Original content

English translation

Thus spoke he who was the leader of the truthful, who was the teller of this tale: That when six years had passed since the death of Gol, the condition of King Caesar took a turn. At dawn his state became critical, the nightingale of death sounded the end of his life. From old age, his back became bent like a bow; youth departed, and old age killed him. He then summoned Jahangir, the master of the world, and seated that youth upon his throne. He said to him: 'O you who are dearer to me than my soul, the world is about to snatch me from the world. The wind of youth has blown away from my head; to make things worse, my son has departed from my side. Now my life has packed its bags; I go toward the dust, with wind in hand. Alas, my life has passed seventy; like dust it came, and like wind it passed. Before me lies a very great task, for my path is through this deep sea. Now no work remains for me in the world; not much remains between me and death. Your task today, O son, is this: that you be like the sun, illuminating the world. If you practice justice like the sun, the world will wish for your life to be eternal. If you are as exalted as Solomon, do not turn your head away by a hair's breadth from an ant.' He said this, and his breath ceased and his soul departed; in a single moment, he went from the world to the everlasting world. When he departed, he died out like fire from water; the lamp of his life gently, gently flickered out. When Caesar's resurrection arrived, at once the stature of his life came to an end. All his limbs collapsed together; his soul and heart departed, and fell into grief. The sun of his life set in the palace; wailing rose from the palace to the heavens. The king who used to strike with a sword like diamond— they hid his body under a shroud. When they suddenly bound his chin, know all the affairs of the world here to be but a chin-band. When that fountain of sweetness went under the cotton, that oppressed one pulled the cotton from his ear. When they laid him in the dust, water carried him away; greatness departed, and the dust made him small. He built many places, yet his place was the earth; he raided many gates, and his end was this. When the goblet of his life spilled its dregs, the monster of the earth suddenly swallowed him. See how the lofty became the lowliness of the dust; they became pure of highness and lowness. As far as you see the earth, place by place, from head to toe, you see head to toe. When you see many feet and heads on the way back, you will not know head from foot in that place. If you are worn down from iron, and if you become like decayed willow wood from stone. If you are face-like the sun and moon, the sun will make you black-faced in the end. If you are the clarity of the world, you will become dregs; and if you are a great man, you will become small. From person to person, the path is not long; if you are a man, now there is no one. First, wash your hands of the water of the brook, throw your head in the well and lie down like a ball. He who talks much of himself— when he dies, know that self to be someone. There is no end visible to bewilderment; who can find a single needle in the ocean? This road is a road without limit or end; it has neither beginning nor end. It has no beginning visible in the first place, nor is its end visible at the last. When the cosmos saw this road without head or bottom, its head spun, and then it lost its way. You too have many turnings ahead of you; what am I saying? For you also have it within yourself. If you put the whole world together, you laid the foundation of all upon a single breath. How did your heart become joyful from a world whose foundation of all was laid upon mourning? For what do you hold the world with a hundred attachments? Tell me, what do you have for the final breath? The world does not keep you because you exist; do not keep the world either, and you will be delivered from grief. Why do you keep your heart bound to the world, from which you have grief joined to grief? Every hour you have pain and calamity, so that you may gain a single grain from somewhere. When you strived with the blood of your heart and died, when you died, you took eternal regret with you. Suppose when your life has departed, besides, you have the account of grain by grain. Why is this greed of yours in gathering wealth, which here or there is a burden? The whole world appears to be a mirage, which seems like a troubled dream. Since you were here for a few days, pack your bags; place your heart on the board, lift it from the throne. If you live in pleasure for a hundred years continuously, in the end you will become dust, with wind in your hand. Although no one has any image from the world, many are desirous of this desire. Although many became headless and bottomless from it, I do not see anyone who has gone out of it. Since this elevated house is always rising, the strongest position, kingship, is an escape. Since in every house you see a king arising, why do you play chess? Sweep it away. If the earth became your kingdom everywhere, do not be proud, for it stands upon a bull. The hour you were born of your mother, you fell into the constraint and bond of death-throes. Since you are in death-throes, O caught in the trap, do not call your death-throes 'living.' Do not raise your head so much, for suddenly you will remain upside down in a well in misery. Since you do not fit in the world because of yourself, how will you fit in the grave? Think about it. You are proud and you do not know that you are a walking dunghill. If this skin were pulled off from you, what would remain of you, O friend, but a dunghill? Every bounty that is on the face of the earth, becomes impurity from you, it is certain. Although it is fit for you like yellow life, what is impurity? It is the interpretation of your gold. Why do you seek leadership in gold and bounty, for both are impurity in the hereafter. Oh, the fire-raining storm of the world! Oh, the troubled dream of the affairs of the world! If they give you awakening from this sleep, every moment they will give a hundred souls for your consolation. If you remain asleep in the sleep of the world, on the Day of Resurrection you will remain distraught. All night you sift dust with a lamp, with a brain filled with smoke and dust. For the sake of half a grain, gold-sifting is forbidden; from a hundred souls, seek which one it is. For in the end you have a dear goal, not like the goal of the dust-sifting man. You too think of yourself as the dust-sifting man; why do you not rise for God even one night? You have no one in the whole world; why do you not weep much for yourself? If you have a hundred acquaintances in the house, when you die, you have them all as strangers. No one comes into the grave with you, except a handful of flies or ants with you. Whether you did an evil deed or a good one, it will burn you with its heat or freeze you with its cold. Grain by grain, what you stole month and year, the ants will steal from you in such a state. Do not sow a single moment except the seed of detachment, for you have no one but yourself. That pain is always from imagination and ego; he who escaped from ego found rest. You must first say 'No' (la) in the palace, if you want to come out to 'Except' (illa). For if you keep a hair's breadth of existence, you have given a world of idol-worship. They do not give you this sorrow easily; they do not give a mountain to a blade of straw. If you need a single atom of this sorrow, you need the purity of the ocean and the patience of the mountain. If you die a moment before death, in that single moment you will take the whole world. To sit waiting for death is no small task, for whoever sat waiting for death died. If you become aware, O forsaken man, of how you remained so far from the Near One. From regret you would put a brand on your flank, you would lay the head of shame on your knee. In this grief, until you die you will not rise; you will flee from yourself like a demon from people. Since you surpassed many devils, you do not pay attention to the Truth due to your self-love. How long will you be proud of yourself? How long will you have this wretchedness of yours? If you are worthy of the path of God, draw a needle across the eye of desire. When the eye that sees desire becomes blind, the eye that sees God will become seeing of the Truth. You think you are in the service of God; you are constantly the worshiper of desire. Come out at last for a moment from the well of the world; think of the place of punishment in the hereafter. Where is that butcher's ox aware that its blood is about to be shed on the way? If the ox were aware of that business, like a sparrow it would remain helpless under that burden. You yourself are more heedless than that bound ox, who know and sit so unconcerned. For me, at least, no heart remains from this grief; no problem more difficult than this has remained. They tell me you will become dust, that for everyone there is destruction ahead. Although becoming dust is not pleasant, I am satisfied if there is no fire.