heaven can weigh.
If eighteen thousand worlds fell into it,
truly, not a fish would surface from it.

3

Around you has gathered such an ocean,
and you have not found your way to a single drop.
Do you know how you are in this world full of secrets?
Like a blind man in the garden of paradise.

4

One face must be seen with a hundred faces.
One thing must be seen from every side.
Then eighteen thousand worlds and everything in them
must be seen within the tip of a single hair.

5

A path that must be walked entirely —
one cannot speak of it — it must be traversed.
A path where with every step you take,
your first step must be the cutting of the trace.

6

At last, one day your heart will reach the gate.
Your soul will arrive at its purpose, suddenly.
You see a hundred star-filled worlds —
when all converge in one constellation, the path arrives.

7

Everything that exists in both worlds, less or more,
is from the display of His light, O dervish!
So long as display continues, all display is His.
When He abandons display — there remains no before or after.

8

The world sees only its own speech everywhere.
Upon the seeker it sees its own seeking.
Everything that exists is altogether a mirror —
holding it in hand, it sees its own face.

9

May the heart be always seized with jealousy!
May it wander in the desert of oneness!
Every image you see emerging from the veil —
when the veil falls away, may it all astonish you!

10

One must make a passageway to oneself, toward oneself —
and this work must be done strongly, not casually.
Everything that exists is each a mirror.
In these mirrors, one must display.

11

Every soul that looks for a guide on the path
gazes for forty years through the eye of madness.
When forty pass, it sees a sun
peering out from the window of every mote.

12

One thing that is not one, and yet a thing is that thing.
The whole is entirely that, and precious is that thing.
Whatever the soul decrees — "this is that" —
it is that, and beyond all decrees, that thing is still.

13

Something in which, for one breath, neither you nor I exist.
Its quality — neither you know it nor I.
If the veil of illusion were to rise:
He would remain, and He — neither you would remain, nor I.

14

That moon that shines upon both worlds,
shines into the marrow of earth and sky.
The whole face of the earth is a mote within it —
a moon that shines from the heaven of the soul.

15

Something that is beyond knowledge and discernment —
do not think of it as just a thing, for it is also something else.
It is a being in which all beings are nothing.
It is a thing in which all things are nothing.

16

That which cannot enter a name — good night!
Neither soul nor body — good night!
You know nothing but existence and nonexistence,
and it is not of either kind — good night!

17

That ocean which changes at every moment —
how could it fully emerge from behind the veil?
One drop of that ocean we are speaking of
exceeds eighteen thousand worlds.

18

The diver, at his first step, dives headfirst,
so that in the sea he moves like lightning.
When the sea turns its face to the interior of a man,
in a blink of an eye, it drowns both worlds.

19

A place where there was neither slope nor height,
no body, no direction, no movement of parts.
Everything the seeker sought endlessly —
when he arrived there, everything was already there.

20

That ocean that surges higher with every breath —
from longing for it, a thousand bloods surge.
You would say that in a different way, a different form,
it gushes from every mote at every moment.

21

An ocean in which both worlds disappeared —
He was, and aside from Him, all appearance was madness.
That drop which was seeking that sea —
when it arrived there, it had always been there.

22

Every heart that is in this headless, footless circle
is in the sea — yet the sea is in it.
Every moment a thousand waves rise from this ocean.
The thing that matters is that the ocean sits still.

23

Every soul that gathers a guide to the sea
goes out from itself and gathers inwardness.
Both worlds become a mote in its eye,
and that mote transcends its mote-ness.

24

So long as you worship the self, your grief increases.
But if you have a heart, your kingdom grows each moment.
What need for both worlds? — for where the heart is,
every mote exceeds a hundred thousand worlds.

25

Every heart that fell into the ocean of signlessness
fell into the oil of the marrow of life.
It passed beyond that world which was the place of the absent
and fell into the very presence of eternity.

26

That whole by which I saw the parts in motion —
in each part of it, I saw both worlds appear.
I saw it: an ocean without head or foot.
As far as I walked, I saw only ocean.

27

A bird that saw the dregs of this ocean's wine
spent a lifetime struggling toward the sea.
It said: "I shall drink all this water by myself."
One drop reached it, and it died in the sea.

28

Every soul that is not captive to Him with its whole soul —
with that sleeping heart, what business has it?
Wherever that ocean takes its place,
it kills the wretched one with thirst, on the spot.

29

A hundred drops that all appear as one water —
when they turn their face to their companions, all as one.
Every wakefulness that exists in all the world,
in His reflection, appears as sleep entirely.

30

Sometimes the soul saw its own heart drowning in blood.
Sometimes it saw itself bewildered and upside down.
In an ocean where one must lose oneself —
the deeper it went, the more it found itself outside.

31

That ocean whose wave casts jewels
enters the chest of lovers with a hundred graces.
Once it came in and made me lose myself.
This time, if it returns, it will lose me entirely.

32

As long as you see this sea full of jewels,
you will see it with the eye, and you will see the eye that sees.
It is an ocean — the interior of every drop of it,
you will see, is the resting-place of someone else.

33

Every soul that finds the guide to the sea quickly
goes quickly out of itself and comes quickly within.
Both worlds become a mote in its eye,
and that mote quickly transcends its mote-ness.

34

When meaning emerges from the whole into the part,
every part of that part appears transformed.
How long will you say: "The part comes from the whole"?
"How" cannot be said — because it comes without a how.

35

That light which shines outward and inward —
what do you know of how it shines?
You would say that from beneath a hundred thousand veils,
something shines out in oneness.

36

This very place is the same place it always was.
This very time is the same time it always was.
If they dress a mote in a hundred garments,
place your finger on it — it is the same as it was.

37

There is a secret beyond all these secrets that exist.
There is a light apart from all these lights that exist.
Be not content with any task, and know:
there is a work beyond all these works that exist.

38

In an ocean that had neither head nor foot,
every drop displayed a thirst.
Though every drop had its place in the sea,
each one had a thousand bouts of dropsy.

39

No one exists for whom the whole ocean fell.
Or for whom all war and peace befell.
Yet every mote imagines
that this whole affair has fallen to it alone.

40

Everything that entered existence from nonexistence —
all are drunk on the wine of this event.
If a single mote should emerge from the veil,
every mote that exists would adorn the city.

41

The day the sun was scattering stars,
a hundred worlds were pouring drops from the sea.
Suddenly it gazed into Adam's clod —
from that moment, from that clod, people kept pouring.

42

Sometimes they speak of the new, sometimes of the old.
Sometimes of "Do," sometimes of "Do not."
Though there is no need — yet out of kindness,
they speak to us in our own language.

43

In the world of the soul, no man appears, no woman.
Not even soul appears there, nor body.
How long will you speak of "we" and "I"? Shame!
How long "we" and "I" — when there is no "we" and no "I"?

44

You were asking: "What is this illusory image?"
If I tell the truth of it, it is a long story.
It is an image that appeared from an ocean
and then returned to the bottom of that ocean.

45

That flood which surged from its own force,
which wrestled with everything that crossed its path —
when at last it reached the sea,
you would say it had been among the silent ones all its life.

46

That wondrous secret — neither you nor I will know it.
To solve it — neither you nor I are able.
If a single mote of that secret became visible,
not a single mote more would you or I recite.

47

To solve it — neither you nor I are able.
No plan exists except swallowing grief.
Not a single mote more will you or I recite.
Not a single mote has room to raise its head.

48

In a desert where the foot must become the head,
each day the journey must be made anew.
Faith departs if you wish to stand still.
The soul is lost if the journey must be made.

49

There is a work beyond old age and youth,
beyond the world of death and life.
A secret beyond the veil of meanings —
eternally beyond the lasting and the passing.

50

In bondage, one must be the untier of knots.
Lost, one must be the guide.
One must live a thousand years in a single moment.
One must be in a thousand places in a single moment.

51

A seed in which the world's marrow was hidden —
both worlds were lost in it, and this was the remedy.
Everything in both worlds that arrived there —
when it looked closely: what was this, was that.

52

A soul in which dark and light are both you —
there, truly, your soul would be your body.
It is here that you are you and I am I today.
But there: you would be you, and I would be you.

53

Those people who possess this in the unity of the whole —
the kingdom of both worlds, without doubt, is theirs.
Though in number they appear to be many,
imagine they are one body with a hundred souls.

54

When you find the light that illumines all paths,
in your own breast you find the way of the messengers.
In every single part, imagine a multitude —
until in your own heart you find the whole world.

55

That secret hidden behind a hundred coverings —
burn the coverings and open your eyes with care.
If you cannot see it in a single form,
then see it in every form, and be silent.

56

In the Presence of God, all must be reverence.
As long as the soul lasts, one must be in pursuit.
Even if you drain a thousand seas with every breath,
one must make little of it, and keep one's lips dry.

57

If you thirst for the sea, hold faith in the jewel.
When you become the sea, keep the jewel within the soul.
And if you are an ocean, raise no wave but foam.
Then like the sea, keep your jewel hidden.

58

When you become the sea, keep the jewel within the soul.
Your mouth is bitter from sweetness — do not ask.
Then like the sea, keep your jewel hidden.
He was the runner, and the rest — do not ask.

59

How can a gnat see the Pleiades?
Or an ant see the verdant garden?
Every drop that does not become the colour of the sea —
how shall it see the sea, while in the sea?

60

Whether a man is aware or unaware,
he is drenched in this headless, footless sea.
If the sun itself is thirsty, it is no wonder —
every mote from it is a thousand times thirstier.

61

Rise and enter the sea of the Beloved's love.
Be brave and enter this work like a man.
Strip yourself bare of both worlds like a needle,
then enter the sea headfirst.

62

An ocean you will see in a single breath for all eternity —
both worlds within it like two dewdrops.
Be present to the subtlety of that sea-dweller,
until in your own circle, you see both worlds.

63

If you see your own heart without darkness,
you see one drop of the divine sea.
And that point of unity you carry in your soul —
you see it as an infinite circle.

64

If you have eyes, cast your eye upon the work.
Cast the soul into the secrets of oneness.
Bind a perfect water over both worlds by decree,
then seize it and cast it in the salt-marsh.

65

Though your heart grows tight from all this grief —
bear it, for through grief a man grows wise.
Suffer in this prison of affliction in a hundred colours,
until that moment when all becomes one colour.

66

Be not bound to any fantasy other than one mote.
In the sea, lose yourself — be not a drop.
The world is entirely a mirror, and God the face in it.
Look at the face — be not deceived by the mirror.

67

How long will you think of yourself in terms of foot and head,
of before and after, below and above?
Since all is one in everything you see,
you are a polytheist if you imagine another.

68

Every soul that thinks ahead by the holy light —
is not outside itself; it is entirely within itself.
A single mote of imagining otherness in your interior
is the seed of two thousand mountains of fire and more.

69

Since your business is not outside this madness,
you have fallen — mad — out from behind the veil.
O drop, fallen out into the desert —
why did you come out of the sea?

70

If you lift the veil from the face of the work —
behind the veil, you find an idle puppet.
Or: everything that exists in the world is a mirror —
do you imagine the mirror is anything but You?

71

How long will you prepare to set out for the sea?
Go like a man and throw yourself into the sea.
If you have being, you stay at the bottom of hell.
If you have no being, where will you find yourself again?

72

Every soul that was drowned in grace
was at rest in the world of infinity.
If you walk a hundred centuries on His path —
when you look closely, it was still the first step.

73

When infamy befalls one in a lifetime,
it is not the man who falls from fame.
If you want the pearl, seek it from the ocean's depths —
for it is the foam that washes up on shore.

74

Since there is nothing: if you go forward, no forehead.
If you cut the road behind, no end.
A hundred roads rise from every mote —
to which road your soul will fall, who knows?

75

If you cut the road behind, no end.
You choose that mote over the sun.
To which road your soul will fall, who knows?
Then His appearance is everything you see.

76

If "I" should rise from before your eyes,
you would see: you are besotted with pure annihilation.
God is self-sufficient — yet when you look closely:
since there is no one but Him, from whom is He self-sufficient?

77

To one for whom certainty is visible with the eye of discovery,
he is wise on the straight path.
Though there are a thousand kinds of roads, thin as hair,
from all those hairs, see one straight rope.

78

Look, look, O heart! — if you are a wayfarer —
so that you may escape the veil of both worlds.
On what will you set this subtle conjuring trick?
The box is both full of Him, and the box is empty.

79

You imagine that God will become visible,
or that something hidden will become apparent.
Since He is the visible, and nothing but Him is visible —
since there is no other, to whom would He become apparent?

80

Every eye that saw the world's secrets absolutely
saw part derived from whole, and whole from the whole of wholes.
What part, what whole? — since all must be seen as God.
Until you do not see God, all cannot be seen as God.

81

How long — this carved image that exists?
How long — this enchantment of the living and dead that exists?
If this veil that exists should be raised,
every deed that exists would be undone by decree.

82

There where you see the earth as a heaven,
you see vast time as a little thing.
Whenever this circle pauses from its turning,
you see eternity and infinity as one.

83

Every soul that went beyond the decree of the centre of turning —
its future, present, and past became the same.
For us, eternity and infinity are one, O dervish!
We ourselves never came — how then could we go?

84

That ardent wayfarer who, through valley and height,
melted like a candle in burning and anguish —
his heart wholly turned from the world of the part.
He let out one cry and returned to the world of the whole.

85

O heedless heart! Where are we? Come.
Why are we apart from each other? Come.
Look — every mote that exists in the world
is crying out: "It is we! Come."

86

The heart's lineage is neither from Adam nor Eve.
The soul's desire is neither earth nor heaven.
I have not the daring to let a breeze pass my lips.
I have not the patience to keep still — what a wondrous affair!

87

Love came and left no name of infidelity or faith.
Every illusion that existed, it left no place to hide.
When it looked closely, it saw the veil of the unseen.
It left not a single mote of imagining otherness in the soul.

88

In love, the intellect and discernment that were — remained not.
Heart and soul burned entirely — that too which was.
When the sunlight shone from behind the veil,
like a mote, everything that was became invisible.

89

That heart which shone from yearning for the greatest light,
which shone from seeking God like a luminous candle —
when it looked closely, it saw one Presence
shining from everything in a different way.

90

From seeing so many wondrous secrets of Yours,
my heart turned to blood — such a wondrous Beloved!
Enough that I sought You from the whole world, night and day.
You Yourself are the whole world — what a wondrous affair!

91

O Lord — how hidden, how manifest: it is You.
Neither intellect arrives nor knowledge, where You are.
At last, open a door to this closed heart,
that I may drown in that spectacle which is You.

92

Each day You will be more beautiful.
Each moment You will display Yourself anew.
You will never show Your face to anyone —
so long as You exist, You will display Yourself.

93

Beloved — the grief of Your love cannot be traded for the soul.
A single mote of it cannot be traded for the kingdom of both worlds.
Every heart that fell in the desert of Your love —
nevermore can a sign of it be given.

94

On Your path, duality was lost — what wonder!
What shall the polytheist do, or the dualist — what wonder!
There where You are, all are pure annihilation.
And here where I am, all are You — what wonder!

95

That eye which sees divine unity clearly
sees, in the very annihilation of "me," only "You."
May it be forever blind to the secret of the work —
the eye that, in this midst, sees duality.

96

Beloved — between me and You, whose hand is it?
If I explain, it does not come out right.
If I am me, why do I not know myself?
And if I am not me, what is all this crying for?

97

Beloved — I am neither one nor two — what wonder!
I am neither old in love nor new — what wonder!
Perpetually I go while sitting still — what wonder!
I am neither with You nor without You — what wonder!

98

The heart, wearied by years and bound by months, remained not.
It perished, and awareness of good and evil remained not.
From sinking so deep into thought of You,
no room for thought of anything else remained in it.

99

When my heart again set grief for You as its feeding,
it tore a rent in the curtain of the seventh heaven.
From thinking about both worlds, freedom was born —
for it placed the thought of both worlds in a box.

100

In love for You, joy and grief were nothing at all.
The illusion of my existence, like nonexistence, was nothing at all.
Every trick I had, I tried — and at the end,
I came to know: all of it, too, was nothing at all.

Chapter Five: On Divine Unity in the Language of Isolation

1

We are. There is no other beside Us — behold, perfection.
Occupied with Our own beauty — behold, beauty.
You imagine that We gaze upon you?
When have We ever seen anything but Ourselves? — behold, the impossible.

2

Since We are manifest in Our own existence —
since We are manifest in Our own existence —
you are nothing, yet you imagine you are something.
You are nothing, yet you imagine you are something.

3

Be Ours — better than being desire's.
Better than being this weak, afflicted creation's.
From ignorance, you think yourself entirely self-sufficient —
yet We are entirely yours, if you are Ours.

4

Your life, which turns between soul and body —
or a single drop of you in Eden —
you keep fleeing, while Our presence
wishes to make you like Itself.

5

With Ourselves We play the game of love forever.
In Ourselves and Our own beauty We take pride.
Since no other besides Us has appeared —
for a single moment, We attend to no one.

6

From the qualityless world, one must arrive at stillness.
One must guide oneself toward one's own self.
If even a single mote exists and We know it,
one must step out of oneself toward it for an instant.

7

We are. There is no court but Ours.
Though We are all, no one is aware.
You are a hundred thousand leagues from your own self,
yet from Our being to you, there is not a hair's breadth of distance.

8

O you who said "Yes" at the Day of Alast — you are from Us.
In both worlds, high and low, you are from Us.
Consider: We, to you, are all that We are —
better that you know yourself, as you are, to be from Us.

9

That thing from which I see the world and Adam —
in eighteen thousand worlds, I find it scarce.
You imagine you are you — no, you are not you.
Rise from the path, that I may see you as an intimate.

10

We are. With Us, nothing is fitting.
When there is nothing, nothing deserves.
Be nothing, so that nothing may be yours.
When you are nothing, there is nothing for you.

11

With all this difference and distinction that exists —
We are all, besides all, and also that which is.
The secrets of Our being are everything that was.
The modes of Our witnessing are everything that is.

12

Many a rebel I have slain with a single hair —
and not one drop of blood has stained My finger.
And see this wonder: face to face with all creation,
I sit with My back turned to every one of them.

13

If there is a heart, it is better mad with love.
What love? Which love? Better still a legend.
For a day or two we carried our belongings out of the house.
We came back home — for home, after all, is better.

Chapter Six: On the Annihilation of Unity and Perishing in Isolation

1

We have drunk a hundred seas, and still we are bewildered:
how, like the sea, are we still dry-lipped?
From dry-lippedness we forever seek the sea.
We ARE the sea — dry-lipped, for this very reason.

2

This frenzy that drives us running —
this passion can never be stilled.
They say: bring yourself down, settle at last!
How can I bring a sea to heel?

3

From this sea that has appeared in our breast,
from its radiance the world's eye became seeing.
That drop — which once you'd say had only a heart —
today has drowned in blood and become a sea.

4

The heart said: we are like a wretched drop.
In a lifetime, when shall we see the shore of the sea?
That drop, having said this, entered the sea —
and cried out: WE ourselves are this!

5

Since the eye of my heart grew seeing by God's light,
both worlds vanished from its sight.
You would say my heart, from longing for this vast sea,
sweated out of the body and became a sea.

6

Every moment my heart applies itself to thought,
every mote of the heart becomes a wellspring of secrets.
Every drop I lift from the sea of my heart —
another sea appears from the depths.

7

Into the depths of my own heart I must journey.
Upon the universal world, one glance I must cast.
Every day, from the road's thirst, a hundred seas
I have drunk alone — and still I need more.

8

A lifetime we sat in hope, seeking.
Day and night, lost in thought, we sat.
When a hundred seas were drunk, from jealousy of the world
we wiped our lips and sat there, dry-lipped.

9

That drop which drank all its water from the sea
hid itself, though it swallowed a whole world.
My soul, which breathes nothing but the Beloved,
in every breath devours both worlds alone.

10

Every time my heart appears from behind the veil,
the world erupts in commotion and tumult.
If the sea of my heart should flood the plain,
from every wave of it, a thousand seas would rise.

11

Through the world brimming with knowledge I will journey.
Past the world brimming with ignorance I will pass.
Into the sea where the nine heavens are drowned,
like a diver I will go seeking the pearl.

12

From diving so deep into this abyss,
every hair of my heart, from ecstasy, became a star.
Yesterday I had a tongue and a heart from the world.
Today the tongue is mute and the heart is lost.

13

We girded our loins and opened the heart's blood.
We set aside the illusion of our own existence.
Why blame us, friend? — for we
have fallen into a valley without end.

14

From the day we died while still alive,
we carried the ball of seeking past a thousand worlds.
The road on which a thousand sober men burned —
in our own drunkenness and ecstasy, we crossed.

15

The day I charge into the sea of annihilation
and hurl myself to the very bottom —
friend, take a long look at me here,
for there, no one will ever find me again.

16

Terrible — to gaze upon a mote,
and from that mote make a road without end.
When the Beloved opened that path upon the soul,
I said: what shall I do? He said: what would you do?

17

When my reason gained freedom from reason's chains,
the heart grew sad — but the soul found joy.
In knowledge, a thousand ignorances increased.
In unknowing, a thousand masteries were found.

18

In love, my heart became bewilderment itself.
It fell at the feet — headless, disordered.
Though outside the curtain it was confusion,
when it passed within the curtain, it became sovereignty.

19

A lifetime we wandered every road in seeking.
Mountain-bodied, we became light as chaff.
When we left the house, we were beggars.
When we came home, we were kings.

20

For a day or two one must keep house in nonexistence.
For a day or two, in existence too.
Now we are free of both being and nonbeing.
We have become ourselves — whom should we grieve for?

21

We have turned our face from both worlds.
Many a breast of the heart we have split open with thought.
From the seventh curtain of the heart — the soul —
beyond both worlds, we have found a world.

22

From the day we saw the sun of the Presence,
we saw the motes of both worlds in proximity.
And that Simorgh whose shadow covers the Throne —
we saw it beyond Mount Qaf of power.

23

Above, beyond the heavens, I was.
Below, in the boundless earth, I was.
A lifetime the world kept calling me back to itself.
When I looked within — I was the world.

24

Since I am not I — why be just soul and body?
Better that I should be just myself.
How long this back and forth of being and nonbeing in two worlds?
Whether I exist or not, everything is just me.

25

My life is forever beyond day and night.
What I seek exceeds the capacity of seeking.
Do you know what is inside my soul?
A wonder beyond all wonders.

26

With both being and nonbeing, I am a stranger —
for to step beyond both is a man's work.
If, given the wonders I carry in my soul,
I do not go mad — that in itself is madness.

27

Thank God that I am not, at every breath,
distracted like the heedless world in desire.
If both worlds became my enemy, I would not yield —
with what I know, I do not acknowledge anyone.

28

The more I am a student, the more I surpass the master.
The more a servant, the freer than all.
A strange affair, this headless, rootless business of mine:
I am saddest at the moment I am most glad.

29

There is a strange thing in my heart and soul — do not ask.
I am so drowned in that thing — do not ask.
Of all that you see in books:
I do not know that. This I know — do not ask.

30

We have recognized our own pure essence.
Before death, we have emptied this house.
We are free of shedding the skin, free of death —
for we have shed the skin while still alive.

31

Today, who is as shattered and mad as I?
Fallen on the dust, with a heart full of blood — who?
This is not even me — God alone knows.
Until that moment, I existed. And now — who is this?

32

The bird of my heart, from sheer flight,
brought secret upon secret, world upon world.
It flew out to every corner of the universe so far
that it reduced both worlds to a single point.

33

We have no business in town or at home —
fallen like a half-slaughtered bird, we have work.
Behind the curtain, in the heart's wonders, we have work.
It cannot be told to anyone — it is a difficult work.

34

Drunk on the wine of love, I have fallen in ruin.
The heart, risen — without food or sleep, collapsed.
In the sea that lives within our breast:
the soul has gone, and the body floats on the surface.

35

From this secret that turns within our breast —
from its turning, the heavens bend double.
I cannot tell head from foot, nor foot from head,
for within head and foot, something headless and footless turns.

36

When the bird of my heart escaped this narrow cage,
it became featureless — like a carving worn from stone.
At every step it traversed a thousand worlds.
In every breath it traveled a thousand leagues.

37

Every day I want to surpass the heavens.
Sometimes behind, sometimes ahead, I want to turn.
With the world and the world's people I have no business.
I want to circle my own head and feet.

38

Before this I was raving about madness.
And then I was stepping past why and how.
A lifetime I knocked on this door — and when they opened it,
I myself had been knocking from the inside out.

39

I am unaware of soul and body — behold, the wonder!
I must become my own self — behold, the wonder!
I come to myself, yet I have arrived as another.
You would say another is what I am — behold, the wonder!

40

When existence turned to ruby in my stone —
I see my raindrops as pearls.
My heart has risen so it will never sit down again,
from how deeply I have made my soul sit still.

41

When the grief of union added to the grief of separation —
much pain heaped upon the hope of remedy.
From the meaning of infinity, my soul was diminishing.
When all became one, my soul increased.

42

How long shall I circle the soul in thought?
How long shall I wander the world in desire?
So close am I in this world to that world
that you would say I am about to pass from this one into that.

43

Whenever I enter behind the curtain of the secret,
I become the curtain-maker around both worlds.
They say: from that world, no one ever returns.
I return several times a day.

44

However much I saw of the world before and behind Him —
I never saw that own-ness of Him that is His Self.
In a long life, what I saw of Him once:
you would say I had seen it a thousand times and more.

45

If you want to see the secret openly,
make yourself mad, beyond reason.
You will say: whatever I gaze upon —
it is an eye, open with a hundred thousand beauties.

46

Here, flies settle on my sugar.
A hundred calamities, before and behind, settle on me.
Look: the one who seeks Him in the open field —
in both worlds, his breath is seized.

47

Every day the veil of the restless grows thicker.
My pain, for that reason, exceeds the raindrops.
From where I am to where I am —
what are two worlds? It is thousands more.

48

Forever I am amazed at seeking myself —
for my seeking increases at every moment.
All day I dig a channel in my heart.
At night I carry water — what a day and night!

49

From the day the heart recognized the curtain of this secret,
from the heart's curtain it recognized a thousand sounds.
In every mode it ran for thirty years in thought,
until the moment it recognized itself again.

50

In love, my reason departed and judgment remained not.
The soul, too, slipped away and stood not.
Yesterday, both worlds were the arena of my thought.
Today, look — thought has no place left.

51

When the sea of Being showed its face to me,
a wave came and swept me to the shore.
In the well of becoming I labored a lifetime.
When the water rose, it carried me away entire.

52

Any soul caught like mine
will always be a seeker on this road.
How far shall I go? — for at every breath, a hundred valleys
appear before me from every side.

53

In the ocean of Tawhid, count both worlds as nothing.
Everything that exists — take it as a dewdrop.
If even the hem of my robe remains in your hand,
then hold fast to the hem of my garment.

54

We are inside this outer curtain.
Every moment, a hundred steps into transformation.
Now in the world, wearing the garment of blood.
We have gone into the depths of the qualityless sea.

55

In the valley of love, restlessness is mine.
The capital of this journey is abasement for me.
There is a station that is mine — and there, in the wayfaring,
every moment holds a thousand years of weeping.

56

Where I am, no one reaches.
Only a burning traveler, a fellow-breath, reaches there.
Even when one is driven there, one rises from there again.
Sit down — no one, before or after, reaches there.

57

A hundred stages beyond reason I will go.
Free of the existence of good and evil I will become.
From the beauty that I am behind the curtain —
O heedless ones — in love with myself I will fall.

58

Have you ever seen a person who abhors himself?
Who patiently endures separation from his own self?
In sum, if you seek a sign of us:
we are, all of us, fallen far from ourselves.

59

A lifetime my heart had come drowning in blood.
At love's threshold it had come, head-over-heels.
It knocked on this door so much, and no one opened —
and all along, it was already inside, having come from without.

60

From the day the heart saw neither joy nor grief,
it saw a thousand years' fortune in a single breath.
However little it saw of itself in existence,
it saw the world in itself, and itself in the world.

61

I know neither burning nor rawness.
In my creed, what is desire or disappointment?
You would say a hundred beings hold me in place —
otherwise I would fly apart from restlessness.

62

Stillness I see from my present soul.
Motion I see from my traveling heart.
However much I journey within my own heart,
I see neither my beginning nor my end.

63

When the desert of love appeared before me,
every step of it exceeded a hundred worlds.
The heart went and raced through this desert a lifetime.
When it came to itself — it was the desert.

64

The moment my essence becomes the universal sea,
every mote of me becomes a window.
I burn like a candle for this: that on the path of love,
all my times may become one single time.

65

I am one drop of the sea, and not one drop.
I am not cross-eyed, nor deceived like the cross-eyed.
You would say, in the tongue of their state, one by one
every mote cries out: I am not a mote!

66

My heart was ruined by every mote,
so that the veil might be lifted from every mote.
When the curtain fell, the heart looked in —
a hundred suns were shining from every mote.

67

Each one, I see gazing at the other.
Those light-headed in reason, I see as heavy.
That which cannot be seen with others' eyes —
you would say I see it with others' eyes.

68

In love, I am neither visible nor hidden.
A strange erasure — I am neither body nor soul.
In sum: I am neither infidel nor Muslim.
Whatever I look at — I am that.

69

In love, my being and nonbeing are the same.
Joy and grief, more and less — all the same to me.
How long will you ask: do you want separation or union?
Ask not of either — all of this is the same to me.

70

In the world of love we were erased, made nothing.
We rose above the station of reason and distinction.
You would say at every moment, from each world, a hundredfold —
we left behind, and became the people of yet another world.

71

How many times — with what difficulty and what ease — we died!
We were born visible, but died hidden.
The soul by which all the world's creatures live —
it has been a long time since we died to such a soul.

72

I fell into a terrible, strange event.
Sometimes I was plainly dying, sometimes being born.
Do you know why all this crying?
Because I remembered what cannot be remembered.

73

In the time when I used to say: I am unhappy —
when I knew upon what foundation I stand —
in the ring of is-not-is, like a chain
tangled together — and what has fallen, I am.

74

The body is the soul's shadow, nursed on our suffering.
The soul is the body's treasure, assembled by us.
We are all veiled by our own shadow —
for our shadow, which comes from us, is our own curtain.

75

That wondrous bird — when does it fit in the nest?
That earthly moon — when does it fit in the sky?
That seed they planted in the heart of the earth —
if it sprouts, it will not fit in both worlds.

76

The secret I keep asking about —
it is in my soul, and I ask the world for it.
So that no one will come out to me,
it is in the heart, and I seek signs of it outside.

77

Heart burnt, I see His beauty.
Soul smitten, I see union with Him.
The more I turn within this circle,
the more I see my own deficiency and His perfection.

78

We hold the creed of love for that moon's face.
From everything else, our hands are drawn back.
If our court is closed on the path of love,
at every step we have a thousand courts.

79

Forever I need a soul-increasing companion.
Like a ball, I must be headless and footless.
Since I am, at all times, in all places —
it is impossible that any place should hold me.

80

On the dust I sat much, from grief,
until I was freed from this veil of dust.
Many a time my soul departed in purity,
until the how of perception was drawn in.

81

I come — and how ashamed I come!
From which station, I wonder, do I come?
O people of the heart, catch a heart today,
for today I come like a bewildered heart.

82

When that sun-like face shone bright,
its radiance reached the soul, then shone upon the body.
They said: what happened to you? — do you know what it was?
When I became nothing, His being shone upon me.

83

In erasure, my heart stopped short of itself.
In my tawhid, the veil begins to fall.
The affair that befell me with that intimate companion —
I'll cut the tale short, for it is a long affair.

84

From love of You I have come to my wit's end — what can be done?
I have wandered the world bewildered — what can be done?
That thing of which heaven and earth are thirsty —
I cannot get enough of it — what can be done?

85

Sometimes Your love I hold at the center of my soul.
Sometimes my soul, from grief of You, I wear at my waist.
That thing which I possess from loving You —
truly, I hide it even from my own soul.

86

Since I cannot be myself a single moment without You —
a matter has seized me, before and behind, without You.
The coherence of my soul does not diminish by a hair,
even though my scattering increases without You.

87

When the Friend sent a message through the spirit,
He took me above both worlds and gave me rest.
The work He accomplished for me within the curtain —
by grace, He also granted my desire outside it.

88

My heart is forever smitten with that secret.
From that astounding secret, my soul is coquettish.
Even if the world is erased, it will not be closed —
that door which stands open for me toward the Beloved.

89

The coin I possess — its value is immense.
No beggar's breath reaches there.
If both worlds should become my enemies by decree,
no one's hand will ever reach my coin.

90

O you who remain in this prison of the world,
stuck in good and evil, profit and loss!
I, being what I am, am occupied with its secret.
You, being what you are not — you are stuck in that.

91

Sometimes, beside myself, headless and footless, I go.
Sometimes, without all, within all, beautifully I go.
However far you travel within yourself in a lifetime —
in selflessness, in a single breath, we surpass you.

92

Not every hothead knows our secret.
Not every ignorant one deserves this court.
If you have the capital of pain, sit at our door.
If not, go your way — there is no road here.

93

However much you go and see good or evil —
if you have eyes, you'll see it all from yourself.
The cross-eyed man who saw one as two — if that was bad,
you are worse, for you see one as a hundred.

94

Real men drink the wine of gnosis with good fortune —
not like women, drinking the dregs of complexity.
Whatever must be proven by clear evidence:
it is water drawn from a well with a sieve.

Chapter Seven: On That Which Is Not Eternal — All Is Erased in Nonexistence

1

That one saw subsistence, who saw nothing but subsistence.
And that one saw annihilation, who saw nothing but annihilation.
That was the eye that found creation to be nothing but nonexistence.
And that was the servant who saw nothing but God.

2

You imagine there is someone in all creation.
There is no one — your sight is a mistake, a whim.
Every stirring that arose from angels and from humankind
is less than the buzzing of a fly in His presence.

3

In the shade of poverty, a hundred worlds — and all of it nothing.
Hope of perfection and fear of deficiency — all of it nothing.
On snow, you can trace the tracks of each thing.
But when the sun blazes — all of it, nothing.

4

Beside His knowledge, ignorance is all there can be.
Beside His jealousy, a trifle is all there can be.
He exists, and another exists — what impossibility.
As long as He exists, can any other be?

5

In the court of divine unity, know neither before nor after.
Know it not from yourself, and know it not empty of yourself.
Your vision is crooked — whatever you bring into view,
all of it is nothing. Know it as mere display.

6

If I stand at the door of the radiant sun,
it is better that like a shadow I remain undefined.
Since there is One who is everything that exists,
it can never be right that I should be "I."

7

His love accused you of existence.
Habituated, it worked a hundred cruelties upon you.
Since He was more worthy of existence than you,
He did not accept your existence — and made you nonexistent.

8

Consider these two worlds the reflection of a perfection.
And that reflection of perfection — consider it a beauty.
And this beautiful form that you see:
it is play and fantasy — consider it a fantasy.

9

Pass beyond sense and imagination, O seeker of the real —
until you see in both worlds majesty and beauty.
For whatever you see in the world,
except the Face of Subsistence, all is mirage and fantasy.

10

Every heart united in divine oneness among the dervishes
is not a stranger to love — it is of the kinfolk.
How long will you gaze at the phantom of the numbered? Enough.
Look at those in the forefront — they are in the forefront.

11

O — the curtain of illusion, your favorite garment.
O — the delusion of selfhood in your distracted heart.
You are nothing, and to nothing you speak like this.
Nothing better than this can be placed before your eyes.

12

Since you are not an intimate even of your own breath — what can you do?
You are not worthy of this desire — what can you do?
You have always risen at war with yourself.
You yourself are no one — what can you do?

13

You are not worthy of this desire — what can you do?
In worthlessness, you are like a fly.
You yourself are no one — what can you do?
In the end, who are you to be somebody?

14

All of it is nothing — how long these whisperings of the mind?
From nothing, how many afflictions appear? How many?
You were nothing, and you will become nothing.
Over nothing, between these two nothings — how long?

15

How long this excessive arrogance of yours?
How long this phantom display of yours?
Glory be to God — your affair is a wondrous affair:
you are nothing, and all this imagining is yours.

16

This body — whether you saw it as lofty or lowly —
do not be deceived by this sleeper and this drunk.
Rise like one who has sat in this place.
It is a dream that shows you everything that exists.

17

You imagine the heart is drunk on the wine of love.
You imagine the soul is ravished by "Am I not—?"
You do not exist, and your affliction on the path of love
is this: that you imagine yourself to exist.

18

You imagine the soul is ravished by "Am I not—?"
And our thinking was nothing but an excuse.
That is it — you imagine yourself to exist.
What use is the story? It was nothing but a mark.

19

Your soul fell into the hollow of a body — and passed.
Jamshid fell into a furnace-pit — and passed.
How long will you ask about death and life? Enough.
The sun fell through a window — and passed.

20

Jamshid fell into a furnace-pit and passed.
In the branches, where has the likeness fallen?
The sun fell through a window and passed.
When you look — the box has fallen empty.

21

In the branches, where has the likeness fallen?
The heavens rest from each other.
When you look — the box has fallen empty.
Someday, all will rest from the journey.

22

At last, your long road will reach a shore.
With you, an accounting of good and evil will arrive.
However endlessly work may go on —
when you arrive, all work arrives.

23

However much your nonexistence is, it will become less.
A hundred years will exist for the sake of one breath of yours.
This one-day existence that is the foundation of your "I" —
until the Day of Resurrection, your nonexistence will endure.

24

Since for existence, no one is more worthy than Nonexistence —
the game you play, a fly is more worthy of it.
That is why beings keep becoming nothing — because all
are far more suited to nothingness than to being.

25

Oh how much your heart holds fear before it.
That is because the heart holds two halves before it.
Do not pride yourself so much on the body's meager existence,
for the soul has a great nonexistence before it.

26

What is dervishhood? To be drunk and destitute.
To be beside yourself and yet your own companion.
To place the finger on the lip forever.
To be alive like a fingernail — and without sensation.

27

Nothing but essencelessness befits the dervishes.
Nothing but attributelessness describes their nature.
Be a dervish too — of both worlds.
For this road is not the road of those who think of consequences.

28

With dervishes, one cannot say "do" or "don't."
One can speak only of headless, rootless nonexistence.
If you are in poverty, annihilate yourself — and know this:
in poverty, one cannot speak of "we" and "I."

29

All creatures gaze into a mirror.
They are occupied with themselves and unaware of the mirror.
No one among the world's creatures sees the mirror.
In the mirror, they pass beyond the mirror.

30

The doors have been opened through annihilation — what wonder.
They have set us upon nothingness — what wonder.
The supposition that "we are something," and the illusion of existence:
they have placed these in our eyes — what wonder.

31

How long shall we grieve over a single drop of bloody water?
How long shall we drink poison thinking it a sweet drink?
We mistake illusion for existence.
How long shall we drink water from an empty jug?

32

The claim of existence, from drunkenness, is wretched.
To worship yourself from the very core of nonexistence is wretched.
Before and behind the shadow, the sun is always there.
If the shadow breathes of existence, it is wretched.

33

O dervish, you desired wealth.
Not a blackened face upon a head.
You say that the frustration of poverty is not enough —
on top of it all, you desired infidelity too?

34

Though we run at a thousand strides,
at last we will cut our greed from ourselves.
In sum — call it whatever you must.
It is a thing we will never reach.

35

In love, as pure nothingness increased in me,
pure nothingness stole me from my own existence.
When my soul and heart slept in pure nothingness,
both worlds appeared to me as pure nothingness.

36

When vision increased in me on this road,
the grief of the work came and stole what the eye had seen.
The far-seeing eye of the heart, in this encompassing sea —
the more it looked down, the more what it saw ahead was gone.

37

So much that in the traces, I see nothing.
I see nothing but the curtain of illusion.
So deep have I gone into the depths of nothingness —
I am lost, and I see no country, no one.

38

I am all nothing as long as I am with myself.
I am all being as long as I am with my body and soul.
As long as a single hair of "I" remains in me,
not a hair's breadth of what I truly am will appear.

39

No pride comes to me from my exaltation.
No shame comes to me from my scheming.
The more I look to the heart of the matter,
the more it all appears to me like a puppet show.

40

I remain — but an "I" without my "I."
Free of darkness and of light.
Since I have obtained safety from myself,
neither friendship remains in me, nor enmity.

41

From the day I sat at the seat of selfhood,
the moment I sat, I joined with selflessness.
The sea of nonexistence has engulfed me from all six directions.
I am a single dewdrop — how can I say "I exist"?

42

The beginning is all nothingness, from the start of the affair.
And the end is all nothingness, until the Day of Reckoning.
Since nothingness has become my partner on all six sides,
how can I push existence aside from the middle?

43

A lifetime, I have imposed annihilation upon my heart.
Until the heart, from annihilation, sat down in bitter weeping.
I fear nothing — except that this lowly heart
will go to dust still imagining it exists.

44

I am nothing, and I have come into speech and hearing.
I have appeared in nonexistence, without a key.
It is no wonder that I will be lost.
This is the wonder — that I appeared at all.

45

This selflessness into which I have fallen —
let me explain how I fell.
The sun blazed. I saw myself as a shadow.
I rose — and fell into the space between.

46

O heart — you saw that whatever you saw was nothing.
Every tale of the ages you heard was nothing.
However much you ran in every direction — nothing.
And today, when you have chosen a corner — nothing.

47

O — your being was always built upon no-being. Enough.
How long will you remain content with nothing? Enough.
From nothing you appeared at the start of the affair.
Though you are everything, you will become nothing soon enough.

Chapter Eight: On Urging Annihilation and Being Lost in Subsistence

1

Those who sing from behind this curtain, appearing visible —
from beyond the curtain they show themselves.
But when the curtain falls, in that sea
the people will drown — not so as to appear again.

2

Everything that exists for our sake
will certainly be our affliction.
Since dispersion exists in our subsistence,
our gathering will be our annihilation.

3

As long as your existence wants to seek its share,
the heart wants to wash its face in the blood of the eye.
As long as a single hair's breadth of you wants to remain,
from that single hair a mountain wants to grow.

4

Until the self does not diminish and waste away,
the Beloved will not come at your request.
What is needed is that you not exist at all —
for this affair will not be set right by you.

5

For the one who in this circle has a wondrous soul —
at the point of poverty, a wondrous signlessness.
Your existence is a darkness — what a wondrous nest.
And where you do not exist — what a wondrous world.

6

Whenever you reach that sea of truth,
you will at once reach the whirlpool of "I am the Truth."
If you are going into the All, hold your step firm —
so that, being everything, you may reach absolute nothingness.

7

If at the start the fire blazes hotter,
look at the ashes — see how it ends.
If first your body becomes like the heart, do not be deceived —
for at the end you will see all that heart become blood.

8

Become annihilated, so that what exists will not be disturbed.
The Eternal does not enter existence except through fire.
Since the root of all the world's existence is nonexistence,
whoever is pleased with existence will not fare well.

9

The lover neither diminishes nor increases from anyone.
He seals his lips and opens the secret to no one.
When he becomes perfect, he fears the jealousy of the Friend.
He never shows himself to himself.

10

All these hopes of yours, O heedless heart — what are they?
Since you are departing, what is this dwelling?
Since the end of the affair is to be lost entirely,
what, in the end, is the profit of your having appeared?

11

How long, O grief-stricken heart, will you turn in blood?
Purify yourself of your own existence — purify now.
Thirty years you have been making yourself dust again.
Alas — you have not lifted your head out of the dust.

12

O heart — give all of yourself to the Beloved.
Whatever comes to you most sweetly — give that.
Do not seek, like women, tricks at the six doors of love.
Enter like a man, and like men, give your life.

13

He seizes both the road of the body and the road of the soul.
Every particle that exists in between — He seizes.
When you lose yourself in His existence,
before your eyes, the whole world becomes Him.

14

If in nothingness lies the root of joy and permanence,
and if in being everything lies the pattern of pain and affliction —
as long as in being everything, the urge to be all comes from desire:
pass beyond everything. Do not even think it — it is "No."

15

Do not rejoice in union if you are in delight.
Do not grieve at separation if you are in sorrow.
Pass beyond the joy of union and the grief of separation.
Make peace with nothing — if you seek everything.

16

The real man is the one who grows purer with every breath,
who is more fearless in wagering his existence.
The man who is more agile on this path —
the purer he becomes, the more he becomes dust.

17

It is better that you see yourself at the edge of yourself —
until you see yourself as an intimate of this threshold.
If both worlds become dust by your nature,
it is infidelity to see yourself in the middle.

18

If you are a man of the path, be pure of your own disgrace.
Without your own existence, be nimble and agile.
If you wish not to become dead dust —
make an effort, and while alive, be dust.

19

How long will you gaze at yourself with such regard?
How long will you toil in your own existence?
When you vanish, you will not appear — not even as a mote.
Why give yourself such a display?

20

It is better that from your own reason you find madness again.
And if you seek the heart, you will find it again in blood.
As long as a needle's point of you still remains,
how will you find the thread of this discourse?

21

If you wish to recover this secret,
lose yourself — and make peace with your own selflessness.
Since selflessness is the root of everything that exists,
how will you find it while you seek it in selfhood?

22

First of all, turn your back on the horizons.
Then turn your face to the dust of the lovers' lane.
If you wish to profit greatly,
bring the capital of reason and cleverness — and set it on the shelf.

23

Where you are going, you cannot go with head or foot.
Even if you become a bird, you cannot go with wing or feather.
Come out of reason, if you have a soul —
for this road cannot be traveled by a small reason.

24

Falling in love is to come forth vanquished.
It is to gamble your head and come tumbling down.
Your coming out upon yourself is nothing.
Your only stratagem is to come out of yourself.

25

If you come before Him from empty-handedness,
you will fall into the circle of self-worship.
From the point of selflessness — how long? Enough.
You are an idolater if you come from the seat of existence.

26

If from the whole of yourself you become singular,
in the Kaaba of the soul you will become intimate with this pain.
And if, like women, in this encompassing sea,
you become pregnant with that vision — you will become a man.

27

The one whose gaze must turn toward that world
must fly beyond the sky.
Whenever fortune turns its face toward him,
he must at once hide himself from himself.

28

Since your nothingness was pure affirmation,
your existence was made from the capital of denial.
Whoever has not caught the scent of nothingness
will die an infidel — though he was devout.

29

Either consider all the joy of both worlds as grief.
Or consider the kingdom of the world as entirely surrendered.
If you wish the root of existence to shine upon you,
consider both worlds entirely as nothingness.

30

If poverty comes — oh, how sweet it will be.
Do not walk into the trap, for the pickpocket will be there.
As long as our being is a greatly unpleasant thing,
our nonbeing will be a greatly pleasant thing.

31

A road on which you must make your foot your head.
On which you must make liver-blood your provision.
If you wish to become aware of this road,
you must make yourself unaware of both worlds.

32

That hidden jewel does not reach every soul.
It is hard to obtain and does not arrive easily.
Lose your head on the road, and hold your hand from your foot —
for this road does not reach its end by your feet.

33

Do not sit behind for a moment, and do not stand in front.
Do not be bound to the pleasure of the corrupt self.
How long will you say "What shall I do?" —
whatever you do, do not do it by your own counsel.

34

How long will you be headless and rootless? Be nothing.
Seek silence, and in speech, be nothing.
How long will you say "What shall I do?" —
you are nothing. Do nothing. Be nothing.

35

It is better that you burn and do not show it.
That you do not trouble yourself to make a spectacle.
Every moment you say "What shall I do?" —
what can you do? Whether you do or do not.

36

If you have everything — be in the fire with all of it.
And if you are without everything — be a proud rebel without it.
All is nothing, of everything — so say nothing.
And if you have nothing, you have everything — be content.

37

If your own existence, through love, sees its own nonexistence,
you will still see pain from its fire.
And if you spend your life at a loss from the capital of love,
you will see what profit you see from this loss.

38

If with your own "I" you become dust at this door,
from the disgrace of "I," you will amount to less than dust.
"I" has weight when they place it on the scales.
It becomes weightless if you come as a qalandar.

39

Sometimes from the image of the Beloved you come alive.
Sometimes from words sweet as sugar you come alive.
Be lost. Die happily. Take a soul less.
For you will come alive with a different soul.

40

O you who remain alive by the soul of this world —
how long will you be alive merely by living?
Since your living will be your death,
die before dying, so that you remain alive.

41

As long as any existence and nonexistence remain in you,
good and evil and joy and grief remain in you.
Become dead and do not breathe — for behind the curtain of love,
you will not become an intimate until your breath is gone.

42

Always you must gaze with the eye of the heart.
And then you must journey into the interior of the soul.
If you wish not to become mere dust beneath the dust,
you must pass beyond the condition of the living.

43

In proximity to You, if the heart exists, it is mad.
The soul's hope of union with You is a fairy tale.
Since everything that exists must be wagered on You —
glory be to God, what a gambling house this is!

44

In Your love, we laid down madness and frenzy.
From our eyes and heart, we laid down fire and blood.
Since we saw that our own veil was our own self,
we laid ourselves down entirely — from the outside too.

45

In Your love, we brought mystery and need.
Like a candle, we brought much burning and melting.
Since for Your pain we found no remedy,
we brought ourselves back entirely — to nothing.

46

In Your love, we brought weeping and regret.
On the dome of the heavens, we raised our banner.
And at last, when we saw that existence was the dam of fortune,
we turned our face from the whole world — toward nothingness.

47

We brought both worlds under our feet.
On the dome of the heavens, we raised our banner.
Since Your pain came short of remedy,
we brought ourselves entirely — less than nothing.

48

If we make all of ourselves like a mote,
we will still deceive ourselves with the existence of a single mote.
O caravan-leader of Nothingness — beat the drum!
So that we may cross the desert of existence.

49

Beloved, from the grief of Your love, my soul turned to blood.
Every moment, a different pain from You increased in me.
From the day the heart called You "soul and world" —
the soul scattered itself upon You and left the world behind.

50

Since my heart became drunk from the scent of the wine of Your love,
the veil was torn and repentance was shattered.
Today I am, with every breath, hand to hand —
going from being to nothingness, from nothingness to being.

51

I will wage a lawsuit against my own existence.
From every hair of me, I will raise a mourning cry.
Since it is impossible to be Your equal,
I will make myself equal — to the dust of Your road.

52

Beloved, since Your road is neither the road of abasement nor glory —
it is an affair that is neither the affair of the powerful nor the helpless.
So being lost is better — and I have become so lost
that the possibility of my appearing again does not exist.

53

In the sea of annihilation, I will go into the water.
Like a shadow into the sun, I will go.
Since my hand cannot reach Your exaltation,
I will lay my head at Your feet — and go into sleep.

54

See what grief I endured without You, at last.
Until I became nothing, I found no rest, at last.
You said: "Arrive, so that you may reach Me."
How shall I reach You, when I have already arrived, at last?

55

In love, my mark and my news arrived.
From my blood-weeping liver, the news of me arrived.
I ran so much that my running was spent.
I flew so much that my feathers arrived — at their end.

56

The heart, from raw desire, was so roasted —
by a fire of longing that cannot be endured.
The soul that was the pride and glory of all beings
became, on the road of grief for You, equal with nothingness.

57

Every moment, Your love gives me a washing of the head —
so that I lose head and foot like a ball.
If from every eyelash I pour a stream —
as long as I am with myself, I catch no scent of You.

58

I said: "From my own annihilation, I am in such a state — do not ask."
He said: "I will bring you to such a subsistence — do not ask."
Meaning: when you saw yourself in nothingness,
I will shower so much being upon you — do not ask.

59

Every moment, in love, I am in a different prostration.
And behind the curtain, drowning in a different generosity.
It is long since I have been alive by my own existence.
If I am alive now, I am alive by a different existence.

60

Make me, from head to foot, a point of stillness.
And then name me "absolute annihilation."
From the blood of my heart, make wine. From my soul, make the cup.
And my creation — make it complete destruction.

61

So much did my heart long for the Signless One
that I remained nameless and without sign in my running.
Thirty years I searched with my soul for the sign of the Beloved.
I was lost — and did not find Him again.

62

It is time that I sit down without the burden of the soul.
That I rise and sit down without both worlds.
That I come free from the realm of being and nonbeing.
And then sit down beyond this and that.

63

Who will release me again from the disgrace of existence?
So that from existence I may deal with nothingness.
Whenever I wager my existence upon Him,
that is the moment I deserve to be proud of my existence.

64

Without my body and soul, I need body and soul.
Without that which I am, I need that which I am.
With myself, I am unaware of myself.
Without myself, I need myself.

65

It will be sweet — if annihilation is to come.
For annihilation is the very essence of subsistence.
This I know: that annihilation is utterly magnificent.
But I do not know — for whom it will come.

Chapter Nine: On the Station of Bewilderment

1

That road which is the road of the world of gnosis —
at every step, a thousand hearts are bewildered.
Until it comes before you, it cannot be known.
At every footfall, a thousand are lost.

2

Every being that is in the possession of the turning world
is bewildered in the search for the light of certainty.
Every mote that spins on the surface of the air
is lost in this valley without end.

3

The more I look, bewilderment.
Confusion and headlessness and disarray.
In a desert where the knowledge of it is unknowing —
look at the heavens: they are all bewilderment.

4

Sit down. If you travel far,
you will only heap dust upon your own head.
However much you journey in this curtain,
you will only increase your own bewilderment.

5

On the scent of certainty, we went into this desert.
From the world of the body, we went to the world of the soul.
A lifetime, night and day, we were in contemplation.
Confused we entered, and bewildered we left.

6

If my reason came seeking prudence,
to know what manner of path this is that lies ahead —
a hundred times a day my heart was at its limit.
At last it became bewildered and lost itself.

7

The condition of the world has fallen strangely wondrous.
The most clever mind has fallen without a share.
Since there is nothing but bewilderment at the end of the affair,
the sickest person has become the physician.

8

Here we are — and our share is nothing but liver-ache.
From no one, not a mote of help.
From the drunkenness of ignorance, no hope of sobriety.
From all the coming and going, no awareness at all.

9

Do you know what we are? Neither great nor small.
Do you know what we drink? Neither clear wine nor dregs.
We cannot stay and we cannot go.
We cannot live and we cannot die.

10

Here we are, fallen into it like a bird in a snare.
Heartsick of the age and always in turmoil.
Lost in this circle without door or roof.
Never having settled, and never having reached our desire.

11

Since one cannot live from the longing for certainty,
one must weep for humankind, O wise one.
For here where he is, he does not know who he is.
And where he goes, he does not know what awaits.

12

O heart, every moment, taste a different grief.
Speak less, and drink pain upon pain.
The secret you seek, particle by particle, again —
since you will not find it — what can you do? Drink blood.

13

This pain — what pain is it, that has no remedy?
And this road — what road is it, that has no end?
Beware, O bewildered heart, in this harsh valley.
How long will you go deeper? It has no end.

14

The state of the overturned heart cannot be told.
A description in a thousand ways cannot be told.
I said: "O heart, how—" It said: "Be silent.
For this state of mine — how can it be told?"

15

The heart withdrew from the whole world again.
It fled from the army and came back to the fortress again.
With all this pain and suffering, I am still unaware
of what purpose my coming served — again.

16

Alas — nothing was my affair but pain.
Of this village of ten and ten, no one was aware.
A lifetime I traveled. When I found the road to a village —
in the whole village, there was no sign of an inhabitant.

17

I want to find a place to stand.
To take shelter in the shadow of some fortune.
But a hundred roads rise from every mote —
so what shall I do? Which road shall I take?

18

Every day, a grief came to test me.
From the bewilderment of the heart, the affair reached my soul.
So many facets does the soul show me
that I cannot settle on any of them.

19

Alas — unaware of myself, I must die.
Drenched in the blood of my liver, I must die.
Since I cannot find my own life again,
every day, in a different way, I must die.

20

Since the time that Subsistence showed its face to me,
every moment, a bewilderment has increased in me.
What use to me is my being or nonbeing,
since I do not know what has happened to me?

21

Today I am one who has never tasted reason.
Who has never known companionship from good or evil existence.
In an event that cannot be described —
never has there been a bewildered one like me, who has never seen.

22

I am not aware of my heart and soul — what they were.
I cannot discern my knowledge and seeing — what they were.
This I see: that I do not see what has passed.
This I know: that I do not know what was.

23

Since my life has gone, from "what shall I do?" I make my provision.
My plan for untying the knot — from "what shall I do?"
Since from "what shall I do?" nothing will come at all,
what shall I do at last, to be free of "what shall I do?"

24

I endure so much pain — I do not know what joy is.
The cause of my suffering — I do not know what it is.
Before and after and day and night — I do not know what they are.
It is a wondrous affair — wondrous — I do not know what it is.

25

Since I do not know my own remedy — what shall I do?
Not a hair more or less do I know — what shall I do?
I have fallen in a desert without head or foot.
The road, behind and ahead, I do not know — what shall I do?

26

I have no heart — what I have is a house of calamity.
My soul, too, is a burnt madwoman.
In the house of annihilation, since I am aware of nothing,
all my work is either gazing — or fairy tale.

27

Bewilderment has burnt my soul — what shall I do?
More lost than all the world — what shall I do?
I burn, I writhe, I think —
I know nothing but unknowing — what shall I do?

28

Glory be to God — I am bewildered at such an attribute
that from my own bewilderment, my soul is burning.
The state of my own distracted heart, I know.
But who else has any news of my pain without remedy?

29

I have collapsed from bewilderment.
I have lost my grip from the extremity of perplexity.
From the kingdom of both worlds, I had a needle.
I threw it into a sea — out of ignorance.

30

From this fleeting world, not a stream is visible.
And from the next world, not a gleam is visible.
Alas — the sweet soul has slipped from my hand,
and from this turmoil, no way out is visible.

31

I am not in travel for a moment, nor am I present.
I neither sleep nor eat, nor am I without sleep or food.
I am neither aware of myself, nor unaware.
Like bewilderment itself, I sit and gaze.

32

The more I look into this tale,
not a mote reaches me from any other place.
However worthy and beautiful a son I am —
this is neither my work nor my father's.

33

Today I am a ravished bewilderment.
Neither religion nor heart, neither unbelief nor faith.
Slipped from my hand, headless and in disarray.
Collapsed at my feet, spinning.

34

Today I am outside of home and hearth.
What home, what hearth — outside of heart and soul.
However much I run like a ball in every direction,
I cannot escape the curve of the polo stick.

35

Sometimes, like the moon, from longing for the Real we have waned.
Sometimes we have adorned the hut of the heart with the false.
Of falsehood and truth, the heart never fills.
A hundred times, we have risen hungry from this feast.

36

If I draw from my blood-filled chest a single sigh,
the whole world would catch fire for a month.
From this bewilderment, if I breathe a single breath from the heart,
I would burn the whole world to ashes — in an instant.

37

Of my companions, not a trace remains today.
Of the world's affairs, not a report reaches me today.
Not one joy of mine is without liver-pain today.
More bewildered than me, there is no one today.

38

Whatever the heart saw, it saw with parched lips — all of it.
The particles of both worlds, in search, it saw — all of it.
Much did it turn in blood until at last:
from so much wonder — it saw wonder — all of it.

39

As long as I have mind and sight,
my journey will be in the desert of bewilderment.
In this manner that I see today,
even if I eat sugar, it will be the blood of my liver.

40

As long as I have reason in my body,
my home will be in the sea of bewilderment.
Even if, like the heavens, I spin endlessly on my head,
bewilderment will be my share.

41

Since I am unaware of what my destiny is,
what is my evening thought, what is my dawn contemplation?
My mind has entirely burnt in the fire of thought.
Thought has killed me — what is my remedy?

42

No one gives me news of what lies ahead.
Not for a single breath is there awareness of my end.
Since a life in ignorance, I cannot endure —
a hundred times a day, my soul is burning.

43

Every moment, bewilderment comes in a night raid.
Where will the soul go after this? How will it come?
I burn from that curtain — for when it is raised,
what deed will emerge from beneath the curtain?

44

However much I speak in every style,
the depth of meaning does not show its face to me.
And today, although my life has passed in knowledge,
I still seek the imitation of the very first day.

45

In the desert of the world, show me a door.
And this desert — show it a head and a foot.
O people, lost in this circle —
show me one more bewildered than me.

46

Show me one without heart or mind like me.
Show me one without garment or place like me.
In the turning of this circle without head or foot,
show me one without head or foot — like me.

47

The heart is gone, and the liver came back with a wounded heart.
When has a bird escaped the snare and come forward again?
Every ball that falls in the curve of the polo stick
can never come back to itself again.

48

From this oblivious heart, I have come to the soul's limit.
And from the tyrannized soul, I have come to wailing.
Since the world's affair is the same — with me or without me —
then for what purpose have I come into the world?

Chapter Ten: On Various Meanings Related to the Spirit

1

O nightingale of the spirit — you have remained ensnared,
for you have stayed in the trail of this snare of affliction.
You have grown accustomed to the narrow cage of the house,
and are unaware of whom you have been separated from.

2

O spirit! You are the one praised by intellect —
become a knower, seek the path through recognition.
You are the white falcon on the king's hand —
why do you haunt ruins like an owl?

3

O wondrous bird! The stars are your feeding grain.
Since the Day of Am-I-Not, the ancient covenant is yours.
If you seek the world-revealing cup —
it is placed in a casket within your breast.

4

Now in the sorrow of time, now in wrath —
from whatever you have fallen into, you gain nothing.
O parrot of the soul! What are you doing in a city
where they give you no sugar without poison?

5

O soul! Since you come from the world beyond how,
in beauty you surpass all that exists.
You have remained behind the veil of the nafs — I have no patience
until what you truly are emerges from behind the veil.

6

O spirit! In this world of exile, how are you?
Without all that station and rank, how are you?
You were the sultan of the holy realm — now,
in the company of the wretched nafs, how is the company?

7

O falcon of reason! Do not be led astray.
Return to the forearm of the King.
You are the Joseph of Egypt's holiness, O precious soul!
How long will you remain at the bottom of this well?

8

O noble soul! Abandon this world.
From the body, take the road to the world full of meaning.
O pure essence! Know your own worth —
pass beyond the crowd and seize the Highest Assembly.

9

O nightingale of the spirit — how long will you be a fly?
Spread your wings and head for the Throne in a single breath.
How long will you be bound to the packsaddle?
One cannot place a packsaddle on a bird.

10

For the soul and body beyond price, I weep.
For the separation of these two intimates, I weep.
O soul and body who found comfort in each other —
for the day of your parting, I weep.

11

Sit with us — for we two were companions.
With each other, we existed before the world.
O you whom a thousand moons cannot reach —
you would say we were together for a thousand years.

12

The heart that I have dragged through blood a thousand times —
it is time to drag it into the realm beyond how.
And that veiled beauty whose name is the soul —
I will seize it by the hair and pull it from behind the veil.

13

O you whose worth is higher than the spheres —
you imagine that what you are is dust.
Do not mistake yourself — think, and know
that you are a wondrous being and a most pure essence.

14

O you who on this path are not a thinker of attributes —
you are beyond yourself and not the world of your self.
Your quality can never be made a quality.
Do not imagine that you are nothing more than a form.

15

That which you are — you are not this wretched body.
You are not of these eight latter and four former.
From these ten senses, seven organs, and three spirits, flee —
you imagine this is you, but this is not you.

16

Consider: what rests upon the earth is not what you are.
And the bodies seated in the heavens are not what you are.
Since your essence cannot be seen with the physical eye —
do not look at yourself, for this is not what you are.

17

O — your fancy, imagination, and sense are your highwaymen.
Know that your soul is not in your body.
This secret cannot be known through idle guessing —
this will not become clear to you except through contemplation.

18

That being whose body and essence are but names —
do not suppose that within the body it is divisible.
In sum, know with certainty and without any doubt:
if your soul were in the body, it would be body.

19

If the bird of your heart prepares for the luminous path,
the jewel-box of your heart becomes a treasury of secrets.
But if you do not give it wings of the light of meaning —
when this cage breaks, what flight can it make?

20

How often the sky turns in the ranks of the stars
before one human becomes fully human.
Your soul is a pigeon that flew from the Throne —
whenever it has no guide, it becomes lost.

21

A soul that has no hope in the light of God
remains forever in the world of illusions —
like a worthless mote in the shadow,
like a one-day-old child in the sun.

22

A soul that the rust of this world has concealed —
the polish of meaning cannot make it bright.
Whoever spends a lifetime in the sorrow of this world —
what share will they have of the taste of the hereafter?

23

Every eye that did not recognize the path of true sight
remained veiled and did not know life.
Even if they grant it everlasting existence —
know that it did not know everlasting existence.

24

If your nafs is slaughtered — then you will know.
From head to foot you become all heart — then you will know.
Each of your limbs is a hidden jewel —
if you do not make it heart, it becomes clay — then you will know.

25

The secret that comes to you — keep it hidden from yourself.
Hold all hope in the pain that has no remedy.
Then from the soul, fashion a mirror endlessly,
and hold that mirror before the Beloved.

26

In both worlds, whatever wonder you have held —
in your own interior, day and night, you have held it.
If you are patient with your soul a little while,
all that you have sought will emerge from within.

27

A hidden jewel lies behind the curtain of mystery,
and in its pursuit, all the world's people run and race.
With both worlds you turn upside down —
come to yourself, and you will find the jewel again.

28

To go outside your own veil is the very error,
for outside the veil you become diminished and deficient.
In the crooked veil, how long will you run left and right?
Sit in the veil of the heart — your path is there.

29

Though your affairs are many,
if you go from the part toward the whole — that is the work.
Every quality that is current in both worlds —
in your essence, there is a sample of them all.

30

Every soul upon which God's protection has fallen —
in both worlds, a grace has fallen upon it.
Every spirit upon which a guardianship has fallen —
has fallen into the world of infinity.

31

Where you see the radiance of the world of the soul —
you will see the sun and moon as a trace of it.
In the world of the soul, when the holy ones set their table,
you will see the peacock of heaven as a fly at the feast.

32

When like a mirror your back and front become one,
both this remains that — neither this nor that.
Today, just as your soul is lost in your body,
tomorrow your body will be lost in your soul.

33

Every secret that becomes the veil of your soul —
that is what becomes your eternal treasure.
So long as the unseen visitor is a traveler, it is not yours.
When it becomes a resident — then it becomes yours.

34

The body is bewildered, chasing its own affairs.
The soul stands at the head of the road, awaiting command.
The secret that your body probes with a needle —
is ocean upon ocean within the soul.

35

I have made the page of your existence plain to you.
How long will you remain on the page of profit and loss?
Everything that is manifest in both worlds
is within your soul — so step out from the between.

36

Every secret they have held in both these worlds —
they have held for the sake of scattering upon the soul's crown.
Everything they have kept hidden behind the veil —
they have always kept in the midst of your soul.

37

Sometimes from grief for Him, you wash your hands of the soul.
Sometimes you tell His story with heartache.
Why do you wander bewildered around the world?
The work is not outside you — whom are you seeking?

38

O you who have not passed through the turning body,
who have not sent the soul on the journey of those who see —
you will not become a jewel until you make the soul's journey.
A drop does not become a jewel without traveling.

39

Rejoice — for the heart is being completely freed,
and from the affliction of shame and name, it is being freed.
If your parrot is freed from the cage,
the peacock of your heart will be freed from the snare.

40

Do you know what death is? To be freed from the body —
that is, to break the cage of the nightingale of the soul.
To rise from both worlds and sit down in peace.
To cut from yourself and join with Him.

41

Death is the liberation of the mortal world.
Why do you wrinkle your brow at death?
If death reaches the rubbish heap of your body —
what has death to do with your soul, your living soul?

42

Each of your breaths will be your time.
Each of your steps will be your place.
Whatever comes into your thought —
that thing will be your entire world.

43

Since the root of all roots lies in the point of the soul,
the design of both worlds can be seen plainly from the soul.
Everything your eyes have seen — manifest and hidden —
is in your eye, not in the substance of the world.

44

Until the bird of my heart learned the way of the companion,
in burning it learned the practice of the luminous secret.
Every day, it traveled a thousand years' journey within itself
until behind the veil it recognized itself again.

Chapter Eleven: On the Secret of the Unseen and the Spirit — Which Can Neither Be Spoken Nor —

1

You imagine that you can see the soul,
that you can see the secrets of the whole world.
When your vision reaches its perfection —
at that moment you can see your own blindness.

2

Whenever you seek the jewel,
you will be like a stone at the mountain's waist.
However much sharper your vision becomes,
at the point of the essence, you will be blinder still.

3

That point which is the alchemy of fortune —
pass beyond the world, for its root is in the soul.
If you wish to know that veil with certainty,
first know with certainty that it cannot be known.

4

A people fell into madness from impossibility.
A people fell headlong from imagination.
Of the veil of the unseen, no one is aware —
each one tumbled out on a different road.

5

Souls are piled up in that world.
Bodies are propped against doors and walls in this one.
How long must there be a door between soul and body?
Every mote is a door — but nailed shut.

6

From the mote, do not ask the measure of motes.
Hold fast one moment and do not ask about moments.
Why do you stretch the tale? Burn in grief.
Look upon the craft and do not ask about the Essence.

7

In reason, accept the roots of the law from the soul.
In the law, accept the branches by the road of possibility.
The taste that comes to the heart through longing —
it does not fit in reason; accept it through faith.

8

The fate that the heavens have held behind a veil —
if you have held it, you have held the blood of the liver.
As long as you exist, you will be unaware.
O unaware one — of everything you thought you knew.

9

Until you first become a knower of your own ignorance,
every foundation you lay in knowledge is unsound.
How often my heart washed its hands in blood-water,
in the grief of the unfound — and did not find what it sought.

10

You will not die in the rank of the seers.
You will not die in the quality of the visionaries.
If you wish to find news of the secret of both worlds —
what use, when you will die among the unaware?

11

Though I have no awareness of my own disgrace,
I do not cast aside the love of myself.
A lifetime we have been turning like the sky in this —
and still we are not aware of a single mote of the secret.

12

Alas that my heart was never apprised of that secret.
The soul too was never for a moment the confidant of the companion.
What grief is there beyond this in both worlds —
that this eye closed, and that one never opened?

13

In this affair, even the intellect fell helpless.
Even the spirit slipped away and fell on its head.
I said I would untie this knot in thirty years —
that knot remained, and a thousand more fell upon it.

14

Of the meaning of love, I see only the name.
Of the noble soul, I see only the body.
How shall I find a jewel from the treasure of certainty
when from the treasure of certainty I see only the seal?

15

Though the soul hurried much through this desert,
it knew not a hair's breadth and split many a hair.
Though from my heart a thousand suns shone forth,
it did not find the way to a single mote's perfection.

16

The heart, pursuing the secret of love, remained heartsick.
And that secret, just as it is, remained behind the veil.
Every instrument I fashioned for this affair
broke in the work, and the work remained undone.

17

The heart burned at the head of this dangerous road.
The soul burned at the Friend's door, face in the dust.
For thirty years we poured oil into this lamp —
one flame struck, and all its oil burned clean away.

18

The heart turned to blood and did not find the thread of this secret.
It found nothing from beginning to end but grief.
The bird of my heart fell far from its nest —
how much it fluttered, and never found its nest again.

19

This heart that burned day and night in running and racing —
it boils and it seeks and it speaks the secret.
However much it raised its voice toward this curtain —
alas, no one answers it back.

20

The heart never found the way of love for a single breath.
The heart turned to blood and never found the road of this desire.
It became bewildered by love — for in the world of love,
no one ever found the thread of love again.

21

A secret — my heart is bewildered by it,
and from the blood of two eyes I am stained with it.
How long shall I probe with the needle-point of thought
a secret whose thread no one has ever found?

22

My heart's pain has grown vast — what can I devise?
My armor has torn apart — what can I devise?
Alas, with a hundred thousand fingers of cunning
this knot will not open — what can I devise?

23

The heart is lovestruck, the intellect drunk, the soul bewildered —
and this affair is not the affair of heart or intellect or soul.
How much they have said on every chapter —
yet they have said nothing of what is its root.

24

The heart that had no intimacy with the Vision —
remained without sight and had no light of secrets.
Until the end: whatever it knew,
whatever it saw — none of it was worth a mote.

25

Those people who donned robes of lapis —
around greatness, they all played at smallness.
A lifetime, in hope of the pure, they displayed manhood —
and in the end, all were made drunk on dregs.

26

The soul cannot be the meaning of grace and wrath.
It cannot be the knower of time's secret.
Since everyone who tasted poison died at once,
no one can know the taste of poison.

27

The tale of the Beloved cannot be told.
The grief of the work cannot be told.
The secret between me and my Beloved —
can only be told upon the gallows.

28

No one has tasted the marrow from the mold of religion.
No eye has reached the essence of that marrow.
Every day I peeled a thousand skins from it —
my brain turned entirely to pulp and still saw no marrow.

29

This liver-burning pain that is in my breast
turns me round the world, left and right.
A lifetime I have been walking into darkness,
and I do not know where the Spring of Khidr is.

30

My body and strength are gone from my hand — what can I do?
In bewilderment my soul has burned — what can I do?
That thing which I know no one has known —
they say "know it" — I cannot know it — what can I do?

31

In bewilderment, slave and free alike
go to dust in sorrow still.
Look — for a hundred thousand years the sky
has knocked on this ring, and its door has not opened still.

32

The arrow that passes from the thumb-ring of the Beloved's decree —
make the soul its target, for it passes through the soul.
Do not seek a shield from that arrow, for from both worlds
that arrow passes hidden even from itself.

33

Sometimes from joy I blaze like a candle.
Sometimes like a lamp I burn from His grief.
I am bewildered and left in wonder —
He says: "Know what I shall teach you."

34

Beloved! From the grief of Your love — my cry!
For nothing but regret has love of You opened for me.
Even if every mote becomes a knot-untier,
when will this affair that befell me be resolved?

35

Your tress — from which profit and harm lie in the unseen,
every hair of which has a thousand heads in the unseen.
If one curl of Your tress is revealed to me —
what use, when a hundred other curls lie in the unseen?

36

My poor heart that sought the soul's comfort —
sought composure from that disheveled tress.
In the darkness of Your tress it was annihilated,
for from the darkness it sought the Fountain of Life.

37

The manner of Your madness cannot be known.
The promise of Your tomorrow cannot be known.
One must remain forever without head or feet,
since the path to Your head and feet cannot be known.

38

From You, my foot sank into the clay — You know.
From You, smoke rose from my heart — You know.
Since my difficulty grows harder every moment —
it cannot be solved — my difficulty — You know.

39

Those who see me in this pain
are in pain and pity for me, the wretched.
Since there is not a hair's-breadth of news from You — it is right
if every hair sits in a separate mourning.

40

The heart did not find Your secret in new or old.
It did not find the thread of Your love through words.
Though like the sky it turned much from every side —
what use, when it found neither its own head nor root?

41

Nothing heals my wounded heart but Your pain.
Nothing stands before me but the mirror of longing for You.
Everyone seeks something — but from You, for me:
since news came of You, there is no news of myself.

42

My state — do not ask of me, whose harvest is burned.
You know — do not ask of friend or foe.
That grief I suffered from You cannot be told.
And the tale I hold with You — do not ask me.

43

Your separation — my destruction will tell You.
The pain of my pure heart will tell You.
That tale which today cannot be expressed —
every mote of my dust will tell You.

44

Grief-slain and pain-worn, I will die.
Unspoken and unheard, I will die.
Even if I wish to speak for a hundred years, a thousand years —
like a partridge with its tongue cut out, I will die.

45

When the work has slipped from the hand, what use is speech?
When the eye has gone white, what use is sight?
Though my soul and heart boil over —
when the tongue does nothing, what use?

46

If I say the soul — it is in love with that Vision.
If I say the heart — it is enraptured by that Speech.
My soul and heart are full of the jewels of secrets —
but what can I do when a nail is driven through the tongue?

47

The heart left and my heart-ravisher did not say what it was.
The soul departed and gave no news of what it was.
The secret of my heart and soul — they told it to me —
neither sleeping nor waking, I do not know what it was.

48

A lifetime, the heart of this burned body gave itself to blood.
And He, every breath, gave me a different promise.
When He cast aside the veil and showed what He showed —
He cut my tongue and cast my head outside.

49

Who can describe the soul but the soul?
Who can speak a single hint to them?
The secret between my soul and my Beloved —
the soul knows, and the Beloved — who can tell?

50

The soul that told the tale of the Beloved in hints
cut its tongue and spoke it hidden, tongueless.
How long will you say: "Tell the affair of love!"?
A thing that must be tasted cannot be told.

51

In poverty, one must keep the heart and face blackened.
And if you speak of repentance, you must have sin.
And if at the bottom of love's ocean you seek a pearl —
the diver must hold his breath.

52

A secret that can turn the heart of both worlds to blood —
you say my heart can bring it out from behind the veil?
A blind man at midnight in the bottom of a well —
how can he split a hair into a thousand branches?

Chapter Twelve: On Complaint Against One's Own Self

1

However much you seek the secrets of reality,
from that place, no word is better than brevity.
Aware of His secret — from the moon to the fish —
yet to no one comes even a hair's-tip of awareness.

2

At first my inclination came from every direction,
and I turned my face to everyone.
At last I said: "I have died from my own existence" —
but a Pharaoh was at the root of every hair.

3

My existence has not yet yielded a heart — what am I doing here?
Since I have no rightful place here — what am I doing here?
They say: "Come, see the fire of Moses!" —
with a Pharaoh in my arms, what am I doing here?

4

A voice came to me: "In seeking the Friend,
the condition is to break the skin before reaching the marrow.
We will cut your limbs, one by one" —
that was easy. The trial is to be freed from it.

5

A lifetime I wore away from running, like the sky,
until now, like the earth, I sank to rest.
A hundred times I traversed the whole world —
however far I went, my veil was myself.

6

Though the regrets are a hundred thousand, still —
beyond counting, the regrets are still more.
Every day I killed myself a thousand times,
and this infidel nafs is established still.

7

I said: "My heart has been cleansed of the filthy nafs" —
alas, it was not cleansed and was destroyed by pain.
What can they say about the person
who is drowning in the ocean yet has gone polluted to the grave?

8

As long as I sit with the dog of the nafs,
I will be a gleaner in the harvest of idolatry.
I strove much and it did not improve —
until the end of life, I will be just like this.

9

Every moment the dog of the nafs lays traps for my heart.
Against my burning heart, it sets up a quarrel.
Every night I bind it straight with a thousand tricks —
when day arrives, it begins its crookedness again.

10

I have a nafs that grows greater with every breath.
I said: "I will discipline it — it will improve."
However much I starve it by effort,
from a single lie it grows fat again.

11

From the fire of desire, my liver burns.
From greed, all my brain burns.
How can my heart be purified when this filthy nafs
burns me in a different way each moment?

12

My liver turned to blood from sorrow over myself,
and from fear of the road that lies before me.
My heart will never reach the sweetness of unity
as long as the scorpion of the nafs stings me.

13

The heart — I see it has neither world nor faith.
I see it sitting with the filthy nafs.
My hair has become like a lion's — and at the root of every hair
I see a hundred lions and leopards lying in ambush.

14

I am weary of the soul because the body demands —
without the Joseph of love, it wants the shirt.
An ant that eats one grain in a year
wants a granary sealed with its own seal.

15

Sometimes, from the dog of the nafs, to be distressed.
Sometimes, from the head of anger, to be on fire.
You said: "Be content" — how is it possible for me
to be content with so many dogs inside?

16

This nafs keeps coming back diminished, and yet —
how long will it keep coming back with its head raised?
How often I have held this dog down —
in the hope that held down, it will stay at last.

17

Since the nafs is a dog of ill suspicion — what can be done?
Its furnace is full of bones — what can be done?
If a thousand people die before it,
it is more alive every moment — what can be done?

18

Every heart that had awareness of the work's secret
sat in a corner and held the station of a king.
Since no one is a greater enemy than your nafs —
from whom then will you hope for friendship?

19

Those who constantly pursue this work
become engaged in killing this tyrannous nafs.
In your skin, a thousand dragons lie sleeping —
when death arrives, they all awaken.

20

Where the annihilation of the renowned is required,
upon the remnant of the nafs, a rain of arrows is required.
If you have a single mote of selfhood, it is your hell —
what good are seven hells when thousands are required?

21

O nafs that has seized you from head to foot —
your very essence stained with the filth of selfhood.
If you burn in fire for lifetimes,
still the smell of selfhood rises from your ashes.

22

O you — in grief for bread and clothes and greed and need,
fallen into the world's bazaar, running and racing.
You have no other work except sleeping well —
now filling the rubbish heap, now emptying it.

23

How long will you do evil? Do good and sit down.
Lay the prayer-mat of surrender and sit down.
In a house of bones, after all — with a dog —
you cannot live. Expel it and sit down.

24

Every heart that through the nafs found the road to awareness —
it is better than one who traveled from the moon to the fish.
Swiftly you will reach the Fountain of Life
if through the darkness of the nafs you will make your way.

25

Since you accept no counsel from anyone —
you will not become aware until you die.
You run after desire so much — don't ask —
you will not take a single step in sincerity.

26

O — your intellect has made you its own prisoner.
From reason, the snare grows tighter every moment.
Every instant, from reason, an obstacle before you —
cry out against the reason that calculates advantage!

27

Alas for a heart that had no work in the world —
it passed, and held neither little nor much of faith.
A hundred nights it could not sleep for the enemy nafs —
one night it could not stay awake for the Friend.

28

We are those who, at the command, have not set foot.
We have not brought a single knot-untying excuse.
Every day we tie a thousand firm oaths —
and then not a single one do we fulfill.

29

Sometimes from desire we recite the word of annihilation.
Sometimes from desire we linger near subsistence.
We know the wet hem of our own existence —
stranded on dry land, how long will we sail the ship?

30

We are those who are neither burned nor raw.
We have tasted neither the pure nor drunk the dregs.
Though like the sky we are restless from love,
having run a hundred years, we are still at one step.

31

Where is one pure lover and one living heart?
Where is one burned soul without scattered thought?
Since all are servants of their own thinking —
then where, in both worlds, is a servant of God?

32

Alas — it was arrogance, and it was excess.
Each hair of mine was an idol and a Zoroastrian belt.
I had imagined that I had a work to do —
what work? Which work? It was all imagination.

33

My poor heart that imagined itself free —
with empty hands, it imagined its purse was full.
It scattered many pearls — but when it looked,
what it had imagined were pearls were only beads.

34

My poor heart had sown the seed of seeking.
A lifetime it had raised the banner of knowledge.
Of everything it had imagined all its life —
in sum, what can I say? It was all imagination.

35

Sometimes I was the visionary of the seven gardens' solitude.
Sometimes I sat in the corner of the furnace.
I raised my hand across the whole world —
no land was my prison. I was my own prison.

Chapter Thirteen: On Condemning People Without Aspiration

1

Every soul that did not reach the head of the mystery
went down into the slope and never reached the heights.
Wretched the heart of one whose self's ill fortune
made it fall as a drop — and it never reached the sea.

2

Every heart that did not find the path of intimacy with the soul
remained in abasement and found no honor.
The fortune of both worlds is to find the way to Him.
Wretched the one who never found the way back to Him.

3

A stone that will not remain in the radiance of the sun —
it is impossible that it will remain a jewel.
Whoever did not join the branch to its root
will remain forever a broken branch at the door.

4

They all died in a single desire — what can be done?
With whom shall I draw a breath — what can be done?
It has long been day and the gate has been open — yet
no one wakes — what can be done?

5

Where is a heart that knows His secrets for a breath?
Where is an ear that hears His speech for a moment?
That moon displays its beauty day and night —
where is an eye that might rejoice in beholding it?

6

If you have eyes, you must become a man of the Vision.
You must become drowned in the unity of God.
Where the ocean's being is forever present,
why should one busy oneself with a puddle?

7

Since one can die in kingship,
what a waste to die in ruin.
The world is full of the spread table of bounty —
yet you will die hungry and thirsty.

8

O you who died seeking a knot-untier —
born in union, dead in separation.
O you who thirsted at the lip of the sea and became dust —
and you who died a beggar atop a treasure.

9

O you — content like a dog with a bone,
how long will you be content with a dungheap?
When with every breath a thousand souls are on the path,
why are you content with half a soul?

10

O soul — content in the abasement of separation,
your heart grown content with faithlessness.
Does it not strike you hard, that it must be:
a sultan's child, content with beggary?

11

Whenever you find the head of gnosis again,
every moment you find a thousand stations again.
What use to find yourself in form?
The true work is to find yourself in the Attribute again.

12

Since the bird of my heart found no capacity for the secret,
like the sky it found no path but racing on —
they say: "Why does your heart not rest?"
How should it rest, when it has not found its place again?

13

O frozen man — you do not know the secret.
You know nothing but metaphor.
You are an addled man standing at the lane's head —
blind and deaf, and still you do not recognize it.

14

Of all the world's wealth you have a barleycorn.
Of the world's harvest you have a single grain.
You are not a man of vision — for of all that is,
whether you wish it or not, you have but a ray.

15

Where is an intellect that aimed for that Majesty?
Where is a heart that circled in that ecstasy?
That thing which would guide one toward it —
if only it had guided itself!

16

Since there is no capacity, the news will pass unfound.
One drop from a hundred seas will become a jewel.
From an ocean whose description cannot be told,
water will pour out forever and ever.

17

Since much experience of myself has befallen me,
from that experience I have cried out against myself.
Whoever in experience is not free of himself —
dust on his head, may he be overturned by himself.

18

Beloved — my soul was drowning in Your sea,
always a drop without head or foot, Yours.
I had no capacity — all this work
was from the capacity-granting of Your madness.

19

This work that love of You brought before me —
it was not fit for my dervish soul.
I had no capacity — Your love,
as much as it came, brought capacity with it.

20

In Your desert a resting place is needed.
From Your trial some harvest is needed.
My heart turns to blood a hundred times each moment —
on Your path one needs a heart of stone.

21

If one pure breath arises from me,
a hundred treasures rise from my dust.
Yet even if I am entirely Your love,
destruction still arises from me.

22

In love of Your face I have gambled away knowledge and reason.
What knowledge and reason? I have gambled away my own soul.
On Your path, whatever I had — the harvest of a lifetime —
I gambled it away, and still I have played badly.

23

The heart was gambling its soul for union with You,
losing its faith in the infidelity of Your tress.
As it was being erased by Your manifestness —
in the very seeing of You, Your love was secretly gambling it away.

24

Since I cannot endure Your love in the end,
how shall I spend a life in pain of You in the end?
A face that I have dishonored with a hundred thousand vanities —
how shall I bring that face before You in the end?

25

Since without You I have swallowed my heart's blood in the end,
how should I not drown in the blood of my liver in the end?
In Your love, every trick I knew —
I tried them all, and accomplished nothing in the end.

26

In the Red Sea of Your love, where no one remained,
not much work remained until I drowned from myself.
How much I was turned upside down until at last
I became so nothing that no trace remained.

27

The soul cannot stay in place because of love.
The body cannot stay on its feet because of love.
A strange affair has befallen us with You:
no face to flee, no strength to stay.

28

The sigh I heave from sorrow's hand without You —
from that sigh I would overturn the world without You.
Neither the endurance to be with You for one breath,
nor the courage to draw a breath without You.

29

Every day I take the road of Your love from the beginning.
Every night I hold a mourning-vigil from grief of You.
Neither the courage to set my heart on one like You,
nor the endurance to lift my heart from You.

30

Whoever has no twist from Your tress
will find no water from Your Spring of Khidr.
Even if he is the most wakeful of all —
truly, a sleep is better than his wakefulness.

Chapter Fourteen: On Condemning the World

1

How long must one endure the world's pain and oppression?
How long must one see the phantom of more and less?
Truly, all creation is worth nothing —
from nothing, why must one see all this grief?

2

The world is an ocean — it sets its throne here,
it breaks the heart of the wretched here.
At every step a thousand heads are dust of the road —
dust on his head who sets his baggage here.

3

Whoever follows this base world
will be in the Hell of Pharaoh's "I."
Since the furnace of this base world is a place for dogs,
a dog is better than one who would be a furnace-keeper.

4

What is this base world? A house of tyranny.
A thousand slain lie fallen at every step.
If it is gained, not a moment of joy it gives.
And if it is lost, the whole is not worth a single grief.

5

Since the world is a place of disgrace,
why do you linger in such a place?
Since you say: "I do not belong here" —
then why are you descending so deeply into it?

6

The world is all smoke — consider the world as smoke.
And this eternal-seeming place — consider it soon destroyed.
Since nonbeing is the root of every being that is,
every being that was — consider it already gone.

7

What will you do with this treacherous world?
What will you do with this thornfield?
You are not a leopard, nor a boar, nor a dog —
what will you do with this carrion-furnace?

8

From the world's jugglery, what shall arise?
From the sky's trickbox, what shall arise?
From this furnace of the world and the dog of your self —
what shall arise but everlasting regret?

9

The world that has not a barleycorn's faithfulness in its skin —
every moment a thousand minds are bewildered by it.
A thing that God holds as His enemy:
if you are not God's enemy, why do you hold it as friend?

10

What will you do with the world, since it will be faithless?
It will be in the blood of all God's creation.
Suppose you gain Noah's lifespan in it —
will it not, in the end, still be annihilation?

11

O heart — do not follow the treacherous world.
Do not become like a vulture chasing carrion.
Since the world's people are all trapped by it —
if you are a man, do not be trapped.

12

If both worlds are, for example, a ring,
and the one who wears it on his finger commands an army —
if you feel no mercy for that person all day,
know that this is the mark of unbelief.

13

O heart, O heart — how long will you swallow the world's grief?
How long will you swallow a soul that has come to the lips?
In the corner of a furnace full of pigs and dogs,
how long will you swallow this morsel — fire is better than it.

14

Since there is no hand to reach in this pit of affliction,
whose back do you lean on with your whims each moment?
Upon this upturned black bowl of the sky —
one could weep a hundred jugs in every breath.

15

Not one wish of the heartbroken do they fulfill.
Not one promise to a lover do they keep.
This is our grief: that in this loneliness
they leave us alone with our own grief.

16

The soul departed and never tasted the pleasure of life.
The body departed and never reached any satisfaction.
And this grief-eating night-traveler they call the heart —
not for a single day did it reach joy.

17

With every breath I draw, my soul comes to my lips.
I am astonished at my own existence.
My entire life has been spent in grief, so that
I have not had a single gladness — good night to me.

18

The scent that reaches the tested soul
comes for the destruction of soul and body.
How long shall I draw the bow? — for every arrow I shoot
comes back to strike my own heart.

19

Sometimes wounded by "You shall not see Me," like Moses.
Sometimes slain by thwarting, like John.
Each moment threaded on a different needle —
I string another grief, like Jesus.

20

Every day I am more bewildered in this circle.
Like a circle I remain — without foot or head.
And today I have become such that I do not drink water
unless as much blood first drips from my liver.

21

How long shall I remain helpless and distressed?
Wind in my hand, dust on my head, remaining.
Even if a thousand doors open for me every day,
I remain at all of them — like a door-knocker on the door.

22

Not a day that the heart did not recite the tale of the companion.
Not a night that it did not read a letter from the page of secrets.
However many accounts I settled with myself —
what use, when not one account of mine came right?

23

Today it is I — helpless in body and soul.
I and my affliction — both helpless in my pain.
A maddened heart that has brought a thousand madnesses —
one beside himself, helpless within himself.

24

In love, no one has been as wretched as I.
No heart as liver-eating as my heart.
A single grain of this load upon my soul —
set it on a mountain and it breaks into a hundred pieces.

25

How long shall I drag myself through separation from the beloved?
How long carry grief in my heart and longing in my soul?
A pain so fierce the sky is bent by its heat —
when the heart is gone, how long shall I bear the heart's pain?

26

Every moment my heart has a shackle from the sky.
Every instant some fresh affliction strikes it.
A single drop of blood — for God's sake tell me:
how much endurance does it have for these calamities?

27

Upon my heart I bear a burden from the world's grief.
In the eye of every desire I have a thorn.
No companion, no consoler do I have.
A maddened heart and a fate — that is what I have.

28

Nothing but ignorance — I have no knowledge.
From the people of vision — I have no vision.
Although I need a hundred mourners,
I have no work but mourning.

29

With the unworthy — if I break bread I count it blood.
His fables I count worse than sorcery.
If I sit with an alien kind for a single breath,
truly I count it worse than seven hells.

30

From the unworthy, a world of grief — from this.
Death is better than his company — mourning from this.
With an unworthy one, even if I were in paradise,
I would seek hell — for that punishment is less than this.

Chapter Fifteen: On the Need for a Confidant

1

The heart turned to blood and no one was privy to this secret.
On the face of the earth it found no companion again.
Full of pain it went to dust, and in the world of dust
it found no fellow, no fellow-sufferer, no fellow-voice.

2

All my life the heart was given no confidant.
Heartbroken it departed, and no balm was given.
All my life I sought a companion —
my life ended, and no companion gave me a single breath.

3

The capital of the world was no more than a penny.
The heading of the ledger of existence was no more than nonbeing.
If a companion gave me a single breath —
what shall I say of that too? It was no more than a moment.

4

Alas — in this burning and melting, there is no one for me.
On this long road, there is no companion for me.
In the depths of my heart are many jewels of secrets,
but what can I do? — there is no one privy to the secret.

5

Where is a listener, that I might tell him a tale,
and speak to him of the tested heart's condition?
In all my life I have not seen one beside himself
to whom I might tell the affair of myself.

6

This burning that arose — to whom can I tell it?
This true affair — to whom can I tell it?
This breath that is mine — with whom can I share it?
This grief that is mine — to whom can I tell it?

7

My heartsick eye, in every gathering,
saw no one like itself — one beside himself.
Since I found no companion in all my life,
I burned in grief — alas, one like me.

8

However much I walk in love's pain —
I am in pain, and love's pain is what I seek.
Where is a burned one whose soul is burning,
that perhaps he might understand what I say?

9

The One who knows griefs old and new —
He knows well the state of bewildered me.
My pain, my helplessness, my bewilderment —
tell no one to know it, for He knows.

10

When will it be — when? — that I remain and He,
and this tale that no one has read, I read it and He.
That day when my soul departs from my body,
He will know and I will know — and I will know and He.

11

The One who will not share my grief
will drive me mad all at once.
No one today cares for my wretchedness
who will remedy my wretchedness.

12

I have fallen at affliction's feet — what can be done?
I have lost the thread from my hand — what can be done?
From the day my mother bore me, friendless,
born wandering in blood — what can be done?

13

Alas — from the pain of a nobody's pain, I die.
In the tumult of delusion, I die.
Every day I find a thousand treasures again,
yet in a thousand poverties, I die.

14

I have always been humbled by fate.
I have been bewildered by the restless sky.
Since I have never been of any use —
Glory to God, then what have I come for?

15

Not for a moment did my trial-bearing heart find rest
until my heart's blood was filtered through my eyes.
The world's madness, which grows greater every moment —
how much I measured it, and still it was not measured.

16

O you who have not wholly given heart and soul,
who do not stand on the road head-first like a pen —
however much you blame me, it matters not.
You are excused — for you have not fallen into this work.

17

Every heart that did not grow day by day in the world —
one cannot tell the state of that heart.
Many an intellect, without the nursing of thought's wet-nurse,
came as a child and left the world still a child.

18

Every gathering has remained in its gathering.
Forever "you and I" have remained in "you and I."
The atoms of earth and heaven, day and night,
have remained trapped in the displaying of themselves.

19

A people who seized the earth in a single moment,
who seized the heartbroken by the vein of life —
the men of the world have retreated to a corner
because today the eunuchs of the world have taken over.

20

With the strength of an elephant, one must be an ant.
With the kingdom of two worlds, one must be naked.
And see this wonder: the measure of any human —
one must see it, and one must be blind.

21

With the worthy, one can aim for meaning.
With the unworthy — what can you do?
To choose everlasting torment:
that is what it is to live with the unworthy.

22

I would not buy a commoner's repentance at the price of one sin.
A hundred gardens like paradise — I would not buy for a single herb.
This acceptance and rejection of the people, these rites and customs —
as long as I have a soul, I would not buy for a blade of straw.

23

Whoever heard a single word from me
sat down to a hundred thousand griefs from me.
Where is a listener who would hear for a single hour
a hundred heartaches, in pitiful lament, from me?

Chapter Sixteen: On Choosing Seclusion and Patience

1

If you wish to emerge from the veil as an initiate,
sit behind the veil and come out less and less.
Like a hair pulled from dough —
you will emerge from eighteen thousand worlds.

2

What is your plan? To mix hate with love,
to be fanatical about your own existence?
Since one cannot aim for those lips —
sit, and be forever astonished.

3

You are not wounded by love — and if you are,
you have tied your heart to the grief of His love with your soul.
If you knew what you have lost,
you would sit with your head on your knee forever.

4

How long will you display your own virtues,
sitting and wearing the garment of strangers?
Since at every step you make a thousand denials,
sit alone — for there you will profit greatly.

5

How long will you do evil? Do good, and sit.
Spread the prayer-mat of surrender, and sit.
Since you have seen the ways of people and know them —
draw a line through all of it, turn your face to Him, and sit.

6

As long as you sit on the people's road, O heart,
you are gleaning in the harvest of idolatry, O heart.
If you are patient and choose a corner, O heart,
you will see what you shall see in that corner, O heart.

7

O heart — swallow a different sorrow every moment.
Bow your neck and take the sky's blow.
And then that head which will become the ball of the road —
set it on the knee of sorrow, and swallow blood.

8

Since your pain has no cure until eternity,
if you become happy, it is surely nothing but loss.
From joy nothing ever arises — sit
in a sorrow that has no end.

9

O heart — your only remedy is helplessness.
Sitting in a corner — that is your exile.
Your bread is your liver, your water is blood-swallowing.
This is your cure: all-at-onceness.

10

By this manner the heart now went mad —
grew wholly estranged from the familiar, and chose strangeness.
Since it saw its own joy as a lethal poison,
it took up residence in the lane of the grieving.

11

Beloved — my heart threw itself into the sea.
It cast itself upon affliction, into the tumult.
It swallowed the grief of the whole world in solitude,
then, if any joy exists, it cast it to tomorrow.

12

At first my heart sat at the head of the tumult.
Every moment it sat in a thousand kinds of madness.
And at last, when it saw that all of it was nothing,
it cut off all desire and sat alone.

13

On the road of toil, one must abandon joy.
This foul self — one must discipline it.
And if you are in seeking, there is no withholding from speech:
as much as you must, you must seek.

14

In the world of death, life is far.
In the world's pain, the treasure of meaning is far.
Be glad — for the turn of death has drawn near.
Bear dissatisfaction — for satisfaction is far.

15

What is manhood? To be a rogue and a gambler.
To be free of the first and the last.
To be one color within and without.
To be a watcher, silent, and patient.

16

From the part one must travel toward the whole.
From the whole one must also pass to the All.
When you have seen every whole and every part and become it —
then one must gaze upon the Whole of the Whole.

17

Every veil — when that veil's fastening is raised,
this veil will rise as the likeness of the next.
Before you are a hundred thousand hidden veils.
Do not hurry — veil by veil they shall be raised.

18

If you are an ocean, they will settle your agitation.
If you race swift as an ant, they will seat you.
Sit — for from rising, nothing rises.
And if you do not sit, by force they will seat you.

19

How long will you race about like the sky?
Become underfoot like the earth, lowly in need.
If you are patient, patience will set your work straight.
If not — run back and forth, and play crookedly.

20

If like the sky you become a perpetual traveler,
in the end, like the earth, you will sit low.
How much I ran! — and His love kept saying:
"A little slower — for soon you will be made slow."

21

Every day a different grief comes before me —
a grief greater than the grief of all the world.
If the heart does not become a dervish through such patience,
it will surrender at last, and come to itself.

Chapter Seventeen: On the Virtue of Choosing Silence

1

The joy of sugar comes from tasting — that is the gain.
A debate not born from hearing — that is pointless.
For one who joined the Beloved by a single hair,
cutting the tongue forever — that is the gain.

2

Blessed the heart of one who died bewildered and did not speak.
He had a hundred ordeals — he hid them and did not speak.
He kept Your pain in his soul and did not speak.
He made Your grief his litany to the end — and did not speak.

3

One must tend to oneself by way of remedy.
One must draw apart from the people of the world.
The heart must be full of blood, yet silent.
The lips must be sealed — and one must gaze.

4

Today, a heart that listens — that is better.
In mourning for yourself, wear black — that is better.
Since no companion, no friend, no fellow sufferer remains,
it is the age of silence — being silent is better.

5

O heart, since you drank the wine of gnosis,
seal your lips — do not sell the divine secret.
Do not bubble up like a mountain spring at every word.
You will become the sea if you sit down silent.

6

How long will you boil, O restless heart?
Sit in the curtain of blood and drink blood.
Open your eyes and see how every single mote
weeps — and all of them sit silent.

7

When we closed our eyes to the face of the world,
we girded our waists for flight.
We swallowed the grief of love and sealed the cry.
Since we found no one worthy, we sealed the tongue.

8

O heart, how long will you boil night and day? Sit down.
How long will you quarrel and strive? Sit down.
Since your secret will never come into speech,
in the depth of your heart — better if you cover it. Sit down.

9

How long will you boil, O weary heart?
Sit in your own veil and do not sell blood.
Open your eyes and see how every single mote
weeps blood — and all of them sit silent.

10

O heart, do not wander into blood through speech, from now on.
Through speaking, do not go outside yourself, from now on.
You have been a tongue from head to foot for a lifetime.
It is time to become an ear — from now on.

11

If you are not the ocean, sit down from boiling — at last.
Without commotion and clamor, sit down — at last.
If you have a name and a trace of your own, then speak.
But if the time of joy has come, sit down — at last.

12

If only my name and trace could have been,
someone might have had concern for my soul.
If only the secrets of my blood-filled heart
could have been the nail that sealed my tongue.

13

Since I wiped the tablet of the heart clean of both worlds,
since I trampled both worlds underfoot —
how many a word that made my head spin like a ball
came to my throat, and I swallowed it down.

14

In poverty, wearing black — that is better for me.
Pure of heart and drinking the dregs — that is better for me.
If I raise a single breath from my soul at dawn,
I am exposed. Silence — that is better for me.

15

In Your love, we cried out so much
that we brought the ocean of heaven to a boil.
Since our cries and boiling did not avail with You,
we went away and brought heart and tongue to silence.

16

Though nothing at all is empty of God,
draw in your head and do not breathe — why do you cry out?
For the one whose foot sinks into a treasure,
they cut off his head upon that treasure, right away.

17

When the lid is lifted from everything,
when the whole world, like a cauldron, comes to a boil —
since you cannot point to it with a finger,
put your finger to your lip and keep silent.

18

Keep the heart chasing after love's secret.
Give up the soul and keep love's secret in the soul.
The secret for which you wagered your head —
when it becomes manifest, hide it from yourself.

19

In the world of unity, say nothing to anyone.
Guard it in the breast. Hold your breath. Say nothing.
Here, whoever arrived — the one who is someone —
all of it is nothing, from everyone. So say nothing.

20

As long as you are in a place, stay in your place — and be silent.
Bow your head and be the dust of the path — and be silent.
Why do you display a thing you will never know?
Be a watcher of God — and be silent.

21

Though you have no confidant of secrets,
have patience — life is not very long.
If you are our companion but have no helper,
hold your breath — you have no business with anyone.

22

How long will you keep your tongue crying out in speech?
How long will you hold yourself like wine-drinkers, describing?
Hide your face from the people of the world until eternity
if you are devoted to the way of the silent ones.

23

How long will you cry out like a herald: 'A head for sale!'?
Drink the wine of realization without the labor of the lips.
How long will you boil, O risen one?
In mourning for this tale, sit down — and be silent.

24

If you want to keep watch over your own time,
hold your breath and bring your awareness back to yourself.
If both worlds come to a boil like the ocean,
do not speak nonsense — sit down at a distance, and be silent.

25

Every part of you should be all ear — and nothing more.
Your soul should be all listening — and nothing more.
You asked: 'How should the man of the path be?'
A watcher, and silent — and nothing more.

26

Better that you waste no breath on the affairs of the world
and from Time's hand, do not clap your hands together.
Both the grief of the age and your own tale —
swallow them manfully, and do not breathe a word.

Chapter Eighteen: On Having High Aspiration and Being Complete in Work

1

If you want your heart to become the confidant of secrets —
let it lose itself and become worthy of this work.
Draw a circle around both worlds from outside.
Enter the circle and see what appears.

2

Though you stood long on the path —
it is a shame that you stopped at the surface of metaphor.
Since no limit to your spirit is in sight,
why have you stopped at a single veil?

3

Neither has your soul engaged with the divine secret,
nor has it pursued the infinite.
Alas that you are so occupied with the ego
that you will never turn from the painting to the Painter.

4

If you want to become an accepted man,
you must forever be dismissed from the business of people.
When one can be occupied with the Friend,
it is a shame to be occupied with anything else.

5

On the path of seeking, a man of high aspiration is needed —
every part of him must be a point of wisdom.
And if a beauty appears before him — do not ask —
his eye must hold courtesy, his heart reverence.

6

O travelling man, do not be a helpless man.
Do not leave yourself and become a wanderer.
Journey inward like the brave ones.
You are a man of insight — do not become a mere spectator.

7

Until the bird of your heart spreads its wings,
this event will not open its door to your soul.
From the intellect — that bride-seeker — seek separation.
For this knot will not be untied by a diminished intellect.

8

How long will your heart flutter around the world
when there is no road for it to fly beyond the sky?
Break the egg of the seven heavens into pieces
so that the bird of your heart may fly from this middle.

9

How long — neither resting nor hastening?
Neither laying down your head nor turning it away?
Splitting hairs brings you no profit.
You have neither the burning of seeking nor the pain of not-finding.

10

If you have a sign to bring from the unseen,
its flaw should not be brought to the tongue.
For the thing that slipped from your hand — if you want it —
is hard to bring back into the hand.

11

If you are a man of the path, the hidden path must be walked.
A hundred deserts must be crossed in a single moment.
If you want your path to reach its end,
every station must be traversed within the soul.

12

If you want to reach permanence in the hereafter,
you must reach annihilation in this world.
Though the road leads over the heads of men,
go — do not fear — until you arrive somewhere.

13

Vanity and delicacy must be abandoned.
Manfully, the softness of fate must be undone.
The soul must be made a shield for the arrow of fate.
The heart must be made a target for the arrow of affliction.

14

Where is a wayfarer I can call a path-crosser?
Or a burned one I can call a man of pain?
A man who, in the middle of worldly business, draws one breath
with Him — I call that man a thousand men.

15

The soul, which must depart from the body,
must be sent against the army of grief.
The heart, which has not the manliness of a gnat's wing,
must every moment hunt the elephant.

16

How long of nonexistence and existence, O heart?
In both, a single station you have escaped, O heart.
In distance, if you want to be a traveler,
it is better than standing still in nearness, O heart.

17

The soul is one thing; the soul-increaser is another.
A city is one thing; kingship is another.
We will not be caught in the trap of every beggar.
The Friend's glance toward us falls on another place.

18

That treasure for which I am in search —
I suffer in the temple of talismans for it.
That ocean from which both worlds did not receive a single drop —
I want it: I want to weigh it all upon myself.

19

The bird of my heart was like a madman.
Love dropped a melancholy upon its head.
Every moment it flew through a hundred thousand worlds,
but for one breath it never landed anywhere.

20

Neither does the soul find the path to its soul-increaser again,
nor does the heart find the door to its heart-opener again.
The bird of my turbulent heart will find rest
only when it finds its own place again.

21

There is a time when I will make an eye for seeing.
Not a mote of confession or denial will I make.
Every good name that is the harvest of a lifetime —
I will sell it and throw myself headlong into this work.

22

With the force of Your love, I strive with my soul.
With the weight of Your event, I strive at every moment.
Since my entire existence has been plundered —
this is the wonder: that I strive just the same.

23

In Your love, every heart that was manly
was like the moth in its own burning.
How long will you seek excuses? Like the moth, burn.
In love, seeking excuses was always a fairy tale.

24

In love, your conjecture must be made sight.
The good and evil of this world must be abandoned.
If He says: 'Both worlds must be given up' —
without asking why, it must be done.

25

If you are a man of the path, you must walk through blood.
Fallen from your feet, you must go headfirst.
Set your foot on the path and ask nothing.
The path itself will tell you how to walk it.

26

Every moment you must go farther than the sky.
Sometimes from behind, sometimes from ahead, you must go.
Running around the world brings you no benefit.
You must circle around your own head and feet.

27

The dice of desire for union must be cast.
The horse of impossible longing must be ridden.
Not for one moment must the shield be thrown down.
One must burn, and one must do the work.

28

You sit, yet you have many journeys before you.
Every mote that exists — you have a path through it.
A hundred caravans pass by in every breath.
O heedless one — in the end, what news do you have?

29

Since you will have your countless griefs
and the pain of your restless heart —
sit in ashes and circle through blood
if you will mourn for your own time.

30

O you who have a thousand kinds of madness —
the brave are all in mourning; you are watching the spectacle.
Eat well and sleep well — who knows what valley,
what ocean, lies ahead of you?

31

From eating so much grief over the carrion world,
you neither do the work nor grieve for the work.
Your capital in all the world is one lifetime.
Do not scatter it to the wind — you will eat much grief.

32

From the turning of the sky, you will be overturned.
You will become the scandal of the world, the veil-tearer.
Wake from sleep, O bewildered heart — for soon,
in a blink, you will fall back into sleep.

33

Though an ocean full of water stands before you —
hurry, for the work comes with urgency.
If you drown, what use was it? For in all your life,
you woke up only now — when sleep arrived.

34

When will it go well for you, when you keep being wicked?
You give up the soul and remain the enemy of wisdom.
It is another matter — they will not let you be
as long as you sit on top of your own time.

35

O friend — if you are a friend to yourself,
how long will you, from desire, be on top of your own business?
No matter how much more you learn,
I see that you remain where you have always been.

36

At the first step, do not seek vast fortune.
A straw is enough for you at first — do not seek the mountain.
If the work has appeared to you by even a fingernail's breadth,
enter the work, and do not scratch at grief with your fingernail.

37

O heedless ones! Bind a heart to the soul.
From the good and evil of people, seal the tongue.
When the work falls upon you, do not withdraw to a corner.
For this wondrous work — gird your waists.

38

You sleep while His lovers are awake.
You are heedless while they are all in the secrets.
Your idleness will continue like this,
but every mote in the world is at work.

39

O you who lost your footing — you do not follow in time.
Gaze at the cup, for you do not reach the wine.
You are nothing — to what can you be joined?
He is with you already — how is it you do not reach Him?

40

Bind the heart to the face that is like His image.
Place the soul on the palm of the hand and scatter it as offering.
See the head of the work and quickly take up the work anew.
Then put work and head into the head of His work.

41

If there is any hope of betterment on this path,
you must rise quickly above the summit of existence.
Die in love — for the capital of your life
will bring you no profit until you take the loss.

42

Every heart that gained awareness of the secret of the work
found in every hair a journey from moon to fish.
It would be a pity to become dust unknowing.
Hurry, at last, if you want to gain the news.

43

Walking without a path, you think of mysteries.
It is snow you are pondering in midsummer.
The brave of the world have traversed a thousand worlds.
You, after two steps, are still thinking.

44

If He reveals even a hair's tip to you,
a hundred kinds of help arrive from every direction.
O heedless one — what faithlessness is this?
You have turned your back to Him, while He faces you.

45

Either you must withdraw your hand from this desire,
or you must bear the debt of access.
If one breath rises from your heart without Him,
you must hold a hundred funerals for that breath.

46

You are forever a prisoner of your own hand,
for you are the distracted heart behind the veil of illusion.
Since behind the veil you have a Mother,
it is time you stopped drinking the wet-nurse's milk.

47

Whenever you seek the jewel of love:
until you seek distance, by what nearness do you seek?
When you have made your lineage true in poverty,
you will find kinship with whatever kinship you seek.

48

O people! Why are you in fever and heat, at last?
You went, having never been and never arrived, at last.
O heedless ones! This great door and threshold —
do not leave it empty, and do not sleep, at last.

49

The one who needs a key for a difficulty —
from a long life, some harvest is needed.
Beyond both worlds, if you find a wise one —
O dead of heart, a living heart is needed.

50

Sometimes you must be at the front of battle.
Sometimes you must be in the rear, among the people of pain.
This work is not accomplished carelessly.
It is a great work — one must be a man.

Chapter Nineteen: On Abandoning Dispersion and Seeking Unity

1

As long as you can be scattered at all —
truly, only then can you be a servant.
You must die to each and every thing
so that perhaps you may live through Him.

2

As long as dispersion radiates from you in every direction,
poverty is disgusted with you in a hundred ways.
As long as a single hair's tip of you remains,
it is infidelity to speak of this threshold — from you.

3

O you, left by yourself in an affliction — do not ask.
You have never arrived at a place — do not ask.
Die cleanly to everything by which you are alive,
so that you may live in a grandeur — do not ask.

4

Neither does the soul take on the quality of His contentment,
nor does the heart pursue His faithfulness.
Whatever thing has taken a place in your heart —
know with certainty: it is taking His place.

5

Since no one has a hair's worth of concern for you,
who else in both worlds will mourn for you?
O fallen from the path! Not for one moment are you aware
of what slips away from you in every breath.

6

Through you the world went dark, without the face of that moon.
Let it be — let the world go dark without the moon.
You seek Him for your own sake —
so you have been in love with yourself all along.

7

How much anguish and affliction this drenched heart bore —
it carried its belongings to the grave with the field unsown.
For the sake of one needle, pure Jesus
every day threaded much regret through the eye.

8

However much you look outside and inside,
you will see a handful of veins, bones, and blood.
Every day you dress yourself in a thousand veils.
With all these veils, how will you see the path?

9

If your soul will be behind the veil of religion,
it will sit behind the veil together with the Friend.
And every breath you do not draw in His presence —
tomorrow, it will all be a brand of fire.

10

If you want Him — cut yourself from wife and child.
Manfully, cut yourself from self and bond.
Since everything that exists is a chain on your path,
how will you walk with chains? Cut the chains.

11

If you want it to be sweet for you there —
from dispersion, drag the soul's belongings clean, there.
From head to foot you will be drowned in fire there.
Better for you that your heart be troubled — there.

12

With love, it is better to cast off your own existence.
With burning, like the candle, it is better to surrender.
Before you fall into the six-way dead end —
throw yourself in. For it is better to have lost everything.

13

The madman, if bound by chains —
from head to tail, his whole affair is deficiency.
As long as your manner is manipulation and planning,
every single thing you have tugs at your skirt.

14

How long will you be brought out from behind the veil?
In every breath, bringing more dispersion?
Do you know what the harsher torment is for you?
Being alone and turning your face back to yourself.

15

Your joining to things one by one — it is too much.
Break away, for the acceptance of people is a difficult business.
Know with certainty that within your soul,
wherever you felt pleasure, there is a hidden cord of idolatry.

16

The one who, to himself, has even a hair's tip of headship —
his obscurity is an esteemed elixir of joy.
Diminish yourself — for as long as you remain by even a hair,
your seeking of a master is danger upon danger.

17

One cannot become worthy of that perfection.
One cannot covet every impossibility.
If both worlds should become our miracle —
let them: one cannot be put in a sack.

18

Every moment, a thousand difficulties are attached to me.
Nothing is the harvest of all that is attached to me.
This pain that is fastened in my soul and heart
keeps cutting me loose from every bond, one by one.

19

Without having drunk the wine of love — here is your state, O heart.
How much hangover has gripped you, O heart?
If you want your soul to enter behind the veil,
cutting bonds is your work, O heart.

20

Pass beyond the imagining of this and that — this is the work.
Open your eyes and see the Beauty — this is the work.
If the jim of Beauty has found a place in your world,
sit in the mim of Contemplation — this is the work.

21

If you want to keep watch over your own time,
whatever pain reaches you — do not flinch and do not cry out.
If both worlds come to a boil like the ocean,
do not sell your unity to either world.

22

O you who are not self-aware for a single breath —
you go forward and you are not forward.
You have gone outside yourself in search of the Friend,
while He is always with you — and you are not with yourself.

23

A heart without thought — if it exists, keep it joyful.
The cash of both worlds — hold it all as granted to him.
In anyone who has no thought or pain remaining —
that is the ocean of truth. Hold it firm.

24

A lifetime not spent in the presence of the soul —
if you profit at all, it will be mostly loss.
If you carried even one moment of presence from this place,
forever, your whole life will be that one moment.

25

If you see even a hair's tip of the Beloved's secret,
you will see every pain as the very cure.
Take one drop — whether you judge it bad or good —
then commit to it, and you will see everything as that.

26

If you are a man of the path, turn your face to the one who hears cries.
Turn your back, in sincerity, on desire and whim.
Since both worlds are nothing but a single breath of yours —
bring both your worlds together with a single breath.

27

As long as there is 'you-ness' with you — where will you arrive?
From no one will you accept a word in truth.
Every moment you will be without His presence —
you die an infidel in that moment, if you die.

Chapter Twenty: On Humility, Bearing Burdens, and Choosing One-Coloredness

1

The soul burned, the head bowed — that is how one must be.
Like the candle, alive through burning — that is how one must be.
Your work will accord with God's desire.
Bear disappointment — for one must be a servant.

2

If Your love takes my soul — my soul is that.
If it gives pain — all the cure is that.
Whatever disappointment this company endures —
know with certainty: their desire is that.

3

As long as there is breath, the secret of the soul cannot be spoken.
In the visible, the hidden mystery cannot be spoken.
Every disappointment — when a man bears it —
they give him a fulfillment that cannot be spoken of.

4

You asked: 'What is the sign of the path, O dervish?'
Hear from me — and when you hear it, ponder:
The sign is this: your own disgrace —
the farther forward you go, the more of it you see.

5

His love comes true through bearing affliction.
In love, bearing affliction is what corrects the error.
The story of love — it is a matter of the pure launderer.
How will this work come right through a story?

6

Every heart that seeks such a Friend
will manfully bear such a burden to the soul.
A man is needed — extraordinary — who, like the sky,
sets on the highest shelf the garment of such a work.

7

This work, which is worth a hundred hidden worlds,
will not appear unless someone is worthy of it.
There is no work that receives cultivation like this work.
Whenever it reaches the heart — it is worth a hundred souls.

8

The heart found all its honor through humiliation.
It found its power and gold through weeping and lamentation.
It will never raise its head from being overturned,
for it found its lordship through being overturned.

9

Better than freedom — my captivity.
Higher than a thousand honors — this humiliation of mine.
If you have eyes to see, look: it has surpassed
the worth of the entire world — this overturning of mine.

10

Today I am neither infidelity nor faith.
Neither complete knowledge nor ignorance.
A turbulent heart, a mad one, a bewildered one —
head fallen on neck, spinning around.

11

Since the way of religion did not come into my hand,
I rose and sat down in infidelity.
And today I am neither infidel nor Muslim.
Do you know how I am? As I am, I am.

12

Neither the religion of God nor the religion of Zoroaster is mine.
Upon my words, many point their finger at me.
No one in this affair has my back.
What use are stories? Your grief has slain me.

13

Since I am a fly, what use is the shade of the Tuba tree?
With the obstacle of the ego, what use is resolve for the hereafter?
They ask: 'On this path, what will you do?'
I have no heart, no religion, no world — what can I do?

14

O heart — neither in infidelity nor in faith will you die.
Wretched heart! For thus you will die.
Neither fully in infidelity nor fully in faith —
now this, now that — wavering — thus you will die.

15

You encounter yourself through your own impossibility.
You are the dust of the road — why do you measure the wind?
Your deficiency is yourself, O fruitless one.
Everything you add from yourself — that is your diminishing.

16

O body — the disagreeable heart knows you.
Through your pretense and hypocrisy, it knows you.
Every deed you do, bad or good — do not hide it.
Let people know it — for your Creator already knows.

17

Sometimes you seek a pearl in the description of religion.
Sometimes you seek a grain from the palm of infidelity.
Since you cannot rise above your own head —
O stained one — you are seeking an excuse.

18

Since the wine of idolatry and heedlessness made you drunk,
world upon world, pride has latched onto you.
So much arrogance you have — do not ask —
until you fall, that someone may take your hand.

19

How long will you be occupied with the thoughts of the ego?
Sometimes with the head of the business, sometimes dismissed?
The day you are rejected by all people —
that day, in this work, you will be accepted.

20

Every heart that rose completely from the head of pain —
its existence vanished before it like dust.
Then, if an effeminate one for his whole life
sat in its shadow — a man arose.

21

If you are not among the elect, you must be among the common.
If you are not cooked, you must be raw.
You are neither fully in infidelity nor in faith —
in whatever door you enter, you must be complete.

22

O you who have become slack in the path of religion and the work of infidelity —
neither a true believer nor truly an infidel.
Built on pretense and hypocrisy, your obedience is rebellion.
Be either an open sinner or a freed ascetic.

23

However much more suffering you will bear,
every step you take, you will take unknowingly.
Sometimes you are devoted to Him, sometimes to yourself.
With two heads, how will you bring this path to an end?

24

O heart — if you come away from the work changed —
tomorrow, from shame, how will you come before God?
For you will enter the door of paradise at that moment
when you come free from the obligation of all that exists.

25

Today, since you have wasted your entire life,
what will you do tomorrow, rolling in dust and blood?
When the veil falls, it will become visible to you —
the thing you were nurturing beneath the veil.

26

Neither on the path of confession do you have firmness,
nor from the ranks of denial have you withdrawn.
You think your work is trivial.
O short-sighted one — you have a long work ahead.

27

Since you cannot hold yourself back from sleep and food,
what difference between you and that beast, in the veil of mystery?
Have you no shame before your own existence?
Your Beloved is awake, and you sleep sweetly in indulgence.

28

Like the ocean, I boil with longing for the soul's secret —
but I hide it from myself and from others.
O sir, go — for you are the dregs with a clear face.
I am clear of heart, though I drink the dregs.

29

Like the ocean, I have a heart of a thousand surges.
My body, in the grief of love, is hardworking.
If I practice piety, my tongue is silent —
for this piety is not for sale.

Chapter Twenty-One: On Leaving Things to God and Seeing Everything from Him

1

That place where neither soul arrived, nor body — there,
no man ever reaches, nor woman — there.
Even if I turn both worlds upside down,
until You bring me, I will not reach — there.

2

You will not free me from myself — what can I do?
I am weary of soul and body — what can I do?
I want to find the road to You,
but You give no road to the self — what can I do?

3

Endlessly my heart wants to seek Your soul.
My hand wants to wash repentance in blood-tears.
However far I step by my own power on Your path,
at each step a new veil wants to grow.

4

However much my longing to go increases,
this dog-self of mine stays at its own affair.
If I try to go by my own self,
oh, how much backwardness lies ahead!

5

A road shows itself to me — at last!
A bond loosens from my heart — at last!
But since all affairs were taken from everyone's hands,
what affair could arise from our hands — at last?

6

If I say "body" — it goes nowhere by itself.
If I say "soul" — it obeys no command of the body.
How long will I try to go by my own choice
when nothing moves by my choice?

7

How long will I walk on the feet of soul and body?
How long will I walk the way I wish to walk?
I want to stay in one place forever —
if I must walk on my own feet.

8

By yourself you cannot walk the road of meanings,
nor set your course toward the kingdom of eternity.
You are one drop and a thousand oceans lie before you.
What will you do? What can you do?

9

If you want to be freed from compulsion and abasement,
to be freed from indecency and restlessness —
how long will you try to manage yourself by yourself?
If you leave the affair to Him, you are freed.

10

The soul must be carried as an intimate to the Court.
The heart must be carried full of grief and sighing.
From yourself you will never find the road to Him.
From Him toward Him — that is how the road must be taken.

11

If you wish to journey toward oneness,
why would you want to be apart from the crowd?
And if you wish to cut your own wings,
oh, how much you will be like a house-bird!

12

For the one whose affairs increase from God daily,
all work comes feebly into the grip of his aspiration.
Struggling uselessly is no work at all.
Work must come out from the marrow of the soul.

13

In love, a ruined heart — what can it do?
Selflessness as rightness — what can it do?
Be fair: a mote of pure shadow —
what can it do in the radiance of the sun?

14

Your affair — He can do it well.
Single-fold and double-fold, He can make it.
A hundred worlds of existence and nothingness, if He wills —
who is there but Him? He can do it.

15

When the world can be brought forth from kāf and nūn,
then a body can be brought forth from dust and blood.
This form that exists — since they brought it forth —
a hundred other forms could be brought forth.

16

O friend, what use is the grief of a wounded heart?
Since this passed before you and I — what use?
If for a hundred years and a thousand, a starling
beats itself against an anvil — what use?

17

Since the decree is prior, what use is instruction?
Other than servitude, contentment, and surrender — what use?
You burn ceaselessly from fear of the end.
Since this affair was destined — what use is fear?

18

From the affair of Fate, to be in fever and burning — what use?
From the decree of Eternity, to eat nothing and sleep nothing — what use?
How long shall I read a thousand tablets to you?
Whatever the pen has written, the pen has written — what use?

19

Whether you are bound for Hell or Paradise today —
beauty and ugliness will not be revealed today.
Yesterday the pen went — whatever you sowed today,
tomorrow the harvest will come from what you planted today.

20

Yesterday the decree of life and death was driven.
Who knows what deeds were driven for whom?
People do not go until it comes upon them —
every good and evil that was driven in Eternity.

21

Every heart that wears away from the decree that has passed —
alas, it wears away in vain.
For everything that was destined to be will be,
whether you strive or do not strive — it will have been.

22

If you are a man of Truth, oppose falsehood.
Settle on nothing — and be at the station.
If you grieve over your own servitude,
at least be glad-hearted at His lordship.

23

Until they drag the baggage of your existence into nothingness,
whatever was done, they will not undo.
Bow your head to the line of the Eternal Tablet, and be silent —
for whatever the pen has written, the pen will not withdraw.

24

There where they settled the affairs of the world,
whatever they gave, they gave as certain.
This breath that is sweet to you and this bitterness not to you —
since without you they settled this breath, that breath they also gave.

25

What can your ego do when they do not loosen its bond?
With whom will it walk when they show it no road?
Do not quarrel with the ego, for this ego of yours
will not obey until they command it.

26

From our own existence, what claim of allegiance can we make?
From our own nothingness, what claim of disavowal?
O man of the guileless heart — do you imagine
this die is in our hands, for us to throw as we please?

27

O soul — if you have news from the Truth,
O body — if from yourself you have a vision:
however much I throw the die — what use?
Since the face of the die belongs to another.

28

Those who are foremost in knowledge and intellect —
when do they know that your acts and mine come from you and me?
O heart, nothing is in the hand of helpless me.
I turn as they turn me.

29

How long will I hang sin around my own neck?
How long, from fear of sin, intend my own blood-drinking?
Since without us, our sinning was decreed,
what sin is ours in this sinning of ours?

30

How long will you wander uselessly in every direction?
How long will you speak nonsense from every side?
Even if both worlds fall tangled like a curl of hair,
the Eternal Decree will not turn from it by a single strand.

31

Without Your decree, no affair can be.
Without Your wisdom, no reckoning can hold.
Since coming and going is not in our choice,
in my very being, there can be no choice.

32

I fear that when they give you no more of this world,
they will give you no time to become earth.
Whatever work you must do, do it —
for at the last breath, they give no respite.

Chapter Twenty-Two: On Turning the Face to the Hereafter and Renouncing the World

1

The world — which must be held as a passing place —
of its swift passing, you must hold awareness.
Since you know that separation is a bitter pain,
set your heart on nothing, for you must let it go.

2

If you are a man of the road, throw your baggage into the sea.
Your burden — go, throw it into the commotion.
Make do with hardship, trial, and toil today.
Throw comfort and joy and pleasure to tomorrow.

3

When death casts you into the whirlpool,
it carries you to the dust with a heart full of anguish.
Since the grave is before you and death behind you,
how does sleep come to you in between?

4

Since whatever was — little or much — was not,
and under the realm of the sky, no realm endures:
however sweet the world, let go of the excess.
Imagine that whatever was — imagine it was not.

5

You saw: the afflicted died, and the glad died.
The student went to dust, and the master died.
You died the moment you were born from your mother.
Know this much: everyone who was born has died.

6

A lifetime you spent in desire — rise and go.
You raised your head above the great — rise and go.
No more of the world will come as your share.
Since you had your turn — rise and go.

7

You know that everyone born has died, inevitably.
Better than you and me — many have died.
Die a hundred times each day and stay alive,
for it will not be easy for you to die all at once.

8

Since the foundation of our permanence is annihilation itself,
upon annihilation no work can be adorned.
Rise — for the moment you sit down properly,
what use? — before sitting, you must rise again.

9

Your work was always eating and sleeping.
Your inclination was always hearing and speaking.
Sit down — for you and me, in this house of delusion,
the purpose of coming was always the going.

10

You are unaware — and until you gain awareness,
you will have passed through the whole world.
Rise — for this place where you settled,
it will be the resting place of someone else.

11

Since your death is the remedy for everything at once —
die like a man! What is this helplessness?
You are blood and filth and a fistful of veins and tendons.
Imagine it was not — what is this grief?

12

When delusion fell into our store,
a hundred Pharaohs fell from us into the desert.
The world was filled with clamor and outcry —
alas, that a dewdrop fell into the sea!

13

On the tablet of your heart, the design of two worlds is inscribed.
Go — wash the tablet, for from untruth I am smoke.
And if they carry you to nothingness, your origin is nothingness.
Imagine you were never born — die. What grief is this?

14

If you are a man of the road, what use is talk of the world?
Go past the soul — what use is the soul's trouble?
O meaningless one! If He grants the soul as such —
He wanted the soul from you. What is all this mourning?

15

O heart, do not take on the quality of the ill-thinking ego.
In ignorance, do not pursue form any further.
Look at the shortness of life — do not be deluded.
Do not hold so many long hopes before you.

16

Since there is much weakness in your faith,
the talk of death is never easy for you.
Do not weep so much at death, if you have a soul —
for it is your soul that must laugh again.

17

You said: "What is death, O man of sight?"
Death is the mirror of disgrace and shame.
If even a mote of this truth shone upon your soul,
it would carry you beyond yourself — for you were not there.

18

O light-spirited soul! What is this heaviness?
Not two steps taken on the road — what is this lameness?
In your coming there was gladness and joy.
Then in your going — what is all this heartache?

19

In the world of affliction you have come for joy.
In the ocean you have come with dry lips.
You were at peace and at rest in nothingness.
Why, then, have you come into existence?

20

O you who always satisfy the ego,
who do quickly the thing that should not be done:
when they call you to account for every single barleycorn,
if you eat a barleycorn each day, you profit.

21

In every way you are bound to causes.
Death will inform you that now you are asleep.
Your hand — of whose attachment you are unaware —
until they cut it from you, how will you know?

22

How long with the grief of loss and gain — at last!
In your breast and heart, fire and smoke — at last!
A day or two you were in this furnace of grief.
Imagine you were not — what were you, at last?

23

Alas — you will go in sudden pain.
Heart-burned in separation from the world you will go.
If you want to pour the dust of the world on your own head —
with wind in your hand, from the world you will go.

24

Since the principle of existence is delusion,
and our desire for more is counting less —
how long will we spin upon ourselves like the silkworm,
since whatever was spun, the custom is to leave it behind?

25

The heart must be lifted from the joy of the age.
Our seeking more must be counted as less.
How long will we spin upon ourselves like the silkworm,
since whatever we have spun must be left behind?

26

What is there of grief and care that I do not have?
Of disappointment, small and great, that I do not have?
From all the income and expense of this world of dust —
a wind is in my head, and imagine it is not.

27

A soul has become endangered on this road.
The body under the ground, cleansed of good and evil.
Many a passerby will pass over you and me —
we, unaware of both worlds, will have become dust.

28

From life, consider you have taken the full share.
Every seed the heart desires, consider it planted.
First rise — and whatever you gathered,
in the end, with regret, consider it all left behind.

29

Every eye that turns its face toward meanings
without doubt gains from the perfection of life.
Do not give your life to the wind — for every moment of life,
you can bring a hundred kingdoms into your hand.

30

The lovers who tell the heart-kindling story
make the soul like a lamp, consumed in burning.
They reckon with themselves day and night.
Their resurrection's tomorrow — they make it today.

31

Every day, from the heart, sit upon the fire.
Be the dust under the feet of the rebellious.
Every night, from the liver, roll a morsel together.
Dip the morsel in blood — and be content.

32

How long will you lock the door of the soul's conquest?
How long bow your waist before the idol of the ego?
If you want your affairs to open,
lock your tongue from the good and evil of people.

33

The body will be left behind from the existence of the soul.
The soul will be left behind from the whole world.
Open the tongue of kindness with all people —
for the tongue of your good and evil will be left behind.

34

If you have sight, you must see all things as good.
You must go up — and then look down.
Look at the upside-down tree: what is it?
It means: every branch must be seen as His craft.

35

If your intellect is complete, eat less of your own grief.
Everyone has their own world, and you — your own world.
No one will mourn you as it should be done.
Weep over yourself, and hold your own funeral.

Chapter Twenty-Three: On Fear of the End and Weariness of Life

1

Since you have not heard from a single traveler what it was,
how will you recognize the first and the last — what it was?
Every decree they made at the beginning of the affair —
you will become aware at the last breath what it was.

2

Sometimes from the head of obedience you emerge.
Sometimes in the hand of sin you fall defeated.
Never lose hope, and never hold hope —
until the last breath, see how you come out of the affair.

3

All souls became blood, and all livers wounded —
and no one became aware of less or more.
Listen sweetly to the story of yourself, O dervish.
Do not sit in the back — you have work ahead.

4

The one who thinks himself entirely pious —
being secure in his body is foolishness.
Only at the last breath will it become clear
whether the master was blessed or wretched.

5

However much I tell my heart about death,
no warning falls upon this heedless one.
A difficult journey lies ahead, O heedless heart —
what have you prepared for this difficult journey?

6

If I say "body" — it has grown extremely weak.
If I say "heart" — the body is not sound either.
All these afflictions I have every day
have come from the event of the First Night.

7

Since what will happen is to fall into ambush,
your rising is the deepest falling.
Be fair, O heart — it is a great affair:
to fall into the backgammon board of the face of the earth.

8

If the heart sits on the guide of hope,
and if in its own grief it sits amid blood —
it is stuck in the backgammon of fear and hope.
Until the end: how will the die settle?

9

Ceaselessly, like a cloud, this selfless heart
weeps blood from this road ahead.
They say: "What affair has befallen you at last?"
What affair could befall worse than what has already?

10

A life whose passing I am so unaware of —
it passed like wind, and old age came upon me.
The day of youth is gone, and the night of death has come.
And from fear of the First Night, my liver has become blood.

11

It is long that I have been burning my own soul,
and from the fire of the soul, like a candle, burning the body.
I wish my coming and going had not been — for always,
since I arrived, I have been burning from fear of going.

12

Sometimes from grief over the ego and intellect I weep.
Sometimes for the sake of good and evil I weep.
If at the end of life a corner presents itself,
I will sit down and weep over my sins.

13

I fear that they will cast me into tribulation,
toss me headless and footless like a ball.
A hundred times a day I die from the terror
of where they will cast me after death.

14

Who is the body, that it must be turned upside down?
What is the heart, that it must be drowned in blood?
This moment I sank into the earth, utterly helpless —
and from where must I bring my head out?

15

I said: "Night and day I will pursue this affair,
perhaps for a moment I will become intimate with the secrets."
But I fear that when the veil is lifted,
I will become invisible behind the veil.

16

Since there is no path by which I reach the goal,
it is better that I reach my own nonbeing quickly.
Since every day I die while living,
if death comes to me, I reach betterment.

17

How long will I race around the world?
I am weary of the world, and of greed and need.
A death that frees me from a long life —
truly, I seek it again with longing.

18

In both worlds I seek solitude.
Free of baggage and belongings I seek.
In the prison of the world I remain, bewildered.
On the scent of release, I seek a crack.

19

The soul went — and in all of life, saw no intimate.
The heart was wounded — and in all of life, found no balm.
Let it be, until this useless breath is finished —
for I have not been glad-hearted for a single breath in all of life.

20

From the wealth of the world, I have nothing but a wounded liver.
This is it, and beyond this, I have nothing more or less.
I am sick to the soul of myself and of people.
I have not a mote of care for people or concern for myself.

21

Tears have seized the front and back of my station.
The flood of calamity has seized my water and clay.
Every moment a thousand difficulties seize me.
It is long since my heart has been seized with weariness of itself.

22

How long will I see at every breath a new affliction?
How long will I bear at every moment a new burden?
Since life is gone and no work came from me,
at last let this breath be seized — all at once.

23

I am not content with my own body in any way.
Not for a single breath have I rested from anything.
I have been worn away by useless thinking.
Since I was as if I had not been — why was I?

24

O body, from the age you are sinking upside down.
O heart, in the middle of this, you are washing in blood.
O soul, weary of this body and life —
at last, with what gladness are you leaving?

25

Since there is no head to this bottomless grief,
it is time to roll up the carpet of the soul.
O soul that has come to the lips, break away from the body.
Imagine you never saw this bewildered me.

26

Since I have passed through both abodes at the soul's cost —
how long, for God's sake, this heaviness of body?
I have fallen on my face a hundred places a day.
How long will I hold myself up on lies?

27

Today I am wounded from this sea of nonsense.
Weary all at once, sick of the soul and vexed.
They have dismissed me from the affairs of both worlds.
How long will I keep myself busy on lies?

28

That bird which was drunk on the wine of meaning —
it flew, and tied its heart to the Beloved's generosity.
Suppose the fortune of the next world gave no hand —
at last it was freed from the highwayman-fantasy of this world.

29

Beloved — when I fell into nothingness, I was freed.
When I gave my soul at His door, I was freed.
If becoming nothing on Your road is nothing —
at last, from the demands of my nature, I was freed.

30

Sometimes You hold me lost in a thousand affairs.
Sometimes from every affair You hold me apart.
If the time has come, free me from myself.
How long will You hold me restless, day and night?

31

I have no desire but to dive.
I have not the breath for diving — what can I do?
I have fallen into an ocean, into a whirlpool.
I have no care for anyone's answer — what can I do?

32

When the heart stood on the road of seeking the Beloved,
it spoke neither to the body nor stood with the soul.
Yes — when haste and fear increase greatly,
they cannot stand together for the crossing.

33

Since not a mote of that decree will change,
without death no one comes out on this road.
My heart has become blood from fear of this terrible valley.
That heart is stone that does not become blood from this.

34

It is long since the cycle of the sky has been turning.
It fears — and from that fear, turns at the soul's cost.
Since it saw how the prayer-direction of the world turns out,
a hundred ages have passed and it still turns the same.

35

I fear the event of the Last Day.
I fear the catastrophe beneath the earth.
They say to me: "Why do you fear?"
I fear throat-seizing death — this is why I fear.

36

I fear — and beyond measure I fear.
Like a sheaf of wheat before the sickle's blow, I fear.
There is no doubt: a terrible valley lies ahead.
Of this valley full of dread, I fear.

37

When I killed myself for fifty years,
I counted sixty on the fingers of my nature.
There is no doubt that sixty needs a bow —
when sixty was complete, my back became the bow.

38

When we turned our face toward fifty and sixty,
we gained what was not fitting to gain.
Today in this world I have nothing but helplessness.
Before Your godhood we have brought our defeat.

39

Whether I have seen nothing or whether I have seen —
I have seen myself worse than the worst of the wicked.
My hair has all gone white and has turned upon itself —
yet not by a hair's breadth have I changed my sight.

40

Alas — youth has gone far from me.
A hundred kinds of affliction have arrived for this sick one.
Camphor has sprouted from behind the ears —
meaning: prepare the shroud, for the camphor has arrived.

41

The intellect has slipped from hand and fallen hard.
The hair has turned to silver and the face to gold.
A lifetime I cooked the broth of pride's delusion —
today it has fallen like froth upon my head.

42

That time is gone when the pleasure of this world was sweet,
and the days of youth were sweet to read.
Today, since old age has come, I am glad —
but that was a mistake, since youth was the sweet thing.

43

How long will we seek the remedy for betterment in desire?
Better that we cheerfully resolve to travel quickly.
Since precious life was our capital —
the capital has slipped from hand. What profit can we make?

44

Alas — from sleep, the heedless heart of ours,
until the hair turned white, the heart turned black.
Alas and alack — nothing came
from our fruitless life but alas and alack.

45

Alas — uselessly we were worn away,
and by the mill of the inverted sky, we were ground.
Alas and regret — as soon as we blinked,
not having tasted a moment's desire, we became nothing.

46

The soul must see the danger of the Last Day.
The heart must see the grief of the far-seeing intellect.
We saw of the world what we saw — and we went.
Let us see what must be seen from the Creator of the World.

47

Since we drowned in the depths of the sea of love,
we became more lost than a mote of quicksilver.
How shall we tell the tale of love's affair?
For your tale is long — and we fell asleep.

48

Alas — from the dregs of the world we became drunk.
Our back bent like a bow, and the arrow left the thumb-ring.
Look at our coming and going: at the end of life,
we fell from our feet and slipped from our hands.

49

We went — and there was no one intimate with us.
Grief it was that was our companion day and night.
Glory be to God! In vain this precious life
came to its end — and our grief did not.

50

O heart, we tested everyone — and we went.
We spoke much and heard much — and we went.
In sum: we went as we had come.
We sowed fidelity, we reaped treachery — and we went.

51

Sometimes we will become the plaything of the age.
Sometimes before calamity, the target we will become.
Since the world's affair is nothing but a fable,
in sleep, at this fable, we will go.

52

From greed and covetousness, without food or sleep — all of us.
From avarice and envy, in fever and burning — all of us.
The thing for which life was wasted in pursuit —
we wasted it and left it — all of us.

53

Never did we walk the path of religion truly.
Never did we count a single breath at the heart's desire.
Alas — from the heedlessness of our day and night,
we went, and carried much enmity and strife.

54

Where is the body that has fallen from its feet today?
Where is the heart that has opened blood from the eyes today?
In every desire we struck a hand —
from all that striking, in hand there is wind today.

55

Of the life that passed, only a lesson remains.
Of what is left, only bewilderment remains.
A life of which every breath was worth a soul —
it passed like wind, and only regret remains.

56

When the departure of the pure soul came ahead,
the cause of the body's destruction came ahead.
Until life passed — in water of tears and fire of heart —
it passed like wind, and dust came ahead.

57

The heart pursued pain and did not reach the cure.
The soul pursued the heart and did not reach the Beloved.
Sweetly, my life arrived through talk and listening —
and this tale of our pain did not reach its end.

58

Work has slipped from hand in idleness.
Precious life is passing in abasement.
What will this remainder of my life be like — when from
the past life, there was no enjoyment at all?

59

Alas — my heart was killed by the idle body.
My cradle of faith was killed by the tyrant Dajjal.
In a desert I was carrying a small lamp.
One fierce blast of wind came and killed it instantly.

60

Alas — my time has gone from my hand.
My restless soul and heart have gone from my hand.
I said: "By cunning I will seize my own affair."
How shall I seize it, when my affair has gone from my hand?

61

From the rosegarden of the heart, my share was thorns.
From the soul that reached my lips, care arrived.
Alas — the sun of my life, suddenly,
in unawareness, reached the top of the wall.

62

Since the ruin of life is not worthy of treasure,
one cannot remain a resident of the house of life.
It is time for me to fall asleep — perhaps I will become!
For the fable of life has reached its end.

63

Today I sit, neither nothing nor something.
In the curtain of nothing-something, bewildered and drunk.
What remedy, since the glass fell and shattered?
Both the hand has gone from work, and the work from hand.

64

I went — for the building of life was unsound,
and this dark abode was deeply inhospitable.
Imagine a needle was lost from Jesus.
Imagine a mustard seed was missing from the world.

65

I went — never having seen the script of love and servitude.
Having seen nothing but regret and being cast down.
I weep with my back turned to the world.
I die without having seen the face of life.

66

My affair passed between a warm heart and cold sighs.
Every wet and dry thing I had passed in pain.
A life that was worth more than the soul —
it came to me like wind and passed like dust.

67

Life went, and the heart came repentant from its deeds.
My affair did not go forward — and the penalty arrived.
If I look at the road, it is finished for me.
If I look at life, it has reached its end.

68

That time is gone when my heart had the grief of a beloved.
The heart became blood and was lost — if there was a soul.
Every breath I drew from life was a penalty.
That too has passed — and it was a cure.

69

In this manner I have raised such dust from life
that no one in two worlds could match it.
My heart weeps blood from the grief
that I did no work — and I could have.

70

The body has fallen low from pain, if it was not already low.
The soul has become drunk from regret, if it was not already drunk.
I fell from my feet — for as soon as I blinked,
a heart slipped from my hand that was never in my hand.

71

Alas — inevitably one must die.
In affliction and care, one must die.
Since I have learned how one must live,
heart full of regret, weeping, one must die.

72

The heart went — and from the fire of joy saw no smoke.
The soul left the world — and from the world saw no profit.
The eye with which I saw the whole world
became full of blood and saw no improvement.

73

Ho, O weary heart — the caravan is passing!
Wake at last — for the world is passing!
That time is gone when a single breath of your life was sweet.
All the rest passes in hope of that.

74

The life that passed quickly — imagine it was not.
Of life's loss and gain — imagine it was not.
Since the end of life is the beginning of the fable —
where is the life? Whatever was — imagine it was not.

75

The foundation of the world is delusion and fantasy — all.
It cannot be hidden, for it is plain — all.
Why do you toil? The yield of life, in it:
as soon as you open your eyes — it is alas — all.

76

With this heart like pitch, what will you do?
With this conquered, seizing ego, what will you do?
In the days of youth you did no work.
Now, this old — what will you do?

77

You imagine you can live unaware.
In unawareness, topsy-turvy, you can live.
However long you sit — at the end, with certainty:
O headless and footless one, how much longer can you live?

Chapter Twenty-Four: On the Necessity of Death and That the Face of the Earth Is the Dust of Those Who Have Gone

1

When the lion of death is in ambush,
your falling into the dust is certain.
In the cycle of time, do not build estates — and know:
your share from time is two yards of earth.

2

Suppose divine grace came to you.
Suppose your kingdom stretched from moon to moon.
In every homeland, a palace and a garden — what for?
Do you imagine you will come back?

3

Since your face is destined for destruction,
your share is two yards of a pit.
How long will you build dwellings and houses on the face of the earth
when your place is under the earth?

4

From the fire of the heart, you will rise like smoke.
From the road of loss and gain, you will rise.
This hut where you sat down feeling safe —
do not sit safely, for soon you will rise.

5

Before they cast you into utter destruction,
cast everything away cleanly — perhaps they will cast you clean.
For of the days of time, a few days
they will count for you, and then cast you into the dust.

6

How long will you live gazing at the world,
oblivious to the talisman of body and soul?
You have not a single leaf of provision for your own death.
You imagined you would live forever.

7

Sometimes you will cling to the approval of people.
Sometimes to staff and cloak you will cling.
For the sake of the belly, day and night in pursuit —
you will hang yourself by the gullet and the throat.

8

Whether you dwell in the mountain or in the plain,
you have settled beside the dust of those who passed.
Those yet unborn will pass over your dust,
as much as you have passed over those who went before.

9

Since a departure beyond measure trails behind you,
however far you go, dread trails behind you.
O green-headed sheaf, do not raise your head too high —
since you know the sickle trails behind you.

10

The road is very long — take provisions and go.
Do not sit idle — take everything and go.
How long will you gather? — for as soon as you blink,
the order will come: leave everything and go.

11

Every color that is possible, consider it mixed.
Every sedition that is dormant, consider it stirred.
And this moon-like face of yours — alas —
by the blast of death, consider it scattered in the earth.

12

Suppose you saw the world to your heart's content — and went.
Suppose you pulled the curls of every beauty — and went.
The thing that desire urges you toward —
imagine you attained it all — and went.

13

O you who fell in with the wretched ego
and burned with desire for the faces of the beautiful:
imagine that everything you desire —
you attained it, and let it go, and went.

14

Many are those who never emerged from the lane of desire,
who never came up for a single breath from both worlds.
In this footless, headless desert,
so many went down — and no one came up.

15

A people who lay their heads in the dust of death —
until resurrection they are freed from talk and noise.
How long will you say "no one brought back news"?
Since they are unaware, from what would they give news?

16

Both eyes must be made blind with tears.
So much grief must I store as provision.
How long will we keep bright with clean water
a face that must be darkened with dust?

17

How long will you grieve over your own death?
Better to be cleansed of your own thoughts.
A drop of water you were at the beginning.
At the end, a fistful of dust you will become.

18

The bereaved of the world of dust — still —
they become dust in grief over dust — still.
However much the back of the earth empties,
the belly of the dust does not fill — still.

19

Do not seek the world. Do not be deluded by it.
See yourself separated from death by it.
Nothing is closer to us than death —
and behold this wonder: how far we are from it!

20

The people are brought to dust without number,
bearing from Eternity's decree the eternal counsel.
Oh, how many times the door and wall of the sky will turn —
we, our faces turned toward the wall of the grave.

21

When the bright jewel has left our body,
the rosegarden will be filled with thorns of regret.
They will pass over us and no one will know
what goes on beneath the earth upon our body.

22

Many the brand that heaven drew upon the wounded heart.
Many the soul it burned beyond the counsel of burning.
Many the noble person and the grief-free breast
that this whale-dust drew into its own breath.

23

The heart that rose upside down at the head of life —
from every hair of it, a spring of blood rose.
This nightingale of the spirit, upon the rosebush of the body —
why did it alight, since it had to rise?

24

From this sea that came flooding to the head,
blessed is the heart that came joyful to the head.
A lifetime he sifted the dust of those who had gone —
and from all of it, wind came to his head.

25

Much blood my heart shed at the start of this affair.
At the end, like a rose from its burden, it shed.
Why was the branch's greenness needed
when it turned yellow and in wretched weeping, fell?

26

Into the prison of existence, why did I fall?
From the shame of my own existence, I have fallen.
Since I die in a hundred thousand sorrows —
from my own mother, why was I born?

27

The body, from both worlds, took up so many veils —
it became illiterate, and the heart put down every book.
Since death is companion to everything that is,
I cannot take up any reckoning.

28

The people who appeared in this world —
in the end, in the house, they were caught.
Do not eat so much of your own grief — for like you and me,
very many came in, and very many went.

29

Many a precious life, O poor heart, has passed.
Many an infidel of infidelity and a faithful of faith has passed.
O man — reckon with yourself: how many are they?
So many who came in, and so many who passed.

30

Alas — the tyranny of heaven endures forever.
And this soul, its breath broken, its heart wounded, endures.
From how much the earth has swallowed the liver's blood —
look: the earth remains like a clotted liver.

31

O heart, do you know that the world's affair is a passage?
Your time has passed — go, for it is another's time.
Do not walk on the dust with pride — and sit on the dust —
for this earth-dust is not dust: it is the body of a silver-skinned one.

32

Every mote in the valley and the mountain
is a trace from the body of someone who has passed.
And these forms that are on door and wall —
from the eye of wisdom, each is the face of a beloved.

33

The parts of the earth are the bodies of the wise.
The atoms of the air are all lips and teeth.
Consider: the dust you walk upon
is the tresses of beauties and the faces of beloveds.

34

Every dust in the world that has worn someone away —
it is alone, for the mill of the sky has ground it.
Every speck of dust that settled on your dear head —
do not brush it off, for it was once the head and crown of a dear one.

35

In the tulip I see a moon-like face.
In the grass I see a dark line of down.
And that skull that was full of the wind of pride —
I see it as a cup of dust on the road.

36

Before you and me, there has been an elder and a youth,
a sorrowful one and a joyful one.
Do not throw a sip onto the mouth of the dust — for the dust
is the dust of a mouth that was once the knowledge of sweets.

37

Yesterday the dust was showing me its harshness,
saying: "You have thrown me beneath your feet.
I was like you once — you are sweetly unaware.
Soon you too will gird this belt."

38

Every jug I absent-mindedly set to my lips
says: "Listen — let me give you some news.
I was like you once in this lane. But
I neither become nothing nor am I freed."

39

On the bed of dust I see the sleepers.
Beneath the earth I see the hidden ones.
However far I look into the desert of nonexistence,
I see the yet-unborn and those who have gone.

40

Every blade of grass and flower that grew from the earth —
from the dust of one, a rose-cheeked blade of down grew.
Every narcissus and tulip that grew from hill and plain
grew from the eye of a beauty and from a blood-filled liver.

41

On your head, every catastrophe is another sword.
Before you, every event is another cloud.
Every leaf and blade of grass that grew from the dust
is from some grief-stricken heart, another sigh of regret.

42

O people of the graves! You have become dust and dirt.
Every mote from every mote has taken flight.
What kind of abode is this, that until the Day of Reckoning,
you have become unconscious and unaware of all affairs?

43

From death — like water — my beloved's face will go.
With him in two words my story will be cut short.
I said: "When you go, where shall I seek you, O soul?"
He said: "What do I know? Where will I go?"

Chapter Twenty-Five: On Elegies for Those Who Have Departed

در مراثی رفتگان

That moon who departed from my embrace —
in mourning for her, my embrace filled with blood.
Last night I saw her in a dream, sleeping in the earth.
I said: How are you? She said: What shall I say of my state?

A moon who had come with as little permanence as lightning —
since she departed so soon, why had she come at all?
Everyone asks: Where has that orphan pearl gone?
I say: Where had she come from in the first place?

Someone seeks to trace a mark upon the Oxus,
and seeks to find a pearl from Qarun's purse.
If someone of yours has died, how long will you seek them back? —
from an ocean that seeks back a dewdrop.

That fountain of sweetness became a cup of dust,
and that sun-spring ceased its bubbling.
Like a half-slaughtered bird, alas —
it fluttered a while, and in the end fell silent.

Alas — my rose scattered amid the rose garden,
and from the wind of fate fell lamenting.
This heartache — to whom shall I speak it? — for spring
blossomed its roses, while my rose fell from the branch.

A moon who, like the world-adorning sun, fell —
everyone fell under the spell of her love.
Yesterday she walked and dragged her hair underfoot,
and today she became thin as a hair and fell from her feet.

Alas for the grief of the one who turned back too soon and departed,
passed through like wind across the plain and departed.
Like a rose in youth, the world unseen,
left behind a thousand pains, and passed, and departed.

I weep for that moon-faced one of mine, and I weep.
I taste sugar like her lips, and I weep.
The dust that her foot once touched —
I draw into my eyes, and I weep.

O heart, weep for wretched me, and do not ask.
Renounce the sweet soul, and do not ask.
For that one who sleeps in my earth came to me in sleep.
I said: How are you? She said: Look, and do not ask.

Yesterday, at the grave of a beloved, with a wounded heart,
I was raining the blood of my liver upon my own face.
A voice came: How long will you weep for us?
Weep for yourself — for you have work ahead.

O moon of the earth, you have gone to the zodiac of the heavens.
By God, how pure you came and how pure you went.
Without having drunk a single drop of the water of youth,
you came in like the wind and became earth.

O you who turned your back and departed on the very first day —
rise, for this weeping of the cloud is from grief for you.
Since the spring cloud washed the dust from your feet,
upon your earth the grass grew like the down upon your face.

Upon your earth, like a violet, my head is bowed.
Without the petals of your rose, like a ring I remain at the door.
If I should turn my face from your dust —
then may the dust of your grave fall upon my head.

You departed and broke a thorn in my heart.
You are not seen — though you are present in the heart.
My blood-filled heart rose up upon your earth,
for you departed from the eye and settled in the heart.

O you who held your final night of mourning,
who made the earth into mud with your weeping eyes:
in ease and hardship, you were my comforter.
Now that you are gone — to whom shall I speak my grief?

You went, and from you I have a liver's blood of weeping.
My soul is on my lips and my heart full of danger — from you.
I have not a single hair that is not drenched in you.
Upon every hair, a lament-weeping — from you.

O you whose face's light the dark earth has taken,
and from whose death the sun and moon are eclipsed:
this world, like a decrepit old woman,
has taken labor pains from longing for you.

No spring cloud ever wept as I have wept.
No lamentation ever wailed as I have wailed.
Like me, from the grief of your death, O dear friend,
no one in the city was so humbled a hundred thousand times.

O my intimate — who is now your intimate?
I fear I shall kill myself from grief for you.
From a heart struck by mourning, what can I say? —
it held its own mourning within your mourning.

Rise — for the cloud is washing the earth,
and grass grows forth from your dust.
O sleeper, if you do not speak,
this dust of yours speaks in your stead.

From your death, every moment I am changed.
Now at the grave, now in blood I am.
If I did not see you for a day, I was at my wit's end.
I have not seen you this long — how shall I be?

The rose, without your rose-colored face, is a thorn to me.
My eye, from grief for you, flows like a spring.
Without your face, O you whose face was brought to the dust,
I have a distraught heart and a time of anguish.

I said: All my life I shall gaze upon your beauty.
How is it that today I see you in the earth?
O you who sleep in the heart of the earth, turning my heart to blood —
when did I ever know I would see you like this?

Where is someone whose heart does not turn to blood from your death,
whose body too does not bow from lamentation?
The grass bowed its head from the earth many times —
like grass, it draws a green line out of the earth.

Without your face, darkness came into the moon.
Your death came in youth, at dawn.
You slept — and not in a sleep from which you will rise.
You departed — and not in a way that you will return.

Suddenly, as you brought your face onto the road,
you brought a dark line to everything.
Alas — dust gathered around your down,
that line you used to trace around the moon.

What use was all that coquetry, since you withered at last?
How did you sleep that candleless night at last?
Now in a shroud you sleep in the earth.
You went — and it is as if you had never been at all.

When the soul became aware of your departure,
the heart fell headlong into dawn-lamentation.
Where is all that fortune of yours, O treasure of the earth?
When did you ever know you would become like this?

Since your earth became my comforter without you,
much blood I rain from my eyes without you.
From your rose-petal face and your green down, there remained
a rose petal and grass — my memento without you.

Worse than infidelity is sleeping without you.
At last, to speak and hear of you is all we have.
O you who put your moon-face into the dark earth —
without your face, we have no face to exist.

In the earth I did not know your home would be.
And that moon of yours in a shroud — I did not know.
I knew I could not live without you.
But living without your face — I did not know.

How long shall I bear this pain from your death — from you?
And from a fiery breast, a cold breath — from you.
O eye and lamp, say: what is my remedy?
Since I bore the labor of the earth, and my portion — from you.

Alas — the jasmine-body of yours is crumbling.
Your black, curling locks are falling.
O my thirty-two-year-old, look at last —
those thirty-two pearls are falling from your mouth.

O you who clothed the garden's rose in clay,
beneath the earth you clothed the musk of Khutan.
Yesterday out of coquetry you wore a silken gown,
and today, in the earth, you wear a shroud.

In mourning for you, the heavens were dressed in black.
The spirits were left stunned by your departure.
Alas — your delicate rose fell from the branch,
and that nightingale of your speech was left silent.

Your death laid bare my secret — what shall I do?
Since you are gone, to whom shall I show tenderness — what shall I do?
O my soul and heart! You burned my soul and heart.
Without you, where shall I go, what shall I make, what shall I do?

O you who departed and brought us to ruin,
and brought that tall cypress into the pit:
the moonlight shines upon your earth, and you —
you brought that moon-like face to the earth.

From the cloud's bitter weeping, the rose bloomed fresh and pure,
laughing, it opened its skirts torn wide.
Therefore I weep like the cloud upon your earth, bitterly —
in the hope that you might bloom like a rose from the earth.

How soon you set out toward death at last.
As if you had gone a thousand leagues at last.
From coquetry, you could not be contained in the world —
how did you fit into the narrow grave at last?

After this, my eyes will have no more seeing.
Without your face, my world has gone dark to see.
I gaze at the place where you once were —
how can I see your place without you?

Since your dying was the purpose of this birth,
your rising was the very essence of your fall.
For what purpose was all this agony of yours,
since the end of your affair was to give up the soul?

You went to the earth, and jasmine arrived without you.
The rose too arrived, tearing its shirt, without you.
Your earth will become a rose garden from my heart's blood,
if I were to speak of what reached me without you.

The rose laughed from the weeping of the spring cloud.
Sit with us one moment, O silver-cheeked one.
Consider: when our affair comes to its end,
you shall weep bitterly upon our earth.

The day a thorn grows from my earth,
and my rose-petal face becomes as worthless as road-dust —
weep, weep upon my earth bitterly,
and say: O you who became all dust — where is all that work?

O beloved — I have departed. Weep upon my pure heart.
Weep upon my dark, dreadful place.
O rose! When I go to the dust, you too — do not laugh.
And O cloud — weep much upon my earth.

Chapter Twenty-Six: On the Description of Weeping

در صفت گریستن

When the darlings of my heart departed like lightning,
drowned in Him, from foot to crown they vanished.
These Pharaohs that were inside me —
from how much I wept, they all drowned.

In love, what have I to do with the veil of secrets?
My work, burned-heart that I am, is tears and supplication.
However much I strive in the running and racing,
from my eyes the tears will not stop.

Though the ocean of my heart churned many times,
out of jealousy of people it never cast up the jewel of the secret.
The secret my heart kept hidden from the world —
my tears, before the assembly, spoke it upon my face.

The blood of my heart, which increases every moment,
pours out from my eyes, ocean upon ocean.
And when they make a jug from the dust of my body,
if you pour water into that jug, it will turn to blood.

There is no night when blood did not pour from my grieving heart.
No day when the water of my face did not wash it clean.
I have not drunk a single sweet draught of water in my whole life
without it pouring back from my eyes onto the earth.

This manner of calamity that is mine now —
how can I describe what my state is?
Every tear that falls from my eyes,
if you split it open — a thousand oceans of blood.

If the heart had known who I was,
glory to God, how happily I would have lived.
If only the thirst of the heart would not subside —
would that I had an eye to weep my fill.

If I speak of the soul — no place of ruin remains for it.
If I speak of the heart — no right judgment remains for it.
And of my flood-bearing eye, what can I say? —
from so much weeping, no water remains in it at all.

Every night, when grief pours blood from my eyes,
if it pours less, it pours more than the clouds.
When in my drunkenness I think of his death,
every wine I drink pours back out from my eyes.

Like an ocean, my embrace rose from its place,
for from the spring of my eyes, pearls arose.
They say many springs rise from the ocean.
How is it that from my spring, an ocean arose?

Though I have front and back to every affair,
from my own weeping eyes, at least my face is fresh.
My face, which receives wages from the water of my eyes —
every moment, a fresh payment refreshes me.

I said: O eye, one must sleep.
One must carry some scent from the ruined heart.
Do not weep so much. He said: I am drowning in fire,
and this disaster must be carried away with water.

That heart which sought a sign of comfort
became blood and found none — it sought a time of relief.
And all that blood poured from my eyes into my embrace,
for it too sought an embrace from my eyes.

O heart, one cannot reach into blood at every moment.
And if grief stole your heart, you cannot steal it back now.
And O eye, weep less — for this much water
cannot be carried over any bridge on any ground.

O heart, bear the punishment for the desire of love.
In your own slaughter, reach for the dagger.
And O eye — it is you who made my heart turn to blood.
Since the blood fell from you, you bear the blame.

Every flood that will rise from the liver's blood
will be the guide in the valley of love.
Every contentment that settled from vanity —
weep, for all of it will be taken up in weeping.

The blood that is now in my heart and soul —
a hundred times more flows from my eyes like the Oxus.
If you intend my blood, you will be drowned,
for here where I am, there are a thousand oceans of blood.

Where is one companion upon whose shoulder I might weep?
If there were such a companion, how well I would weep.
Upon the face of all the earth, I cannot find
a dust upon which I might weep my fill.

I said: My heart, which is the house of the soul — look at it.
It was ruined by my eyes, for this is the flood.
He said: Since you have so many tears,
place the eye in water — this is the cure.

From shame at your face, the rose's redness washes away.
And from the salt of your lips, the bitterness of wine washes away.
Since my tears could not cross the bridge with you,
I weep blood — even if it cannot cross the bridge.

O you whose love has thrown me into agitation,
whose passion has thrown me without food or sleep:
without your face, in the pupil of my eye,
the blood-shedding has cast its shield upon the water.

How long shall I pour, from blood-straining eyes, tears?
Above my head, a hundred heights of tears have passed.
The pain that from you settled in my heart —
when will it be emptied by a hundred oceans of tears?

Since you take great pleasure in my heart's pain,
I surrendered to much affliction.
Since my weeping makes you laugh,
I weep — so that you may laugh much.

As long as I have a soul, my throat is for your dagger.
What shall I do with a soul if I do not spend it upon you?
I come, and like the cloud I pour tears,
to sprinkle your doorstep's dust with tears.

O you, from whose rose-like face come the rosewater of my eyes,
the thorn of your eyelashes has stolen sleep from my eyes.
When the fire of your love rises from my heart,
it will not be quenched except by the water of my eyes.

When my eye falls upon the silver-bodied beloved,
blood falls in the heart and the tested eye.
Since I did not restrain my eye, the heart became blood.
Every blood that falls — falls from my eye.

Consider the body, dust-sitting, as come to see the beloved.
Consider the soul, bound in the bond of waiting, as come.
Since the eye filled my embrace with the heart's blood,
consider the heart too as having given up on the eye.

O beloved! Grief for you kept my body thin as a hair,
and from such humiliation kept me like dust in your lane.
I too shall never rise in esteem.
My eye, from tears, kept its hand upon my face.

Like a candle, from so much burning, food and sleep left me,
and the peace and calm of my restless heart departed.
From pouring so much water from my eyes like the cloud,
before the people I was put to shame by my eyes.

How long must I keep my face upon the ground for you,
keep the heart's burning and fiery sighs?
So many floods that rose from my eyes every breath —
at last, from you, one must expect the eyes to be this way.

So many floods that rose from my eyes every breath,
and this desire of my eyes would not leave my head.
From how much my eyes poured water,
no water remained before anyone for my eyes.

Because my eyes gazed upon your face,
from my weeping the pupil of my eye could not live.
The soul is upon fire and the heart is upon water,
from how much my heart burned and my eyes wept.

That moon cast me like dust into the lane
and in seeking her cast me in every direction.
Therefore a thousand drops of blood are upon my face,
because the day she departed, she cast her eye upon my face.

When this grief-bearing heart saw its home was in blood,
every day anew it saw my grief increasing.
From this narrow house it grew weary, wanted the desert —
it mounted the tears when it saw a red steed.

The day I bring my broken heart before you,
mounted on its red steed, I bring it before you.
Since it mounted the red steed — meaning: tears —
come forward, for I bring it saddled tightly before you.

I said to the heart: I see much loss.
From your hand I see the eye shedding blood.
The heart said: I shall depart with the flowing tears —
the way I see this counterfeit coin flowing.

From my own weeping I have much goodness,
and from the jewel of tears, whatever you can name, I have.
The red steed of my tears runs so hot
that from its hot-running I have a red face.

The night-dark down of your face, which was tame to my spell,
was racing at full gallop, for it thirsted for my blood.
It appeared on the face — as if from the hot running,
the night-dark steed of your down was my red-tear steed.

From jealousy for you, I make my shirt of paper
so that not even your shadow circles around you.
Though my embrace is an ocean of tears,
in the practice of your love, my skirts are not wet.

Since every hair of mine comes lamenting without you,
and from every side of me a wail rises without you,
the red steed of my tears gallops fast —
how often it rushes upon my face without you.

The heart, which from one glance of the eye was ruined —
see how the thread became untwisted.
Of all the world's wealth, I have but an eye and a heart.
That one is upon fire, and this one is upon water.

At first my heart kept love of your face in its soul.
When it became visible, it could not be kept hidden.
Gone are the days when tears merely circled in my eyes,
for today they cannot be held back by force.

If the heart were not so madly in love,
it would be patient one moment in your love.
Would that every tear that, in separation from you,
I pour forth — were a thousand oceans.

The blood that I pour forth from my eyes,
every moment for a different calamity I pour.
Since love of your face seized me by the collar,
skirtful after skirtful, liver's blood I pour.

That heart which could not live a single breath without you
gave its life for you and had no regret.
In mourning your pain, it wept much blood.
Your pain itself killed it — and there was no cure.

Though my grief surpasses all weeping,
every day my weeping increases.
O soul-kindling cupbearer! Pour me a cup
so that I may weep my fill — for my heart is full of blood.

Since with grief for you my heart has no strength left,
in my blood-shedding eyes no sleep remains.
O cupbearer — pour the dregs of pain upon my soul,
so that I may weep blood, for no water remains in my liver.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: On Despair and Confessing Helplessness

در نومیدی و به عجز معترف شدن

Alas — my heart never caught the scent of any cure.
In the valley of love, it heard no welcome.
And from the caravan that traveled this desert,
it ran a lifetime and heard no camel-bell.

If I speak of the heart, it never reached its destination.
It rotted in pain, and no cure arrived.
And if I speak of the soul, whose one step spans two worlds —
it traveled far, and arrived nowhere.

Every thing in you has a different beauty.
On every page of your beauty, a different state.
For every imperfect being, a different perfection from you.
For the lover, a different union with you.

This desert of yours has no visible beginning.
To ripen the hope of union with you is nothing but madness.
The soul is your lover — but the soul is not here.
You are in our heart — but the heart is not with us.

Your love, which shines mote by mote in Him —
every decree He made, since He made it, is good.
When I knew you are the marrow of the soul, O friend,
from the joy of this marrow, I cannot fit inside my skin.

Alas — my heart never saw the shadow of good fortune.
In the throat it saw nothing but the ring of difficulties.
It swept the dust of two worlds and sifted it a hundred times,
and on the sieve saw nothing but the wind.

Since my soul was unaware of the essence of the matter,
it was sometimes despairing of itself and sometimes not.
Every day it tore a thousand veils apart,
and beyond the veil of helplessness there was no road for it.

Until we cast the patched robe of mastery from our heads
and cast ourselves from sight like dust at the door —
though we drew swords against the cloud from our locks,
today, from our own helplessness, we cast down the shield.

Since the eye has gone blind, how long shall we look?
Since the road has gone dark, how long shall we travel?
From a place where there is no sign, how long shall we give signs?
And of one who has no news, how long shall we give news?

A lifetime I bound the palm-tree of meanings with desire.
I thought: perhaps I am free from every reckoning.
Now the tablet that was my Preserved Tablet —
I washed it with tears and I broke the pen.

A lifetime I ran from sheer ignorance.
I thought: perhaps through intellect I have become skilled.
Until at the end, behind the curtain of helplessness,
I sat like old women — weeping pitifully.

Whether I am the sky in rank or a locust,
in the presence of the sun of Truth I am less than ice.
A hundred times and a thousand times I learned
that I count for nothing — how long shall I strut?

From the adventure of water and clay, nothing came to me.
From the affair of soul and heart, nothing came to me.
I gained everything through a thousand tricks,
until from all that everything, my portion was — nothing.

That heart which was the most bewildered in the world
did not see a mote's worth of profit from the entire world.
Every passion it had, it cooked at length.
In the end, from all that passion — only smoke.

If I aim for the sky, I do not reach the forehead.
If I resolve for the earth, I do not reach the end.
I know that behind and before are sealed against each other.
If I give my life, I will not reach even the dust of the Beloved.

In bewilderment and madness, what can I do?
With all this tumult, what can I do?
Since they all burned and no one did anything,
what can I, burned and alone, do?

Before this, my heart was bound by illusion.
It thought it had come as one who decrees the secrets.
And today, when eyes have come to see the Vision,
my work has all come to the back of the hand and the wall.

That hot-footed wayfarer whose name is the soul
ran a lifetime, saying its destination is the field.
A voice came: The road has no end.
However far you go, it is still the first step.

Desiring the Water of Life, I died.
From dropsy in this desert, I died.
When I knew that life is nothing but trouble,
I killed myself with pain and died bewildered.

However much my heart tore further into the journey —
there is no road; it tore at its own essence.
So many hard valleys and so many difficult roads
we left behind — and the road ahead still tears.

Sometimes in perfection I am higher than the sun.
Sometimes in deficiency I am a mote forever.
Whenever I look upon His self-sufficiency,
I fear my hope will be cut off.

O heart, see the soul's grief, trouble-thinking.
See the bewilderment of master and dervish alike.
Since one cannot bear a mote of His self-sufficiency,
see your own worthlessness and diminishment.

Who told you to take the road of His sorrow?
Or to take the way of the crowded lovers?
In a place where a thousand worlds are nothing,
how shall a mote arrive? — take it as a hundred mountains.

Alas — my heart reached no cure at all.
Its soul came to its lips and did not reach the Beloved.
In ignorance, the life came to its end,
and the tale of His love did not come to its end.

The Beloved came and aimed for my heart and soul,
showed the road and made the journey easy for me.
With all that, I still agonize and strive,
and this I know: that I can do nothing.

Every moment He gives a wine that intoxicates the soul,
so that the soul may join its heart to union.
The wonder is that one drop of water has come,
so that an ocean full of pearls may be granted to it.

O heart! Like brave men you are on a perilous road.
You are poor because you are unaware of the danger.
You traveled much and arrived nowhere,
and the wonder is that you are still traveling.

However much you searched for this word,
not a single fly came into your hand from all that seeking.
Why do you seek a thing that in no place
has anyone ever known — or will ever know?

A soul that on the path holds to the guide's counsel
and from regret sits in blood;
a mind that is lost from a single sip of pain —
how can it stand firm in the knowledge of God?

Since every breath you are more forsaken by pain,
every day in this affair you are more excusable.
Do not come close to Him, and do not be far from Him,
for when you are nearest, you are farthest.

The heart on His road saw no authority of its own.
Not a mote on that road did it see ahead or behind.
Since helplessness was the fitting thing there,
it saw nothing greater than helplessness.

In a desert where the mind has no road,
if a mountain travels in it, not a straw advances.
If you would seek any traveler at all,
nothing is fit for this desert but a sigh.

O heart! Know that He is beyond your desert.
Why do you sell coquetry when no one is buying?
O helpless lover! Consider at last —
do not set your heart upon a work that is not your work.

If for your whole life you are on the journey,
like the sky you will be turned upside down.
However much more of the path you travel,
every moment you will be farther behind.

O heart — a very firm shackle has fallen upon you.
Without drinking the wine of love, a hangover has fallen upon you.
You did not think, and you entered this affair.
At least look — see with whom your affair has fallen!

Every day you reach a different transformed world.
Every night you reach a thousand blood-filled seas.
You said: "I will reach Him and become eternal."
Since no one reaches Him — how will you reach Him?

Though one must become a keeper of secrets,
one must also walk with the step of supplication.
How long will you walk, when the road has no end?
Since you know you must turn back.

Sometimes you must be troubled by a single hair.
Sometimes you must be happy with nothing.
In love, if you are fire, you become all ice,
and if you are ice, you must become like fire.

O beloved — your grief has burned our soul.
You have left us neither infidelity nor faith.
Since you knew there was no cure for us,
you threw us headlong into this desert.

If I speak of the soul — it rose and was bewildered.
If I speak of the heart — it was love-crazed and lost.
You said: one must confess helplessness.
More helpless than I have become — one cannot be.

Here where I am, the veils of illusion are many.
And there where you are, the veils of mystery are many.
Until through all these veils that are on the road,
I either reach you or do not — there is much work.

In the world of fear, I have a time,
because I have hope of a friend like you.
Since every moment I sink lower and you rise higher,
until I reach you — I have a long work.

If your joy seems precious to me,
beside your grief it seems small to me.
Though union seems fitting for me,
the sorrow of separation seems sweeter to me.

As long as I see your locks like a lasso,
I see my heart fallen into bonds.
My hand will never reach your saddle-strap.
Your saddle-strap I see as far too high.

O you who are lost from your place yet visible in a hundred places!
Before you, neither soul nor mind nor will is visible.
A hundred times a day I fell from foot to head —
yet you are visible neither in the head nor in the foot.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: On Showing Hope

در امیدواری نمودن

The arrow of love's seeking — keep shooting, on and on.
What do you do with the bowstring? Let go of the bow.
If your arrow does not reach the target now,
at last it will arrive. Keep shooting just the same.

Until overturned fortune — what will it do?
And this torn-open heart — what will it do?
And this drop of blood that is under a hundred sorrows —
that is: what will the bewildered heart do?

How long shall I race around the world,
climbing and descending over nothing?
A thing that the heavens did not find in a long life —
I seek, to see where I might find it again.

Upon the heart I tied a knot, and upon the soul a burden.
And upon that knot, many knots fell.
Not a hair's breadth of any affair will remain hidden,
if this knot of mine is opened just once.

Though I am not upon any task on His road,
I am in no way hopeless, at least.
Behind the veil, like the low string of the harp, I wail bitterly.
My wailing will accomplish something — once.

In the beginning, I was accepted, not neglected.
I was neither cross-eyed in condition nor in sight.
In the branches I fell into a hundred thousand bonds.
At last I shall arrive at what I was at first.

If dying should grant itself during my life,
easy would be my dying in a single moment.
One moment of living as one ought to live —
if that comes to pass, I can die better.

I said: Though my affairs are in order,
from fear of you I flutter like a bird in a trap.
He said: A fearful slave is better than a proud lord.
Since you fear — do not fear. And keep fearing always.

O beloved! Cast a glance upon my dervish heart.
Or devise a remedy for my soul.
This I know: I must become dust.
If you make me dust — make me the dust of your road.

A lifetime I have spoken of your state,
and of your grief I speak to your image.
Since it is impossible that anyone reaches you,
at least I speak the word of union with you.

O beloved! I have come neither well nor badly.
In oneness I have come a thousandfold.
Though you have driven me from your lane,
am I not at last come down to your lane?

No news reaches me from your curls.
No sweetness reaches me from your ruby lips.
If no glance reaches me from your face,
at least in your lane, a passing visit reaches me.

The day you become nothing from yourself at last,
unity will free you from discrimination at last.
We have endured much, and more lies ahead.
Yes, O beloved! This too shall pass at last.

From your love, I have no water in my liver.
How shall I quench a spark of the heart's fire?
From the sleep of my own pride, at least once at last,
I shall awaken — if you grant me a dream.

If you cared a hair's breadth about me,
like a hair you would have left me twisted.
At last — one day — with bewildered me,
I am not without hope. Perhaps you will make peace.

Your love, which comes to me like fire,
comes fitting for my pain-bearing heart.
In your fear and your hope, constantly
being turned upside down — pleases me.

A lover whose work has fallen into your grief — it is sweet.
Head given to the wind, standing headless — it is sweet.
Be fair — this headless, footless heart
has laid its head at your feet, given its head — it is sweet.

How long shall I keep lamenting without you?
I shall make my soul drunk from the wine of your love.
Sometimes I make myself nothing, sometimes something.
It is time I put my arms around your neck.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: On Showing the Longing for the Beloved

در شوق نمودن معشوق

I have a soul — in love, disordered, drunk,
distracted, restless — neither nothing nor something.
What a wondrous child is my soul without a nurse —
it will not be weaned from the breast of "Am I not?"

Nothing stirs my desire but thirst for You.
I am dying, and no one slakes me.
What trick shall I try? — for each breath, a hundred seas
I drink and I swallow, and it is not enough.

I have no heart, no eye that sees the way — what shall I do?
Helpless — neither world nor faith — what shall I do?
There is no road toward You, and none toward others.
A flood upon the fire of wretched me — what shall I do?

Today I am the one who traded union for separation,
bewildered, face turned toward the desert.
Like a diver I cannot draw breath —
yet in the sea I have given up my life from thirst.

A body — a thousand fountains of blood have sprung in it.
A soul — a thousand headaches have taken root in it.
The heart is one drop of blood without head or foot,
and a hundred worlds of love have collided in it.

Since no one knows what I know of Him,
I wish to find some stratagem — and cannot, because of Him.
If a hundred kinds of calamity rain upon my face,
I have not the face to turn away from Him.

Where shall I carry this captive heart?
And if I have no clear wine, where shall I find the dregs?
If I drink a thousand seas each day —
truly, I will die of the pain of thirst.

Like a bird, my heart flew into the snare of existence.
The more it thrashed, the tighter the bonds became.
And from restlessness and my soul's unease —
from so much burning, it all turned to ash.

I cannot be bound by bonds,
nor can I endure the suffering of fetters.
A lifetime I have been more restless than the heavens —
how long can I sit still like the earth?

Each hour we set aside a store of life,
hoping for the hour when we are freed from life's grief.
Night and day, like the moth, from longing
we hurl ourselves at the candle until we give our lives.

The soul brings the thirst of the whole world upon itself,
then turns its face toward the heart-stealing sea.
O soul — how shall my life be slaked
when Your sea brings the soul only more thirst?

O soul! I have a soul in love with Your face.
I have a falling-down at the head of Your lane.
One can never speak of it — this I know for certain:
the tale I have with every strand of Your hair.

In both worlds, if I seek any desire at all,
from union with You I seek only a hair's breadth.
I have lost the way from every direction without You —
from which direction shall I seek a way to You?

Behind the veil I see You within my wounded heart.
Outside the veil I see You more.
A thousand times more each day I see You —
when will come that breath when I see You Yourself?

I have many complaints against Your sweet eye,
and much I guard from Your ruby lip.
Since I do not know what You ultimately know —
what tale could I tell You, of You, with You?

O soul! Grant me aid in my short life.
I am far from Your door — give me the robe of Your court.
You sit in the marrow of my heart and You burn me.
Either come out, or show me the way in.

The body, beneath Your trust, became the dust of the door.
Beneath Your feet it became level with the earth.
And that heart which in longing for You grew desperate —
in the chest, from so much burning, became ash.

Without Your face, nothing can be seen in any gaze.
Without Your shadow, nothing can be seen in any passing.
It is a wondrous state: in one moment with You —
neither with oneself nor with another can it be seen.

The desert of Your love is without end,
and the pain of Your affection is without remedy.
Who is there that is not bewildered on Your road?
Whoever has not found Your way is bewildered.

In Your love, the heart must be turned upside down.
The provision for Your road must be the liver's blood.
If one cannot turn one's face toward Your face,
one must spend one's life with one's head at Your feet.

I will keep my soul girded before You.
Each moment I will have more longing for You.
I am always Your dust — and dust upon my head
if ever I lift my head from the dust that is Yours.

If the eye could find a way to You,
it could make the heart aware of You.
Would that my heart, the way the heart desires,
could make one sigh in love of You.

Where is the foot that I might flee from Your hand?
Where is the hand that I might cling to Your feet?
Would that I had a thousand lives, so each breath
I might pour them in the dust of Your footsteps.

Since Your pain is what I seek in prayer,
I would be an infidel if I sought a cure.
Let there be as much sweetness as exists in both worlds —
I am free of it all. It is You I seek.

Either set me before You like a candle and slay me,
or spin me headfirst in my own blood and slay me.
If I had a thousand hearts, Your love stole them all from me.
I am Yours — call me Your own, and slay me.

Give me news of myself, for I am unaware of myself —
my liver burns from longing for You.
I will rise easily from both worlds
if You will sit so that I may gaze upon You.

I will keep the sun of Your face before my eyes.
Like a mote I will keep my heart turning upside down.
As long as I desire Your face from the heart,
I will hold the sun inside a mote.

Since I am alive in the whole world only through You,
may my soul not be alive without You for one moment.
Without the body's burden, with You, my heart has a breath —
if I am alive today, I know it by that.

A soul freed from this body of a hundred colours is better.
A heart escaped from this Pharaoh-self is better.
Nothing needs to be keen except Your fire.
One mote of Your company is better than both worlds.

Since the heart could bear Your grief upon the soul,
it could sweetly cut itself from the whole world.
On Your road it sold all its honour
so it could purchase the fire of Your love.

In Your love, from so much madness I bring,
from fire and stone I draw a stream of blood.
If there is but one stone in all the world,
by Your aspiration I will draw it out.

Sometimes before Your door I have come in prostration.
Sometimes upon Your fire I have come like incense.
There is no hope of sobriety for my drunkenness,
for I came into existence drunk with love of You.

Where is Your lane, that I might race there headlong,
then turn my face from everything that is?
My hand cannot reach the soul — that I might split it open,
so that perhaps I might find You inside the soul.

O soul — since You are neither hidden nor manifest,
You are always with us, and You are without us.
How long will my soul burn from longing for You?
I will split open the soul — perhaps You are in there.

I see no trace of anything other beside You.
I see nothing other than You at all.
Every moment You command me to patience —
but patience from You I see as worse than infidelity.

I am bound to no one — You know it.
I am in Your pain with a hundred desires — You know it.
Whether I exist or do not exist, where I am,
I am not empty of You for one breath — You know it.

Since Your road has neither head nor end,
this pain of mine, the burned one, has no remedy.
To give my life before Your face is easy.
To bear patience without Your face is not easy.

If You want the heart — come, accept it, take it.
The heart has gone mad — bring chains and take it.
And if the soul is worthy of Your presence —
suppose it is not: lift the veil and take it.

As long as I have a soul, I will gallop around You.
I will burn, and I will also endure.
Live joyfully — for the backgammon of Your love, night and day,
as long as I exist, I will play with You.

We consecrate the point of the soul to Your calamity.
Like a circle, we make the heart without head or foot for You.
If You do nothing rightly for our sake,
whatever we do, we do for Your sake.

The people who sit together for Your sake
choose You above both worlds.
Without seeing You, their soul and heart are lost —
where will they find their feet if they see You?

When crying out, we set our course for Your lane.
We risk our lives in the work of longing for You.
In each of my breaths a thousand lives are needed,
so that dancing, we may scatter them before Your face.

The lover who gave the whole world for Your face
gave the soul — which he did not even have — from longing for You.
Every safety he had in both worlds
he sold, and gave it all for Your scent.

What use is an eternal kingdom to me, with Your love?
I am alive through You — what use is the burden of the soul?
Since both worlds arose from the tip of a single hair of Yours,
with one hair of Yours I have no need of both worlds.

The longing that arose in me in seeking Your face —
if I spoke it with a hundred tongues, it would not come out right.
If You sat beside me until the Resurrection,
my eyes could never have their fill of seeing You.

From love of You my face is on the ground — sit down.
It has been long that I am like this, far from You — sit down.
I am an ancient thirst — for God's sake,
stay until I have seen You to my fill — sit down.

Before seeing You, my eye's heart arose.
From burning it sank down and ash arose.
In one moment when suddenly Your pain might lessen,
a thousand times the lover has leapt from sleep.

O darkness of Your hair — You illuminate my faith!
O brightness of Your face — You teach me the way!
I am in night — from You I want day, day!
I am frozen — from You I want fire, fire!

I said: You might come to me, the burned one.
You are a king — when would You come to a dervish?
Bewildered I go down every alley,
hoping that in one alley You will appear before me.

O You whose ruby lip has given me faith's decree,
whose dishevelled hair has given me heresy.
You behind the veil are with me, and I am without You —
outside the veil, from longing for You, I have given my life.

The grief that from You lies upon my bloodied heart
is no small thing — each moment it increases in me.
I am not absent from You for one breath — whatever I am,
the thing that is absent is outside of me.

In Your love, half a mote of bewilderment
is sweeter than a thousand offices of kings.
That is why I come, turning upside down — You know it —
so that You may turn me upside down even more.

In Your love I will make reason into madness.
My own lunacy I will undertake right now.
I will bring my disordered head down to the dust.
I will raise my disordered head out of the dust.

As long as I can, I think of that beauty,
and of the comfort and spirit of that union.
Though union with You is impossible for me,
always, I the weary one, think of this impossibility.

Without Your face, one cannot live a single moment,
for without You I must not live.
The soul on which the whole world prides itself —
I am sick of it, since without You I must live.

How much I ran to every corner without You!
How much I flew from every direction without You!
I need a night as long as the Day of Resurrection,
to tell You all that I saw without You.

O soul! I come from a long road.
With a breast full of need I come.
However much You drive me from Your presence,
before You, upon my eyes, I come back.

In Your love, my work will not succeed by desire,
and this easy work comes to no one's hand.
I said: One breath, by Your hand, I will repent —
but if the soul comes to the lip, that breath will not come out.

With Your love I will gird myself.
Like Your hair I will turn my heart upside down.
Each moment I will raise a new uproar over You.
A dog is better than me if I seek patience from You.

Sometimes I will be Your crying qalandar.
Sometimes in the mosque I will be Your neighbour.
If You intend to give my soul and heart to the wind,
from heart and soul I will be the dust of Your door.

Since I became a lover of Your face — this is enough for me.
Bewildered like Your hair I became — this is enough for me.
I have no business with the kingdom of both worlds.
I became a madman of Your lane — this is enough for me.

A lifetime my heart lived drowned in blood without You,
fallen from its feet, head over heels, without You.
And today, when it fell upon the field of death,
it died in regret — for how it had lived without You.

Since all my desire is for Your face,
without Your face I desire no direction.
If one hair's tip from You becomes my portion,
I desire not one hair's tip from both worlds.

From love of You I will become a banner in the world.
From longing I will become like a pen, split at the head.
I came into existence drunk with love of You,
and drunk with longing for You I will go into nonexistence.

How I pass through Your lane — what a wonder!
How I gaze from Your direction — what a wonder!
If I had the courage to think of You,
if my heart did not fly from my breast — what a wonder!

As long as veils before You shall remain,
from Your side, reproach shall remain.
Since Your foot shall remain in the stirrup,
Your madness shall remain in the reckoning.

As long as one breath of power remains to me,
in servitude to You my desire remains.
From Your servitude I will not lift my head for one breath.
This is the word: as long as my breath remains.

Beside Your face I will not call the moon luminous.
Beside Your hair I will not call musk fragrant.
If both worlds should turn upside down,
I will lay down my head — but Your madness from my head I will not lay down.

It is long that I have been passing through Your lane.
If the time has come, look once toward me.
And if I deserve killing, do not suffer a headache —
kill me at Your own feet, not by another's hand.

Your pain we hold in place of remedy.
Since Your union is not ours, we bear the leaf of separation.
For every sword You wield from every side,
we have a head and a neck, as long as we have life.

Chapter Thirty: On Showing Detachment from the Beloved

در فراغت نمودن از معشوق

From so much hope and fear do I see,
from both I see a heart split in two.
The deeper I look into the secret of the work,
the more I see a vast indifference.

First look at the soul — like lightning, everyone's.
And at last amid dust and blood — drowned, everyone's.
He kills them wretchedly, and says:
Since We are here, dust upon the heads of all!

I said: What would it be, since You have essential grace,
if from Your own nearness You drowned me in life?
Majesty, in the tongue of sovereignty, said: Go.
How long from you — a letter and a writ — how long?

I said: When did You ever stand by my grief?
He said: When was My grief ever complete for you?
I said: All fame and shame have gone to Your head.
He said: All this shame and fame — when was it ever yours?

I said: What shall I do? I am falling from my feet
before that which each day I tumble headfirst toward.
He said: What will you do? Be the dust of My door,
so that each day I may come out to you.

I said: I poured heart and soul into Your work.
Everything I had, I scattered as an offering to You.
He said: Who are you to do or not do?
For it was I who made you restless.

I said: Since You took the lead in beauty,
I chose You from both worlds as the Beloved.
A voice came: O you who are wholly in fault —
why do you pound water in a mortar for nothing?

Since the Friend does not remember me,
a cry has risen from me like the low string of a harp.
A difficult affair has befallen me:
I am the slave of the Friend, and the Friend is free of me.

He kills me with thirst and gives me no water.
He makes me His own hangover and gives me no wine.
However much I speak to Him, He does not hear one word.
However much I call Him, He gives me no answer.

Since I have seen no one worthy of Him,
I have sat always with a heart full of His pain.
Suddenly, like lightning, He passes by my door —
He does not pause long enough for me to see His dust.

Hear me, O heart! How are you? At whose strength do you lean?
You have brought us to such hardship.
We are free of your grief, and you are in His grief —
from so much burning, you have killed us.

You will not make peace with anyone — you shall always be friendless.
Yes — what can be done? Felt cannot become silk.
See: of all creation, no homeland remains —
You killed them all, and living alone shall suffice You.

Bewildered, day and night, where I am.
Heart-burned, soul upon the lip, where I am.
You are free where You are — from me. And I,
since I arrived, have been pounding, where I am.

If You show the brightness of Your own beauty,
You will steal hearts and plunder eyes.
When You undo the bonds of our existence —
then from beneath the veil You will come forth.

One day set things right through peace.
One day hold Your head high through war.
Since from behind the veil You gave us the runaround —
sit behind the veil and play Your veil-games.

You make no remedy for this helpless lover,
nor take any grief-care for this grief-eating heart.
Suppose You will not come out from behind the veil —
then why do You tear apart the veil of lovers?

The soul in Your grief has fallen from house to lane.
Seeking Your scent, it has fallen on the road like a hair.
I am in pursuit of You, and You are free of me —
this great affair lies upside down.

Though I am in no way an intimate of Yours,
You are my soul — how could I take less of You?
From the thought that You are free of my grief,
I, raw in hope, have burned from grief over You.

I said: In this grief You will not abandon me.
Instead You heaped more grief upon my head — You.
And this is the hardest of all: that I weep,
and from my weeping You have leisure — You.

I said: Night and day, why do I burn from You?
Each moment in a hundred kinds of calamity I burn.
You said: I keep you for this reason:
so that I do not make peace with you, and so that I burn you.

I am veiled, and from my veil You are free.
From my peace and my reproach You are free.
I have many reckonings with You, and You —
forever from me and my reckoning You are free.

You pass by me like the wind — what can be done?
You trample me like the dust of the road — what can be done?
The more I become familiar with You,
each day You are more a stranger — what can be done?

You are without before and after, yet before and after are Yours.
You are far from less and more, yet less and more are Yours.
In the mind of any person it can never enter —
one mote of that nature that from Yourself is Yours.

In Your love I have burned — what game are You playing?
I am stuck in blocked backgammon — what are You gambling?
You have much business and I have little life —
when will You attend to me, the heart-burned — You?

How long shall I be like a ring upon the door without You,
with tears like silver and a face like gold, without You?
You are at the head of Your work, Your head bent to the task,
and I am upon the dust, dust upon my head, without You.

Each day anew You fashion another veil,
so behind the veil You play love with Yourself.
Since You do not for one breath come to the end of Yourself,
how would You ever attend to anyone else?

O — from longing for You my soul has come to my lip.
Without You, my night is like the Day of Resurrection.
At last, hear one word from me, the heartless one.
How long my silence, and my crying "O Lord!"

If I am in speech with You — what will You do with speech?
Or new pain and old love — what will You do with them?
With all this business and burden and honour that is Yours —
one lost to himself, without head or root — what will You do with him?

O — in grief for You the pure heart of all has become blood.
Against every grief, love for You is the antidote for all.
First You make them all dust with Your love,
and then You give their dust to the wind — all of it.

We have been grieving for You from long ago.
Look upon us — O You, my refuge from sorrow —
for those who in beauty took the prize from the moon
looked upon their own grief-stricken ones.

Since each day I saw more of Your coquetry,
each day my need for You grew greater.
We have been watching You from long ago —
at last, cast a glance upon us too.

Chapter Thirty-One: On That Union with the Beloved Reaches No One

در آنکه وصل معشوق به کس نرسد

So many doors locked without a key — what use?
No one has heard the name of opening — what use?
Each mote is the shirt of Joseph,
but Joseph himself has vanished from the midst — what use?

No one has given a sign of the wine of gnosis,
for He is beyond the very sign and the very seeing.
That wine in the flask is forever sealed.
People stick out their tongues at the flask.

Since there is no road in any direction for anyone,
nothing remains for anyone but to swallow blood.
Everyone says: I drank that ocean dry —
yet not a hair's tip was wetted for anyone.

The heart-burned ones who spend their very breath,
upon the scent of union, measure the wind.
How long the road until they show Him to anyone!
How sealed the door until they open it for anyone!

Those who took the ball in love — all of them —
wiped the image of both worlds from the heart — all of them.
A hundred deserts each moment they crossed — all of them —
until hungry and thirsty they died — all of them.

A reason that sees perfection in madness
sees the foundation of existence as dust and blood.
An eye that sees both worlds within
sees outside only a fistful of veins and bone.

The heart could not hold its ground against love's grief — at last.
Like a candle, from burning, it guttered out — at last.
It said: The pearl of union is not in the sea —
how can this water even be drunk — at last?

Sometimes from the conduct of reason we are like apes.
Sometimes from confusion we are like ants in a bowl.
Reality hid from the eyes of creation for this:
so that in seeking it, we would learn its worth.

A hand that reaches this fruitful branch
reaches it through the aspiration of the longing soul.
From this endless world without head or root —
how much has reached us, and how much more shall reach?

The lover gives his body over to grief.
Each moment he twists the heart into drunken frenzy.
He endures separation gladly, and grows disgusted
with any beloved whose union comes easily.

Every heart that from the taste of that Reality found life —
whatever it found, it found to be the garment of the Beloved.
Do not sit waiting for One who cannot be seen for a single breath.
Do not seek what can never be found.

Since no one arrives at the union they desire — O heart!
You too will not arrive — how long will you sigh, O heart?
You imagine that a road can be found to Him —
never can a road to Him be found, O heart!

O heart, you cannot follow a guide.
An ant, you cannot rival an elephant.
Since you are little more than a lame fly,
you cannot become the table-companion of Gabriel.

In seeking the Eternal Presence — at last
you remain between fear and hope — at last.
Your existence is one mote, and in one mote —
how long can the radiance of the sun shine — at last?

The heart was lost and stopped on the road to God.
In the desert of infinity it stopped.
Hear me, O restless heart! A lifetime you have walked.
How long will you go, since you will not stop?

No one caught Him through life,
nor through death caught Him forever.
You are a helpless gnat and He is a fierce gale —
sit down, for you can never catch Him.

The savour that lies in tasting sugar —
do not think it lies in hearing of sugar.
Beware: do not know, if you know Him,
that your knowing is arriving at Him.

O you, stuck beneath the veil! — when will you be Him?
Sometimes sleeping, sometimes eating — when will you be Him?
Incarnation is heresy — how long this heresy and excess?
He IS, and you are a pretender — when will you be Him?

You play with the bead of love, O tall cypress,
but from the gem of Reality the casket is empty.
Whenever a truth is in your hand,
beware: act so that you do not let it slip.

If the bond of hoping for union with Him has bound you,
consider: is there any place for that in you?
Sit down in helplessness and draw your feet beneath your skirt.
To His skirt — where can your hand reach?

Each hour you are in a darker road.
Each day your sight is thinner.
Since no one ever arrives at union with Him,
the more you walk, the closer you come to nothing.

If the treasure has reached you, keep it hidden.
If not, sit down. Bear the affliction of the soul.
If the joy of union with Him does not reach you,
at least the mourning of separation reaches you — bear it.

The atoms of the world are in longing — all of them.
The parts of the heavens are exhausted by love — all of them.
Of everything that is, and everyone — say what you will:
cut off hope, for they are in separation — all of them.

Would that You had the eye for seeing,
or my ear had any hearing at all.
We would not need to be deaf and blind
if there were a hair's breadth of a way to arrive.

As long as I have a soul I will run like the heavens.
Of the pain of union with Him I will speak.
The thing that no one ever found — that I seek.
The thing I never lost — that I search for.

If I hurry, there is no face for hurrying.
If I find a clue, there is no treasure from finding it.
What will arise but regret and the heart's blood
from this finding that is the very essence of not finding?

Alas — from the Signless One no sign reached me.
From the sea of the Manifest, the very seeing did not reach me.
A lifetime I, the thirsty one, sat at the edge of a sea,
and not one drop reached my soul.

I have no heart, no soul, no body — what can be done?
No robe, no morsel, no homeland — what can be done?
From a sun whose light fills all existence,
not one mote reaches me — what can be done?

How long shall we bear the grief of this fearful road,
drawing upon our faces lines of the calendar in blood?
If our hand did not reach the skirt of union with Him,
where is the foot that we might draw beneath the skirt of surrender?

Since the Friend does not make me a companion for one breath,
from this grief, not a breath of humanity remains in me.
And if in all of life He came to me for one moment,
I would lead Him to a private corner, away from strangers.

I am the weeping lover of the Friend's face — what shall I do?
Among the devoted of the Friend's lane — what shall I do?
If all the motes of both worlds became my eyes,
they could not gaze toward the Friend — what shall I do?

Every soul — they cannot sacrifice it for His face.
From shame, they cannot even look toward Him.
Of His hair-locks one can speak, but
one cannot lay a finger on a single hair of His.

The heart as a gift for the Heart-Soothing One cannot be brought.
Who is the heart, that the soul's offering cannot be brought?
If you wish to bring the Friend's beauty into your eyes —
the ocean into a cup cannot be brought.

If you want the treasure, you must grow used to pain.
The soul must be consecrated to the calamity of His love.
To fall into the lion's claws is better than
having to wrestle with Him for one breath.

The heart in seeking Him became captive to the soul.
The soul too, like a candle, came as a wretched lover.
No one found the way to Him, for that Moon of both worlds
hid Himself the very moment He appeared.

Since my heart has no solace but Him,
I have become bewildered, rolling through the world like a ball.
What grief to arrive at this: from the kingdom of both worlds
I have Him, and from Him I have not a scent.

Where is the one who, once become, did not become un-become?
Who was not ground down by the millstone of the upside-down heavens?
Many traversed the phantasm of the wheel, and many —
until all of them sank, and it was not worn down.

O heart — since veils and curtains in this affair are many,
swallow blood, for in these veils the bloodshed is much.
Since on His road both the Sufi's robe and the Christian's girdle are many,
it is hidden from the eye that the strangers are many.

Like a candle, how long shall I melt — what shall I do?
I have become quicksilver, running swift — what shall I do?
How much, mote by mote, I have searched for Him a lifetime —
I cannot find Him again — what shall I make — what shall I do?

Alas — composure left my drunken heart.
My heart became blood and hope left me without cease.
Upon the scent of union with Him I sat a lifetime.
He did not extend His hand, and all slipped from my hands.

I said: O soul — has anyone ever found the Soul-Friend?
Or in all of life, has anyone found what they sought?
He said: After a hundred thousand ages, O wise one,
it is still far too soon — even if it could be found.

O heart, on hope of a companion — how long will you go?
You are nothing in this desire — how long will you go?
He is the sun, shining from the sky.
You are a shadow on the earth, falling behind — how long will you go?

Since union came to no one — it is better.
Without a companion, each breath is better.
Since arriving at union with Him is not possible,
to flee into separation is much better.

This ashen dome full of embers
sometimes dragged me through blood, sometimes through ash.
From the grief that it found no news of Him,
it went from head to foot and from foot to head.

How much from longing the revolving wheel turned!
Bewildered, night and day, like a compass it turned.
But what use is its turning? — since always
it is in one place, though it turned so much.

Reason did not find the talisman of body and soul.
Nor did it find the treasure of earth and sky.
The sun turned on its side for a thousand ages
and did not find one mote from head to foot of the world.

O soul — a face like Yours cannot be seen by sense.
How can I see gold by sense, when copper cannot be seen?
Your union cannot be found with two empty hands.
Your face cannot be seen with two impure eyes.

Since not a breeze comes from Your direction,
how will the eye fall upon the light of Your face?
Since the hand cannot reach a single hair of Yours,
it is better that I give my life at the head of Your lane.

The soul cannot become worthy of You at all.
The heart cannot become intimate with Your sight.
O You who have risen so high! — no one can
circle even the dust of the pavilion of Your secrets.

I will raise a cry of love throughout the world,
then wordlessly I will describe Your face.
Since I have not the courage to reach Your face,
I will lay my head at Your feet and give my life.

If in seeking You I am kept from Your face,
in Your lane I will cast down my body in its running.
If the hand of seeking does not reach union with Your face,
with my head at Your feet I will spend a long life.

Whoever seeks the jewel of Your union —
the first step must rise beyond both worlds.
A hundred seas surge from the grief of this —
this work cannot be set right with a tear or two.

Whenever I hear a chapter of Your union,
a good night to me if I hear a memory of a dream.
I become mute — and with You I speak a tale.
I become deaf — and from You I hear an answer.

Since not a mote of Your union fell into my hand,
what does the unhappy heart hold but wind?
From Your union, since nothing but wind is in my hand,
I have become dust — headless, rootless, wind in hand.

Would that my heart had the capacity for a sigh.
Would that the soul had a shelter in Your union.
Though I have become thin as a hair's tip without You,
would that a hair's tip of a road to You existed.

What a wonder this is — that You have mingled.
Each moment You have stirred a thousand tumults.
Since the sight of You was beyond our limit — alas —
You have hung a hundred veils from every mote.

Those who were gathering roses from the garden of love
from jealousy of You were hidden beneath the earth.
And those who spoke of union with You
became one with dust and slept in blood.

The outcome of my grief in Your love is notoriety,
and this notoriety is entirely from restlessness.
Upon the scent of Your union, I, the raw in hope,
burn — and this burning of mine is from rawness.

Without seeing You, the description of You head to foot is sweet.
Whether we profit or not — the thought of You is sweet.
Our sole desire at all times is Your gladness.
Then let us die without You, since without us You are sweet.

Sometimes You cut off and sometimes You joined.
Sometimes You opened and sometimes You closed.
Since in both worlds no one was intimate with You,
You closed upon all and sat down sweetly.

I am heartless — and if I had a heart,
when would all this difficulty stand before me?
I have wasted my life on the impossible — and would that
from Your union something other than impossibility were the yield!

Until the heart of this self-worshipping soul is purified,
I cannot sit at the head of Your lane.
Until Your love shatters everything that is,
it will not yield a hair's tip from a hair's tip of You.

Each moment I will bear more pain from You.
Each instant I will carry another affliction.
Since I have no way to the feast of Your union,
I will spend my life in the mourning of my own death.

In Your love I will become one with the dust.
More bewildered than any heaven I will become.
I will never reach Your dust — I know it —
whether I become much or whether I become little.

The soul sought Your scent from the unhappy heart — and did not find it.
The heart too, in helplessness, surrendered — and did not find it.
And the one who long sought a sign of union with You
fell into the valley of abasement — and did not find it.

From the day Your beauty raised the banner of love,
everything it saw, it made a veil for Your face.
You gave everyone to each other in distraction,
so that no one could attend to You.

When I find a rose, I smell Your scent in it.
When I see the moon, I seek Your face in it.
Since the jewel of Your union reaches no one,
the least I can do is speak of it.

O — all my signs and mysteries are from You.
All my "permitted" and "not permitted" are from You.
Melted like summer snow am I, from You —
and still a hundred veils stand between me and You.

Though on Your road no fortune is found,
they all died from longing — they found pleasure in it.
Since after Your union comes Your separation,
humiliation in seeking You is sweeter than honour found.

In Your love the heart paid a thousand lives as ransom.
The body endured the cruelty of the abyss of separation.
When it saw there was never a road to Your union,
it became blood and gave its life with a hundred thousand laments.

Since the road of Your separation has no end —
how then shall I open the knot of separation?
How long shall I be fallen from the Soul-Friend —
like a nursing infant fallen from the breast?

First I became clean of all the world's affairs.
And at last from Your grief I became sorrowful of heart.
When my hand did not reach the skirt of Your union,
I wrapped my head in the shroud of Your separation and went to dust.

No one recognizes the language of you and I.
Beyond the world is the world of you and I.
Since always You are with me and I with You together —
from where did this distance fall between you and I?

I was one — duality befell me.
In sovereignty, begging befell me.
In the pleasure of nearness I was everything, and enough —
how much pain of separation befell me.

When Your union sowed the seed of intimacy,
separation came and cast the net of faithlessness.
If I do not say it, You know well
the one who cast separation between us.

Our life we spent to the very end upon Your scent.
The tablet of the heart we wiped clean of the world's image.
From hope of union and fear of Your separation, each day
a hundred times we lived and a hundred times we died.

Since without the Friend's face, intimacy has left me,
You have risen with a hundred griefs and sat in me.
See this wonder: the Friend, without a sword,
has killed me Himself, and Himself sits at my mourning.

Sometimes You intend to test my heart.
Sometimes You resolve to shed my blood.
Since You know that without You I am beside myself,
why do You keep me beside myself?

Chapter Thirty-Two: On Complaining About the Beloved

در شکایت کردن از معشوق

No friend as loving as I will arise for You.
Nor will one like me arise in any age.
I am Your dust, and You give me to the wind.
I fear that between us a dust-cloud will arise.

Since I have done nothing against You,
why have You taken offence from Your slave?
Each day You sell the world to wretched me —
buy me back from this selling, once and for all.

If with Your grief I had no standing,
far from You my grief had no shore.
If on the road between us two a dust fell,
there is no doubt: the road was never without dust.

O — my heart without You has become a fire-temple.
From every vein of the soul a road leads to Your fire.
Since You know I have a heart full of fire,
You pass by without coming — as fire would wish.

From the warmth of heart that I have in love of You,
in Your servitude I resemble a fire exactly.
Since selling fire is no wonder,
this slave will now want to be sold.

Your love, which burned me like a candle,
taught me the moth's impatience.
Your separation bought me dear for nothing,
until the fire of Your madness sold me off.

If ever You cast a glance, let it be at our face.
If ever You pass, let it be through our lane.
O Turk — since all Your work is raiding,
if You make a raid, let it be toward us.

As long as I have a soul, I have a purpose of faithfulness.
And if You take my soul — the going I permit.
How long will You ask: What do you hold in your heart?
Since in all horizons it is You I hold.

How long — to draw a breath from a hundred pains?
To splash bloody tears upon a sallow face?
Since Your heart is cold toward me, like iron —
it is useless to strike upon cold iron.

Without making even a gnat's-wing of friendship,
how long will You throw me beneath the elephant's foot of separation?
Every lion-heart I had, the wind carried away,
from so much I saw of Your fox-games.

Not to drink blood is worse than punishment for You.
That is why this fruit is a burden for You.
The thing is: You became an eater of the forbidden.
Otherwise, all bloods are lawful for You.

There is no night I do not have a grieving heart from You.
In my heart I do not lack a fiery breath from You.
How long will You make liver-blood pour into my eyes?
I, the burned one — this I did not expect from You.

In Your lane the soul sits in a corner — I know it.
From Your hair, reason is a gleaner — I know it.
You are sitting wide awake — this I know.
You put me to sleep — this I know for certain.

How long will You drive me from Your door, door to door?
How long will You burn my liver with the fire of separation?
At last, look — for if after this
You wish to look, You will find no trace of me.

When the heart once escaped Your love's grief alive,
it imagined Your grief could be carried easily to the end.
But today You have come forth with a hand
that can in no way be raised above the head.

In Your love I circle around madness.
From the circle of reason I have stepped outside.
It is long that You have entered the blood of my heart.
You entered the blood — and I revolve in blood.

Sometimes Your pain brings me out from behind the veil.
Sometimes from Your grief the veil of the heart fills with blood.
A thousand times each day, like a chameleon,
Your love turns me into every colour.

I have gone mad — let me make Your hair my chain.
Better than pursuing the dreary mood of reason.
In Your love, every stratagem I devise
will not advance — what plan can I make?

Today I am thus, at the head of Your uproar —
fallen at Your feet, drunk and maddened by You.
You said: "After this, your work will prosper."
You see it prospered — but I am Your madman.

O soul — do not take the path of ill temper.
Anger that may You never have — do not take it up in coyness.
I am Your dust, who holds wind in my hand.
Since I am Your dust, do not pull Your foot away from me.

O soul — pass through our lane once.
Lift Your step toward us once.
Why do You gaze at the dust for nothing?
At last, look upon our face — once.

The heart will never find a better companion than You.
The soul will never find honour except from You.
Even if You mingle with all of creation,
no one will ever find Your way again.

If I say "soul" — it is behind Your veil.
If I say "heart" — it is what You have cast out the door.
Pass over what I have brought, and bow Your head —
for all of it, piled together, is Yours.

How bewildered I remain from Your coquetry.
How hard I have fallen from Your pride.
How long shall we be like children, night and day,
spectators of Your wondrous game?

How long will You torment me, the burned one?
How long will You kill me with the sword of bewilderment?
I am neither with myself nor without myself, from amazement —
if I say nothing at all, You know well.

You will not salve the wound of Your own blood-drinker.
You will not mourn Your own exile.
Rise — for I have become helpless in Your work,
if You would make a remedy for Your own helpless one.

Whoever does not seek distance from You with the soul
seeks stars in daylight from You.
Every remedy I sought from You, I became more helpless.
Helpless is the one who seeks remedy from You!

From the sigh within, do not burn my palate and my tongue.
From Your own separation, do not burn me in a single moment.
Cover my evil deeds and do not spill my blood.
Forgive my heart's pain, and do not burn my soul.

In the blocked backgammon of my grief, do not melt me — at last.
Show some kindness and lift the veil — at last.
Like a candle I have burned from Your love a hundred times.
Burn me all at once, just once — at last.

Each moment You burn me more and more.
Each day in another manner You burn me.
Since You will not make peace with me, the heartless one,
why do You burn my liver so much?

Since the fire of Your love was lit in my heart,
it sewed my eyes shut to the good and bad of the world.
The sum of all my work I will tell You:
Your pain killed me, and Your love burned me.

How long will You burn my aching heart and soul?
How long from love's fire burn me joint by joint?
Since I am burned and cast upon Your road,
how long will You cast me from Your sight and burn me?

I have done You no wrong, O All-Seeing —
I eat Your sorrow in this solitude.
Leave me to my own sorrow too.
Why do You heap sorrow upon sorrow?

You are the guide of this lost lover.
You are the companion of the dawn's solitude.
I burn, and You are aware of my burning.
From Your own burned one — what do You want?

If without You I did not drink liver-blood for a moment,
I would be drenched in my own liver's blood.
Your work I cannot fathom in any way.
Bewildered am I — for I am caught in Your work!

Sometimes You keep me driven from door to door.
Sometimes You keep me drowned in liver-blood.
This is harder than all: my heart's pain
You know — and You keep me upside down.

Sometimes You call me to Your side.
Sometimes You drive me from Your door.
Bewildered and slain by You — You know it.
How long will You spin me in my liver's blood?

O Your love — the alchemy of bewilderment!
O Your lane — in the desert of amazement!
Since I know that You know my state,
how long will You spin me in my liver's blood?

Each moment You raid me by night.
From both worlds You bring a hand into this madman's heart.
If I cry out: Lift the veil, at last —
You bring something else out from behind the veil for me.

Sometimes You play companion with me, the heart-broken.
Sometimes like a candle You burn me and melt me.
Every night You block my way entirely until morning.
Every day anew You cast me into error.

O You — each breath Your resolve to eat my liver grows!
Each moment my longing and captivity for You grow!
Always Your coquetry and my lamentation grow!
Forever Your honour and my degradation grow!

Sometimes charge love upon this madman's heart.
Sometimes trace me in dust, sometimes bring me in blood.
Since the hand is Yours, the slave has no command.
Each day bring me out by a different hand.

You have thrown me on the road in a headlong race.
Sometimes You place a slope before me, sometimes a rise.
Each moment You cast me in another manner.
Do not allow me to come back to myself for one breath.

O — on the road of grief in Your love, there is no becoming nothing.
The heart full of Your grief, empty-handed, there is no becoming nothing.
Whenever You sit in the heart's embrace,
You set the heart outside itself — there is no becoming nothing.

Your love, which casts my head like a pen's —
like a candle throws my head at my feet —
whenever Your existence becomes manifest,
before I can blink, it throws me into nonexistence.

A hundred times I endured, and upon the load — another load.
You humiliated me — what rises from humiliating the humiliated?
When Your love killed me with a hundred laments —
then what use to me is the friendship of the Friend?

For the one who needed a jewel from Your sea,
like a ball, neither foot nor head was needed.
I myself was as I was — heavy-hearted.
The madness of Your love was what was needed.

In Your love, O essence of beauty,
I have become one with the dust — what do You command?
You said: "One day I will come to your side."
Since I am dead, perhaps You will come to my dust.

With love You have seized me before and behind,
so that in love's grief, no road leads to anyone for me.
Since in all my life I saw You for one breath,
a lifetime I have been bewildered by that one breath.

It is the condition from You: headless and footless I must go.
It is the obligation: in Your sorrow, alone I must go.
I said: I will flee from You to some other place.
But You have already taken up residence wherever I go.

Sometimes Your love carries me like a ring on the door.
Sometimes, unaware of good and evil, it carries me.
Each moment it drags me to another punishment.
Each instant it carries me to another world.

Your madness drove me out of my mind.
Just listen to me — how it drove me:
it threw me upon the dust of the road and made my heart blood,
and when I became dust, it spun me in the blood.

Your madness will bring my work to peril.
My heart's portion it will make liver-blood.
In sum, it will turn me upside down.
This I know — as for what else it will do...

Your love cast a thousand spells on me each breath,
until it stole my reason and made me mad.
Everything I had, I did not give away —
but He took it all from my hands by force.

Sometimes as a crying qalandar I come to You.
Sometimes fallen at Your head I come to You.
Each day by a different way I come to You.
At last — by which door shall I enter to You?

Sometimes drunkenness gives me access to myself, drunk upon drunk.
Sometimes lowliness removes me from myself, low upon low.
Sometimes it makes me so that I become bewildered —
as long as the world exists, and in the world, existence exists.

That is why an army has seized me before and behind:
so that for one breath I may not reach myself.
It casts me out from behind the veil each breath,
so that I may not know who I am or what I am.

Since He stole my heart, He does not give the heart-severer pause.
He gives me nothing for my yield but pain and regret.
Though He stole my heart — wind take His heart!
Why would I want my heart back, since He will not give it?

My soul burns with every breath — how long, this?
No one gives me heart — how long, this?
Calamity has seized me before and behind — how long, this?
I cry out to the One who answers cries ��� how long, this?

What enticement and breath was it that the Heart-Holder did not give?
He stole my heart and did not confess to heart-stealing.
I thought He would grant me an audience before Himself.
From His own heartlessness, His heart did not grant it.

One must keep one's eyes upon that moon-like face,
and one must repent of that face — as a sin.
I said: "O soul — my eye has slipped from my hand."
He said: "What can I do? You should have guarded your eye."

Chapter Thirty-Three: On Showing Gratitude for the Beloved

در شکر نمودن از معشوق

The sun of Your face bestows the kingdom of the world.
The pearl of Your speech bestows the hidden treasure.
A hundred souls I find from the grief of Your love each day.
As though the grief of Your love bestows life itself.

O You whose splendor grows with every breath!
Now Your display is in the dust, now in blood.
Like one bewildered I stand frozen
at the grace of Your many-colored veils.

Since the love of You first scattered sugar,
the whole world will seek sugar forevermore.
Everything I find and everything I seek —
you would say the sugar of Your ruby holds it all.