The Fifth Assembly

My King, keep us safe from every sin, and grant us the grace of obedience and worship. God of all worlds, your forgiveness, our Lord, and to you is the return. Dear one, the people of the world are two groups: some are busy remembering God, and some are busy with themselves. The one absorbed in God is a stranger to the crowd, and the one absorbed in himself never turns to God. Whatever is inside you is a veil, whether it is your own ego, or your possessions and family. Until you wash your hands of it all, you will never walk the dust around God's threshold. A man came to Bayazid of Bastam, the sultan of the knowers of God, and said: Master, I have spent my whole life searching for God. I made the pilgrimage on foot many times, cut the heads of the faith's enemies in holy war, endured countless struggles, and swallowed my heart's blood again and again, yet I reach nothing. The more I search, the less I find. Can you tell me when I will arrive at what I seek? The Sheikh said: Young man, here there are two steps. The first step is the creation, the second is God. Take one step away from the creation and you have reached God. As long as you are caught up in what shall I eat that pleases my throat, and what shall I say that pleases people about me, no word of God will come from you. Young man, every trade you do with people brings you loss; do your trading with God and you will gain everything. God the Exalted says: helpless servant, I will trade with you for a single drop and a single stirring. Bring one drop from your head and one stir from your heart, and take away the treasure of happiness from our majestic presence. The drop that comes from your head is called a tear, the stir that comes from your heart is called regret. Let a tear fill your eye for not having recognized God, and let regret fill your heart for having disobeyed. From the wet tear and the burning regret, your heart turns to repentance, repentance turns to intention, intention turns to resolve, resolve reaches the presence, and from the presence comes the call of mercy. The heart says: I have repented; the head says: I am filled with sorrow; the King says: I have shown mercy. Young man, there are two fires: the fire of livelihood and the fire of sin. The fire of livelihood is quenched by the water of the sky; the fire of sin is quenched by the water of the eyes. And the fire of sin can also be put out with two things, earth and water: with the earth of the forehead and the water of remorse. The earth of the forehead is in prostration, and the water of remorse is weeping from the fear of the loving Lord. Young man, any eye that does not weep from the fear of God is a debt weighing on its owner, and any heart that does not seek union with God is a ruin. That old sage said: How sad that people pass through this world and never taste the sweetest thing of all. They asked: What is that thing? He said: A single grain of sincerity, of which God says: worship God, keeping your faith pure for him alone. If the poor servant had tasted even one grain of sincerity, he would care nothing for the two worlds, for gain or objection. Young man, the mark of acceptance is stamped only on the obedience that has sincerity beside it. They asked Bishr the Barefoot: What is sincerity? He said: Sincerity is bankruptcy. Sincerity is destitution, helplessness, weakness, and being at a loss. My dear one, if you do not have the rosy cheeks of the beloved, then bring the pale face of the lover. If you do not have the beauty of Joseph, then bring the grief of Jacob. If you do not have the humility of the obedient, then bring the cry of the helpless. The Prophet, peace be upon him, says: no sound is dearer to God than the sound of a suffering servant. No voice is more beloved at God's threshold than the voice of a sinful servant who moans from the depth of his helplessness, destitution, and bankruptcy and says: Lord, I have done wrong and wronged myself. From the majestic presence the call comes: My servant, imagine you never did it; call on me and I will answer you. Whatever you want, want it from me; leave your affairs to me, for I am God. It is I who am beyond questioning, matchless in kingship, faithful to my promises, answering every prayer, hearing every praise, worthy of all praise. A hundred thousand households were laid to ruin in the search for me; a hundred thousand precious bodies melted away seeking me; a hundred thousand holy souls were left wandering in the desert of longing for me; a hundred thousand travelers to my glorious threshold beat their heads under the stone of struggle; a hundred thousand seekers of my majestic presence burned in the crucibles of self-discipline. The Throne asks the Footstool: Do you have any news? The Footstool asks the Throne: Do you have any command? When those on earth pray, they turn their faces to the sky, imagining the sky holds a cure for their heartache. When those in the sky ask for a need, they turn their faces to earth, imagining earth holds a remedy for their sickness. Every day when the sun sets, the angels set over it say: Sun, did you shine today on anyone who had news of him? The sun says: If only I knew who that one was, I would make the very heaven the dust of his footsteps. Yes, young man, what has dust to do with the Lord of lords? What link does water and clay have with the pure Essence? What bond does the transient have with the Eternal? What connection does the unjust and ignorant have with the All Holy? What a strange thing: the devout say in prayer, Lord, do not cut me off from you. You of low aspiration, when was I ever joined that I could be cut off? When was I ever cut off that I could be joined? When was there hope of union, that there should be fear of separation? Neither joining nor parting, neither nearness nor distance, neither safety nor despair; no place to speak, no place to be silent; no way to arrive, no path to return; no thought of patience, no idea of crying out; no place for imagination to land, no time for understanding to reach. In the hands of the scholars, nothing but talk; among the jurists, nothing but searching. If you go to the Kaaba, nothing but a stone; if you enter the mosque, nothing but a wall. If you look at the earth, nothing but affliction; if you look at the sky, nothing but bewilderment. In minds, nothing but bile; in heads, nothing but madness. From the light of day, nothing but fire; from the darkness of night, nothing but terror. From the faith of the believers, nothing but adornment; from the heresy of the heretics, nothing but defilement. No profit from Moses who spoke with God, no loss from Pharaoh who made his false claim. If you come, come, for there is no doorkeeper; if you leave, leave, for there is no guard. Ibrahim Khawwas, the sultan of the true seekers, God's mercy on him, always told his disciples: I wish I were the dust under the feet of that veiled woman. They said: Master, you keep mentioning and praising her, yet you never tell us her story. He said: One day my heart was filled with joy. I set foot in the desert and walked in ecstasy until I reached the land of the unbelievers. I saw a palace with three hundred heads hanging from its battlements, and I was astonished. I asked what this was and whose palace it was. They said: It belongs to a king who has a daughter who has gone mad, and these are the heads of the physicians who failed to cure her. Into the depth of my heart passed the thought of attempting to heal that girl. When I stepped into the palace, they took me before the king, and when I sat, he treated me with great honor and generosity. Then he said: Young man, what do you need here? I said: I heard you have a mad daughter, and I have come to treat her. He said: Look at the battlements of the palace. I said: I looked, then I came in. He said: These are the heads of those who claimed to be physicians and failed to cure her. Know that if you cannot cure her, your head too will hang here. Then he ordered them to take me to the girl. When I stepped into her room, the girl told her servant: Bring the veil so I may cover myself. The servant said: My lady, so many male physicians have come and you never covered yourself from any of them; why do you cover yourself from this one? She said: Those were not men. A real man is the one who has just entered. I said: Peace be upon you. She said: And upon you, son of Khawwas. I said: How did you know I am the son of Khawwas? She said: The one who guided you to me inspired me so that I recognized you. Do you not know that the believer is the mirror of the believer? When a mirror is free of rust, every image appears in it. Son of Khawwas, I have a heart full of pain; do you have any medicine that could bring my heart peace? This verse passed over my tongue: those who believe, their hearts find peace in the remembrance of God. When she heard this verse she sighed and fainted. When she came back to her senses I said: Girl, rise so I may take you to the land of Islam. She said: Master, what is in the land of Islam that is not here? I said: There is the honored and glorious Kaaba. She said: Simple hearted one, if you saw the Kaaba, would you recognize it? I said: Yes. She said: Look above my head. I looked, and I saw the Kaaba circling around the girl's head. She said to me: Pure hearted one, do you not even know this much, that whoever goes to the Kaaba on foot circles the Kaaba, but whoever goes to the Kaaba with the heart, the Kaaba circles around him? Wherever you turn, there is the face of God. Young man, from you to God is a single step. Shall I tell you what to do, or not? Forget yourself and, through his grace, embrace him, for whoever draws near to me by a span, I draw near to him by a cubit, and whoever draws near to me by a cubit, I draw near to him by an arm's length. His care has brought you to himself, because within you a jewel is hidden, and this is what is meant by: I breathed into him of my spirit. It is like this: they shot an arrow at a bird. The bird looked back and said to the arrow, in the tongue of its state: How did you reach me? The arrow said: Something of yours was placed within me that made me reach you. It was you yourself who brought us to you, for you set this hidden thing in our nature. I knew my Lord through my Lord, and were it not for my Lord I would not have known my Lord. It is he who has made himself known to you and given you the key to the house of knowing. The Master of the celestial kingdom, peace be upon him, says: whoever knows himself has known his Lord. Whenever you know yourself, you know God. Your own self is the key by which you know him, and this knowing varies. If you know yourself through helplessness, you know him through power; if you know yourself through weakness, you know him through strength. This is one way, open to everyone. The other way is to know that in your body there is a soul present everywhere, and everywhere the Creator of the world is present. But just as the soul cannot be pinned down, if you say it is in the hand or foot or head, it is everywhere and its place is not fixed, so too God is present everywhere, yet he cannot be located. They have not measured God with the measure due to him. Young man, the God fearing and the sincere pass through the stations of the path and leave them behind, but the knowers of God settle at no station; rather their station is the circle of bewilderment. However far they go forward, they remain where they are. The merchant's camel travels night and day and covers real distance, but the oil presser's ox is also moving night and day, eyes blindfolded, going round and round the same wheel, thinking to itself: how many stations have I crossed? At night, when they lift the cover from its eyes, it looks and finds itself in the very same step where it began. If you say I have known him, they will say: how have you known one to whom no how applies? And if you say I have known him through my own existence, they will say: how can what does not truly exist know the One who truly is? Being unable to grasp is itself the grasping. How can the small eye of the moth ever behold the sun? May a hundred thousand holy souls be sacrificed for the dust on the sandals of that dervish. Listen to what he himself says. Do not step into the field of the true men, for there the blood is flowing. After Junayd died, God's mercy on him, someone saw him in a dream and asked: What did God do with you? He said: The forms of worship blew away, the subtle signs vanished, and nothing benefited me except two units of prayer in the heart of the night. All those acts of worship were scattered to the wind and did me no good, except two cycles of prayer I offered in the dark of night. Young man, strive so that when the terror of the Angel of Death casts its shadow over you, you have the escort of obedience with you, at the moment when eyes weep and hearts burn, when Satan sets his greed on your faith and aims the spear of death's wrath at your chest. There, if the scent of the Friend and of harmony comes, you will hear this glad tidings: do not fear and do not grieve. But if, God forbid, the scent of hypocrisy and enmity comes, they will brand your forehead with despair: no glad tidings that day for the guilty, and they will say, a forbidden barrier. How many have worn the robe of friendship while their names are written in the register of the enemies, and they do not know it. And how many have worn the garment of the enemies while their names are recorded in the roll of the friends, and they are unaware. They tell that among the Children of Israel there was a worshipper named Barsisa, who had withdrawn from the world for forty years, turned away from his own ego and from worldly things, and sown the seed of divine knowledge in his heart. If he gazed at the sky he saw all the way to the Throne, and if he looked at the earth he beheld the back of the great fish that bears it. He had such virtues and merits that the tongue fell short of describing them, and such praises and beauties that the mind and understanding could not contain them. Each year several thousand of the sick, the afflicted, and the maimed gathered toward his hermitage: some clothed in leprosy, some born blind from their mothers, others afflicted with wasting sickness, jaundice, and dropsy. They all came and sat around his hermitage. When the disk of the sun rose and planted its banners of light in the world, Barsisa would climb to the roof of his hermitage and breathe a single breath over those sufferers, and at once they were freed from their ailments. What a strange thing: outwardly so many doors of the treasuries of grace were open to him, yet inwardly the arrow of severance was set in the bow of separation. Outwardly he was lovely to the eyes of the people, but inwardly he was wounded by the sword of separation. Alas, outwardly plated with silver, inwardly stripped of all reality. That poor man imagined he was somebody, that he came from somewhere and was worthy of the Friend's presence. He did not know that from the Tablet and the Pen a call was coming: We do not want you. During this time Satan had hidden the chain of temptation in his hermitage, hoping to hang a single thorn of disgrace on his skirt, and each day Satan grew more agitated with envy and rage, while the tree of Barsisa's obedience grew ever more adorned with all kinds of good deeds. Then a sickness appeared in the daughter of the king of that age, one the physicians were unable to cure. The girl had three brothers, each a king of a region. On one night all three dreamed that they should present their sister's illness to Barsisa. The next day they told one another their dreams and found them in agreement, nothing more, nothing less. All three rose, took their beautiful sister, and brought her to Barsisa's hermitage. Barsisa was at prayer, and when he finished, the brothers described the illness, the physicians' failure, and the coincidence of their dreams. Barsisa said: My prayer has a certain time when it meets the seal of acceptance. When that time comes, I will not withhold my prayer. The brothers entrusted their sister to Barsisa and went out to wander in the wilderness. Satan found the place empty and said: Now is the time to drown the soul and the years long safety of this worshipper in the waves of the sea of lust. He breathed a wind into the woman's mind until she fainted. The worshipper's eye fell on her beauty, and Satan placed the fire of temptation in his mind and let his heart slip until he followed his desire, obeyed Satan's whisper, and committed adultery. Then Satan came in through the door in the form of an old man and asked what had happened. Barsisa told him. Satan said: Take heart, for if a mistake was made, mistakes are permitted for the children of Adam; God is generous and the door of repentance is open. But the way to handle this is to keep it hidden from her brothers so they never know. Barsisa said: Impossible, how can I smear mud over the sun, or hide broad daylight from a wise man? Satan said: It is easy. Kill her and bury her in the ground. When the brothers come, your answer will be: I was at prayer and she left the hermitage. So Barsisa killed the girl, carried her out of the hermitage, and buried her under the earth. After a while the brothers came in with their retinue and troops, like enraged lions, thinking the ascetic had prayed and their sister had been healed. When they did not see her, they searched. He said what Satan had taught him. They trusted the ascetic's word and went out to look for their sister. Then Satan came before them on the road in the form of an old woman, a staff in her hand and a band tied around her forehead. When they saw her, they asked: Have you seen a woman of such description? She said: Are you perhaps looking for the king's daughter? They said: Yes. She said: The ascetic committed adultery with her, killed her, and buried her under the earth. She led them to the grave. They dug and found their sister killed and soaked in blood. They cleaned the corpse, put chains around Barsisa's neck, and headed for the city. An outcry rose from the people of the city that such a thing had happened. They set up a gallows and hanged Barsisa on it. The people who had once carried off the water of his ablutions as a blessing and rubbed the dust of his feet in their eyes like kohl now came, each with a lap full of stones, and stoned him. Suddenly Satan appeared before him in the form of a radiant old man and said: Barsisa, I am the god of the earth, and the one you served all these years is the god of the sky. This was your reward for so many years of service, that he sent you to the gallows. Prostrate to me just once and I will save you. So he made a sign of prostration with his head. From the seven heavens a call came: Send his soul to hell, throw his body to the dogs, and divide the brains of his head among the birds of the air. So they carried out this call, and their end was that they abide in the fire forever. Young man, this is a secret hidden from the servants, and no one has news of it. The prophet David, peace be upon him, said: My God, reveal your secret to me, for I am greatly afraid and bewildered. He kept saying this and weeping until daybreak. A call came: David, even if you weep so much that you split solid rock into pieces, I will not tell you this secret. David, do not ask to know my secret in this world; I will make it clear to you at death. He said: Lord, how will you reveal this secret at death? The call came: My whole secret with the servant is two words, and both are no: either I say do not fear, or I say no glad tidings. Either a voice rises from the right, take heart, or a voice rises from the left, lose all hope. At the moment of death, no color remains on anyone's face from the dread of these two words of no. When the soul reaches the chest, the face turns pale and the heart fills with pain, and one begins to look right and left to see from which side the voice will come. Salvation and damnation appear in that final breath. Often the wretched become blessed, and the blessed become wretched. God erases what he wills and confirms, and with him is the Mother of the Book. The ledger is with me: I write and I erase. I inform no one, and I consult no one.