642 - Leave negation and worship only that Real Being: learn this, O father, from the drunken Turk.

How a drunken Turkish Amír summoned a minstrel at the hour of the morning-drink; and a commentary on the Tradition (Hadith), “Truly, God most High has a wine that He prepared for His friends: when they drink it they become intoxicated, and when they become intoxicated they are purified,” to the end of the Tradition. “The wine is bubbling in the jars of the mysteries in order that anyone who is denuded may drink of that wine.” God most High has said, “Lo, the righteous shall drink.” “This wine that you drink is forbidden; we drink none but a lawful wine.” “Endeavour through non-existence to become existent and to be intoxicated with God’s wine.”

643 - A barbarian Turk came to his senses at dawn with a wine induced hangover, desired the minstrel.

644 - The spiritual minstrel is the bosom-friend of those intoxicated: he is the dessert and food and strength of the drunken.

645 - The minstrel led them on to intoxication; then again, he quaffed intoxication from the song of the minstrel.

646 - That one fetches God’s wine because of that minstrel, while this one imbibes the bodily wine from this minstrel.

647 - Though both have one name in discourse, yet there is a vast difference between this Hasan and that Hasan.

648 - There is a verbal resemblance in enunciation, but what relation has heaven (ásmán) to a rope (rísmán) ?

649 - The participation of a word is always obstructive: the participation of the infidel with the true believer is in the body,

650 - Bodies are like pots with the lids on: look and see what is in each pot.

651 - The pot of that body is filled with the Water of Life; the pot of this body is filled with the poison of death.

652 - If you keep your eye fixed on its contents, you are a king; but if you regard its vessel, you are misguided.

653 - Know that words resemble this body and that their inward meaning resembles the soul.

654 - The bodily eye is always seeing the body; the spiritual eye sees the artful soul.

655 - Therefore the man of appearance is misled by the form of the expressions used in the Masnavi, while they guide the man of reality.

656 - He has said in the Qur’án, “This Qur’án with all its heart leads some aright and others astray.”

657 - God, God ! When the gnostic speaks of “wine,” how in the gnostic’s eyes should the non-existent be a thing ?

658 - Since your understanding is the Devil’s wine, how should you have any conception of the wine of the Merciful ?

659 - These two—the minstrel and the wine—are partners: this one quickly leads to that, and that one to this.

660 - They that are full of crop-sickness feed on the song of the minstrel: the minstrels bring them to the tavern.

661 - That one is the beginning of the course, and this is the end thereof: the witless is like a ball in his polo-bat.

662 - The ear inclines to that which is in the head: if there is yellow bile in the head, it becomes black bile.

663 - Afterwards, these two pass into unconsciousness: there the begetter and the begotten become one.

664 - When joy and sorrow made peace, our Turk awakened the minstrels.

665 - The minstrel began a slumberous verse - “Hand me the cup, O You whom I see not.

666 - You are my face: no wonder that I see it not: extreme proximity is a mystifying veil.

667 - You are my reason: no wonder if I see You not, on account of the abundance of the intricate perplexities.

668 - You have come nearer to me than my neck-artery: how long shall I say ‘Oh’ ? ‘Oh’ is a call to one who is far off.

669 - Nay, but I dissemble with them when I call in the deserts, in order that I may conceal Him who is beside me from those who excite my jealousy.”

Story of the minstrel who began to sing this ode at the banquet of the Turkish Amír: “Are You a rose or a lily or a cypress or a man ? I know not. What do You desire from this bewildered one who has lost his heart? I know not”— and how the Turk shouted at him, “Tell of that which you know!” — and the minstrel’s reply to the Amír.

703 - In the presence of the drunken Turk the minstrel began the mysteries of Alast under the veil of melody,

704 - “I know not whether You are a moon or an idol, I know not what You desire of me.

705 - I know not what service I shall pay You, whether I shall keep silence or express You in words.

706 - It is marvellous that You are not separate from me, where am I, and where You, I know not.

707 - I know not how You are drawing me: You draw me now into Your bosom, now into blood.”

708 - In this fashion he opened his lips to say “I know not”: he made a tune of “I know not, I know not.”

709 - When “I know not” passed beyond bounds, our Turk was amazed and his heart became sick of this ditty.

710 - The Turk leaped up and fetched an iron mace to smite the minstrel’s head with it on the spot;

711 - An officer seized the mace with his hand, saying, “Nay; it is wicked to kill the minstrel at this moment.”

712 - He replied, “This endless and countless repetition of his has pounded my nerves: I will pound his head.

713 - O cuckold, you don’t know, don’t talk nonsense; and if you do know, play to the purpose.

714 - Tell of that which you know, O crazy fool: don’t draw out ‘I know not, I know not.’

715 - I ask, ‘Where do you come from, hypocrite, eh ?’ you will say, ‘Not from Balkh, and not from Herat,

716 - Not from Baghdad and not from Mosul and not from Tiraz: you will draw out a long journey in ‘not’ and ‘not.’

717 - Just say where you come from and escape: in this case it is folly to elaborate the point at issue.

718 - Or I asked, ‘What had you for breakfast ?’ you would say, ‘Not wine and not roast-meat,

719 - Not qadíd and not tharíd and not lentils’: tell me what you did eat, only and no more.

720 - Why this long nattering ?” “Because, said the minstrel, my object is obscure."

721 - Before you deny, affirmation evades: I denied in order that you might get a scent of affirmation.

722 - I play the tune of negation: when you die, death will declare the mystery.

Commentary on his saying (Hadith) — peace be upon him ! — "Die before you die." ‘O friend, die before your death if you desire life; for by so dying Idrís became a dweller in Paradise before us.’

723 - You have suffered much agony, but you are in the veil, because dying was the fundamental principle, and you have not fulfilled it.

724 - Your agony is not finished till you die: you cannot reach the roof without completing the ladder.

725 - When two rungs out of a hundred are wanting, the striver will be forbidden to the roof.

726 - When the rope lacks one ell out of a hundred, how should the water go from the well into the bucket ?

727 - O Amír, you will not experience the wreck of this ship till you put into it the last mann.

728 - Know that the last mann is fundamental, for it is the star that rises at night: it wrecks the ship of evil suggestion and error.

729 - The ship of consciousness, when it is utterly wrecked, becomes the sun in the blue vault.

730 - Inasmuch as you have not died, your agony has been prolonged: be extinguished in the dawn, O candle of Tiraz !

731 - Know that the Sun of the world is hidden till our stars have become hidden.

732 - Wield the mace against yourself: shatter egoism to pieces, for the bodily eye is cotton wool in the ear.

733 - You are wielding the mace against yourself, O base man: this egoism is the reflection of yourself in my actions.

734 - You have seen the reflection of yourself in my form and have risen in fury to fight with yourself,

735 - Like the lion who went down into the well; he fancied that the reflection of himself was his enemy.”

736 - Beyond any doubt, negation is the opposite of being, in order that by means of the opposite you may gain a little knowledge of the opposite.

738 - O you who possess sincerity, you want that unveiled, choose death and tear off the veil,

739 - Not such a death that you will go into a grave, a death consisting of transformation, so that you will go into a Light.

742 - Hence Mustafá said, “O seeker of the mysteries, you wish to see a dead man living,

743 - Walking on the earth, like living men; dead and his spirit is gone to heaven;

744 - One whose spirit has a dwelling-place on high at this moment, if he die, his spirit is not translated,

745 - Because it has been translated before death: this is understood by dying, not by reason;

747 - If anyone wish to see a dead man walking thus visibly on the earth,

750 - Mohammed, then, was a hundred resurrections here and now, for he was dissolved in dying to loosing and binding.

751 - Ahmad is the twice-born in this world: he was manifestly a hundred resurrections.

752 - They asked him concerning the Resurrection, saying, “O Resurrection, how long is the way to the Resurrection ?”

753 - And often he would say with mute eloquence, “Does anyone ask the Resurrection concerning the Resurrection ?”

754 - Hence the Messenger of good tidings said, symbolically, “Die before you die, O nobles,

755 - Even as I have died before death and brought from Yonder this fame and renown.”

756 - Do you, then, become the resurrection and see the resurrection: this is the necessary condition for seeing anything.

757 - Until you become it, you will not know it completely, whether it is light or darkness.

758 - If you become Reason, you will know Reason perfectly; if you become Love, you will know Love’s wick.

769 - Therefore make humble entreaty, saying, “O Guide of life, I was free, I have fallen into bondage: what is the cause of this ?

Comparison of the covetous man, who does not see the all-providingness of God and the stores of His mercy, to an ant struggling with a single grain of wheat on a great threshing-floor and showing violent agitation and trembling and dragging it hurriedly along, unconscious of the amplitude of the threshing-floor.

806 - The ant trembles for a grain because it is blind to the goodly threshing-floors.

807 - It drags a grain along greedily and fearfully, for it does not see such a noble stack of winnowed wheat.

808 - The Owner of the threshing-floor is saying, “Hey, you who in your blindness deem nothing something,

809 - Have you regarded that as belonging to My threshing-floors, so that you are devoted with your soul to that grain ?”

810 - O you, who in semblance are a mote, look at Saturn; you are a lame ant: go, look at Solomon.

811 - You are not this body: you are that Eye. If you have beheld the spirit, you are delivered from the body.

819 - This dualism is characteristic of the eye that sees double; but the first is the last and the last is the first.

820 - Listen, by what means is this made known ? By means of the resurrection. Seek to experience resurrection: do not dispute concerning resurrection.

821 - The condition of the Day of Resurrection is to die first, for ba‘th (resurrection) signifies “to raise to life from the dead.”

823 - Where shall we seek true knowledge ? In renouncing knowledge. Where shall we seek peace ? From renouncing peace.

824 - Where shall we seek existence ? From renouncing existence. Where shall we seek the apple ? From renouncing the hand.

825 - O best Helper, only You can make the eye that regards the non-existent to regard that which is existent.

826 - The eye that was produced from non-existence regarded the Essence of Being as wholly non-existent;

827 - If two eyes are transformed and illumined, this well-ordered world becomes the scene of the Last Judgement.

828 - These realities are shown forth imperfectly because the apprehension of them is forbidden to these raw ones.

Story of the person who was giving the drum-call for the sahúr at the gate of a certain palace at midnight. A neighbour said to him, “Why, it is midnight, it is not dawn; and besides, there is no one in this palace: for whose sake are you drumming ?”— and the minstrel’s reply to him.

846 - A certain man was drumming at a certain gate to announce the sahúr: it was a court-house and the pavilion of a grandee.

847 - He was beating his drum vigorously at midnight, someone said to him, “O you who are seeking support,

848 - Firstly, give this call to the sahúr at daybreak: midnight is not the time for this disturbance;

849 - And secondly, observe, O man of vain desire, whether in fact there is any one inside this house at midnight.

850 - There is nobody here except demons and spirits: why are you trifling your time away ?

851 - You are beating your tambourine for the sake of an ear: where is the ear ? Intelligence is needed in order to know: where is the intelligence ?”

852 - He replied, “You have said: hear the answer from your servant that you may not remain in bewilderment and confusion.

853 - Although in your opinion this moment is midnight, in my view the dawn of delight is near at hand.

854 - In my sight every defeat has been turned to victory, in my eyes all nights have been turned to day.

855 - To you the water of the river Nile seems blood; to me it is not blood, it is water, O noble one.

856 - In regard to you, that is iron or marble, to the prophet David it is wax and tractable.

857 - To you the mountain is exceedingly heavy and inanimate, to David it is a master-musician.

858 - To you the gravel is silent; to Ahmad it is eloquent and making supplication.

859 - To you the pillar of the mosque is a dead thing; to Ahmad it is a lover who has lost his heart.

860 - To the ordinary all the particles of the world seem dead, but before God they are possessed of knowledge and submissive.

861 - As for your saying, ‘there is nobody in this house and palace: why are you beating this drum ?’

862 - This people are giving sums of gold for God’s sake, founding hundreds of pious institutions and mosques,

863 - And, like intoxicated lovers, gladly risking their property and lives on their way to the distant Pilgrimage:

864 - Do they ever say, ‘The House is empty’ ? Nay, the Lord of the House is the Spirit invisible.

865 - He that is illumined by the Light of God deems the House of the Beloved to be full.

866 - In the eyes of those who see the end, many a palace filled with a crowd and throng is empty

867 - Seek in the Ka‘ba whomever you please, that he may at once grow before your face.

868 - How should the form, which is splendid and sublime, be absent from the House of God ?

869 - He is present, exempt from exclusion, the rest of mankind on account of need.

870 - Do they ever say, ‘We are crying Labbayka without any response. Pray, why ?

871 - Nay, the Divine blessing which causes Labbayka is a response from the One at every moment.

872 - I know by intuition that this pavilion and palace is the banquet of the soul, and that its dust is an elixir.

873 - I will strike my copper on its elixir unto everlasting in the mode of treble and bass,

874 - That, from playing the sahúr tune in this fashion, the seas may surge to scatter pearls and bounty.

875 - Men hazard their lives in the line of battle and in fighting for the Creator’s sake.

876 - One is like Job in tribulation; another like Jacob in patience.

877 - Hundreds of thousands of people, thirsty and sorrowful, are doing some sore toil for God’s sake in desire.

878 - I too, for the merciful Lord’s sake and in hope of Him, am drumming the sahúr call at the gate.”

879 - you want a customer from whom you will get gold, how should there be a better customer than God, O heart ?

880 - He buys a dirty bag from your goods, and gives an inner light that borrows.

881 - He receives the ice of this mortal body, and gives a kingdom beyond our imagination.

882 - He receives a few tear-drops, and gives a Kawthar that sugar shows jealousy.

883 - He receives sighs full of melancholy and vaporous gloom, and gives for every sigh a hundred gainful dignities.

884 - Because of the wind of sighs that drove onward the tearful cloud, He has called a Abraham awwáh (full of sighs).

885 - Listen, sell your old rags in this brisk incomparable market, and receive the sterling kingdom.

886 - And if any doubt and suspicion waylay you, rely upon the traders, the prophets.

887 - Inasmuch as the Emperor increased their fortune exceedingly, no mountain can carry their merchandise.

Ya Ali Madad