How the Súfí enjoined the servant to take care of his beast and how the servant said, “Lá hawl.”

A Súfí was wandering round the world till one night he became a guest at a monastery (for Súfís).

He had a beast (ass): he tied it in the stable, (while) he (himself) sat at the top of the dais with his friends.

Then he engaged with his friends in (mystical) meditation: the presence of the friend (of God) is a book, (and) more.

The Súfí's book is not (composed of) ink and letters: it is naught but a heart white as snow.

The scholar's provision is (consists of) pen-marks (written letters and words). What is the Súfí's provision? Footmarks.

He (the Súfí) stalks the game, like a hunter: he sees the musk-deer's track and follows the footprints.

For some while the track of the deer is (the) proper (clue) for him, (but) afterwards ’tis the navel (musk-gland) of the deer that is his guide.

When he has given thanks for (having been favoured with knowledge of) the track and has traversed the way, of necessity by means of that track he arrives at a goal.

To go one stage (guided) by the scent of the musk-gland is better than a hundred stages of (following) the track and roaming about.

The heart that is the rising-place of the moonbeams (of Divine light) is the opening of the doors (of Reality) for the gnostic.

To you it is a wall, to them it is a door; to you a stone, to (those) venerated ones a pearl.

What you see plainly in the mirror—the Pír sees more than that in the brick.

The Pírs are they whose spirits, before this world existed, were in the Sea of (Divine) bounty.

Before (the creation of) this body they passed (many) lifetimes; before the sowing they took up (harvested) the wheat.

They have received the spirit before (the creation of) the form; they have bored the pearls before (the creation of) the sea.