Your cruelty, baseness, and hypocrisy,
You’re beating up yourself—the foe is you!
1330
You’re swearing at yourself and cursing too!
Your own bad faults if only you could see
You’d then become your own fierce enemy!
You’ve pounced upon yourself, you simpleton,
It’s just as mad as what this lion’s done!
On reaching your own nature’s depths, you’ll know
The vileness comes from you and not your foe.
To this sad lion it was clear at last:
The other was the image he had cast!
If you pull out a weak man’s teeth, that’s worse
1335
Than this dumb beast whose eyes became his curse.
You’ve found a blemish on your uncle’s face,
It’s not his fault, it’s you who’s the disgrace:
‘Believers are each other’s mirrors’, * friend.
The Prophet said this—won’t you comprehend?
You’re wearing lenses tinted funeral blue
And so this world is dark with grief to you—
Unless you’re blind, accept that you’re the source,
Then blame yourself and not an outside force!
If faithful men do not see by God’s light
1340
Then why is the unseen within their sight?
Through fire and not His light, your eyes have seen,
That’s why they can’t tell good things from obscene!
So, drop by drop, pour water on the pyre
To turn to light this all-consuming fire.
Pour cleansing light on us, O Lord, I pray,
To change this world of fire to light this way!
The ocean’s waters follow Your command,
All water and all fire is in Your hand,
If You choose, waves will turn to flames of fire
1345
And flames to water if that’s Your desire,
The urge to seek the truth You gave us Lord,
To flee injustice was Your kind reward,
You gave this urge to us without request
And opened up to us Your treasure-chest.
The hare brings the news about the lion falling in the well to the other animals
The hare escaped like this through his shrewd plan,
To celebrate towards the rest he ran,
He’d seen the lion humbled now and slain
And so he cartwheeled all across the plain.
On fleeing death the hare began to clap
And dance like leaves which in the breeze would flap;
Both branch and leaf like this escape earth’s gaol—
1350
They lift their heads and with the wind set sail:
When leaves burst forth from branches, they ascend
Up to the tree’s most high and furthest end;
Using the words of God who said, ‘It sprouts’.
The praise of God each leaf and fruit then shouts:
The Giver nourished every root of ours
Until our trees stood tall and straight* like towers.
Souls that are bound in bodies made of clay
1355
Feel ecstasy when they can fly away,
They dance to songs of passionate, sacred love,
Expanding like the full moon high above,
Dancing inside as well as outwardly,
Whirling around their souls which we can’t see.
He’d gaoled the lion, who now burnt with shame,
A lion hares can slay must be so tame!
Although he was thus taken for a ride
This lion claims the title of ‘Faith’s Pride’!*
He’s in the empty well, abandoned there,
1360
Slain by his carnal soul, not just the hare.
Your donkey self feeds in the open plain,
You’re down the well bound by your questioning’s chain.
The lion-slayer rushed back home to sing,
‘Rejoice, dear kin, good news is what I bring:
It’s time to celebrate and sing our songs,
That dog from hell is back where he belongs!
Our own survival’s foe has lost the bout,
The lion’s maker pulled his teeth all out;
That one who loved to bully, pounce, and bash
1365
The broom of death has brushed away like trash!’
The beasts of prey gather round the hare to praise him
They formed a circle there immediately,
Happy and laughing, wild with ecstasy—
He was the torch around whom they all stood
And bowed while shouting, ‘Heavens, this is good!
Are you an angel or a spirit-friend?
Or Azrael, who tells foes it’s the end?
We’d give our lives no matter who you are,
May you stay strong and fit, victorious star!
Since God diverted water to your stream,
1370
“Bravo!” to both your hands and arms we scream!
Please tell us how you thought up this fine trap
And rubbed it in his face with a hard slap!
Tell us, and let the tale become our cure,
The balm to make our souls feel quite secure,
For that cruel tyrant’s constant wickedness
Wounded our souls and caused so much distress.’
The hare said, ‘Friends, it was God’s loving care—
Without that what on earth is a mere hare!
He gave me strength and made my heart shine bright,
1375
My hands and feet were strengthened by that light;
From God come both kind favours such as these
And wrathfulness that brings you to your knees:
In turn, God shows his sheer beneficence
To those who ask to see some evidence.
The hare advises the other animals: ‘Don’t celebrate merely this!’
‘Now don’t rejoice in wealth that’s temporary,
Victim of time, don’t eat as though you’re free!
When one has wealth beyond vicissitude
The drums of heaven make this understood;
Eternal kings by time are never bound,
1380
Their spirits with the Saqi circle round—
Stop drinking here for just a little while,
Sip the eternal wine, and always smile.’
Interpretation of ‘We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad’*
Dear kings, we’ve killed the enemy outside,
A worse foe still remains for us inside:
Your brain does not know how to kill this foe:
A hare can’t bring this inner lion low!
The self is hell, a dragon wishing harm,
The sea can’t cool it down or keep it calm:
I drank the seven seas, was fully drenched,
1385
That human-burner’s thirst was still not quenched!
The infidels, whose hearts are hard as stones,
Enter this fire, ashamed, with screams and groans,
But hell’s not sated by such food at all,
At least until the Lord should finally call:
‘Are you full yet?’ The glutton answers, ‘No!
Can you not see from there my burning glow!’
It makes the world a morsel, swallows it,
Then screams, ‘Is there not still another bit?’*
God stamps on it from Placelessness,* before
1390
Be! And it was,* makes it feel full once more.
Our stubborn selfhood is a part of hell,
Parts show the nature of the whole so well,
It’s God who must deal out the fatal blow—
Who else can pull the string to fire this bow?
Straight arrows only will God’s bow admit,
<
br /> Your bow holds arrows crooked, bent, and split:
To leave the bow the arrow must be straight,
It then won’t fail to fly and penetrate.
When from the outward fight I turned around
1395
The war inside our soul was what I found:
‘The small jihad we have just left behind’
For a jihad of a much greater kind;
The strength from God is what I long to win
Which can uproot Mount Qaf with just a pin,
Don’t overrate the lion which can kill!
The one who breaks himself is greater still.
The emissary from Byzantium comes to Omar, the Commander of the Faithful* and sees his miracles
Now listen to this story, which spells out
Some of the secrets you’ve been told about:
A man came to Omar once from the west,
1400
Through deserts till Medina with no rest:
‘The Caliph’s palace—please show me the way!
I need to ride there with my load today.’
‘He doesn’t have a palace,’ he was told,
‘Except his soul, illumined like pure gold;
His well-earned fame as leader is secure
Though he lives in a hut just like the poor.’
How can you see a palace of this kind
When one stray hair has made your heart’s eye blind?
Rid your heart’s eye of hair to have a prayer
1405
Of seeing this great Caliph’s palace there!
Whoever’s soul is free from lust has found
Admittance to God’s kingdom’s hallowed ground:
Mohammad, purged of fire and smoke’s last trace,
Whichever way he turned saw just God’s face,*
While you are still the evil whisperer’s friend
There is God’s face how can you comprehend?
If you’ve an opening in your heart you’ll see
The sun’s bright rays wherever you may be—
In everything God can be seen through love
1410
Just like the moon among the stars above.
If you place fingertips upon each eye,
Can you see anything at all? Don’t lie!
Though you can’t see things, they all still exist;
The fault lies curled inside your self’s tight fist—
Just lift the fingers from your eyes, to then
Observe whatever you should want again.
Noah, when asked, ‘Where’s the reward?’ replied,
‘Beyond beneath their clothes their heads they hide’*
You’ve hidden it beneath your clothes; that’s why
1415
You still can’t see although you have an eye!
A man’s his eye, he’s mere skin otherwise
For the beloved’s only seen by eyes,
If they can’t see him, then they’re better blind,
That’s best for idols of a transient kind.
On hearing this, the messenger grew keen
To reach his goal, more than he’d ever been,
Omar with his own eyes he wished to find,
And so he left his horse and load behind
To search for this great master everywhere
1420
Just like a madman with no other care:
‘Can such a man exist—can this be true?
He’s hidden like the soul—what can we do?’
He sought to serve him like a slave in need—
Such seekers always in the end succeed.
An Arab woman saw him come, and said,
‘Omar lies near that tree as if in bed:
Far from the people under that date-palm
God’s Shadow* sleeps in shade where it is calm.’
The emissary from Byzantium finds the Commander of the Faithful* sleeping under the tree
The man approached, but wouldn’t go too near,
1425
On seeing him his body shook with fear—
Awe of a sleeping man left him undone,
A blissful state now filled him like the sun;
Such contradictory states as love and awe
Together in his heart the stranger saw,
Saying inside, ‘A thousand kings I’ve seen
Who honoured me, with sultans too I’ve been,
But fear had never given me such fits—
Now awe of this man’s robbed me of my wits!
Jungles of lions even I’ve explored
1430
And not turned pale, however much they roared,
And on the battlefield I’ve earned renown
For acting bravely when the rest are down—
I’ve taken and dealt out such mighty blows
For I’m the bravest, everybody knows.
This man lies sound asleep and he’s unarmed
The Masnavi, Book One: Bk. 1 (Oxford World's Classics) Page 17
