English
In Praise of the Prophet and a Description of His Resting Place
My heart, how long will you see yourself as a carpet spread beneath these nine canopies? Rise above this throne just once and you will see the heaven of the soul.
The sky is your true nest, so how long will you stay on the ground? Like a bird with its wings torn off, watching the nest from afar.
Like Jacob, give up your attachment to Canaan; for without Joseph it is a cruelty to gaze on this face or that.
Close your eyes, and every strand of hair will become a seeing eye; still your tongue, and every hair tip will become a tongue.
Two powers are set within you: perception and motion. With the one you learn knowledge, with the other you find strength.
Make these two powers your wings in this prison. Take flight, so you may see your own nest clearly.
You have only seen yourself feeble inside this cage. Take to the air, and you will see yourself a soaring phoenix.
Like a bird that has lost its nest, you are afraid of yourself; but you will see your own glory once you find yourself back in the nest.
Short of sight, you have not seen the wonders of creation; you think this is the only sky, you see this as the whole world.
In that valley where the men of God walk, you would see the heavens like dust raised by a caravan.
Enter the world of pure intellect, where you will see neither of these two worlds at all, or if you do, they look like two rungs of a ladder.
There you will find the lines of the six directions gathered like a point on one side, and see the spheres of the nine heavens like a center in the middle.
A world where you find yourself free of every flaw, a world where you find yourself safe from every accusation.
A world where, if you find a stone, you find it ruby and gold; a world where, if you see a thorn, you see a rose garden.
Wherever you stroll in that valley, you find your heart's whole desire; wherever you sit, you find nothing but peace of soul.
In that land you will not find a single heart circled by grief, nor in that valley a single heart beating with anything but joy.
There no one owes a debt, and you owe no one; every heart you see there is as glad as your own.
Sometimes the holy souls and angels are your hosts and grant your heart's wish; sometimes you see the spiritual ones as guests at your own table.
You host the sanctified spirits in delight, and you host the pure, bodiless beings with honor.
When you remember that home where you once spent your days, your heart fills with pity for every king and ruler you see.
And when you recall the feasting and hospitality of these earthly people, you find yourself dripping with shame, like sweat running down.
If you gain the honor of God's special banquet hall, out of pure awe you no longer wish even to see yourself there at all.
You will not find yourself in the midst, yet you gain eternal joy; you will not see yourself, yet you find everlasting life.
You have a road in that world that is not so long, but here you do not want to see your own gain turn to loss.
Set one foot upon the body so the path of the soul appears; trample your lower self underfoot so you may see the face of the soul.
With a single step you reach your destination, yet it is necessary that you glimpse a sign of the home before you set out.
The sign is the sacred law, the seeing is knowledge, the walking is leaving the self behind; once you abandon yourself, you will find yourself a marker in that world.
If you tread this path without law and knowledge, you will find only thieves of faith and ghouls of the soul.
Action without knowledge is nothing but walking into a dragon's jaws; when deeds lack wisdom, you will see them as a hissing serpent.
Yet knowledge without action grants no wish either; what good is a brave man you find with no sword and no spear?
What archery can you expect from a boastful marksman whose bragging fills the air while no arrow sits on his bow?
Act on what you know, scatter your seed, for the crop of this world is harvested in the next.
Heaven is born from words, paradise rises from deeds; palaces, beautiful maidens and servants are all the harvest sown by your hand and tongue.
The crimson wine you will find is knowledge and its fruits; the eternal food you will see is pure intention and sincerity.
For the man of true meaning, deeds are not prayer and fasting alone; you treat one as an amulet for the soul, the other as a guard for bread.
From pilgrimage you want fame, from holy war you seek a name; you give a little charity and expect to be in debt's favor for a lifetime.
True action is seeking nearness to God and obeying Him in every task where knowledge shows you His pleasure.
Whatever you sow with your hand, water it with the eyes of attention; for if you scatter dry seed, you will only see your own harvest ruined.
Be humble toward people, show meekness to others, for these acts of humility become your ladder to the heavens.
Prayer became the believer's ascent so that, each moment you lay your head on the ground, you would find yourself in the sky.
Cast pride and arrogance out of the realm of your heart, for with conceit you will see your kingdom held by a demon.
Drive the commanders of anger and lust out of the body's realm, for their flame turns this sacred light to smoke.
When the vapors of desire rise like a tide of lust, you will see the face of the soul's sun hidden in clouds of darkness.
When the sea of rage begins to surge, you will see the boat of the heart writhing in a whirlpool of confusion like hell itself.
From the rabble of base nature comes such a turmoil of revolt that the realm of your chest grows more ruined than a lover's state.
From these wild desert dwellers comes such reckless boldness that you see the chaos of marauders shaking the city of certainty.
Come, sever the attachments of craving from their roots, for in the marketplace of Resurrection you will see every form laid bare in its shop.
From the outward you can reach the inward, if you are a man; for once you grasp the proof, you find it an interpreter of the Quran.
If you wish, you can rise even one step higher, for then you will surely see the outward as the very essence of the inward.
And if you pass beyond even this, you have a station where, transformed into a phoenix, you find the peacock of immortality nesting.
You hold a paradise yet rest content in a hell; I am amazed that the gold lies buried in your house while you chase the dust of the caravan.
In truth you are a paradise, yet you have made yourself a hell with this misplaced thought, that you will gain this and behold that.
Cut your attachment to desire and you will be safe from hell; lift the veil from yourself and you will see eternal paradise.
Why do you wander seeking a rose's scent in this ancient thicket of thorns? Bow your head to your collar and you will find a garden within a garden.
If you step out of this dungeon of tomorrow and yesterday, you will see eternity past and eternity to come as two twin children in one place.
Sometimes you find the deer of pre-eternity grazing in the meadow of eternity, sometimes the bull of earth plowing the field of the sky.
Turn your face from this wilderness of dread toward the street of union, for there you will see your own scattered pieces gathered as one.
Pass from this self-regard into the realm of selflessness, for there you will find a trace of everything you lost here.
Like Abraham, step into the fire of love and watch, for you will see every hair of yourself blossoming like a branch of redbud.
The colorful surface has deceived you; open the eye of the heart, for on the mirror of the soul you will plainly see the stain of this darkness.
Do not be dazzled by ornament; polish instead the eye of meaning, for you will find the colorful surface a crocodile that swallows the soul.
You, who look only at the surface, are already lost in wonder at this shape and form. What will you do if one day you see eternal beauty?
In this ruined corner of existence, what feeling can be born from water and clay, when even in its air you find yourself at every moment raining fire?
Pass through the Egypt of meaning, for in every alley of its hidden world you will see the goods of Joseph's beauty, caravan after caravan.
Know that the beauty you see on the surface is only a reflection of inner beauty, since you find so much grace of color, water, and scent among earthly beings.
Look at the color of tulip and rose, at the clarity of ruby and pearl, and you will see the hand of nature's master at work.
Recognize the color play of nature's garden in this: you find color spread on the cheek of what the sea and the mine bring forth.
See the inherent beauty of the vegetative and animal soul, whether you behold a peacock or a parrot, a rose or sweet basil.
Watch the beauty of the speaking soul reveal itself, and be amazed, when you see the charm, coyness, and flirtation of the beloved.
Rise one veil higher still, and know it as the beauty of the universal soul, for you will find its motion in the heavens and its light in the stars.
The beauty of the universal intellect can become clear to you, if with the eye of love you look at the sky in ecstasy and longing.
Contemplate with the inner eye the eternal beauty, before which you will see the universal intellect bewildered like the minds of ordinary people.
Know it all to be from the radiance of eternal beauty's light, whether you find a rose among thorns or see a soul within a body.
You lack the eye of meaning; otherwise, in the scroll of every thorn you would find the tale of that rose's beauty, story upon story.
You cannot break this spell of surface color unless within yourself you find the power of spiritual love.
Here the drum of victory thunders only in the name of love; if you do not come as love's warrior, you will find only disgrace in this arena.
When love arrives in the field like Fereydun, you will see every hair on your body become, through valor, the banner of Kaveh.
Step into the battle with the ego stripped bare and free, for there you will see nakedness become the armor on a holy warrior's horse.
Be humble in your quest for greatness, for through honor in this field you will see the head of submission rise to the sky.
Do not seek to push ahead; and if it should happen, act so that even seated at the head of the gathering you see yourself at the threshold.
Bury the head of arrogance in the dust, for in this assembly you always see a hand of rejection against the arrogant.
Take the troubles of the age to be the polish that clears the heart's rust, for you see the mirror grow bright from the polishers' ash.
Gold of low purity has no escape from being melted; what does it matter if you see this melting as the embarrassment of being tested?
Today purge the dross of existence from your coin, if you want tomorrow to see yourself shining like pure gold.
I marvel that, having tied your being to this place, you still expect to find in yourself wings to fly into the placeless realm.
You cannot spread your wings in the air of timelessness while you see yourself with feathers bound in the trap of time.
The men of God are phoenixes soaring in the divine realm. How long will you, here in the material world, watch the ill fortune of the heavens and the luck of the stars?
See how the phoenix of reason spreads its shade; what state is this, that for an owl of mad longing you make the skull's cup a nest?
The pleasures of the mind are better for you than those of the body, for you find these ever changing while you find those eternal.
Of comforts, best is the one you gain without pain and toil; of blessings, best is the one you enjoy without need of palate or mouth.
A bone exists only for the marrow inside it. How wretched you are in your ignorance, seeing only the bone and missing the marrow.
If in worshiping God your eyes are fixed on heaven's maidens and youths, I am amazed: you see the beauty of the sun only in two faint stars.
We look upon a guard's face only to draw near the king. You are content with the king's nearness merely to glimpse the guard!
The promise of paradise is made for the weakness of our resolve, just as a furnace tender sees paradise in a furnace, not in a garden.
Each receives the reward of his deeds according to his aspiration. You see paradise and the bright-eyed maidens exactly as your understanding grasps them.
Everyone imagines something of paradise: one sees nearness and the divine face, while you see only the flesh of birds and bread.
One enjoys the company of the maidens and fruits as knowledge; you treat them all as wares for the belly and the mouth.
You can measure this by the Prophet's ascension itself: where others saw mysteries, you see only a turban, a beard, a robe, and a cloak.
Don't you see that a single truth can carry a thousand names, and in the meaning of each you find a difference?
Names differ according to people's comprehension; that is why in the Quran you sometimes find heaven called smoke.
God's gift of women is, to us, a blessing for the soul; the sage calls it animal spirit, while you see only bread on a table.
To the wise who ponder meaning, in the language of religious law you find the nakedness of resurrection day to be a metaphor for the soul's freedom from the body.
Freedom from the body needs a light spirit to take flight; for you it is hard, since you see your own weight pressing down from these four elements.
If you shake the dust of the four elements from your wings, you will find yourself nested like the angels on the branch of the lote tree of heaven.
Why not shake your robe free of the elements and their traces, since it is from the elements that the chains come which you also see binding the unbelievers?
Fayyaz, I found you troubled, and my heart grew heavy at this handful of advice that rises from your heart to your tongue.
My aim in this song is neither preaching nor moralizing; but when there is pain in the heart, you also find a cry on the lips.
Know these words to be smoke from the fire of meaning: when fire hides within a house, you see its smoke escape.
You simply lack that inner state which grasps more than the senses; otherwise you would see this blood forever flowing from the root of every hair.
Do not call me a preacher, for a preacher's spirit is cold; here you find someone soaked in his own blood from head to foot through his words.
Do not call him a moralizer, this one who weaves fine points from the ledger of the heart, whose pen tip you see scattering blood like a strand of eyelash.
At the prompting of the sage of Ghazni I raised these laments, in a tune where you find one bird speaking the language of another.
Silence is now a duty for the one wise in meaning, for if he speaks as lightly as the soul, you find him heavy as the body.
My conversation is with the living-hearted dead; from these dead-hearted living, you find my love sealed upon my lips.
To gauge the pains of suffering from a place of comfort is like wanting to know the state of storm-tossed eyes while standing safe on the shore.
You judge the condition of others by your own state; you see the world as a rose garden because that is what you see in your mirror.
You who are at ease, what do you know of the world's turmoil? Look at my condition, and you will see the chaos of the end of time.
If you want a ghazal, I will open it with two lines from two of my own couplets, so you will find even the soul of the nightingale of Shiraz delighted.