A Tale

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.