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I died from minerality and became vegetable;
And from vegitativeness I died and became animal.
I died from animality and became human.
Then why fear disappearance through death?
Next time I shall die
Bring forth wings and feathers like angels;
After that, soaring higher than angels-
What you cannot imagine
I shall be that.
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The true teacher knocks down the idol that the student makes of him.
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Oh, the one who has fallen in love with gold
Is yelling and screaming,
As if death won’t come
And knock at his door.
Think about the day
You are breathing your last breath
And your wife’s mind
Is on another husband.
Before the arrow of death pierces your shield,
Make your aim the commandments.
Surrender yourself.
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The purpose of humanity
Is observation and understanding.
Oh, God’s compassion is raining
Observation and understanding.
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Time’s tailor has never made a robe for anyone
Without then slashing it to pieces.
See how the million fools of this world
Pay Satan heaps of gold for pain!
Don’t stretch out your legs on this earth-carpet,
It is a borrowed bed; fear that day
His messengers come to roll it up forever….
How can you go on gazing at the body’s dust?
Search out the Horseman of the Soul!
And see the Horseman at the heart of this dust-storm!
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Tomorrow you’ll be brave, you say? Fool! Dive today
From the cliff of what you know into what you can’t know.
You fear the rocks? Better men than you have died on them;
Dying on Love’s rocks is nobler than a life of death.
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Drunks who want to stay drunk drink with other seasoned debauchees; mystics who want to keep their hearts fiery and their minds absorbed should see that they associate as much as possible with other lovers. Better to be alone than with the rational and sober; their minds are winter, and shrivel the mystic’s exuberance. Do not hate the sober; pray that one day love may seize and make them human, but protect yourself as resourcefully as you can from them. I have sometimes found them surprisingly vicious, these sober-seeming, calmly smiling rationalists who think they can explain everything and yet are jealous of the Lover’s splendor.
How confining the sober are to those who have known the Vision of Wine! How dead their reasonings seem to be to those who drown repeatedly in their heart-blood! How ugly rings the metallic music of their certainties! How brutal are their meticulous yet entirely illusory and self-satisfying formulas! God is Beauty, and nothing about them is beautiful; God is Splendor, and nothing about them is splendid; God is Magnanimous, and nothing about them is magnanimous; God is Fire and nothing about them is incandescent, They believe they rule the world, unaware that what they rule is a heap of ash that one breath of the Beloved could disperse forever. When they anger you, or threaten to drive you to despair, imagine their faces when at the Resurrection they see the mountains turn into smoke and the heavens peel away like paper!
Avoid them – politely, compassionately, serenely – but avoid them.
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Only the supremely brave ever admit
How helpless they are in the hands of God!
As for the others, building and decorating their sandcastles –
Look how one wild wave shatters them all.
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Intellect is good and desirable to the extent it brings you to the King's door. Once you have reached His door, then divorce the intellect! From this time on, the intellect will be to your loss and a brigand. When you reach Him, entrust yourself to Him! You have no business with the how and the wherefore. Know that the intellect's cleverness all belongs to the vestibule. Even if it possesses the knowledge of Plato, it is still outside of the palace.
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You seek knowledge from books. What a shame! ...
You are an ocean of knowledge hidden in a dew drop...
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CHICKPEA TO COOK
A chickpea leaps almost over the rim of the pot
where it’s being boiled.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
The cook knocks him down with the ladle.
“Don’t you try to jump out.
You think I’m torturing you.
I’m giving you flavor,
so you can mix with spices and rice
and be the lovely vitality of a human being.
Remember when you drank rain in the garden.
That was for this.”
Grace first. Sexual pleasure,
then a boiling new life begins,
and the Friend has something good to eat.
Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
“Boil me some more.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can’t do this by myself.
I’m like an elephant that dreams of gardens
back in Hindustan and doesn’t pay attention
to his driver. You’re my cook, my driver,
my way into existence. I love your cooking.”
The cook says,
“ I was once like you,
fresh from the ground. Then I boiled in time
and boiled in the body, two fierce boilings.
My animal soul grew powerful.
I controlled it with practices.
and boiled some more, and boiled
once beyond that,
and became your teacher.”
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