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The spiritual masters of Persian Sufism are experts at analyzing the stages the soul goes through in its search for the Beloved. This is often a loving relationship between the soul and the Beloved it seeks, just as we seek the origin or meaning of our life, just as we search on earth for the companion who might fulfill us. For the believer, this Beloved is also the Creator in whom the soul finds its eternal bliss.
And yet, how many trials do we have to go through before this love is stronger, and victorious? The poem gives many examples of famous people who were humiliated in their search for the Beloved, in their search for truth. They succumbed to their weaknesses, their fears, their shortcomings. Yet love, like friendship, can prove faithful in all circumstances, and survive the toughest trials. It can overcome evil with forgiveness, fear with trust, weakness with the fidelity of one who does not abandon his friend when his strength fails him. The human being goes through stages, always in search of the mystery of his origin. These stages vary for each individual; not only will they have a different order for each person, but they will also be different in themselves. The person who has to give up wealth will have a different path from the one who has to overcome fear, but all are seeking the truth of the infinite love that keeps them alive. In the same way, human beings never cease to express this quest through so many different traditions, wisdoms, religions and cultures that will always reflect man’s highest aspirations.
Farîd ud-Dîn ‘Attâr, in a great Persian poem, Mantiq ut-Tayr, the language of birds, also sings of the spiritual stages of souls in search of their origin. The bird has always been a symbol of the spirit or soul ascending towards celestial realities, communicating with God, a bridge between the divine and the human: see the hornbill in Africa, the hamsa bird in India, doves and peacocks in paleo-Christian sarcophagi and steles. In the Koran (Sura 27, 16), God is said to have taught the Prophet Sulayman the language of birds. And in Persia, the expression “to speak the language of birds” alludes to the mysterious expressions of Sufi mystics.
This is the story told by ‘Attâr: a thousand birds set off in search of their sovereign, called Simorgh. They will go through many trials, but only thirty will reach their goal, having crossed seven valleys, stripped themselves of their earthly attachments, and ascended to Simorgh.
And these are the final stages of a gradual unveiling in which they will be the protagonists:
They arrive in the Presence of the bird called Simorgh. This Persian word can be broken down into two elements: “Si” meaning thirty, and “morgh” meaning bird. This play on words captures all the mystery of the words we can attribute to the divinity at the origin of all life. How can we creatures give him a name? We can give a name to an object or an animal whose certain characteristics enable us to enclose it in a definition and call it when we need it. But God is not subject to our orders, and we cannot confine him to words or definitions. Let’s remember the biblical prohibition: “Thou shalt not take the name of God in vain”, and also the custom of not calling people we respect by their first names, but by titles of excellence. So, for the thirty birds, God’s name is the one they can access through their intelligence, from our human reality.
Here, then, are the major questions raised by this text:
- How can we preserve the uniqueness of God? He is one, He is not the result of all the beings of this world, and yet He is deeply united with each of His creatures, for it is He who gives them being and existence.
- He is not accessible to man, for He is beyond all that we can imagine of Him, and yet He calls us to Himself and wants to make Himself known, to reveal Himself.
- God is therefore one, unique, ineffable and inaccessible. Yet the experience of many mystics of every religion also tells us that this reality, in its incommunicability, this distance, is also accompanied by the experience of his solicitude, his closeness, his Presence in the most intimate part of us. How can we reconcile these two aspects, how can we affirm one and the other at the same time?
- Is it conceivable that what appears contradictory to man can simultaneously subsist in God, and that this contradiction is merely the consequence of our limitations? We are indeed subject to time and space, and what first appears to us of God’s reality is followed by what is revealed to us afterwards; but in Him the first and the second subsist at the same time.
Let’s now analyze what the text tells us, starting with verse 4257:
1thstep: Feeling small before the Creator. The light of His Presence dispels our darkness and purifies us.
جان آن مرغان ز تشویر و حیا شد حیای محض و جان شد توتیا
چون شدند از کل کل پاک آن همه یافتند از نور حضرت جان همه
The souls of these birds through trouble and shame,
was purified and went up in smoke,
When they were thus quite purified from all things,
they all found life by the light of the Presence.
In the face of greatness and immensity, we find ourselves small and annihilated, but in this we find our creaturely condition, preparing us to recognize the source of life. This purification reduces the soul of these birds to smoke, but a particular kind of smoke known as “tutiyâ”: this word indicates the condensation of smoke that collects on the walls of the furnace after the smelting of lead and zinc; this substance is used as a remedy for the eyes. This indicates that this purification prepares the birds for vision. We might wonder about the word “shame”, “hayâ”, which appears twice, to tell us that at this stage, only this shame purifies us, that by lowering us, gives us access to the vision of God’s work, which purifies us. This word could also be linked to the word life. Being ashamed, acknowledging our sins, is a purification of our life, a veil that falls over our reality. This life is renewed by the light of His Presence, which doesn’t leave us despondent, but lifts us up step by step to Him. This word Presence, in Persian “hedhrat”, is also used as an honorific title for a person to whom we dedicate all our respect. But its root, in Arabic “hadhar”, means to be there, to be present, and it is His presence that confers respect on those who represent Him, on the prophets.
2thstep: The Creator purifies us from all evil deeds and omissions. This state provokes an initial amazement: man sees himself as created anew, without his sins.
باز از سر بندهٔ نو جان شدند باز از نوعی دگر حیران شدند
کرده و ناکردهٔ دیرینه شان پاک گشت و محو گشت از سینهشان
They were recreated, a new soul for these servants
And of this newness they were astonished
Their former deeds and omissions
were purified and wiped from their breasts
Having perceived the Creator’s immense mercy, they were freed from the weight of their faults. He is not there to oppress them, to crush them, but to lead them to Him. Amazement, “heyrân”, is a mystical state in the face of greatness, majesty; a contemplation that makes us see our creaturely state, “bandeh” says the Persian text, and that means servant, God’s servant, it tells us our condition, but also transports us towards the One we want to serve, to whom we want to give thanks.
3rdstep: contemplation of God’s work in the world.
آفتاب قربت از پیشان بتافت جمله را از پرتو آن جان بتافت
هم ز عکس روی سیمرغ جهان چهرهٔ سیمرغ دیدند از جهان
The sun of nearness shone upon all with its primordial light
illuminating their souls with its ray
Each other, from the reflection of the face of this Simorgh of the world
they saw the reflection of the Simorgh of that time.
The sun that shines on them is that of Proximity, the mystical stage of the one who is close to this source of light. For it is He who is close to each of us, who shines on the just and the unjust, and who never ceases to call all men to Himself. His light has been shining since time immemorial, the time before, in Persian “pyshân” meaning “that which was before all things”, or “payshân” meaning “upon them”, to emphasize the Creator’s solicitude in coming down to them. It is from this ray that we derive life. It is from its reflection in the world that we see or glimpse it, when the light of the world speaks to us of that light, the light of time immemorial, whose ray gave life to the world. It’s the infinite that precedes us “azal”, as we say in Arabic.
Stage 4th: the 30 birds see their reflection in the Simorgh, and know themselves from it. Second amazement: they discover themselves as they are in the Creator’s gaze.
چون نگه کردند آن سی مرغ زود بیشک این سی مرغ آن سیمرغ بود
در تحیر جمله سرگردان شدند باز از نوعی دگر حیران شدند
When they suddenly looked at these thirty birds
no doubt those thirty birds were the same Simorgh
In amazement all were lost
Again by this novelty they were amazed
Their gazes passed from one to the other, the Simorgh, whose name means “thirty birds”, reflected their own image back to them, and they were stunned. They were no longer amazed by the new life they had received, once purified, but they were amazed, “dar tahayyur”, contemplating the Simorgh’s gaze, in which they saw themselves. This is an important step, to see each other, in the eyes and through the eyes of the one who gave us life, in a splendor that only he can see, for often our eyes see only our miseries and imperfections, and when we turn to others we see their faults. But here the Creator’s gaze is revealed to them, and this causes amazement.
5thstep: Discovering God’s Presence in us and us in Him. He lives in us and it is from Him that we hold existence and being.
خویش را دیدند سیمرغ تمام بود خود سیمرغ سی مرغ مدام
چون سوی سیمرغ کردندی نگاه بود این سیمرغ این کین جایگاه
ور بسوی خویش کردندی نظر بود این سیمرغ ایشان آن دگر
ور نظر در هر دو کردندی بهم هر دو یک سیمرغ بودی بیش و کم
بود این یک آن و آن یک بود این در همه عالم کسی نشنود این
آن همه غرق تحیر ماندند بی تفکر وز تفکر ماندند
They looked at themselves, they were the fullness of the Simorgh
That same Simorgh never ceased to be thirty birds
When toward the Simorgh they turned their gaze
This Simorgh was in this very place
And if they turned their gaze to themselves
That Simorgh was them, while being other
And if they looked at both together
both were the being of a single Simorgh more or less
This one was that one and that one was that one
In all the world no one heard this
They all stood in amazement
like a thought without a thought
These verses express the unspeakable, the ineffability of the mystery of union that has lost so many mystics. Indeed, a new stage is expressed here. First, the human being has realized his smallness before the Creator. The overwhelming sense of his infinitesimal being compared to the greatness of the soul of the One who gives him life, reveals to him all his impurities and faults. His Creator himself purifies them, dispels them and draws him to Himself, elevating him. Man is transported to Him and forgets himself. Then we come to the stage where he perceives himself and his Creator. He sees himself in Him, he sees how the Creator looks at him and knows him. He sees others in and through this Creator’s gaze, and sees himself and them in the beauty conferred on them by the Spirit given to them by the Creator. This experience of seeing God is shared by many mystics from different traditions. In the Christian tradition, the apostle St. John tells us in his first letter 3:2: “Beloved, even now we are children of God, but what we will be has not yet been made manifest. We know: when it is manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” And St. Paul in his First Epistle to the Corinthians 13:12: “At present we see confusedly, as in a mirror; on that day we shall see face to face. At present my knowledge is partial; on that day I shall know perfectly, as I have been known.” It’s a moment of amazement because we see and feel Him so close to us, we are in Him because our being comes from Him and participates in His. (link Avicenna: the intelligence perceives its being as coming from the Creator, perception of its origin) It’s difficult at this moment to express the feeling of unity and distinction at the same time. This has led some mystics to express themselves in ways that were repudiated by their contemporaries, as was the case with Mansour Al-Hallâj, a Persian mystic who was put to death in Baghdad in 922 for having said: “I am the true one”, i.e. the one who subsists in himself, the Creator. Yet Farîd ud-Dîn ‘Attâr, who himself recounted and interpreted Al-Hallâj’s ambiguous expression, takes great care to ensure that our human language can express two apparently contradictory and simultaneous realities at the same time. We are Him and He is us, for our whole being is vivified by Him and in Him. The perception of this reality is beyond our understanding, and this is what the terms “tahayyur” and “hayrân” repeatedly remind us of here, indicating amazement, uncertainty, the feeling of being lost in the face of too great a mystery.
6thstage: discovery of the unity between us and between us and the Simorgh. Third amazement: from being-not-being we move on to the all-filling being of God.
چون ندانستند هیچ از هیچ حال بی زفان کردند از آن حضرت سؤال
کشف این سر قوی در خواستند حل مای و توی درخواستند
Since they understood nothing about any state,
without language they expressed a question to this Presence
They longed for the unveiling of this mystery
they sought the solution of “we” and “you”
Farîd ud-Dîn ‘Attâr’s use of a term that assumes a very special and fundamental significance in spiritual experience is worthy of note here. It is the word “hâl”, which literally means state, and which also indicates the spiritual state we are passing through, the spiritual stage that is ours. Here, the thirty birds passed through many stages, none of which they had the key to. Understanding and thought are lost.
7thstage: seeing in God the unity between our soul and our body. We see ourselves in God as in a mirror, and know ourselves as He knows us.
بی زفان آمد از آن حضرت خطاب کاینهست این حضرت چون آفتاب
هر که آید خویشتن بیند درو جان و تن هم جان و تن بیند درو
Without language came from this Presence a speech
Like a mirror is this Presence like a sun
he who comes to him sees himself in him
soul and body together soul and body he sees in him
Here Simorgh is called by his title of majesty, Presence. This Presence reveals our own presence to us who stand before him, we perceive ourselves, as in a mirror. His gaze reveals to us what we really are, our body and soul too, the inner mystery that dwells within us and of which our body is the image. A profound unity is announced here, that between soul and body, inseparable, one a reflection of the other. Our inner, spiritual experience is also reflected in the appearance of our body, giving it form. It’s also reminiscent of ancient philosophers like Aristotle, who asserted that the soul is what gives shape to the body. It’s an inseparable unity, and a truth also revealed to the birds.
8thstep: we see ourselves in Him and perceive that our existence comes from Him. We cannot reach Him, cannot see Him by ourselves.
چون شما سی مرغ اینجا آمدید سی درین آیینه پیدا آمدید
گر چل و پنجاه مرغ آیید باز پردهای از خویش بگشایید باز
گرچه بسیاری به سر گردیدهاید خویش را بینید و خود را دیدهاید
هیچ کس را دیده بر ما کی رسد چشم موری بر ثریا کی رسد
Since you came here thirty birds
thirty become visible in this mirror
if another forty or fifty birds came
you would open the veil on yourselves.
Though you have wandered long
you are looking at yourselves, and you have seen yourselves.
For no one has sight reached us
how could the ant’s eye reach the Pleiades?
Here the creature’s utmost effort, the bird’s long peregrination, has brought them to the extreme limit they could reach, but here is their impossibility of reaching, by their own strength alone, the mystery of the origin of their life. This is also the truth revealed to them about the creature’s condition in relation to the Creator. They perceive the benevolent gaze of the One who makes them exist, they perceive themselves in Him, and they perceive themselves as holding from Him their existence, their body and soul, the mystery of their creation. In seeing themselves, they perceive their true selves. It is with this body and soul that they have come to Him, that they have arrived in His Presence. The soul infused the body with the courage, the will, the aspiration to reach the source of life; it made the body take all the risks of losing itself, of losing its own life. Seeking the Creator was more important than their own lives, well worth the risk. And yet now they must realize that He is above them, that they cannot reach Him, that He is not within their reach.
9thstep: our actions come from Him and are in Him.
دیده موری که سندان برگرفت پشهٔ پیلی به دندان برگرفت
هرچ دانستی، چو دیدی آن نبود و آنچ گفتی و شنیدی، آن نبود
این همه وادی که از پس کردهاید وین همه مردی که هر کس کردهاید
جمله در افعال مایی رفتهاید وادی ذات صفت را خفتهاید
An ant was seen lifting an anvil?
A gnat lifting an elephant with its teeth?
All that you knew was not like what you saw
and what you said and heard was not what you saw.
All those valleys you crossed
and all the valiant deeds each of you has performed
all of which you traversed by performing the actions of our being
as for the valley of essence, you have fallen asleep in its attribute.
Here it is revealed to them that on this path, they would not have been able to progress and advance towards the Presence of the Creator if He had not made it possible. It is He who elevates our understanding towards Him. He raises it through what we can perceive of Him in the images of this world, in the reality that bears His imprint. We perceive the attributes of His essence, that is, the characteristics that speak to us of Him from our human experience, but He surpasses them all. Our generosity, courage and love are like His, they speak to us of Him, but His generosity, courage and love are far beyond our own. We approach Him by analogy, but His essence remains beyond our reach. We are in this visible world like a sleeper who does not see the reality of what surrounds him, and yet he is indeed in this reality, but he sees only what his mind can provide him with as a representation. But in this he is led by his Creator into His Presence, it is He who through all these realities and images of the world leads him by analogy to Him, He raises him up. But when it comes to His essence, we can’t open our eyes; it’s He who will form the images we need to see Him, as if in a dream, asleep in His attributes.
10thstep: the essence is beyond the Simorgh. They have detached themselves from their sensory experiences. Fourth amazement: transported into Him, they no longer perceive the outside world. They find themselves in Him.
چون شما سی مرغ حیران ماندهاید بیدل و بیصبر و بیجان ماندهاید
ما به سیمرغی بسی اولیتریم زانک سیمرغ حقیقی گوهریم
محو ما گردید در صد عز و ناز تا به ما در خویش را یابید باز
When you, thirty birds, remained lost in amazement
you remained without heart, without patience, without soul
We are far ahead of the Simorgh
since we are the essence of the true Simorgh
accomplish erasure in us in a hundred honors and cares
until in us you find yourselves.
The tongueless voice of the Presence continues to speak to them, summarized as follows: “Before me, in amazement, you have detached yourselves from your sensory perceptions, your heart, your patience, your soul. In relation to the image of the Simorgh that you have perceived, go and seek further, for of this image we are the essence. Renounce all your glories, renounce your self-perception, and then you’ll find yourself in me. You will find in me a hundred honors and cares, trust.” That is, I will make you perceive me what I am, I will create this perception of me in you, when you surrender to me. You’ll see how much I care for you.
11thstage: the fana’ loss of self-consciousness.
تا که میرفتند و میگفت این سخن چون رسیدند و نه سر ماند و نه بن
تا که میرفتند و میگفت این سخن چون رسیدند و نه سر ماند و نه بن
تا که میرفتند و میگفت این سخن چون رسیدند و نه سر ماند و نه بن
They can finally be filled, fully transported into Him. Words can no longer express this perception in which we no longer proceed by deduction, we no longer advance by reasoning, by will, by valorous, generous actions, by love. All this has led us to Him, to the threshold. Now He is there, without before, without after. We contemplate what is without veils, no longer needing to go to him through our images, his Presence fills us.
12thstep: in this experience, we no longer perceive ourselves. Like El-Hallâj, we are entirely absorbed in Him. He speaks within us and we hear only Him beyond words.
گفت چون در آتش افروخته گشت آن حلاج کلی سوخته
عاشقی آمد مگر چوبی بدست بر سر آن طشت خاکستر نشست
پس زفان بگشاد هم چون آتشی باز میشورید خاکستر خوشی
وانگهی میگفت برگوید راست کانک خوش میزد انا الحق او کجاست
It is said that when he was engulfed in fire
Hallâj was consumed entirely
and that a lover came with a stick in his hand
and sat at the head of this heap of ashes
then he released his tongue, which was also like fire
again the ashes came alive with happiness
and when this happened he said: “Tell me well,
he who rightly uttered: ‘I am the True’, where is he?”
Here Farîd ud-Dîn ‘Attâr introduces the case of the mystic Mansour El-Hallâj, and the verses that follow are intended precisely to explain that we cannot reach this total union, this complete self-abandonment before our bodily death; it is then that our union with God is completed, but this final stage is entirely in the hands of the Creator who will enable us to contemplate Him. El-Hallâj suffered all kinds of torments, leading to his death in Baghdâd in 922, for saying “I am the True One”. True is an attribute of God, so this statement was tantamount to saying “I am God”, and for this he was condemned. Many other mystics, including Ruzbehân Baqlî (a 12th-century Persian Sufi mystic) and Farîd ud-Dîn ‘Attâr himself, have written about El Hallâj with the aim of providing an acceptable theological explanation for his statement: he experienced such a union with God that it was no longer he who spoke, but God himself who expressed himself through him. It should also be said that a certain branch of Sufism at the time was called “malamatî”, i.e. seeking blame. Indeed, some mystics, far from pursuing fame and esteem, sought blame, which would have preserved their humility, and some even passed themselves off as mad. But let’s see how ‘Attâr accounts for this statement of El-Hallâj. (link with hadith 38 of An-Nawawî: “… And when I love him, I am his hearing by which he hears, his sight by which he sees, his hand by which he grasps, and his foot with which he walks. Reported by Al-Bukhârî)
13thstep: We are called to abandon the ego that limits us and prevents us from welcoming Him. The desire to rejoin His origin.
آنچ گفتی آنچ بشنیدی همه وانچ دانستی و میدیدی همه
آن همه جز اول افسانه نیست محو شو چون جایت این ویرانه نیست
اصل باید، اصل مستغنی و پاک گر بود فرع و اگر نبود چه باک
Everything you said, everything you heard
and everything you’ve understood and seen
All this is just the beginning of the story
get out of the way because this ruin is no place for you
You need the origin, an origin that’s pure and self-sufficient
If what derives from it is or isn’t, what’s the fear?
This is the extreme limit of our words, of our human words: they cannot reach the dimension of God, where there is neither before nor after, neither here nor there. He cannot be contained in space or time, nor in our language, which is expressed in time and inscribed in space. Only the passage from this life to the next will make it possible to abandon our imperfect expressions, our language.
In this life, we cannot access the origin. This is possible only through death or through the work of God.
هست خورشید حقیقی بر دوام گونه ذرهمان نه سایه والسلام
The true sun is in eternity,
no kind of atom, no shadow and that’s all.
Nothing material subsists in the divine light, not even the shadow, how the sound of our words flowing in time? We are moving towards the ineffable, which our human experience cannot account for, except “as if groping and in the dark”, as Saint Thomas Aquinas said in the same 13th century, in the West. The final word is “salâm”, peace, which we also use to greet each other, to say farewell, and which probably here as elsewhere in the poem alludes to that peace which will be revealed to us beyond or after our earthly experience. “Wa as-salâm”, literally “and peace” is also a common expression to express that what we’ve just said is the ultimate truth, we can’t go beyond it, we’d say in French “et c’est tout.”
14thstep: God calls us to Himself. Fana’ not definitive, temporary access to baqâ’ by birds.
چون برآمد صد هزاران قرن بیش قرنهای بی زمان نه پس نه پیش
بعد از آن مرغان فانی را بناز بیفنای کل به خود دادند باز
چون همه بی خویش با خویش آمدند در بقا بعد از فنا پیش آمدند
When a hundred thousand centuries had passed
centuries without time without after or before
after these birds had experienced annihilation
but not total annihilation, they were returned to themselves.
All thus advanced with and without themselves
in eternity after annihilation, they moved forward.
How can we account for the rapture of these birds, moving towards an eternity outside of time, stepping out of themselves and yet, by a special grace, still being able to return to themselves after having glimpsed what it means to step for a moment out of our temporal perception, it’s as if a hundred thousand centuries had passed in an instant. This is reminiscent of the Bible’s own words: “a thousand years are like yesterday”, or St. Paul’s experience in 2nd Corinthians 12:3-4: “I know that this man in this state – is it in his body, is it without his body? I don’t know, God knows – this man here has been taken to paradise and has heard ineffable words, which it is not for man to utter.” These words do not fit into our language, because the reality contemplated cannot fit into the limits of our world. This is also true of the Name of God in the Bible. (link)
15thstep: baqâ’. This is the reality of God’s eternal Presence, which is outside time, neither young nor old, outside space, out of sight. Ineffable, beyond explanation. How do we account for this experience?
نیست هرگز، گر نوست و گر کهن زان فنا و زان بقا کس را سخن
هم چنان کو دور دورست از نظر شرح این دورست از شرح و خبر
There is no time, old or new, ever
where anyone could utter a word of this annihilation and permanence.
Just as He His remoteness is far from vision,
the explanation of this remoteness is far from comment or notion.
He is outside time, outside space, nothing can approach him, words cannot reach him.
Is it possible to account for this through allegory? A new book would have to be written.
لیکن از راه مثال اصحابنا شرح جستند از بقا بعد الفنا
آن کجا اینجا توان پرداختن نو کتابی باید آن را ساختن
But our friends, through allegory,
seek an explanation of permanence after annihilation.
How here to explain this beyond
a new book would have to be made for that.
The terms “fana'” (annihilation) and “baqâ” (permanence) recur here. They are two key words in Sufism. The first refers to the spiritual stage when all trace of the “I” disappears, the moment when we no longer distinguish between the “I” and the “you”, when the experience of union transports us so deeply into the beloved that we no longer perceive ourselves, the “I” disappears. It’s also a long journey and a practical school of obedience, where the disciple learns to progressively renounce his own will. We renounce our own will, to allow the other to reveal himself entirely, not according to our own imaginations or desires, but according to what he is. The expression of one’s will contrasts with what one might imagine of the other. We find this in every journey to discover transcendence. The word for permanence “baqâ” indicates that which remains forever, independent of contingencies, a reality that knows no change. The prophet Isaiah also proclaimed 40:8: “The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever.” It is to this reality, to this rest, that man tends. The book that would give an account of this would have to be of a new kind, for we can no longer seek in allegory; the realities of this world are no longer able to speak to us of what is beyond this world.
How can we access what abides in a permanent way, the baqâ’, the Presence of God, as long as we’re in what exists and what doesn’t?
زانک اسرار البقا بعد الفنا آن شناسد کو بود آنرا سزا
تا تو هستی در وجود و در عدم کی توانی زد درین منزل قدم
Since the secrets of permanence after annihilation
he knows them who has been among those deserving.
Until you are in that which exists and that which is not
when will you be able to advance towards this abode?
Another fundamental term used by Sufi masters is “manzel”, the abode, the stopover where the pilgrim descends, the stage. Many books describe the stages of the spiritual life, the order of which varies from individual to individual, only God knows how to move us towards Him, the qualities still lacking in our spirit so that our love is as great as His love for us. Famous in the Persian world are the spiritual stages of Shaykh Abu Sa’yd abu al-khayr (link).
It’s in this life that we must seek the origin, prepare the way, after death it’s too late.
چون نه این ماند نه آن در ره ترا خواب چون میآید ای ابله ترا
در نگر تا اول و آخر چه بود گر به آخر دانی این آخر چه سود
As long as neither this nor that will hinder your way any longer
how shall sleep, oh foolish one, come to thee?
Look at what was until the beginning and until the end
if you only know it at the end, what use will that end be?
The Creator’s absolute being is beyond our categories, classifications and perceptions. Even the notions of being and not being are not found in Him. We must not fall asleep before we have probed eternal reality; discovering it at the moment of death will serve no purpose, and will not change our lives; we must awaken before that (link Kabir).
Providence itself guides us on this path.
1: the call, the aspiration.
نطفهٔ پرورده در صد عز و ناز تا شده هم عاقل و هم کار ساز
کرده او را واقف اسرار خویش داده او را معرفت در کار خویش
An embryo that He raised with a hundred honors and care
until it became capable of intelligence and action
He instructed it in His secrets
He gave him the knowledge of His action
The destiny of man, towards whom the Creator shows a thousand respects, pampers him and leads him to Himself, to the knowledge of the secrets of divine work.
2: humiliation, the perception of our nature and its incommensurability with His destiny.
بعد از آنش محو کرده محو کل زان همه عزت درافکنده به ذل
باز گردانیده او را خاک راه باز کرده فانی او را چندگاه
After all this He erased He erased everything
from all those honors He brought him low
He made him return to the dust of the way
many times he annihilated him
How is it possible that God first raises and then lowers?
3: Only in the lowering can we perceive the greatness of what is destined for us and already given.
پس میان این فنا صد گونه راز گفته بی او، لیک با او گفته باز
بعد از آن او را بقایی داده کل عین عزت کرده بر وی عین ذل
Then, in the midst of this annihilation a hundred kinds of secrets
he spoke to her without Him, but by Him it was told to her again
after it was so for him, He who abides forever gave him everything
He who is the very elevation worked in him the very abasement.
The Creator fashions this being that would be but a drop at the origin of the embryo, that would be nothing at all before God. He elevates him to divine secrets, but these would not be accessible to him if he did not measure his smallness, if he did not measure the magnitude of God’s mercy and concern for him, which is the true knowledge of God, the Creator.
4: We must recognize what has been given to us and has already been placed within us. Separation, rejection on the part of the Beloved, makes us discover what we have been deprived of when the Presence withdraws from us.
تو چه دانی تا چه داری پیش تو با خود آی آخر فرواندیش تو
تا نگردد جان تو مردود شاه کی شوی مقبول شاه آن جایگاه
You, what do you know of what you possess near you?
Come back to yourself at last, little spirit
Until your soul is not rejected by the king
when will you be accepted by the king, in that place there
We need to discover the magnitude of the gift we received at creation, what spirit inhabits us and gives us life, that of the Creator himself. It’s in discovering the smallness of his nature that the greatness of the spirit that inhabits it becomes apparent. When the king, the Creator, rejects us, we cannot measure the grandeur of his dwelling, the privilege of being at his court. (link: the jafâ’ experience of separation. In Arabic poetry and in Nezâmî’s Leyli Majnoun)
Articulation of fanâ’ and baqâ, annihilation and permanence, abasement and exaltation, elevation (‘ezzat).
تا نیابی در فنا کم کاستی در بقا هرگز نبینی راستی
اول اندازد بخواری در رهت باز برگیرد به عزت ناگهت
Until you find in annihilation the smallness of your being
you’ll never see the truth in permanence
First he throws you down the path in abasement
Suddenly he restores you to honor
When we can no longer rely on our own strength, ability or intelligence, when we can do nothing but rely on Him, that’s when we measure the greatness of His mercy. Also African tales (link African tale, Hamadou Hampaté Bâ and “in your weakness I will show my greatness” Saint Paul)
Difficulty asserting self and you at the same time.
نیست شو تا هستیت از پی رسد تا تو هستی، هست در تو کی رسد
تا نگردی محو خواری فنا کی رسد اثبات از عز بقا
Be what is not so that your being may be restored
as long as you are, he who is, how could he come to you?
as long as you are not erased by the humiliation of annihilation
how could the stability of the glory of permanence come about?