1:52-53
THE NIGHT VIGIL
Darkness has been given a nightshirt to sleep in (25:47). Remember how human beings were composed from water and dust for blood and flesh with oily resins heated in fire to make a skeleton. Then the soul, the divine light, was breathed into human shapes. The work now is to help our bodies become pure light. It may look like this is not happening. But in a cocoon every bit of worm-dissolving slime becomes silk. As we take in light, each part of us turns to silk.
We made the night a darkness, but we bring shining dawnlight out of that. In the same way the mound of your grave will bloom with resurrection. Sufis and those on the path of the heart use darkness to go within. During the night vigil the universe is theirs (40:16). With all the kings and sultans and their learned counselors asleep, everyone is unemployed, except those wakeful few and the divine presence.
1:92
THE WAYS OF ESSENCE
Now I will observe the nature of this being alive in the different ways we are. Essence can be known only in a living example. People are often dazzled by form because essence shines so in its qualities. Feelings of health and feelings of illness are not part of my meaning here. The green world, new friendships, discoveries, circumstances, the feel of water, our delight in the human body and its imaginings, these are areas where essence thrives. How we recognize anyone's presence, how people's lives register in the body, how soul goes to its guidance and agrees to the work it's given. Try to be more conscious of these living abilities, and be happy.
So each person knows you according to what has happened in their lives, the losses as well as the great joy.
Bahauddin1:128-129
IN EACH
I was wondering how any living thing can be familiar with the divine without having some of that within it. How do creatures rest and find their joy?
An answer came: Everything comes from me. I am in each compassion, companion, each calamity, lust, any conversation among friends, secrets murmured, a spray of sweet basil, determination, the changing nature of what you want, prayer, love, everything flows from and returns here. Leaf, stem, calyx, any cause and effect, every sleep's return to waking.
1:116
IMPUDENT BANTER
I have come to realize that the better friends I become with someone, the more impudent I get with him. Politeness is appropriate for strangers, but with a friend there's no holding back, no need for any restraint.
So consider this. There is no closer friend than the Friend, no one who endures more outrageous behavior than that one, and no one more accepting of it, or responsive to, all the rank blurt and tease. Let the spontaneous metaphysical banter turn to flint, or get white-hot; it will still be held within the horizon of this Friendship.
1:143
DESCRIBING A TASTE
Someone asked me what is the knowing I speak of and how does the love I mention feel. I said if you don't know, what can I say? And if you do know, what can I say?
The taste of knowing love has no explanation, and no account of it will ever give anyone that taste.
1:145-146
NO SURE SENSE
Say: No one knows the unseen except God (27:65).
With that text I put this question: How do you feel about doing work that brings no benefit to you or anyone? Aren't you always aware of a destination when you walk out your door? Do you ever walk out, look around in all directions, then go back into your house and sit there with no purpose, for no reason?
You often plan work without knowing what will come of it. You plant seeds with no guarantee they will sprout. You enter into a business deal with no sure sense it will make profit. Many do not reach the point they move toward, but that doesn't man they stop trying.
Certainty comes only with work we do in the invisible, but we cannot know that. Journeys taken and seeds planted there never disappoint. The saints and hermits and prophets might be able to give us some of their confidence if we could work along with them.
1:147-148
A KING IN HALF-SLEEP
I wake from sleep within you. I turn and hold you in my arms, as a king in half-sleep thinks himself alone, then feels his bride next to him in bed, smells her hair, and remembers he has a companion.
Slowly waking more, he begins to talk. So I wake inside you, the pleasure, the soft-saying, the elegance of the hours we walk in wonder. I draw closer. When my servants ask of me, tell them I am near (2:186).
Then I remember Moses fainting in the presence, Jesus' face, the mysteries that the saints unfold, Muhammad's sure stance, lovers mixing together in their songs, and I know that I have been given these feet to walk the amazement you gave them.
1:207-208
STEADINESS
Soul guides and prophets have an innate innocence, but they are subject to the same consequences as everyone. If a donkey veers off-course, he will be hit with a stick. If you do wrong, you will be punished. Abu Bakr said that steadiness is the central virtue. From the mind's stability comes right action which in turn balances the intelligence.
They asked me why prophets were given hardship. I said it helps to have clear indications. And I added silently to myself, Be more humble like someone held captive. Bow to the one who can free you.
Well beyond the reach of its fragrance,
I try to remember and say this longing.
1:228
DIGNITY AND CHOICE
By the One who set the earth with rivers pouring through in mist below the mountains, and two oceans with a strip of land between (27:61), we move the elements into various shapes without their consent, but human beings, unlike the water and trees, have a choice. They are given dignity, discernment, and the evolutionary wisdom that can move from death to new life, again to die and be restored on another level of existence. You have many choices about the ways you live and work and change and survive. Say you fall into an ocean. You may give up and sink, or you may try to swim to shore. Salvation is your decision.
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