I
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Iqbal, Muhammad, Sir and Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
Showing that the system of the universe originates in the Self and that the continuation of the life of all individuals depends on strengthening the Self.
The form of existence is an effect of the Self,
Whatsoever thou seest is a secret of the Self.
When the Self awoke to consciousness,
It revealed the universe of Thought. 190
A hundred worlds are hidden in its essence:
Self-affirmation brings Not-self to light.
By the Self the seed of hostility is sown in the world:
It imagines itself to be other than itself.
It makes from itself the forms of others 195
In order to multiply the pleasure of strife.
It is slaying by the strength of its arm
That it may become conscious of its own strength.
Its self-deceptions are the essence of Life;
Like the rose, it lives by bathing itself in blood. 200
For the sake of a single rose it destroys a hundred rose-gardens
And makes a hundred lamentations in quest of a single melody.
For one sky it produces a hundred new moons,
And for one word a hundred discourses.
The excuse for this wastefulness and cruelty 205
Is the shaping and perfecting of spiritual beauty.
The loveliness of Shírín justifies the anguish of Farhád,[32]
The fragrant navel justifies a hundred musk-deer.
‘Tis the fate of moths to consume in flame:
The suffering of moths is justified by the candle. 210
The pencil of the Self limned a hundred to-days
In order to achieve the dawn of a single morrow.
Its flames burned a hundred Abrahams[33]
That the lamp of one Mohammed might be lighted.
Subject, object, means, and causes— 215
They all exist for the purpose of action.
The Self rises, kindles, falls, glows, breathes,
Burns, shines, walks, and flies.
The spaciousness of Time is its arena,
Heaven is a billow of the dust on its road. 220
From its rose-planting the world abounds in roses;
Night is born of its sleep, day springs from its waking.
It divided its flame into sparks
And taught the understanding to worship particulars.
It dissolved itself and created the atoms, 225