II
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Iqbal, Muhammad, Sir and Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
Showing that the life of the Self comes from forming desires and bringing them to birth.
Life is preserved by purpose:
Because of the goal its caravan-bell tinkles.
Life is latent in seeking,
Its origin is hidden in desire. 270
Keep desire alive in thy heart,
Lest thy little dust become a tomb.
Desire is the soul of this world of hue and scent,
The nature of every thing is faithful to desire.
Desire sets the heart dancing in the breast, 275
And by its glow the breast is made bright as a mirror.
It gives to earth the power of soaring,
It is a Khizr to the Moses of perception.[34]
From the flame of desire the heart takes life,
And when it takes life, all dies that is not true. 280
When it refrains from forming wishes,
Its pinion breaks and it cannot soar.
Desire is an emotion of the Self:
It is a restless wave of the Self’s sea.
Desire is a noose for hunting ideals, 285
A binder of the book of deeds.
Negation of desire is death to the living,
Even as absence of burning extinguishes the flame.
What is the source of our wakeful eye?
Our delight in seeing hath taken visible shape. 290
The partridge’s leg is derived from the elegance of its gait,
The nightingale’s beak from its endeavour to sing.
Away from the reed-bed, the reed became happy:
The music was released from its prison.[35]
Why does the mind strive after new
discoveries and scale the heavens? 295
Knowest thou what works this miracle?
‘Tis desire that enriches Life,
And the intellect is a child of its womb.
What are social organisation, customs, and laws?
What is the secret of the novelties of science? 300
A desire which broke through by its own strength
And burst forth from the heart and took shape.
Nose, hand, brain, eye, and ear,
Thought, imagination, feeling, memory, and understanding—