Number 14

You told me: trust the old master's words. Tell me then, how did you measure them yourself? May God's mercy rain a thousandfold on his soul, for the path of his teaching runs among the righteous. His words are like fine sweets, rich and delicious. But listen, my dear child: beware, beware! If your strength of will is weak, then eat, but only in small measure. For if that mouthful suddenly turns your stomach, once you have rotted, you will make the whole house rot with you. Your heart fills with malice, your eye with fault-finding, and you end up denying all the spiritual masters. You count the whole world, end to end, as unbelievers, and all your sense of decency vanishes at once. Out of a base nature you cause harm and claim: forbidding wrong in religion is meant to hurt. Even if you have heard our master's words, keep the sayings of the great ones before your eyes. Do not eat sugar alone; mix it with rose, for in the blend there is much benefit. You are sick at heart, and for this affliction not one remedy but a hundred are needed. Out of ignorance, do not limit yourself to a single cure. Step out of bigotry and leave your malice behind. The souls of true men reach the source and the messenger, while you stay veiled, trapped in mere hearsay. If you are a man, do not be satisfied with imitation. Like true men, take hold of the skirt of manhood. For if you hold a hundred sciences but have no heart, a thousand hidden idolatries are lodged in your load. Take this counsel from Qasim and do not sit any longer scattering yourself to the wind in the lane of ruin. Come to the stream of unity, so you may see again that from there the rivers spread out. Leave duality behind, and gather into one binding all the words of Rumi and Attar.