Number 6

What lit the gathering of eternity was nothing but the Beloved's face; love's radiance was not yet spilled into every street and marketplace. The valley of Sinai held no glow from the Beloved's face; Moses, longing to look, was not yet a seeker of that sight. The singular beauty of eternity wore no veil of illusion; for those who truly see, the task was not yet this hard. The sun of the Beloved's face had not yet lit the world; its reflection was not yet visible in the heart of every speck of dust. The parrot of every tongue had no taste for sweet speech; no idol with a mirror-bright face stood face to face. The turning glance of the lovely ones held no drunken flirtation; lovers had no word yet of that brimming ecstasy. The temple of the sheikh and the Brahmin, the shrine, the cloister, the synagogue, were not yet snares of fraud and hypocrisy; nor were the prayer beads and the pagan's belt. The pen of inspiration weighs out the pearls of hidden truths; in this world no one was yet entrusted with its secrets.