The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 3 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Religion
The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 3 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Iran -- Religion; Religions
The _Enka_, upon the mount _Kâf_,[210] is divinity, and there is
annihilation into God. He does not allow plurality nor partnership of
eternal beauty and strength, and from that exalted station there is no
descent. When a bird or man is annihilated, a name is always without a
designate object. _Vás el_, “the perfect master of union,”[211] finds
in this station by annihilation into God emancipation from the
confinement of visible existence, and acquires with an eternal mansion
the intimate connection with God, and an exit from the garment of
servitude, and becomes endowed with divine qualities. In the station
of transition into God, Jabríil is the image of wisdom and of manifest
knowledge, on which account it has been declared――
“There are moments when I am with God in such a manner that
neither angel nor archangel, prophet nor apostle, can attain
to it.”
When at the time of transition, science, comprehension, knowledge, and
all qualities are cancelled and vanish, then transitory knowledge
unites with the perfect science, the dangers of mankind are carried
off and disappear, before the rays of light of the supreme Being. And
this is the kind of knowledge which Jabríil revealed. Above this
station resides the absolute Being. Again, ascent and descent, and
letter and sound denote the meaning that mankind comprises all
qualities――the high and the low; by the exigency of its united
properties, at times drowned in the ocean of unity, man is bewildered;
and, at times, yielding to this prevailing nature, he associates with
women. Know what Shaikh Aziz Nasfy says: Men, devoted to God’s unity
declared, regarding the expression _táí asmavat_, “the folding up
heaven,” that “heaven” signifies something that is high and of a
bountiful expansion[212] with respect to those who are below it, and
this, causing a bountiful communication, may take place either in the
spiritual or in the material world; the bestower of the bountiful
communication may be from the latter, he may be from the former,
world. Further, any thing may be either _terrestrial_ or _heavenly_.
If thou hast well conceived the sense of the heavenly and terrestrial,
know that mankind has four _nishá_, “stages,”[213] in like manner as
the blasts of the trumpet are four times repeated: because death and
life have four periods. In the first stage, man is living under the
form of a thing; but, with respect to qualities and reason, he is a
dead thing. In the second stage, under the form of mind, he is a
living thing, but, with respect to qualities and reason, a dead thing.
In the third stage, under the form of mind, qualities he is a living
thing, but, with respect to reason, a dead thing. In the fourth stage,
under the form of mind, qualities, and reason, he is a living thing.
In the first stage, he is entirely in the sleep of ignorance,
darkness, and stupidity, as
“Darkness upon darkness――――”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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