The Sun of Being

The sun of existence broke into light, and its radiance filled every horizon. The sunlight bent its head and descended through every window and archway. The absolute moved toward the bounded, and the bounded set out toward the absolute. Whoever was wedded to the darkness of nonbeing, its light divorced from that dark spouse. For a while, sustenance came without end, until existence became the provider for nonbeing. The caravan of being set out, traveling toward China, India, Anatolia, and Iraq. Nonbeing gathered together with being, a union joined with kisses and embraces. What a bride this is, whose dowry at the wedding is the very existence of the Truth. Whoever became aware of this marriage, both worlds learned of this covenant. The soul reviving cupbearer with silver limbs poured the wine of being into the world's mouth. Once the wine of being reached its lips, the bitterness of nonbeing left its taste. It tore off the garment of darkness and nonbeing, and ran out drunk, its chest bared. Its pain found its cure in wine; its poison became a constant antidote. The days of nearness and the season of union arrived; the time of distance, separation, and parting passed. Since the plain has taken on the light of love, turn to the plain, away from the lodge and cloister. This is not the time for solitude and withdrawal; this is not the hour for seclusion and retreat. Set your foot on the mount of resolve, for your true resolve is your Buraq. Pass beyond the divine throne and seat; pay no heed to the seven heavens. Turn toward the world of oneness, and pass beyond this world of idolatry and discord. So you may escape this world of cruelty and injustice into a house full of loyalty and harmony. Erase your own name from this scroll; scrape yourself off these pages. Do not think His attributes belong to you; do not attach His speech to yourself. His being exists independently; nonbeing rightly belongs to you. For in the world of wisdom and knowledge, the name of existence is applied to Him alone. Go, become annihilated from your own traits, so that the Truth becomes your very character. Borrow an eye from the Creator of creation, so you may see with the eye of the Truth. For no one but Him exists in the house of being; in truth, no other is truly present. Love existed before the world of 'Be, and it is,' in a purity untouched by how or why. It was free of beginning and eternity; it was beyond need of appearing or hiding. It stepped out from the sanctuary of its own solitude to reveal its own beauty. He showed himself in the mirrors of creation, so the outer world took on the color of the inner. Before his own eyes he displayed his beauty dressed in a thousand different clothes. He saw his own face in a thousand faces, when his eye looked out from all those springs of sight. Sometimes he was Vameq, sometimes Azra; sometimes Leyli, and sometimes Majnun. The mark of one was appearance and showing forth; the mark of the other was hiddenness and concealment. He came to be called lover and beloved, because he was enchanted by his own beauty. One side was described as rich and strong; the other was named poor and helpless. In every mirror he saw his own face: a lovely witness, a graceful, shapely darling. He arranged strange and wondrous colors, for love is a maker of ever-changing tricks. He gave the beloved's beauty to the lover, so the grieving heart grew glad. He joined the dot to the alef, and bound the kaf together with the nun. He set the sphere spinning with longing through the zodiac, and for this it came to be called the turning heaven. He mixed a potion from being and nothingness, and both worlds were blended out of that potion. It gathers honor and disgrace, poverty and wealth; it contains knowledge and ignorance, reason and madness. Upon the world and all its people he poured out whatever lay stored hidden in his treasuries. The wave of love's ocean cast up as pearls everything concealed at the bottom of the sea. Whatever was nonexistent came into being; whatever was a barren plain became a sea. For a while the intellect stayed low in spirit, kept far from that radiant face by its own base aims. When the beloved's beauty shone forth, reason lost its wits and madness grew. The drunken eye of the eternal cupbearer, with a thousand deceptions, tricks, and spells, filled a cup with wine and opium, and gave the intellect that wine and opium. It broke every bond and tore the veils apart; reason grew bewildered, and its madness took many forms. When love's help came wave upon wave, it swept away his sight of anything but the divine. The very oneness of the Beloved became clear, until with the eye of certainty he saw with countless eyes. For none but Him exists in the house of being; in truth, no one else has any existence. Where is a confidant to tell the secret, of how reality came to appear as mere metaphor? Before the veil of creation was unveiled, love was behind the curtain, playing its own music. He was telling his secret to himself, and hearing that secret from his own self. There was no listener to hear it, for his stories were long. He was his own companion and his own friend, since there was no one else to share his breath. How could he come forth when no one existed? Fine speech only comes from the speaker. He was his own bird and his own nest; he was his own king, and the king's own falcon. He had his flight in his own open space; his soaring was in his own sky. The hundred-petaled rose of the beloved's beauty had no nightingale to play its song. The arch of his brow called for prostration; his stature deserved to be worshipped. His lip wanted a kiss to give; his playful glance rose up, a coy seducer. The beloved's beauty was seeking a lover; a broken-hearted one rose up, a coy seducer. For in his own presence the soul finds glory; for in his own burning the soul finds harmony. It is through the beggar that the king appears; it is through the lowland that the high peak stands tall. If there were no pilgrim longing for it, no one would say the Hijaz even exists. His fire required need; coquetry needs the secret of longing. If there were no Mahmud for his love, who would know that Ayaz ever lived? His beauty said to its own eye: cast one glance upon his splendor. Speak the secret only to your own ear; make love only with your own beauty. You, through whom our means and music appear: without you we have neither means nor music. When he cast his gaze upon his own beauty, he began to love his own splendor. From that gaze, love and lover and beloved each became distinct from the other. From that gaze the universe came into being; from that gaze the heavens keep spinning in motion. A single letter became a hundred thousand books; a single voice gave a hundred thousand cries. Love itself was both the seer and the seen; I have made the long tale brief. And if you cannot believe me, open your eyes and look again. For no one but him exists in the house of being; in truth, no other thing is real. Before there was any sign of a world, love lay hidden within itself. Within its concealment lay every lament; within its essence lay everything made clear. Its Mount Qaf was the dwelling of the Simurgh; the Simurgh lay hidden within its Qaf. Its treasure was folded within its essence; its glory was contained within its treasure. When the treasure's glory stepped outside, the secrets of the treasure appeared from that glory. The king resolved to set out for the open plain, and the army marched with the king. Beasts, birds, fairies, demons, and humankind, all set out together with Solomon. His army spread over the whole world; earth and time were filled with his troops. Moment by moment the caravan kept moving toward the city of being, out of mere possibility. By the road of number, the ancient King brought the realm of things that come to be into full flourish. With His intoxication, creation itself was a companion; with His beauty, all kindness stood side by side. Out of the timeless He drew forth time; out of the placeless He made the possible appear. When He galloped toward the world, it became the world of bodies and the world of souls. When He reached the arena of all creation, He cast the ball of oneness onto that field. He circled the arena of creation and swept across the whole expanse of the world. His name became substances and accidents; His title became the grace of the elements. He became His own multiplicity and His own oneness, clothed at once in this garment and in that. Like the moon that resembles it, from the flow of the burdens, He won in likeness the foremost of essences. He became the one who reasons, and reason, and the thing reasoned, bound now by cause and proof. He glanced toward the world of souls and saw there the reflection of His own face. He grew love struck at the mirror of His own face and stood amazed at the image of Himself. His name became the lover and the beloved, since He was gazing on His own beauty. He scattered upon the surface of His own beauty every jewel that lay within His mine. From the beauty of His face and form appeared the flower of every garden, the cypress of every meadow. He put on the robe of all creation and looked at Himself with His own open eyes. So that through thousands of ears He heard His own secret from a hundred thousand mouths. He kept telling His own secret to His own hearing, each moment in a hundred thousand tongues. When He had fully shown Himself to Himself, He then gave Himself the name of human. If this account has not made things clear to you, then doubt and guessing will surely keep you outside. Seek the world revealing cup, so that in it you may see, with your own plain eye, that in the house of being there is none but Him; in truth no other exists at all. Love, beyond the multiplicity of the created and the eternal, cast a glance upon being and nothingness. It saw them both cut off from all strangers; it saw them both united as one. Neither one before the other, neither behind; neither one more than the other, nor less. Each became folded within the other; each was merged into the other. Both were bound to one another; both were made firm with one another. Love came and sat between the two, until it made them both accountable, one to the other. It became a joining and perfecting threshold, like a line drawn between light and darkness. One became the giver, one the receiver; one became the manifest, one the hidden. Possibility gave necessity its outward form, and out of the eternal it drew forth what begins in time. Possibility was pregnant with existence, its womb swollen with a world to come. From possibility the world was born, as Jesus was born of Mary through the breath. The world does not resemble only its father; it bears a kinship to its mother too. No, the world sprang free from love; no, love is the whole of the world, end to end. When the king of love resolved to ride out to the open plain, he raised his canopy and lifted his banner. He set the crown on his head and fastened his belt, throwing over his shoulders the robe of a teacher. He set out to show himself, leaving his solitude, coming from the sacred sanctuary toward the open plain. When he moved forward to make his rounds, his retinue and his troops moved with him. By his coming he brought the world to life, the moment he stepped out of his seclusion. The world grew beautiful from his beauty; the universe turned joyful from his grace. He found himself dressed as Eve; he saw himself in the shape of Adam. His power over the world was blessed and sure, since the world came into being from that very step. The hand of love's fortune wears the ring; Solomon lies hidden within its seal. From him a single speck, yet a hundred thousand suns; from him a single drop, yet a hundred thousand seas of dew. Adam is one mote from the sun of his love; the world is one dewdrop from his ocean. Two hundred emperors obey his command; a hundred kings are drunk on his endless cup. The world was grieving in its nonexistence; his love delivered it from that sorrow. In generosity he opened his hand over the world; nor did life ever see a generosity like his. Who has ever heard in this world of a beggar whose very breath is bounty? Or who has seen in all creation a sender who is himself the messenger to all the nations? For, seen truly, they are all one: the pilgrim, the road, the Kaaba, and the sacred well. He set his pen moving upright and true, though he himself was straight as the pen itself. He wrote his own name upon his own palm, when he drew his mark across the tablet. In short, I have cut the story short; I sealed my lips and held my breath. From now on, if you hear words from me, do not be troubled with me over what I say. For it is not I; at every moment, through me, it is love that speaks these words as well. This voice reaches the ear from behind the hidden veil, moment after moment: That in the house of existence there is none but him; in truth, no other being exists at all. I am so ruined by the wine of love that I can no longer tell real wine from a mirage. For a long time now I have been free of hope and reward, of fear and punishment. I know neither the giver of blessings nor the blessing, neither the tormentor nor the torment. Good and evil look the same to me; right and wrong are equal in my sight. What does a shadow know of dark and light? What effect do fire and water leave on nothing? One who is dazed, drunk, and senseless, what does he know of reward and punishment? What is nothing can never be veiled; nothingness has no fear of any veil. No one asks the oblivious for news, no one scolds the man who has lost himself. Seek manners from reason and the reasonable; no one demands etiquette from the mad. I who know nothing of grammar's rules, how can anyone ask me for correct speech? Caught in the twists and turns of her hair, no one is thrown into turmoil by me. When reason caught sight of love, it cried: 'Time to depart, my soul, O beloved ones!' 'How can one like me endure this? Farewell, farewell, my companions!' The sword is in the hand of the drunken Turk; beware of him, O people of understanding! Love snatches the reins from reason's hand the moment it sets foot in the stirrup. When reason tries to trap love in its snare, a gnat sets out to hunt an eagle. The storm-wind never had legs like a mosquito; no flea ever hunted the mythic Anqa bird. When love pitched its canopy over the desert, it stretched its ropes from eternity past to eternity to come. Reason is love's mother and father, yet love is reason's origin and homecoming. Love placed the tablet in reason's hand and commanded it to write the book. Through love, reason became the clear guide; through love it stepped ahead of all companions. Pass beyond reason, for love itself is the leader, the mosque, and the prayer-niche. In counting, only one is truly real, though you may reckon it in the thousands. It spins forever around itself, turning from sheer longing like a waterwheel. It revolves out of longing for itself; it burns in turmoil from love of itself. Now it appears, now it hides, rushing swiftly around its own center. On the shore of love's boundless sea, the two worlds are like a single rope. When the tent of water is carried off by the wind, what remains after that, you must grasp for yourself. The beginning and end of the world is love; rather, all else is mere show and mirage. When the bond of love grew dominant, every other attachment dissolved within it. The lover and the beloved both dissolved the moment love threw the veil from its face. No one but the king of love answered the call, 'Whose is the kingdom now?' For a long time now, moment by moment, from the unseen a voice reaches the ear of awareness: that in the house of being there is none but Him; in truth, no other exists at all. The one whose radiant face fills the world like the sun, making every speck shine like a full moon, has seen its own likeness and reflection nowhere but in the mirror of the human heart. It engraved its own self upon that heart, and wiped the image of the world from the tablet of the mind. On the tablet of the world it composed a form fashioned in its own likeness. It breathed its own spirit into that form, and kneaded its clay with its own hand. In the language and interpretation of this world, it named that form Adam and Eve. It made this being the sum of the whole world, the small model of the great universe. Through spirit, this being became a copy of God; through body, a copy of the smaller world. The human is the book, and the world its verses; the human is the verse, and the world its commentary. The human is the sun, the universe its rays; the human is the sea, the universe its pool. In the radiant corners of such a heart, the whole world is a mere insignificant speck. How could there be room for anything else in a heart held captive by the king of love? In an inner world where no trace or mark remains, hold on to nothing but your beloved. Since with Him both reward and impossibility exist, the throne became the very seat of the king. If you have not grasped these secrets, if this explanation has not made things clear to you, then your falcon is not made for this flight; your bird is not the bird for this fig tree. Then your bread is raw and burnt, your dough left half-made and unleavened. Rise, and bravely take the leaven in hand, so this unleavened dough may rise through it. And do not let go of the search; seek out a wise and knowing guide, one who can break down your composition, and turn your oil into a shining lamp. A clear-sighted master will do with you what truth and rightness demand. So that the fathers and mothers, the elements, may combine together without flaw. From the union you thereby attain, how could a mere passing shadow ever decay? Then the hidden realities unveil themselves to you, for your being becomes the elixir of its own image. Then you will know how a single spark of spirit works its effect within the bodies of the world. You will understand how that which has always been many becomes, in the end, one. Why do love, the lover, and the beloved become one, without any fault or flaw? How is the honored and the lowly both the same, or why is the rich man the very image of the poor? So it suits you to declare, in plain, eloquent speech that needs no commentary: that in the house of being there is none but Him; in truth, no other thing exists. Behind many veils of darkness and of light, love hung upon His face and so stayed hidden. So that the lover, with utter effort and striving, might lift them away one by one through love. Then, little by little, he takes hold of Him, and grows repelled by all that is not He. When, by the power of the moment and the strength of love, he passes through the curtains of love, after the fire, beauty shows itself: the oneness of love, self-sufficient and jealous. It takes him out of the hands of strangers, and its nearness sets him apart from all. It frees him from the cruelty of his beloved; union with love makes him a stranger to it. It clothes him in the robe of nothingness, once he sheds the garment of existence. The point behind the names of lover and beloved, indeed the meaning of the veil of darkness and light, is nothing but concealment, absence, and being; nothing but manifestation, the visible and the shown. For love is unique and without ambition, far above the world and its road of vanity. It was hidden in the ancient world, joyful in the house of joy. By itself it was seeker and sought; by itself it was the one who sees and the one seen. In its light lay all the lights; in its sea lay all the seas. None was subject to its rule; none was commanded by its command. Yet its knowledge sought to be known, and its power sought something to overcome. Its bounty sought one grateful to receive it, so that the giver might be thanked for it. It cast a glance upon the ruined world, and from that glance the ruined world was made alive. With one breath it brought the world to life, the breath of love, like the angel of the trumpet. The breath of love called all to attendance, on the ground of appearing and the earth of resurrection. Sweetly the trumpet of love's breath raised up the words of both worlds from their graves. The David of love became a singer, reciting the Psalms into the ear of creation. Solomon set out toward the city of Sheba, taking the beasts and the birds along with him. Khizr's soul hurried toward the darkness; Moses' soul set its will upon Mount Sinai. The Caesar-king came toward Rome; the emperor of China set off toward China. The whole world took up the army of love, and the soul grew wild with passion from that army. Sometimes he became the king, sometimes the servant; sometimes the master, sometimes the hired hand. Sometimes the knower, sometimes the known; sometimes the one who remembers, sometimes the one remembered. When he saw himself dressed in the colors of the world, hidden within its endless veils of form, he threw the coverings off his own face, until he became famous across the whole world, that in the house of existence there is nothing but him; in truth, no one else exists. At the head of love's street there is a marketplace, and in it everyone is busy with some task. In it there are goods of every kind, and each good has its buyer. At the crossroads of that market sits a perfumer, settled in his place. The drink he offers gives life to the soul; his sweet lips rain down sugar. On every side, longing for his lovely eyes, some sick lover has fallen watching him. From the healing house of his cupbearer's lips, everyone hopes for the cure of their sickness. Everywhere in the world there is anyone drunk, they got their drunkenness from his intoxicating eyes. Everywhere in the world there is anyone hungover, they borrowed their pure wine from his lips. Wherever there is a cypress, a garden, or a bed of roses, it appeared from the stature of his face. Whoever has a thorn caught in their foot, it is because they were seeking the rose garden of his face. Beneath every lock of his hair lies a China; beneath every strand of it, a Tartary. His nimble figure is like an agile dancer; the dark mole on his cheek is like a cunning trickster. Around the still point of his soul, the bewildered heart circles like a compass. His bewitching glance is like a talebearer; his dark curling lock is like a pickpocket. Wherever in the age there is one who spills blood, they are a student of his bloodthirsty eyes. Wherever there is the name of trickery or of a trickster, it all came into being from his cunning. How could sorrow ever circle around him? Wherever there is any comforter of grief, it is like him. His face turns toward every direction; every direction is a spectator gazing at his face. Whoever's existence is a denial still confesses to his existence. Whatever you have seen and are seeing is like a single grain from a mountain of harvest. Though the denier keeps denying, the very shape of the denier's denial is itself a confession. Or it is a handful from the storehouse of his knowledge, for a handful is a sample of the whole harvest. His collected poems are a single volume, or a scroll copied from that volume. Whoever has any motion or movement rises toward him like smoke rising within him. For his sake he has bound his lock upon anyone who wears the belt of unbelief. Wherever there is faith in the world, it turns its face toward the altar of his brow. In truth, it is him alone that is worshipped, wherever in the world there is any devotion. One speaker with a hundred thousand tongues, speaking from behind every mouth. Both worlds are a reflection of his beauty; the universe is a showcase of his face. From the glow of his face it has appeared: wherever a bright face shines, it comes from him. No one else exists but him; all that seems to be, apart from him, is only imagination. All this business and talk, all this coming and going, is nothing but one, though it looks like many. Open your eyes and see it plainly, if you truly have sight and vision. For in the house of existence there is none but him; in truth, no other being exists at all. You who are hidden by your very appearing, you who are concealed by your very being visible, You are in no direction, yet in every direction; you are in no place, yet everywhere. When you went out to the open plain to look around, I became a wanderer in the wilderness, chasing you. Today your matchless beauty is fit only for an eye that truly sees. I go door to door after you; chasing you, I have become homeless everywhere. Why does my heart never rest, when you dwell in its deepest core? You sit inside the house of my heart, while I have gone mad from longing for you. How are you hidden from my eyes, when it is you who are the sight within my eyes? No one seeks you but you yourself; in truth, you are the one seeking you. I cannot bear a single moment with you, yet without you I have no patience either. No one can endure the sight of you, even if you lift the veil from your face. I do not know you; can I know anything else? It is you within me who does the knowing. No one knows the depths of the sea except one who has himself become the sea. Sweetness gets its taste from you, not from any candy or sweet-maker. Without your lips, how could the sweet-lipped ever manage to taste sugar? From your down the garden gained its greenery, and from your height the cypress gained its stature. The dark mole on your face is an empty world; your face draws its beauty from it. Or there is a line of down around Azra, from which Azra gained her grace. I am for you just as I find you; you are for me just as you should be. I am nothing but what you commanded, and I do nothing but what you command. Whatever breathes in me, at that moment you hear it; for I am as you are, since you are the one who makes me what I am. I grow less or more because of you, not myself; if I shrink or swell, it is you who works the change. I have no evil in me, and no good; I have no self, and no will of my own. Who am I to be worthy of you? You are the only one worthy of yourself. You belong to no one, for you belong to yourself; you answer to no one, for you follow your own will. No one exists but you, and so you have no partner and no equal. The two worlds are like a body, and you are the soul; the two worlds are a name, and you are the one it names. You are otherness and sameness, oneness and multitude; you are the whole and you are the solitary one. Since all things take their likeness from you, since you exist, you are all things. Since no quality or name exists but yours, you yourself are the very essence of all qualities and names. Every moment you put on a different garment, and step out clothed in another form. You tailor to your own stature the dress of Adam and of Eve. With every breath you adorn your own frame in yet another garment. Now you are Layla, now Majnun; now Joseph, now Zulaykha. Whenever my heart settles on one place, my beloved is not there, for the one is beyond any single place. You must become one with all that is, to reach union with the one beloved. Maghrebi, how will you reach your own west, unless you rise from the east like the young moon? It is from you that 'without you' and 'you' arise; it is from us that 'without me' and 'we' are born. Strive until you come to see by him, for only through the friend do you gain true sight. Then you will know with certainty and recognize; then you will see clearly and reveal. That in the house of existence there is none but him; in truth, no other being exists at all.