The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 1 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Religion
The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 1 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Iran -- Religion; Religions
“I recognise that playful sportiveness,
And well know that amount of blandishment:
The sound of footsteps comes to my ear at night;
It was thyself; I recognise the hallowed voice!”
Then having opened the eyes and looking between the eyebrows, a form
appears. Some of those who walk in the path of religious poverty among
the followers of Mohammed (on whom be benedictions!) assert that the
expression _Kab Kausain_, “I was near two bows’ length,” alludes to
this vision. Finally, if they prefer it, having closed the eyes for
some time, they reflect on the form which appeared to them on looking
between the eyebrows; after which they meditate on the heart; or
without contemplating the form, they commence by looking into the
heart; and closing both eyes and ears, give themselves up entirely to
meditation on the heart, abandoning the external for the internal:
whoever can thus contemplate obtains all that he wants; but
“The anguish of my friend strikes at the portal of the heart;
Command them, O, Sháni! to purify the dwelling of the heart.”
Finally the searcher after the Being who is without equal or form,
without color or pattern, whom they know and comprehend in the Parsi
under the name of “_Izad_,” in Arabic by the blessed name of
“_Allah_,” and in Hindi as “_Para Brahma Náráyaran a_,”[305]
contemplates him without the intervention of Arabic, Persian, Hindi,
or any other language, keeping the heart in his presence, until he,
being rescued from the shadows of doubt, is identified with God. The
venerable _Maulaví Jami_ says on this head:
“Thou art but an atom, He, the great whole; but if for a few days
Thou meditate with care on the whole, thou becomest one with it.”
They hold that reunion with the first principle, which the Sufees
interpret by evanescence and permanence, means not, according to the
distinguished Ishrakian[306] or Platonists of Persia, that the beings
of accident or creation are blended with him whose existence is
necessary, or that created beings cease to exist; but that when the
sun of the first cause manifests himself, then apparently all created
beings, like the stars in the sun’s light, are absorbed in his divine
effulgence; and if the searcher after God should continue in this
state, he will comprehend how they become shrouded through the sun’s
overpowering splendor, or like the ecstatic Sufees he will regard them
as annihilated: but the number of Sufís who attain to this state is
exceedingly small, and the individuals themselves are but little known
to fame. This volume would not be sufficient to enumerate the amount
of those lights (precepts) which direct the pilgrim on his course, but
the venerable _Azur Kaiván_ has treated at large on this head in the
_Jám-i-Kai Khusró_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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