Number 20

Even a thousand different cups hold nothing but one wine; though the stars are countless, there is only one sun. Though the sea throws up countless waves, the many are in the waves, yet it is nothing but one water. When it spoke to itself, all creation appeared; so the cause of the world's making is nothing but one word. It asked itself a single question in the world of soul and heart; that is why every spirit is nothing but one answer. Though many books have been written in every kind, we read them all: the craft is nothing but one book. You give the world a face of real existence, yet in the desert of nothingness the world is nothing but a mirage. What is this world whose sign and name you keep asking about? On the ocean of absolute being it is nothing but a bubble. You whose own existence has become a veil over the beloved's face, tear it away, for it is nothing but a veil over that face. Maghrebi has become a veil across the soul's own road, Maghrebi; step past your own face at last, for it is nothing but a veil.