Jami, 1414-1492; Persian literature -- History and criticism; Persian literature -- Translations into English
The _Lawá'ih_, expounds some very beautiful and very ennobling truths.
In "Flash II." Jámí pleads for the love of One and the abandonment of
all little earthly loves that distract the attention of the lover for
his Beloved--precisely the same theme as that expressed in _Salámán
and Absál_. The poet loudly condemns "Hell-born vanity" and the
accumulation of worldly wisdom, even all learning except "The lore of
God." It would be a strange theme for a poet to so persistently choose
were not Jámí a mystic. With the "Inner light" of the true mystic he
sets aside the things of the world as being unsatisfactory. He does
not, however, merely pull down the fading, ever vanishing vanities of
the world, but with the strong clear voice of the poet-prophet, he
sings:
The fleeting phantoms you admire to-day
Will soon at Heaven's behest be swept away.
O give your heart to Him who never fails,
Who, ever with you, and will ever stay.
Jámí advocates, as others have done before him, the destruction of self
in order to gain knowledge of Very Being, "Until He mingles Himself
with thy soul, and thine own individual existence passes out of thy
sight." The poet also discusses the question of matter being _maya_--
I delusion, the ceaseless round of "Accidents," the I ever coming and
vanishing media for the revelations of the Beloved.
The _Lawá'ih_ should be studied in conjunction with Mahmud Shabistari's
_Gulshan-i-Raz_[3] or "The Mystic Rose Garden." The main teaching of
both these books is that the indwelling of God I in the soul can only
take place when that soul realises that self is a delusion, that things
of this I world are but phantom-pictures coming and going, as it were,
upon the surface of a mirror:
Go, sweep out the chamber of your heart,
Make it ready to be the dwelling-place of the Beloved.
When you depart out, He will enter in,
In you, void of _yourself_, will He display His beauty.[4]
The phenomenal world to the Súfí was nothing more than an
ever-recurring process of genesis and end: union with the Divine,
annihilation of that process. The _Lawá'ih_ is deeply spiritual
throughout, and full of an almost pathetic pity for those who delight
in worldly pleasures and find no joy in contemplating Union with the
Beloved.
Jámí, after having spent considerable care on his _Lawá'ih_, and after
his reader has made a strenuous effort to catch a momentary glimpse of
his visionary meaning, concludes:
Jámí, leave polishing of phrases, cease
Writing and chanting fables, hold thy peace;
Dream not that "Truth" can be revealed by words:
From this fond dream, O dreamer, find release!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
How long wilt thou keep clanging like a bell?
Thou'lt never come to hold the pearl of "Truth"
Till thou art made all ear, as is the shell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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