Attar

We have no freedom to achieve our goal
Until from Self and fools we free the soul.
To be admitted past the veil you must
Be dead to all the crowd considers just
Once past the veil you understand the Way
From which the crowd's glib courtier blindly stray
If you have any will, leave women's stories,
And even if this search for hidden glories
Proves blasphemy at last, be sure our quest
Is not mere talk but an exacting test.
The fruit of love's great tree is poverty
Whoever knows this knows humility

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A sluggard once approached a fasting saint
And, baffled by dispair, maded this complaint:
"The devil is a highwayman, a thief,
Who's ruined me and robbed me of belief."
The saint replied: "Young man, the devil too
Has made his way here to complain - of you.
'My province is the world,' I heard him say;
'Tell this new pilgrim of God's holy Way
To keep his hands off what is mine - if I
Attack him it's because his fingers pry
In my affairs; if he will leave me be,
He's no concern of mine and can go free'."

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An old, sad woman talked to Mahna's Sheikh:
"Teach me to pray for joy, for pity's sake -
I've suffered so much that I cannot bear
To think of future grief - give me some prayer
To murmur every day." The sheikh replied:
"How many years I wondered far and wide
Until I found the fortress that you seek -
It is the knee, bend it, accept, be meek;
I found no other way - this remedy,
And only this, will cure you of your misery."

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God said to Moses once: "Go out and find
The secret truth that haunts the devil's mind."
When Moses met the devil that same day
He asked for his advice and heard him say:
"Remember this, repeat it constantly,
Don't speak of 'me', or you will be like me."
If life still holds you by a single hair,
The end of your toil will be dispair;
No matter how you prosper, there will rise
Before your face a hundred smirking "I"s.

Terjemahan

Tuhan pernah berkata kepada Nabi Musa: "Keluarlah dan cari
lah rahsia sebenar yang menghantui fikiran iblis."
Ketika Musa bertemu dengan iblis pada hari yang sama, Ia meminta nasihat dan mendengar Iblis berkata:
"Ingat ini, ulangi secara terus-menerus,
Jangan berbicara tentang 'aku', atau kamu akan menjadi seperti aku."
Jika hidup masih memegang anda dengan sehelai rambut,
Akhir kerja keras anda adalah putus asa;
Tidak peduli bagaimana anda hidup mewah, akan dihadapkan
di hadapan wajah anda seratus "aku" yang menyerigai.

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Until this dog, the Self, can be subdued
Our life is folly endlessly renewed

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A man who lived by digging graves survived
To ripe old age. A neighbour said: "You've thrived
For years, digging away in one routine -
Tell us the strangest thing you've ever seen."
He said: "All things considered, what's most strange
Is that for seventy years without a change
That dog, my self, has seen me digging graves,
Yet neither dies, nor alters, nor behaves!"

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The whole world is a marketplace for Love,
For naught that is, from Love remains remote.
The Eternal Wisdom made all things in Love.
On Love they all depend, to Love all turn.
The earth, the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars
The center of their orbit find in Love.
By Love are all bewildered, stupefied,
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.

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In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, "This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers."

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Let us drown ourselves in the ocean of nonexistence and come out cloaked with the garment of divine existence.

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Salih always taught his disciples, 'Who knocks at the door of someone constantly, one day the door must be opened to him.' Rabia one day heard it and said, "Salih, how long will you go on preaching thus, using the future tense, saying, 'will be opened'?
Was the door ever dosed?" Salih bowed in submission to her.