In order to understand the esoteric teaching of Sufiistic poetry, it is necessary to remember that the perceptive sense is the traveller, the knowledge of God the goal, the doctrines of this ascent, or upward progress is the Tarikat, or the road. The extinction of self is necessary before any progress can be made on that road. A Sufi poet writes:-- "Plant one foot upon the neck of self, The other in thy Friend's domain; In everything His presence see, For other vision is in vain." {91} Sa'di in the Bustan says: "Art thou a friend of God? Speak not of self, for to speak of God and of self is infidelity." Shaikh Abu'l-Faiz, a great poet and a friend of the Emperor Akbar, from whom he received the honourable title of Malik-ush-Shu'ara--Master of the Poets, says: "Those who have not closed the door on existence and non-existence reap no advantage from the calm of this world and of the world to come." Khusrau, another well-known poet says:-- "I have become Thou: Thou art become I, I am the body, Thou the soul; Let no one henceforth say That I am distinct from Thee, and Thou from me." The fact is, that Persian poetry is almost entirely Sufiistic. It is difficult for the uninitiated to arrive at the esoteric meaning of these writings. Kitman, or the art of hiding from the profane religious beliefs, often contrary to the revealed law, has always been a special quality of the East. Pantheistic doctrines are largely inculcated.[81] Thus:-- "I was, ere a name had been named upon earth; Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth; When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign, And Being was none, save the Presence Divine! Named and name were alike emanations from Me, Ere aught that was 'I' existed, or 'We.'" The poet then describes his fruitless search for rest and peace in Christianity, Hinduism, and the religion of the Parsee. Even Islam gave him no satisfaction, for-- "Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view, I toiled to the summit, wild, pathless and lone, Of the globe-girding Kaf[82]:--but the 'Anka[83] had flown! {92} The sev'nth heaven I traversed--the sev'nth heaven explored, But in neither discern'd I the court of the Lord! I question'd the Pen and the Tablet of Fate, But they whisper'd not where He pavilions His state; My vision I strain'd; but my God-scanning eye No trace, that to Godhead belongs, could descry. My glance I bent inward; within my own breast, Lo, the vainly sought elsewhere, the Godhead confess'd! In the whirl of its transport my spirit was toss'd, _Till each atom of separate being I lost_."