Original content

English translation

When the Sufi mounted and set out, the beast began to fall at every moment. Each time people lifted it up; everyone thought it was sick. One twisted its ear hard, another searched beneath its palate for a sore; another looked in its hoof for a stone, another saw a film in its eye. Again they said, “O sheikh, what is this? Did you not say yesterday, ‘Thanks, this donkey is strong’?” He said, “The donkey that ate ‘la hawla’ by night can travel only in this way. Since the donkey’s strength by night was ‘la hawla,’ it was a glorifier by night and in prostration by day. Most people are man-eaters; seek little safety from their greetings. The hearts of all are houses of demons; accept little whispering from demon-men. Whoever eats ‘la hawla’ from the breath of a demon will come down on his head in struggle like that donkey. Whoever in this world eats the demon’s deception, and honor and hypocrisy from a foe with a friend’s face, on the road of Islam and on the bridge of Sirat will come down on his head like that donkey from stumbling. Do not listen to the blandishments of a bad friend; look at the snare, and do not walk securely on the ground. See a hundred thousand Iblises crying ‘la hawla’; O Adam, see Iblis in the snake. He breathes on you and says, ‘O soul and friend,’ so that like a butcher he may strip the skin from a friend. He breathes so that he may pull off your skin; woe to the one who tastes opium from enemies. Butcher-like he lays his head at your feet; he breathes so that he may pour out your blood miserably. Like a lion, make your prey your own; abandon the blandishment of stranger and kin. Regard the attentions of base people as those of a servant; solitude is better than the blandishment of the worthless. Do not build your house in other people’s land; do your own work, do not do a stranger’s work. Who is the stranger? Your earthen body, for whose sake you are sorrowful. So long as you feed the body fat and sweet things, you do not see your own substance growing fat. If the body is placed amid musk, on the day of death its stench will appear. Do not rub musk on the body; rub it on the heart. What is musk? The pure name of the Lord of Majesty. The hypocrite puts musk on the body and places the spirit in the bottom of the furnace. On his tongue is God’s name, but in his soul are stenches from his faithless thought. Remembrance with him is like greenery in a furnace; over a latrine are roses and lilies. That plant there is certainly borrowed; the place of that flower is the assembly and delight. Pure things come to the pure; vile things are for the vile, take heed. Do not keep hatred; those who are astray through hatred have their graves placed beside the hateful. The root of hatred is hell, and your hatred is a part of that whole and an enemy of your religion. Since you are part of hell, beware: the part seeks settlement with its whole. If you are part of paradise, O renowned one, your life will be lasting from paradise. The bitter surely joins the bitter; when does the breath of falsehood become paired with truth? Brother, you are that very thought; the rest of you is bone and sinew. If your thought is a rose, you are a rose garden; if it is a thorn, you are fuel for the furnace. If you are rosewater, they sprinkle you on the collar; if you are like urine, they cast you out. Look at the trays before the perfumers: each kind has been paired with its own kind. Kinds have mingled with kinds, and from this homogeneity an adornment has arisen. If aloeswood and sugar are mixed, he selects each one from the other. The trays were broken and the souls spilled out; good and bad were mixed together. God sent the prophets with scripture so that He might sort these grains onto the tray. Before them we were all alike; no one knew whether we were good or bad. Counterfeit and fine coin moved through the world, since all was night and we were like night-travelers. Until the sun of the prophets rose and said, ‘O alloy, move away; O pure one, come.’ The eye knows how to distinguish color; the eye knows ruby from stone. The eye knows jewel from rubbish; that is why bits of rubbish prick the eye. These little counterfeiters are enemies of day; those mined gold pieces are lovers of day, because day is the mirror of its recognition, so that the gold coin may see its honor. For that reason God gave the Resurrection the name ‘Day’: day displays the beauty of red and yellow. Thus the reality of day is the secret of the saints; day before their moon is like shadows. Know day as the reflection of the secret of the man of God; know evening that fastens the eyes as the reflection of His concealing. For that reason God said, ‘By the morning brightness’; the morning brightness is the light of Mustafa’s inward consciousness. Another interpretation is that the Friend intended this morning brightness because this too is His reflection. Otherwise, to swear by what is perishing is wrong; how would perishability itself be worthy of God’s speech? From Abraham came, ‘I love not those that set.’ How then would the Lord of the worlds desire perishing? That Friend of God said, ‘I love not those that set’; when would this majestic Lord desire perishing? Again, ‘by the night’ is His veiling, and that rusty earthen body of his. When his sun rose from that heaven, it said to the night of the body, ‘Take heed, He has not forsaken you.’ Union appeared from the eye of affliction; from that sweetness came the expression, ‘nor has He hated.’ Every expression is a sign of a state; the state is like the hand and the expression an instrument. The goldsmith’s tool in a cobbler’s hand is like seed sown in gravel, and the cobbler’s tool before a farmer is like a bone before a dog or before a donkey. ‘I am the Truth’ on Mansur’s lips was light; ‘I am God’ on Pharaoh’s lips was force. The staff in Moses’ hand became a witness; the staff in a magician’s hand became vanity. For this reason Jesus did not teach that companion of his the name of the Eternal: because he did not know, he would put the defect on the instrument. Strike stone on clay; when will fire leap out? Hand and instrument are like stone and iron: a pair is needed; pairing is the condition of birth. The One who is without pair and without instrument is One; number has broken apart, and that One is without doubt. Those who say two, three, or more than this are surely agreed in the One. When double vision is removed, they become alike; those who say two and three become those who say one. If you say ‘one’ in His polo field, turn round and round from His mallet. The ball becomes straight and without defect when it dances from the blow of the king’s hand. Listen carefully, O cross-eyed one; draw the medicine of sight through the path of the ear. Thus pure speech does not remain in blind hearts; it goes back to the source of light. And the demon’s spell goes into crooked hearts like a crooked shoe on a crooked foot. Though you bring wisdom repeatedly, because you are unworthy it becomes quit of you. Though you write its mark, though you boast and explain it, it turns its face away from you, O contentious one; it breaks its bonds and flees from you. But if you do not summon it and it sees your burning, knowledge will be your hand-trained bird. It does not stay before every unskilled person, like a peacock in a villager’s house.