The Masnavi, Book Three Read online

They’ll bite it till politely that dog goes

  Back to its first home, where it thrives and grows:

  They bark, ‘Rude dog, return immediately!

  Don’t be your benefactor’s enemy.

  Just like the door-ring that’s attached to it

  Cling to that door, prepared, alert and fit.

  Don’t ever break the pledge of loyalty.

  Don’t spread disloyalty so thoughtlessly.

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  It’s through their loyalty that dogs earned fame,

  So don’t shame them and give them a bad name.

  For dogs, disloyalty’s dishonourable

  So how can you think it’s allowable?

  God too has taken pride in faithfulness:

  Who is more true than me to promises?*

  Shunning God makes loyal men turn treacherous—

  God’s rights come first, ahead of all of us.

  Even your mother, whose rights we all know,

  Owes much to God for your own embryo:

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  Inside her body He created you;

  In pregnancy, He gave her comfort too.

  She felt you joined to her as a new part—

  His providence pulled what was joined apart.

  God’s made a thousand mechanisms too,

  So that your mother gives her love to you.

  God’s rights come first before your mother’s, friend—

  Only a donkey fails to comprehend!

  Your mother and her nipples He created,

  And it was due to Him your parents mated.

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  Lord, Whose beneficence lives on forever,

  Yours is what I do and don’t know together.

  You’ve ordered us, ‘Remember God! My rights

  Do not expire with passing days and nights.

  Recall the kindness I showed you that day—

  In Noah’s ark I kept you from harm’s way,

  That time when to your ancestors I gave

  Sanctuary from the storms and each fierce wave;

  Like fire, an all-consuming flood emerged;

  Even the tops of mountains were submerged—

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  I saved you and did not desert you then,

  Inside your ancestors among those men.

  Now that you’ve risen to the top, could I

  Strike you down, wasting all my work thereby?

  Why mix with such unfaithful men today

  And, through sick thoughts, like them fall far astray?

  I am immune to infidelity

  And negligence, so why think bad of Me?

  Take all these sick thoughts back to where they came—

  You’re two-faced, joined with men who are the same.

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  You have found many comrades—where are they?

  You know the truth is they have gone away.

  To heaven soared your good friend of true worth;

  The wicked one fell underneath the earth.

  Now you remain here, helpless, in between

  Like camp-fires where a caravan has been—

  So seize the hem of one who can transcend

  Dimensions like above and under, friend!

  He doesn’t rise like Jesus used to soar,

  Nor, like Korah, fall into earth’s deep core*—

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  He’s with you here now, then beyond space when

  You leave behind wealth to seek God again.

  He can clean up the worst contaminations

  And treats as faithful your abominations:

  His scolding for bad actions is direction

  To lead you from your flawed state to perfection.’

  When you neglect your litanies, you feel

  Contraction’s* pain and heat, which prove it’s real:

  This is God’s own corrective punishment,

  Which says, ‘Don’t stray from our old covenant,

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  Lest that contraction turn into a chain,

  Or shackles for your feet grow from your pain:

  Your mental pain will soon be visible,

  So don’t ignore this as dismissible!

  Contraction after sins may hurt you now—

  At That Hour it will be a chain somehow!

  If you block Our Remembrance from your mind

  We’ll send a hard life and We’ll make you blind.*

  So when a thief takes someone’s property

  Contraction gives his heart pain inwardly:

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  ‘I wonder what that is?’ the thief then says—

  The victim’s pain caused by your wicked ways.

  When he stops feeling his contraction’s shame

  The winds of perseverance fan each flame.

  The heart’s contraction brings the thief’s arrest

  As every truth is soon made manifest.

  The pangs turn into gaol and gibbets, so

  The pang’s the root from which such branches grow;

  The root was hidden—now it’s manifest:

  Contraction is the root which sprouts the rest.

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  When the root’s bad, strike it until it’s gone

  Or weeds will grow and ruin your fine lawn.

  You’ve felt contraction—find the remedy,

  Since from the roots grow branches of the tree;

  You’ve felt expansion*—quickly water it

  And share its fruit with each associate!

  The remainder of the Story of the People of Sheba

  The Sheba people lacked maturity,

  Ungrateful for God’s generosity.

  As one example of their thanklessness,

  They’d quarrel with their Lord, the Generous,

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  Saying: ‘We don’t need kindness now from You.

  Why irritate us with kind things You do?

  Do us a favour: take away Your kindness.

  We don’t want eyes, so cause us to have blindness!’

  The Sheba people would then also say:

  ‘Stay out! Give flaws! Take beauty far away!

  We don’t want mansions, orchards with fine trees,

  Beautiful girls, security and ease.

  We don’t like neighbours who reside too near,

  Preferring deserts with wild beasts men fear.’

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  In summer, Man wants winter to be sent,

  But if the winter comes he’s not content,

  For he is never pleased with his conditions,

  Neither when poor nor when he has provisions.

  Ingratitude! May he be killed today!*

  When he gains guidance he throws it away.

  The self is like this—it is better dead:

  ‘Kill yourself!’* God, the Most Sublime, has said.

  It’s a three-pointed thorn—how then can you

  Prevent this one from pricking into you?

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  Burn the thorn with the fire of shunning lust!

  Cling to the Friend’s kind hands, which you can trust.

  When they’d exceeded all the boundaries,

  Saying: ‘The plague is better than the breeze’,

  Their counsellors then warned the multitude

  To save them from depraved ingratitude—

  They aimed to kill them rather than take heed,

  Sowing perverse ingratitude’s bad seed.

  The world seems very cramped when fate decrees,

  And halva gives mouths painful injuries.

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  The Prophet said, ‘Fate can reduce the size

  Of open space, block vision from your eyes.’

  And fate can put upon your eyes a seal,

  So they can’t see the kohl salve which can heal.

  Galloping riders raise much dust—that made

  It hard for you to cry out for some aid.

  Head for the horseman, not the dust! Keep running

  Or you’ll lose out due to that horseman’s
cunning.

  ‘The one whom this fierce wolf devoured’, God said,

  ‘Saw its dust—why did it not cry for aid?

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  Could it not recognize the fierce wolf’s dust?

  Without such knowledge, why graze there with trust?

  Sheep can smell dangerous wolves from yards away

  And so they scamper every which way;

  The lion’s scent is known to a sheep’s brain,

  Which tells them to stop grazing on that plain,

  But of wrath’s lion’s scent are you aware?

  Turn back! Return to caution and to prayer!

  That group gazed at the wolf’s dust all the same;

  They stayed until the wolf of terror came.

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  Enraged, it tore apart those sheep, whose eyes

  Had closed to wisdom’s shepherd and his cries.

  They never came though he called frequently,

  But threw dust in his eyes contemptuously,

  Saying, ‘We’re better shepherds—go away!

  We’re each chiefs—we can’t follow what you say.

  We’re not for God, but for the wolf to eat,

  Fuel for the fire, not modesty’s fine meat!’

  There was a heathen pride inside their brains;

  The crow squawked loudly over their remains.

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  Digging a pit designed for the oppressed,

  They fell in and cried out, ‘Alas!’, distressed.

  They tore the coats of Joseph, and each crime

  Of theirs came back to haunt them in good time.

  Who’s Joseph? Your God-seeking heart of course,

  Chained by your self, like prisoners, by force;

  A Gabriel you have tied up with a tether

  And now you tear his wings and pluck each feather.

  You bring a roasted calf for it to eat

  Or even straw, as if that is a treat,

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  Saying, ‘Eat up! For us, this is some spread!’

  Its nourishment is meeting God instead.

  Due to this tribulation, grief, and pain,

  You’ve made it turn to God now to complain:

  ‘Save me from that old wolf, dear God!’ it cries.

  ‘The hour is near; have patience!’ He replies,

  ‘From them I will get justice now for you.’

  Except God who can order justice? Who?

  It says, ‘My patience has worn thin, my Lord,

  Kept far from Your face, which I have adored.

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  I’m Ahmad, left as captive of those Jews,

  Saleh in Thamud’s gaol, due to their ruse.*

  Giver of joy to souls of prophets, please

  Kill me, or call me back, or come! Don’t tease!

  Infidels can’t bear missing You as well—

  “Would that I’d been mere dust!”* they loudly yell.

  The opposite sort even feel this way—

  How can Your own then bear to be away!’

  God says, ‘All right, pure one, but listen too.

  Be patient: patience is the best for you.

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  It will be dawn soon. Hush! Don’t wail and roar.

  I’ll strive for you, and you need strive no more.

  Remainder of the story about the townsman going to the village at the invitation of the villager

  Enough of this! Turn back! No longer roam!

  The bumpkin took the townsman to his home.

  Now put the Sheba people’s tale aside.

  Tell how the townsman reached the countryside.

  The country bumpkin used some flattery

  To weaken his resolve most cleverly:

  Repeated pleading played tricks with his mind,

  Clear water turned thus to the murky kind,

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  And due to his own children’s powerful sway

  When they sang in approval, ‘Let us play!’*

  Like Joseph, whom, because of fate’s selection

  ‘Let’s play!’* stole from his father’s close protection.

  That’s gambling with one’s life, not having fun;

  It’s cunning, fraud, and lies rolled into one.

  If something drives you from your sweetheart, friend,

  Don’t heed it, for it brings loss in the end;

  Though it should offer gains a hundredfold,

  Don’t leave the treasure’s owner for some gold!

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  But heed how God rebuked some of the best—

  Companions of the Prophet failed this test:

  In straitened circumstances, during prayer

  They had a dream, and right away rushed there:

  ‘We void our prayers lest others step ahead

  And all the discounts go to them instead.’

  The Prophet, though, continued praying then

  With one or two unwavering, yearning men.

  God said, ‘By bargain discounts’ drums, how can

  You be led far from this most holy man?

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  For mere wheat you have scampered madly there,

  And left the Prophet standing during prayer.

  In hope of wheat, you’ve sown a futile seed;

  The Messenger of Truth you all should heed.

  His company’s worth more than wealth and playing;

  See who it is you left back there still praying!

  To your greed was it not made manifest

  That out of all providers I’m the best?’

  He who’s placed nourishment in every grain,

  Won’t let your trust in Him be all in vain.

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  For wheat’s sake you’ve abandoned that One who

  Has sent the wheat down from the sky to you!

  The invitation of the falcon to the ducks to come from water to the desert

  A falcon tells a duck, ‘Leave water, rise

  To see the lovely plains with your own eyes.’

  The wise duck tells him, ‘Falcon, disappear!

  Water’s our fortress, where we’re safe from fear.’

  The devil’s like the falcon—ducks, beware

  Not to stray from your fortress to its snare.

  Say to the falcon: ‘Go away! Turn back!

  Keep your hands off us! Don’t you dare attack!

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  Infidel, keep your invitation—we

  Will not fall for your clever sophistry.

  This fort is ours, the lovely plains for you.

  We turn your offer down—you keep that too.

  While there is life, food’s found inside this world.

  Where there’s an army banners are unfurled.’

  The townsman gave profuse apologies,

  To answer that most wicked bumpkin’s pleas:

  He said, ‘I have important work to do—

  If I come now, it won’t be then seen to.

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  The king asked me to fix a situation;

  He hasn’t slept and waits in expectation.

  I do not dare neglect the king’s command;

  I can’t fail him—you surely understand.

  An officer each morning and each night

  Asks me to show the way to put it right—

  Should I instead come to your village now

  And make the sultan fiercely knit his brow?

  How would I cool his anger and survive?

  To come means burying myself alive!’

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  Scores of excuses came thus from this man,

  But they weren’t in accord with God’s own plan.

  Though all the atoms in the world should plot,

  Next to decrees from heaven they’re worth naught.

  How can the earth escape now from the sky,

  Or hide itself from it? Let’s see it try!

  When something comes from heaven, earth has no

  Refuge, recourse, nor other place to go.

  If fire
should rain down on it from the sun,

  It lies back and accepts what it has done;

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  And if a massive deluge should rain down

  To flood and then destroy each single town,

  Like Job, earth would submit to its decrees,

  Saying, ‘I’m captive—you do as you please.’

  You who are part of earth, don’t disobey.

  When you see God’s decree, don’t turn away.

  ‘We made you from mere dust,’* you’ve heard ring round,

  So act just like dust and don’t turn around.

  God said, ‘Look how I sow the seeds with care—

  It’s lowly, then I raise it up from there.

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  Adopt the practice of humility

  And I’ll give you the most nobility.’