بخش 70 - نقصان اجرای جان و دل صوفی از طعام الله

How should a Súfí be grieved on account of poverty? The very essence of poverty becomes his nurse and his food,

Because Paradise hath grown from thing disliked, and Mercy is the portion of one who is helpless and broken.

He that haughtily breaks the heads (of people), the mercy of God and His creatures cometh not towards him.

This topic hath no end, and that youth (the slave) has been deprived of strength by the reduction of his bread-allowance.

Happy is the Súfí whose daily bread is reduced: his bead becomes a pearl, and he becomes the Sea.

Whosoever has become acquainted with that choice (spiritual) allowance, he has become worthy of approach (to the Presence) and of (Him who is) the Source of (every) allowance.

When there is a reduction of that spiritual allowance, his spirit trembles on account of its reduction;

(For) then he knows that a fault has been committed (by him) which has ruffled the jasmine-bed of (Divine) approbation,

Just as (happened when) that person (the slave), on account of the deficiency of his crop, wrote a letter to the owner of the harvest.

They brought his letter to the lord of justice: he read the letter and returned no answer.

He said, “He hath no care but for (the loss of) viands: silence, then, is the best answer to a fool.

He hath no care at all for separation (from me) or union (with me): he is confined to the branch (the derivative); he does not seek the root (the fundamental) at all.

He is a fool and (spiritually) dead in egoism, for because of his anxious care for the branch he hath no leisure for the root.”

Deem the skies and the earth to be an apple that appeared from the tree of Divine Power.

Thou art as a worm in the midst of the apple and art ignorant of the tree and the gardener.

The other worm’ too is in the apple, but its spirit is outside, bearing the banner aloft.

Its (the worm’s) movement splits the apple asunder: the apple cannot endure that shock.

Its movement has rent (all) veils: its form is (that of) a worm, but its reality is a dragon.

The fire that first darts from (the impact of) the steel puts forth its foot very feebly.

Cotton is its nurse at first, but in the end it carries its flames up to the aether.

At first, man is in bondage to sleep and food; ultimately he is higher than the angels.

Under the protection of cotton and sulphur matches his flame and light rises above Suhá

He illuminates the dark world: he tears the iron fetter (in pieces) with a needle.

Though the fire too is connected with the body, is ‘it not derived from the spirit and the spiritual?

The body hath no share in that glory: the body is as a drop of water in comparison with the sea of the spirit.

The days of the body, are increased by the spirit: mark what. becomes of the body when the spirit goes (from it).

The range of thy body is an ell or two, no more: thy spirit is a maker of swift flights to heaven.

In the spirit’s imagination, O prince, ‘tis (but) half a step to Baghdad and Samarcand.

The fat (white) of thine eye is two dirhems in weight: the light of its spirit (reaches) to the lofty region of the sky.

The light sees in dream without this eye: without this light what would the eye be but ruined?

The spirit is unconcerned with the heard and moustache of the body, but without the spirit the body is a carcase and vile.

Such is the magnificence of the animal spirit: advance farther, behold the human spirit.

Pass beyond Man and (logical) disputation unto the shore of the sea of the spirit of Gabriel.

After that, the, spirit of Ahmad (Mohammed) will bite thy lip (kiss thee lovingly), and Gabriel will creep back in fear of thee,

And will say, “If I come one bow’s length towards thee, I shall be instantly consumed.”