بخش 58 - چالیش عقل با نفس هم چون تنازع مجنون با ناقه میل مجنون سوی حره میل ناقه واپس سوی کره چنانک گفت مجنون هوا ناقتی خلفی و قدامی الهوی و انی و ایاها لمختلفان

Assuredly they (the reason and the flesh) are like Majnún and his she-camel: that one is pulling forward and this one backward in (mutual) enmity.

Majnún's desire is speeding to the presence of that (beloved) Laylá; the she camel's desire is running back after her foal.

If Majnún forgot himself for one moment, the she-camel would turn and go back.

Since his body was full of love and passion, he had no resource but to become beside himself.

That which is regardful was (ever) reason: passion for Laylá carried (his) reason away.

But the she-camel was very regardful and alert: whenever she saw her toggle slack

She would at once perceive that he had become heedless and dazed, and would turn her face back to the foal without delay.

When he came to himself again, he would see on the spot that she had gone back many leagues.

In these conditions Majnún remained going to and fro for years on a three days' journey.

He said, “O camel, since we both are lovers, therefore we two contraries are unsuitable fellow- travellers.

Thy affection and toggle (propensity) are not in accord with me: it behoves (me) to choose parting from thy companionship.”

These two fellow-travellers (the reason and the flesh) are brigands waylaying each other: lost is the spirit that does not dismount from the body.

The spirit, because of separation from the highest Heaven, is in a (great) want; the body, on account of passion for the thorn-shrub (of sensual pleasure), is like a she-camel.

The spirit unfolds its wings (to fly) upwards; the body has stuck its claws in the earth.

“So long as thou art with me, O thou who art mortally enamoured of thy home, then my spirit will remain far from Laylá.

From experiences of this kind my life-time, for many years, has gone (to waste), like (that of) the people of Moses in the desert.

This journey to union was (only) a matter of two steps: because of thy noose I have remained sixty years on the way.

The way is near (not far), but I have tarried very late: I have become sick of this riding, sick, sick.”

He (Majnún) threw himself headlong from the camel. He said, “I am consumed with grief: how long, how long?”

The wide desert became (too) narrow for him: he flung himself on the stony place.

He flung himself down so violently that the body of that courageous man was cracked.

When he flung himself to the ground thus, at that moment also by (Divine) destiny his leg broke.

He tied up his leg and said, “I will become a ball, I will go rolling along in the curve of His bat.”

For this cause the sweet-mouthed Sage utters a curse on the rider who does not dismount from the body.

How should love for the Lord be inferior to love for Laylá? To become a ball for His sake is more worthy.

Become a ball, turn on the side which is sincerity, (and go) rolling, rolling in the curve of the bat of Love,

For henceforth this journey is (accomplished by means of) the pull of God, while that (former) journey on the she-camel is our progression (made by our own efforts).

Such is the extraordinary mode of progression which transcends the utmost exertion of the Jinn and mankind.

Such is the pull—not every common pull—to which Ahmad (Mohammed) awarded the pre- eminence. And (now) farewell!