The difference between one that is poor for (desirous of) God and thirsting for Him and one that is poor of (destitute of) God and thirsting for what is other than He.
He (that seeks other than God) is the (mere) picture of a dervish, he is not worthy of bread (Divine bounty): do not throw bread to the picture of a dog!
He wants a morsel of food, he does not want God: do not set dishes before a lifeless picture!
The dervish that wants bread is a land-fish: (he has) the form of a fish, but (he is) fleeing from the sea.
He is a domestic fowl, not the Símurgh of the air: he swallows sweet morsels (of food), he does not eat from God.
He loves God for the sake of gain: his soul is not in love with (God's) excellence and beauty.
How should he that is in love with his own imagination and conception be one of them that love the Lord of bounties?
If the lover of that (false) conception be sincere, that metaphor (unreal judgement) will lead him to the reality.
The exposition of this saying demands a commentary, but I am afraid of senile (feeble) minds.
Senile and short-sighted minds bring a hundred evil fancies into their thoughts.
Not every one is able to hear rightly: the fig is not a morsel for every little bird,
Especially a bird that is dead, putrid; a blind, eyeless (fellow) filled with vain fancy.
To the picture of a fish what is the difference between sea and land? To the colour of a Hindoo what is the difference between soap and black vitriol?
If you depict the portrait on the paper as sorrowful, it has no lesson (learns nothing) of sorrow or joy.
Its appearance is sorrowful, but it is free from that (sorrow); (or) its appearance is smiling, but it has no (inward) impression of that (joy).
And this (worldly) sorrow and joy which are delineated in the heart are naught but a picture in comparison with that (spiritual) joy and sorrow.
The picture's smiling appearance is for your sake, in order that by means of that picture the reality may be established (rightly understood by you).
The pictures (phenomena) which are in these hot baths (the world), (when viewed) from outside the undressing-room (of self-abandonment), are like clothes.
So long as you are outside, you see only the clothes (phenomena): put off your clothes and enter (the bath of reality), O kindred spirit,
Because, with your clothes, there is no way (of getting) inside: the body is ignorant of the soul, the clothes (are ignorant) of the body.
