Anis al-Arifin

Thanks be to God, whose majesty is exalted and whose word is supreme, who by the radiance of the light of the secrets of the suns, gave existence, by the decree of eternity, to the spirits, the moons of human hearts, that is, to the wandering planets of the heavens of their souls, out of the world of nothingness; who honored the dwellers of the earth of possibility with the dignity of «Indeed, We have honored the children of Adam.» The subtle, discerning intellect, which is the minister of the sultans of human spirits and the cause of the good fortune of the coin of their being, stands bewildered at the first thresholds of His perfect beauty, before the assaults of the blows of His glorious majesty. You who are far above the reach of any keen mind that claims to grasp your path. Whoever enters the street of oneness, his whole portion is pain and bewilderment. No one has any access to you. No, no, there is no one at all except you. His infinite attributes turn their face toward His unconditioned essence, and His eternal essence looks upon His eternal attributes. He is both the knower and the known. He is both the describer and the described. His presence is manifest within the hidden depths of the world, and in His manifestation the multiplicity of created things is erased; from the visibility of things He is hidden, and from the hiddenness of things He is manifest. The sacred law lies within the mystical path, the path within the truth, and the truth of all existence is Himself, while the intellect has no path into His reality. The high-soaring falcon of love, which reigns over the birds of angelic spirits, is a slave of His threshold. «There is nothing like Him» is a verse spoken of His nature. To Him belong creation and command; blessed be God, Lord of the worlds. After praising the presence of the Necessary Being, and after countless blessings upon the pure spirits, the very centers of divine generosity, each of whom, upon the seat of prophethood and the throne of divine mission, guided many thousands lost in the desert of error to the borders of true guidance by the blessing of their leadership, may God's blessings be upon them all; and especially upon that sultan who reigns over the secret of nobility, that sun in the sky of blessedness, one line of whose imperial decrees is «We sent you only as a mercy to the worlds,» and one chapter of whose abundant perfections and nearness to God is «I was a prophet while Adam was still between water and clay,» may God's blessings be upon him and upon his pure family; and countless approval upon the sacred spirits and unstained forms of the four great companions, and upon all the noble companions, who were the managers of the Prophet's law, the keepers of the secrets of the prophetic path, the stars in the constellations of guidance, and the pearls in the casket of sainthood, may God's approval be upon them all; and upon the luminous spirits and fragrant forms of the noble Sufi masters, whose soul-bird has flown from the lowland of the created world to the summit of the world of eternity, and who, in the gardens of holiness, upon the branches of the trees of the heavenly kingdom, have become the birds of the realm of divine power, singing with the pure whistle of divine self-sufficiency the secrets of the pavilions of oneness, may God sanctify their spirits; and upon the scholars of religion, who, by the words «Only those of His servants who have knowledge truly fear God,» are singled out, marked for the gifts of mercy and the favors of forgiveness, may God's mercy be upon them all. And now: God, glorified and exalted, granted the gift of success to His servant, poor before his Lord, the humble Ali ibn Nasir ibn Harun ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Husayni al-Tabrizi, known as Qasimi, may God make his ends good; and by the decree «God does what He wills,» He turned the subject heart, which is the coin of human being, without delay or debt, toward the will to compose this book, for «the hearts of servants are between two of the fingers of the Merciful, who turns them as He wills.» Without the burden of deliberate thought, meanings came one after another; so he wrote down a few subtle points from the delicate mysteries of the human jewel. God is the one who grants success, from Him comes all success and kindness, and upon Him is reliance, by His grace and His bounty.

O helper of sinners, granter of every plea, O companion of the mystics, O Lord of majesty. Your love turns every heart into a knot of trouble; your longing drives every wise mind to madness. Longing for you, my heart is lovesick; the passion of your love has set us on fire. The whole world of reason and soul stands bewildered before you; our hearts are like balls curved by your polo stick. The bird of my heart is caught in the snare of your love; whoever craves you holds his head high. The passion of your love has set the world ablaze; without you, a hundred mournings fill every corner. On your path the knowing mind loses itself; the sea of your love surges in our hearts. Kings are beggars at your gate; from you the world's empty-handed find their sustenance. Your love has sewn shut the eyes of the falcon of intellect; in your desire the bird of the soul burned its wings. The truest men remain bewildered on your road, deep red tears streaming down their pale faces. The souls of those who long for you rejoice in your pain; your chosen servants are the free ones of this world. Truly, a single moment of your wound and pain is sweeter to Qasemi than a hundred rose gardens. For the one who is intimate with these words, the sting becomes honey, and the wound becomes its own cure. O you, before whose praise all tongues fall silent; in longing for you the bird of imagination has thrown down its wings. In praising you Qasemi is left bewildered, seeing no end and wandering lost. The sorrow of your love agrees with my soul; my heart hopes in your acts of grace. O Lord, sovereign of the world, generous one, undying and eternal, the living and ancient one. None but your kindness comes to the rescue; O God of all the worlds, come to my aid. My King, we are your weary servants, all of us bound and shackled by desire. We stand bewildered in the desert of searching, drowned in an endless ocean. Without your grace the soul has no strength; O refuge of those who cry for help, grant your mercy. Confused Qasem is one who wanders for you; if he is bad, and if he is good, either way he is yours. O generous Lord who sets things right, by your grace set my affairs in order. One last sip, for through anxious reasoning I am left thirsty in the wilderness of pride. A single pull of grace, so that for one moment I may take flight and soar in the air of the placeless realm. With your kindness, make my heart's house flourish; free my soul from the chains of the world. Give the bird of my soul a way to union with you; grant me a seeing eye and an aware heart. Make my soul a stranger to the world's people; make the memory of you dwell in my heart. Hold back the vulture of the lower self from its games; keep the bird of my soul aloft in your desire. Draw me near to yourself and far from the crowd; forgive my humiliation and my sin, O most forgiving one. Keep my soul in the fervor of love; keep my secret hidden from the people of the world.

The foremost of the world, the sun of faith and law, the chosen one of Adam's line, the Prophet of all messengers. His soul swims in the sea of prophethood; the verse 'I have a time with God' was spoken in his honor. His pure spirit is a mine of truth and clarity, Mustafa, the candle in the hall of guidance. Even the universal intellect fell behind on his ascent; God set his crown with the words 'By your life.' The dawn of God's light, the goal of all things, leader of the law, sovereign of the messengers. His name erased the sin of Adam; both worlds drink but a sip from his cup. The choice of all prophets, without dispute, the pride of the house of Abd Manaf. You who make the soul's ring shine with your final saintship, light of God, mercy to all the worlds. I make no claim to be your son, Prophet; I am dust on your path, so accept me, accept me. I make no claim of sonship, yet on the ground of your street my head lies low as the dust. You by whose law Qasemi finds his pride, intercessor of the community, messenger of the Creator. Your four companions are the guides of humans and spirits, each one, in his own age, a master of his time. All four were the builders of the sacred law, all four were royal falcons of the truth. A hundred thousand mercies from the abode of peace upon their pure souls, and peace be with them.

What a shame! My life has been thrown to the wind, and my own carelessness has done me such injustice. I never knew the worth of my life's precious coin; how sad, I gambled that coin away. Neglect gave my days to the wind. Justice! Justice, from the hand of neglect! Justice, justice! With my crooked thinking I earned nothing but deprivation and a veil, all from the cravings of my ego. From this grief all I have gained is sighing, and a longing that only wears the soul away. My heart aches with the pain of sin. To whom can I tell my story? Alas, alas! Alas for this regret: with my own hand I put my own head to the sword, cutting it from my own body. No one in the world but me flung his honor to the wind, scattered like dust on the road by the fire of Satan. The trap of this world caught the bird of my heart; my mind stayed busy with this person and that. I turned bad, I grew close to wicked people; know this: I let my heart lose all control. The shameful things I have done, how could even the bell ringing Christians approve of them? The unworthy deeds I have done would be counted as sin even by the people of Rome and China. One cannot even speak of it among the Arabs; among the Persians it would be a tale that melts the soul. East and West both feel shame at it: the believers of Syria and the fire worshippers of Tartary alike. If anyone suspects me of sin, what sin in the world could be worse than this? That I grew heedless of the true God, and wasted a whole lifetime, old now and empty. Since I did nothing worthwhile in my time, let the wheel of fortune scatter me to the wind for what I deserve. Truly, in all the lands of Khorasan and Iraq there is no rebel, no disowned man, quite like me. This woman, the world, stole the cap right off my head; shame on the man who ends up complaining of a woman. Whether my lineage is noble or from Hijaz, I have no remedy left but burning and melting away. In my heedlessness I turned the Kaaba into a temple; I could no longer tell good from evil. I made the divine throne into a pagan shrine, and tied the belt of unbelief around my waist. I fell for the Christian bell; like a monk I walked away from the clear word of God. I served the priest and the monk; I did a hundred things worse than that dervish of Sanan. With the cross before me I bowed to the idol; for a long life I practiced idol worship. In the monasteries I feasted day and night; in the mosques I raised pigs and dogs. My own father gave me counsel time and again, and each time those words fell like chains on my heart. I put iron shackles on his feet. Would any man of sense ever do such a thing? For years I kept him in misery; I mistook the guardian for a thief. I snatched the crown of honor from his head and threw a garment of pitch black shame over him. My mother was left wronged by my cruelty, robbed of her beauty and her dignity. That crowned one lost her honor; by the fire of my injustice she was laid low in the dust. I dragged her out of paradise into a furnace room, and sewed her a shirt of coarse sackcloth. Once her face shone lovely as the moon; the soot of the furnace turned it black as her hair. Once she was wealthy, a princess, with a hundred thousand servants and free retainers. My cruelty and injustice made her a beggar; the misery of the furnace room tore her heart to shreds. Once, with countless splendor and grace, she drank milk and sugar from golden cups. Now in this furnace, from the cup of sighs, she swallows the fire of grief, hour after hour. I have wronged my brother beyond all measure; no, not my brother, I have wronged my own self. With my failings I devoured his flesh and blood, in death and in life alike. I labored so that the fire worshippers of Tartary could humble and disgrace the people of faith. I hurt the moon faced ones of Rome, and nurtured the foul and the ill natured. I drove the nightingale and the dove out of the garden and gave the nest to the owl and the crow. I cut down the branches of the fig with my blade, and, alas, I nourished the roots of bitterness. The rosebush of my striving showed me only thorns; I had not realized the rose comes with the thorn. By the ugliness of my own deeds I have made myself deserve to be stoned by every man and woman. My desires were honey laced with poison: sweet on the surface, murderous underneath. What I did to myself, I have earned; let them burn me with oil and straw, and I accept it. The demon of heedlessness lit the fire of grief, and burned up all I owned, the dry and the green alike. In my ignorance I struck the axe against my own foot. Whom can I blame, when I struck the blow myself? I am helpless and lost in my own affairs, deeply wounded, but wounded by my own hand. For all the wrongs I did, in the end God showed me the path to well being. He stripped the garment of rebellion from my body and clothed me in the shirt of His own gnosis. The army of His grace plundered my abasement, and from renouncing both worlds He crowned me. Through the grace of the master Bayazid, I found my way back to the master Bayazid's road. His grace kept company even with an unbeliever, and a hundred year old infidel became a keeper of the secret. If the light of that sun falls upon a demon, in an instant it makes him lovelier than an angel of paradise. If it draws near to the blazing hellfire, then hell forever becomes the highest paradise. I fall silent about describing His graces, for in their perfection they cannot be put into words.

Company of lovers, the union draws near. Cream of lovers, do not wander off; come here. Dear friends, rise up, do not sleep. Drink from His cup a stream of wine. How long will you stay blind to yourself? What a pity! Your commanding self is swinging its blade at your neck. You, prisoner of this world's pleasure, what has it been? What gain, besides loss, has our ill-natured self brought us? How long will you beg from people, crumb by crumb? In the end, my soul, how long this pretense of being a king? Your whole kingdom is scattering to the wind. How long will you go on living in such disgrace? You show not a wisp of smoke from the fire of true zeal. Dust on your head, you who are a shame to existence! What sorrow! Screened off by the treacherous self, you stayed unaware of the eternal Beloved. By the spells of this world, this house of vanity, you were kept far from the forgiving Lord of the world. You were a royal falcon; now you are a vulture. If you are anyone at all, this is worse than a hundred deaths. Whatever pleases your appetite, you indulge. How long will you keep filling your own grave with fire? The drink of truth tastes bitter to your heart, while falsehood goes down sweetly in your soul. No, you got it wrong; a mistake has slipped in. From where have these mistakes come falling upon you?

There was a dark-souled man, without faith or justice, whose life the demon of heedlessness had thrown to the wind. He had several measures of grape syrup in a jar, and by chance a mouse fell into it and died. He grabbed the mouse and quickly pulled it out; the poor mouse had died from its own greed. The man went, distressed, to the judge, showed him the mouse and complained of his misfortune. The judge ruled that the syrup was now forbidden, right there before the crowd of high and low. When the wretched man heard this, he told the judge: you have made a big mistake. I tasted it, and it was sweet on my tongue; since it is sweet, why should it be forbidden? If my syrup had turned bitter, then, without any doubt, I would have called it forbidden myself. The man's nature was foul and upside down, so of course he saw bitter and sweet reversed. You whose face is black like these dark souls: obedience tastes bitter to you and sin tastes sweet. Falsehood is sweet to the appetite of the self; truth is bitter to the taste of ordinary people. Because they are sick, with bile in their temperament, even sugar tastes to them like bitter vitriol. The whole heart of the world is sick, from end to end, its face pale from longing for silver and gold. You who are trapped in the snare of worldly pleasure: do not die like the mouse from greed for sweetness. Though obedience to God tastes bitter to you, it is a bitter medicine that cures your pain. Bitter medicine proves useful in the end; it grants the ailing person healing and a good outcome. If someone keeps flattering you without limit, your ill-omened self will praise him for the empty words. You take him as a friend and imagine he speaks truly, though his words are false, lies, and hypocrisy. But the truth-teller, moved by concern for your faith, if he stops you from arrogance, denial, and spite, you take him as your enemy with all your heart and soul, you who are lower than the lowest thing in the world. If you are famous for a good name, that too is an error; the pain of a bad name is the cure for the soul's suffering.

In the prime of my youth, far from home, the pain of exile joined the pain of longing for my beloved. I was twenty years old, more or less, and the light of mystic knowledge was raising its banner in my heart. In my cabin of sorrows I was again holding a conversation with my brothers and friends. A questioner asked me, distraught as I was, about the soul, the self, and the heart. Such delicate insights came to me that I said: how could I ever let these slip away? It would be fitting, I thought, to arrange them into a book and call it 'Companion of the Mystics.' In it I would answer questions about five things: the self, the soul, the heart, the intellect, and love as well. It would hold all the lights of truth; it would uncover the secrets of the lover. It would be a confidant to the hearts of dervishes, a balm for souls whose hearts are wounded. In truth, a ledger of the court of mysteries; on the path, a comfort to those who walk it. Every fortunate seeker will find their way to this blessed book easily, at any time. O Refuge of those who cry for help, O Generous One, O Abundant in goodness, O Lord, O Merciful. Poor Qasim, from head to foot, without You is pure nothingness, empty of all existence. Since his being is nothing on its own, how could he speak of knowing the self, the intellect, and the soul? If Your grace instructs me when I set to work, even Gabriel will praise me a hundred thousand times.

Welcome, you who ask so sweet a question! Listen now to what I say about your own soul. There is a Maker who created humans and spirits, who nurtured the mind, the soul, the heart, and life itself. The peerless, all-powerful One, by His noble decree, gave humankind its fullness through four things. Phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile, and then blood, which flows through every limb. Then, out of pure grace and generosity, He drew from these four elements a vapor into the body. If someone understands it by true wisdom, without doubt he will call it the natural spirit. From this vapor He brings another vapor into being; the wise one calls it the animal spirit. Then from the animal spirit yet another rises, a vapor purer still emerges from it. It is very fine, luminous, and beautiful; in it the holy spirit finds its dwelling. They call it the human spirit, my son; from end to end it becomes able to receive the lights. When it becomes fully the home of the Holy Spirit, the mystics from then on name it the self. Know that the holy spirit grants it strength, and that it becomes the master that commands the senses. When it practices piety, restraint, and virtue, in the terms of the mystics it is the soul at peace. If it strays from piety and falls into sin, the name commanding soul is applied to it. And if for a moment it rests between the two, the mystics call it the self-reproaching soul. And what, then, is the root of piety and of sin? Brother, it is the grace and the wrath of the One who needs nothing. There the thread slipped from the hands of the people; whoever came into the sacred law was saved, was saved.

Any heart that follows its own base cravings is exiled from the lands of true knowledge. Wherever the fire of the greedy self flares up, it burns the whole harvest of the soul, wet and dry alike. Though its traits cannot be listed in full, still a few of them must be named. Conceit, stinginess, greed, love of rank and wealth, mockery, slander, backbiting, tattling, and idle chatter. Overeating, too much sleep, doubt, arrogance, and spite, and denial of the ways of God's true men. Lust for boys, lust for women, foolishness and ignorance, stupidity, forgetfulness, hatred, disobedience, sloth, and laziness. Also envy, play, frivolity, and hypocrisy, and a self forever girded up for petty quarrels. Also giddy excess, idleness, and insolence, false hopes, pretense, the very mother of all danger. I will explain a few of these traits, so you can recognize them, if your heart still has the sight. For if I were to describe them all, the tale would grow as long as my own pain.

One trait of this commanding, sinful self is conceit, a strange demon that devours people. What is conceit? It is when the wretched soul plots to rate itself above every living thing. It looks only inward at itself, and so it stays blind to the fact of death. Conceit draws its strength from feeding desire; the conceited man is God's own enemy. From this trait arrogance is born, just as smoke rises from a burning fire. Conceit lies hidden deep inside; arrogance shows itself openly to others. Arrogance is claiming to stand above another; whoever carries this trait is an ass. The trait of arrogance belongs, in the end, to leopards; God forbid that it should belong to a human being. You leopard, wounding your own body and soul, beware: you will be ruined by nothing more than a mouse's urine! Once your leopard nature has wounded you, my clever one, that vile mouse will piss on you in that very moment. And a mouse's urine is nothing but envy; remember this point if you have any sense. From arrogance rises wretched greed; greed, in truth, is that filthy mouse. You will not carry your life out of this world, you unfinished soul, even if you are a roaring lion. That is all.

Anyone who aims for the threshold of God's greatness finds his enemies on the path of faith are pride and hypocrisy. Whoever carries this trait is a mere cat; to the people of true knowledge, a dog is better than him. Love of the world is the very sign of hypocrisy. Who is the self-glorifier? The one always showing off. It is the opposite of sincerity, a lesser form of idolatry; this is the saying of the Prophet himself. Truly, the hypocrite is no real man: on the path of faith his heart feels no pain. A hundred cries of grief at that dervish within from whose inner self this trait keeps rising up. How long, you fool, will you chase people's approval? For that approval is nothing but the root of ruin. Denial of the beloved comes only after affirming the self; on this path, denying yourself is affirming Him.

A wretched hedgehog in the mountains had hidden itself away beneath the thorns. It tucked its head into its collar, free of the world, wrapping itself in a cloak made of its own spines. There in the rocky ground it lay, parched, and from its extreme thirst it burned with fever. A hungry fox roamed between the mountain and the plain, searching about for something to eat. The animal ran everywhere with cunning, and suddenly it happened upon the hedgehog. With trickery it let its urine trickle over the hedgehog, so the little creature thought rain had come. The exhausted thing had lips gone dry from thirst, so it quickly poked its head out for the rain. The fox saw it move and was delighted; at once it made a meal of it and went on its way, free. By showing itself it threw its life to the wind. Through the habit of showing off, alas, alas! Showing off is not the work of a traveler on the path; the show-off knows nothing of true devotion's pain.

Anyone who wears the cloak of hypocrisy ranks lower than the stray dogs in the alley. True poverty of spirit isn't in show, glitter, and display; the dervish's crown is turning away from both worlds. Never let the cloak of pretense sit on your head; don't mistake the devil's spittle for rain from heaven. You must walk the road by the light of knowledge, so you don't suddenly tumble to the bottom of a well.

A scholar who lets this trait take over his mind sets fire to the faith of the Prophet. Day and night he takes the path of falsehood, and from constant arguing he burns as if with fever. He turns rebellious against a fellow Muslim in debate, then speaks with pompous show and bluster. All for a reputation among the people of the world, he preys on people like a ravening beast. To make his own falsehood look like truth, he stings people like a mosquito. You who claim the rank of a jurist, you play the fool among the Muslims. Since foolishness is no way to safety, give some thought at last to what you are doing. So that you are not merely a matter of 'kaf and nun', not of the kind of whom it is said 'they do not understand'. Build your house on the knowledge of the sacred law, for the sake of the Provider, not for the sake of your daily bread. It is a mistake to bend the law to fit yourself; you must straighten yourself to fit the law. You who are trapped in 'permitted and not permitted', close your eyes to your own self-regard. How long will you pour out your soul over grammar and syntax? The knowledge of the people of the heart is a total erasure of the self. Lift the pride of your name and your soul will open; break the outward trappings and faith will stand firm. When your heart is freed from Satan's pull, after that you become of the added, joined kind. You stay busy with hollow verbs, and the doubled ailment grows worse every moment. The past has passed, and nothing remains but mere talk; what will your state be in the future? You, ruined by your own evil-commanding self, veiled from the friend who gives your soul its life. How long will you roam mountain and plain like a beast of burden? Turn toward the divine 'He, He' from the good place of return.

When desire piles onto the love of the world, your fortune turns up cursed within your own soul. Doubt and suspicion are the root of greed, my son; let me tell you the roots of it, one by one. Know that love of religion is the source of doubt and hesitation; once you grasp this, I will tell you what comes next. The root of loving this base world springs from lust; and honestly, this deep sickness has little cure. This is a glimmer of inborn ignorance; and a person's ignorance comes from the wrath of the Lord of all worlds.

A wise mystic said kindly to a miser: You wretch, brought low by your own lack of courage, As long as you clutch tight like a timid, faint hearted person, you will always miss the joy of union with God. Reaching Him means giving your very soul, you fool; a miser stays far from such fortune. If you cannot bring yourself even to give a loaf of bread, how will you ever step forward like the brave? My heart, seek Him with your whole being, for as the Quran says: You will not attain goodness until you spend from what you love. Your daily bread grows no larger through your stinginess, so do not wear yourself out clinging to greed.

Out of his kindness, our God has made each quality of ours like a ball on his playing field. Every quality turns like a ball in play, yet its turning fits the shape of the field. His power is the mallet, his field our hope; this is how destiny was set from the beginning of time.

In Gilan there was a lord's son, a good man, fortunate, and free. He cleansed the land of evil and disgrace; his name and title: Jalal al-Din Husayn. He was a king full of devotion, a seeker of dervishes and scholars. He was as humble as the road beneath the pure-hearted Sufis' feet; his throne stood in Astara. A band of suspicious men lived in dread and fear, in constant terror of his crushing wrath. Each one was drunk on the wish to shed the king's blood, waiting to find the helpless man off guard. Suddenly their chance arrived; the unwary king was killed at their hands. The young king held many hopes, and in those hopes he ignored his malicious enemy. That poor king's hopes went into the grave with him; he died cut off from all he desired. He meant to take the whole of Gilan, but death seized him by the collar without warning. The king was murdered at his enemies' hands, and dismissed from everything he wished. That wronged and helpless king kept girding himself with effort, hoping perhaps to win everything from Lahijan to Shahjan; then suddenly they took the very life from the king. You, prisoner of empty hope, how long like this? Get up and saddle the horse of striving. Fashion your gear and supplies out of piety and restraint, and launch a raid, a sudden charge, upon your own ego. Wrest back, O renowned one, like a true man, the whole kingdom of the soul from the ego's grip. You are careless while the enemy lies in ambush; look at what happened to the king of Astara. You are drunk on your own desires, alas, while your commanding ego swings its blade at your neck. The corrupt, commanding ego is the soul's enemy, and you, heedless one, share your very shirt with it. In the end, you poor, bewildered creature, why let a demon rule over you? If you overcome it, you are a true man; if it takes you captive, you are no man at all. How long will you burden your heart and soul? How long will you feed and strengthen your enemy? Strip the eagle of the ego of its strength, so it cannot overpower the royal falcon of the soul. Its strength is gluttony, greed, arrogance, and spite, along with the other traits I named before. If these wrong traits come from the ego, hold them back and turn its rage away. When the bad traits are parted from it, by God's grace the soul finds peace. It surely becomes worthy of the gardens of union, fit to hold the secrets of the Lord of the worlds. It takes on the qualities of perfection, drawing abundance from the light of divine majesty. Once passage beyond earth and water is granted, the blessed call comes from the Truth. Know your own self and become a man of action; in the search, keep turning restlessly like a compass. How long the sleep of neglect? Wake up. For once, go searching for the Beloved. Rise and pour dust on your head from grief and pain, for why are you so far from that pure Beloved? Whoever dies far from such a Beloved was born blind, lived blind, and died blind. The pain of longing for Him is the joy of the world; His pale-cheeked lover is forever honored. His pain is the key to the doors of the heart; whoever bears the brand of that pain is fortunate. The pain of His love is the lot of the lucky; it is the great elixir for the copper of the soul. His pain is the cure for those who yearn; whoever holds this pain longs for Him. Why stay far from the Beloved in your heedlessness? Your heedlessness stirs my jealous zeal.

When the gaze of that ancient, formless Essence rested upon its own attributes, from there the stirring of love became visible. If you seek the truths, know this. It kept its gaze forever on its own acts, seeing good and evil through its own qualities. From this gaze the exalted reason emerged; whoever has the eye to see, saw it. This gaze they named knowledge, and the other one, love, and that is all. From these two gazes the light of the spirit rose, and from them a hundred openings came to the world. When the sun of love shone upon the mirror of the spirit out of the very source of those openings, the heart, like a moon, came into being from this. It is pure knowing; look, if you are a man of insight. Without doubt, the reflection of each of those things I named shines upon the heart. After this, by the command of the Creator, these manifestations settle upon the self. If you carry even a speck of the ache of knowing, these words will be dearer to you than life. Even if you roamed a whole world end to end, few there are who know this discourse, if any. In the moment I was giving form to this tale, a sea of light was surging in my heart. This speech holds the pearl of the ocean; this speech is a guide for the truest of men. A tale that springs from the soul's delight cannot be reached except through the soul's delight. Do not say I am asserting my own self; I have already answered this objection in advance. Poor Qasim, from head to foot, without You is nothing but non-being drawn from existence. Since he has no being of his own, how could he speak of knowledge from the self, from reason, from soul? In truth my essence comes from His essence; when I affirm myself, it is Him I affirm. Who am I? A bewildered, helpless creature, a wanderer lost in the wilderness of annihilation. Neither a blessed servant nor a fortunate one, and by my own hand my feet are stuck in the mud. Not aware of learning or gnosis, no step in the path, no path beneath my step. Not a nurturer of wisdom, not ignorant, not a sage, neither of the people of heaven nor of hell. In form, I am not forever in the tavern, and in meaning I am neither a raw Sufi nor a common man. Leave us in non-being, unknowing; take up His name, and speak no name of ours.

The heart is the treasury of divine secrets; the heart is the keeper of spiritual light. The house of the heart is a mine of truth and purity, the place where the light of God's own being appears. What is the heart? The one that reveals the ways of the soul. What is the heart? The one that receives the soul's downpour of grace. Restraint and reverence, nearness to God, fear and hope, worth, honesty, sincerity, and purity, detachment, surrender, reflection, the light of thought, the light of reason, the light of awe, the light of remembrance, all of these become the heart's own qualities, if you cleanse it of everything that stands beside God. You who are captive to your heart's incurable pain, drowning in the endless ocean of your heart, do not leave your heart in the demon's grip, my son; take it back from him and bring it home, my son. Drive the demon out of the court of your heart; for a while, stand bravely as your heart's own gatekeeper.

The learned sheikh, the sun of the saints, the leader of the faith, the purest of the pure. The one through whom Ardabil became famous, and by whose beauty Ardabil was filled with light. Comfort to seekers, one who melts their souls, keeper of secrets, king enthroned in humble need. From the very start he set out on his journey, searching, asking after a guiding master. When he reached the famous city of Shiraz, Sheikh Saadi became his close companion. A discerning man asked the sheikh: 'You whose beauty lights up both body and soul, in this wilderness of longing, what is your goal? And what is all this endless ache of the heart?' Then, royal falcon of high resolve, he told Sheikh Saadi a story of his own. When Saadi heard that tale he was left bewildered, amazed at the height of the sheikh's resolve. He said to the sheikh: 'You who are rich in meaning, whose head is raised high by your own resolve, that station you have described, Saadi's bird has never nested there. From these words a pain has settled in my heart; I am helpless before this vast secret. Yet if you ask, from my own poems and from my inner mine I can offer you a few insights.' Out of pure pain the sheikh replied: 'Our soul is cut off from all but the Beloved. In my heart I hold many verses from God's own book; I have no concern for anyone else's book. We have given our love to His pain, and turned away from the world and from the self. My soul has gone mad with love for the Beloved, and grown a stranger to the thought of any other.' At these words Sheikh Saadi wept bitterly and said to the sheikh: 'You great and renowned one, you have chased the ball of good fortune with your mallet and carried it off in the field of joy. From God you hold a kingdom without end, its decree: 'God guides whom He wills.' The lion-hearted men, free of all craving for water and earth, made the house of the heart this pure. With sincerity of heart these men have worked, choosing His pain over both worlds. The heart that is busy with Him day and night is inevitably drowned in the vision of His face. If in your heart there is nothing but the pain of the Beloved, guard it well, for that alone is your soul. A single grain of sorrow for the Beloved, my son, is sweeter than the kingdom of both worlds entire. Whoever holds even a grain of His pain in the heart stands honored by His remembrance until the Day of Judgment. If you have no dealings with the self and Satan, then in the land of the heart there is no other dwelling.'

I once had a friend who was a true man, a sheikh, a scholar, and full of heartfelt pain. He told me a story about the heart, about Ruwaym, that master among people of the heart. That great man of faith, in the days of spring, was walking through a meadow. He saw a dervish, head sunk into his ragged cloak, drowned in the sea of self-erasure, free of all people. The Sufi said: 'Lift your head, look at the flowers.' The man of the path of faith replied: 'Bow your head down, look inside your own heart. How long will you spend your life on color and scent?' 'Whoever is absorbed in the sight of the Beloved, when does his mind have room for color and scent?' 'When you gaze at a flower, you who are so subtle, you can see its Maker plainly.' 'You see the work of creation if you look at the flower, but bow your head down, down, and look into the heart.' A hundred thousand of God's mercies on his soul, he spoke this well; what fine expression. Yet the Beloved can be seen in the flower too, for every atom of the world is a mirror of Him. The jasmine, from longing for Him, is stuck in the mud, and the tulip field, from His ache, bleeds inside. If His color were not present in the tulip bed, when would the nightingale wail so bitterly there? In the whole garden it is His color and His scent, yet He is beyond all attributes of color and scent. I do not dare say more than this; only the one who has a share of it can understand. If He is not there within the flower, suddenly the thorn of doubt will prick the sole of your foot. The law of the Chosen Prophet is pure mystery; to frown at these words would be a mistake. If you say 'I do not accept' against my work, go ahead and gently knock your head against that wall.

God is the absolute ruler, the Lord of majesty, all powerful beyond compare, eternal and perfect. He set love as a king over a whole world, though those careless of its meaning call it mere command. And so he made reason the ruler of creation, master of this world and of faith alike. From the coming and going of that gaze of yours, both fortune and misfortune became plain. The pure soul took its share from those two glances, lifted high by love and by divine knowledge. In its rise and in its fall as well, all was revealed by the decree of the Mighty One. For reason, both of these states are only his reflection, in every condition, whether bad or good.

In truth, God is the eternal King, the boundless Almighty, ancient and without end. Out of his everlasting grace, he made the human soul unmatched among all created things. He honored it with something of his own attributes, and through it he made himself known. Power, hearing, sight, knowledge and life, and speech and will, these are among his qualities. Eternal endurance too, and the gift of soaring since the beginning, granted by his endless favor. Let your goal be to journey toward the eternal and to find him, and to flee the demands of the selfish, corrupting soul.

That blessed, auspicious bird, the human soul, the intimate companion of God the Majestic, when it stepped down from the higher world, poor thing, it landed in a cage by the decree of eternity. It found itself living, terrified, in a heap of dust, grieving for its ancient homeland. So much so that at the moment of birth, the child clearly comes out crying in protest. Hand on its head, head on its knees from sorrow, both arms pressed tight against its sides. The instant it is parted from its mother, it breaks into weeping from the pain of separation. All of this is the effect of a spiritual sorrow, the mourning for parting from a spiritual beauty. Before this it was immersed in the vision of the Beloved, blessed with union with the Friend. Now it has become the companion of the pain of separation, aching for its own Friend, far from home.