But though I’ve struggled on with all my soul,
It seems I haven’t quite achieved our goal.
The time has come – my Self will disappear;
I’ll drink the wine of meekness and draw near;
His beauty will illuminate my heart;
His neck will know my touch; we shall not part. ‘
The hoopoe answers him
The hoopoe said: ‘The Simorgh isn’t won
By boasts of who you are and what you’ve done –
Don’t brag of love; He’s not deceived by lies,
And no one pulls the wool across his eyes.
His call is like some lightly wafted breeze
lines 2829–50
Lifting the veil from hidden mysteries –
Then He will draw you to Himself, alone;
Your place will be with Him, beside His throne
(Though if mere pride of place prompts your desire,
Your love prepares you for eternal fire).
Bayazid after death
When Bayazid had left the world behind,
He came that night before the dreaming mind
Of one of his disciples, who in fear
Asked how he’d fared with Monkar and Nakir.*
He said: “When those two angels questioned me
About the Lord, I told them I could see
No profit in our talk – if I should say
‘He is my God’, my answer would betray
A proud, ambitious heart; they should return
To God and ask him what they wished to learn –
God says who is His slave; the slave is dumb,
Waiting for Him to say: ‘Good servant, come!’”
If grace is given you from God above,
Then you are wholly worthy of His love;
And if He kindles joy in you, the fire
Will burst out and its flames beat ever higher –
It is His works that act, not yours, you fool;
When will these dunces understand His rule!
A dervish in love with God
A dervish wept to feel the violence of
The inextinguishable fires of love.
His spirit melted, and his soul became
A seething mass of incandescent flame;
He wept as he proceeded on his way,
lines 2851–67
And through his scalding tears was heard to say:
“For how much longer must I weep?
Desire Has burnt my life in its consuming fire.”
“What’s all this boasting for?” a voice replied,
“Can you approach Him with such senseless pride?”
“And when did I approach Him?” asked the saint;
“No, He approaches me; that’s my complaint –
How could a wretched thing like me pretend
To have the worth to claim Him as my friends?
Look – I do nothing; He performs all deeds
And He endures the pain when my heart bleeds.”
When He draws near and grants you audience
Should you hang back in tongue-tied diffidence?
When will your cautious heart consent to go
Beyond the homely boundaries you know?
O slave, if He should show His love to you,
Love which His deeds perpetually renew,
You will be nothing, you will disappear –
Leave all to Him who acts, and have no fear.
If there is any “you”, if any wraith
Of Self persists, you’ve strayed outside our faith.
Shah Mahmoud and the stoker at the public baths
Shah Mahmoud, full of sorrow, went one night
To one who keeps the baths’ huge fires alight;
The man made room among the ash and grime
(Feeding the furnace-mouth from time to time),
Then brought the king some stale, unwholesome bread.
“When he knows who I am,” Shah Mahmoud said,
“He’ll beg to be allowed to keep his head!”
When, finally, the king prepared to go,
The poor man said: “I haven’t much to show –
You’ve seen my home and food (I brought the best;
You were a rather unexpected guest),
But if in future you feel sorrow’s pain
I hope you’ll come and be my guest again.
lines 2868–86
If you weren’t king you could be happy, sire;
I’m happy shovelling wood on this great fire –
So I’m not less than you or more, you see
I’m nothing next to you, your majesty.”
The king was so impressed that he returned,
And seven times saw how that furnace burned –
At last he said: “Stop stoking this great fire
And ask from me whatever you require.”
“1 am a beggar, lord,” the man replied;
“And with a king all needs are satisfied.”
Shah Mahmoud said: “Speak up, ask anything –
You can forget the furnace and be king!”
He said: “My hope is this, that now and then
My king will visit me in this dark den
The dust he treads on is a crown to me;
His presence here will be my monarchy.
Yours is the kingdom and the hand that gives,
But that’s not how a bath attendant lives.
Better to sit with you in this foul place
Than reign in state and never see your face.
This spot has brought me luck, and I’d be wrong
To leave the furnace-mouth where I belong –
Besides, it’s here I made friends with my king,
I wouldn’t give this up for anything –
When you are here the bath-house shines anew;
What more could I desire from you than you?
May my perverse heart die if it should crave
Another fate than to remain your slave
What’s sovereignty to me? All I request
Is that from time to time you’ll be my guest.”
The bath attendant’s love should teach you yours;
Learn from him all the loving heart endures –
And if this love has stirred in you, then cling
With passion to the garments of your king;
He too is moved; hold fast and do not stop –
He is a sea; He asks of you one drop.
lines 2887–2902
Two water-sellers
A man who lived by selling water found
He’d very little left; he looked around
And saw another water-seller there –
“Have you got any water you could spare?”
He asked. “No, fool, I certainly have not,”
The other snapped; “make do with what you’ve got!”
“O, give me some,” the man began to plead;
“I’m sick of what I have; it’s yours I need.”
When Adam’s heart grew tired of all he knew,
He yearned for wheat, a substance strange and new –
He gave up all he owned for one small grain,
And naked suffered love’s relentless pain;
He disappeared in love’s intensity –
The old and new were gone and so was he;
He was annihilated, lost, made naught –
Nothingness swallowed all his hands had sought.
To turn from what we are, to yearn and die
Is not for us to choose or to deny.’
A bird who claims to be satisfied with his spiritual state
Another bird squawked: ‘There can be no doubt
I’ve made myself unworldly and devout.
To reach this wise perfection which you see
I’ve lived a life of cruel austerity,
And as I’ve gained the sum of wisdom here,
I really couldn’t move, I hope that’s clear.
&nbs
p; What fool would leave his treasury to roam
In deserts and dry mountains far from home?’
The hoopoe answers him
The hoopoe said: ‘Hell’s pride has filled your soul;
Lost in self-love, you dread our distant goal.
Your arrogance deceives you, and you stray
Further and further from the spirit’s Way.
lines 2908–19
Your Self has trapped your soul and made it blind;
The devil’s throne is your complacent mind.
The light that guides you is a fantasy,
Your love a self-induced absurdity –
All your austerities are just a cheat,
And all you say is nothing but deceit.
Don’t trust the light which shows you where you go;
Your own Self sheds this dim, misleading glow –
It has no sword, but such an enemy
Will threaten any man’s security.
If it’s your Self’s light which the road reveals,
It’s like the scorpion’s sting which parsley heals;
Don’t be deceived by this false glow, but run
And be an atom since you’re not the sun
(Don’t grieve because the Way is dark as night,
Or strive to emulate the sun’s pure light);
Whilst you are locked within yourself your cares
Are worthless as your worthless cries and prayers.
If you would soar beyond the circling sky,
First free yourself from thoughts of “me” and “I”;
If any thought of selfhood stains your mind
An empty void is all the Self will find,
If any taste of selfhood stays with you
Then you are damned whatever you may do.
If selfhood beckons you for but one breath
A rain of arrows will decide your death.
While you exist endure the spirit’s pain;
A hundred times bow down, then bow again –
But if you cling to selfhood and its crimes,
Your neck will feel Fate’s yoke a hundred times.
How Sheikh Abou Bakr’s self-satisfaction was reproved
Sheikh Abou Bakr of Neishapour one day
Led his disciples through a weary way.
His donkey carried him, aloof, apart –
And then the beast let out a monstrous fart!
lines 2920–41
The sheikh began to tear his clothes and cry
Till one of his disciples asked him why.
The sheikh said: “When I looked I saw a sea
Of my disciples sworn to follow me;
They filled the roads and in my mind there slid
The thought: ‘By God, I equal Bayazid!
So many praise me, can I doubt this sign
That heaven’s boundless glories will be mine?’
Then as I triumphed in my inmost heart,
My donkey answered me – and with a fart;
My pompous, self-deceiving soul awoke,
And this is why I weep and tear my cloak.”
How far away the truth remains while you
Are lost in praise for all you say and do –
Destroy your arrogance, and feed the fire
With that vain Self you foolishly admire.
You change your face each moment, but deep down
You are a Pharaoh and you wear his crown,
Whilst one small atom of this “you” survives
Hypocrisy enjoys a hundred lives.
If you put all your trust in “I” and “me”
You’ve chosen both worlds as your enemy –
But if you kill the Self, the darkest night
Will be illuminated with your light.
If you would flee from evil and its pain
Swear never to repeat this “I” again!
The devil’s secret
God said to Moses once: “Go out and find
The secret truth that haunts the devil’s mind.”
When Moses met the devil that same day
He asked for his advice and heard him say:
“Remember this, repeat it constantly,
Don’t speak of ‘me’, or you will be like me.”
If life still holds you by a single hair,
The end of all your toil will be despair;
lines 2942–58
No matter how you prosper, there will rise
Before your face a hundred smirking “I”s.
A saint once said: “The novice ought to see
A door that opens on obscurity –
Then seas of love will inundate his mind,
And he will leave our earthly life behind;
If he sees anything but darkness there,
He is deceived and worships empty air.”
Though others see them, you have not the art
To recognize the passions in your heart.
There is a den in you where dragons thrive;
Your folly keeps the prowling beasts alive –
By day and night you watch them sleep and eat
And cosset them, and toss them blood-soaked meat.
From dust and blood your earthly being grew –
Is it not strange that both should be taboo?
That blood, which flows within your every vein,
Is an impurity, an unclean stain?
What you most love defiles, and deep within
The chambers of your heart hide guilt and sin;
If you have seen this filth, why do you sit
Smiling as if you’d never heard of it?
The sheikh and the dog
A dog brushed up against a sheikh, who made
No move to draw his skirts in or evade
The filthy stray – a puzzled passer-by
Who’d noticed his behaviour asked him why.
He said: “The dog is filthy, as you see,
But what is outside him is inside me
What’s clear on him is hidden in my heart;
Why should such close companions stay apart?”
If inward filth is slight or if it’s great,
The outcome is the same disgusting state –
lines 2959–74
If straws impede you, or a mountain-top,
Where is the difference if you have to stop?
The anchorite who loved his beard
In Moses’ time there lived an anchorite
Who prayed incessantly by day and night,
And yet derived no pleasure from his quest;
No sun had risen in his troubled breast.
He had a beard, of which he took great care,
Loving to comb it hair by silky hair.
It happened that this pious man one day
Caught sight of Moses walking far away –
He ran to him and cried: “Mount Sinai’s lord,
Ask God why he denies me my reward,”
When next on Sinai’s slopes good Moses trod,
He put this poor man’s question to his God,
Who answered: “Tell this would-be saint that he
Pays more attention to his beard than Me.”
When Moses told the man of God’s reply,
He tore his beard out with a piteous cry –
Then Gabriel appeared to them and said:
“Concern for that grey beard still fills his head;
He loved it then, and now he pulls it out,
His wretched love is even more devout.”
Whatever stage you’ve reached, to spend one breath
Unmindful of your God is worse than death –
And what of you, still wrapped up in your beard,
For whom grief’s ocean has not yet appeared?
Forget this beard and you will understand
How you can swim across and gain dry land –
But keep it as you enter that profound
Ungoverned sea, and with it you’ll be drowned.
A drowning
fool
A fool with an enormous beard once fell
Into a violent sea’s tumultuous swell.
lines 2975–96
As he was struggling he heard someone shout:
“That bag tied on your collar – throw it out!”
“It’s not a bag, it’s my huge beard!” he cried.
“Well, that’s just marvellous,” the man replied,
“A splendid growth; but now the harvest’s come.”
Your goatish beards have made you quarrelsome,
Self-willed and vain, the devil’s followers,
Strutting like Pharaoh and his ministers.
But beard this Pharaoh, as did Moses once,
And set out on the Way with confidence –
The pilgrim has no time to preen and comb;
Long suffering will attend his journey home.
If bleaching’s his profession he’ll complain
There is no sun – if crops, there is no rain.
A sufi washing his clothes
Once, as a sufi washed his clothes, a cloud
Filled all the heavens like a darkening shroud –
But though the world seemed plunged in deepest night,
The sufi’s clothes shone clean and strangely bright.
He’d been about to find a grocer’s stall
To buy some soap – “I don’t need soap at all,”
He told himself, and then he said aloud:
“I’ll buy some raisins, thanks to you, O cloud –
You do far more than grocer’s powders could,
I’ve washed my hands of earthly soap for good !” ‘
A bird asks for help and advice
Another bird spoke next: ‘Dear hoopoe, say
What will sustain my heart along the Way –
To travel as I should I need your aid;
If you can help me I’ll be less afraid –
To make me start this quest, then persevere,
I must be told how I can conquer fear.
lines 2997–3012
I spurn the crowd’s advice; I’m quite alone
And haven’t any wisdom of my own.’
The hoopoe answers him
The hoopoe said: ‘Trust Him, and while you live,
Avoid whoever seems too talkative.
With Him you will rejoice – when He is there
The saddest soul is freed from every care;
There is no sorrow He cannot console –
On Him depends the sky’s revolving bowl.
Let His joy teach you yours, as planets move
Within the orbit of sustaining love;
The Conference of the Birds (Penguin) Page 15
