How the vizier refused the request of the disciples.
He said: “Beware, O ye enslaved by words and talk, ye who seek admonition (consisting) of the speech of the tongue and (the hearing) of the ear.
Put cotton-wool in the ear of the low (physical) sense, take off the bandage of (that) sense from your eyes!
The ear of the head is the cotton-wool of the ear of the conscience: until the former becomes deaf, that inward (ear) is deaf.
Become without sense and without ear and without thought, that ye may hear the call (of God to the soul), ‘Return!’”
So long as thou art (engaged) in the conversation of wakefulness, how wilt thou catch any scent of the conversation of sleep?
Our speech and action is the exterior journey: the interior journey is above the sky.
The (physical) sense saw (only) dryness, because it was born of dryness (earth): the Jesus of the spirit set foot on the sea.
The journey of the dry body befell on dry land, (but) the journey of the spirit set foot (took place) in the heart of the sea.
Since thy life has passed in travelling on land, now mountain, now river, now desert,
Whence wilt thou gain the Water of Life? Where wilt thou cleave the waves of the Sea?
The waves of earth are our imagination and understanding and thought; the waves of water are (mystical) self- effacement and intoxication and death (faná).
Whilst thou art in this (sensual) intoxication, thou art far from that (mystical) intoxication; whilst thou art drunken with this, thou art blind to that cup.
Outward speech and talk is as dust: do thou for a time make a habit of silence. Take heed!
