XVI
Project Gutenberg EPUB edition
Iqbal, Muhammad, Sir and Nicholson, Reynold Alleyne
Precepts written for the Moslems of India by Mír Naját Nakshband, who is generally known as Bábá Sahrá’í.[96]
O thou that hast grown from earth, like a rose,
Thou too art born of the womb of Self.
Do not abandon Self! Persist therein!
Be a drop of water and drink up the ocean! 1390
Glowing with the light of Self as thou art,
Make Self strong, and thou wilt endure.
Thou gett’st profit from this trade,
Thou gain’st riches by preserving this commodity.
Thou hast being, and art thou afraid of not-being? 1395
O foolish one, thy understanding is at fault.
Since I am acquainted with the harmony of Life,
tell thee what is the secret of Life—
To sink into thyself like the pearl,
Then to emerge from thine inward solitude; 1400
To collect sparks beneath the ashes,
And become a flame and dazzle men’s eyes.
Go, burn the house of forty years’ tribulation,
Move round thyself! Be a circling flame!
What is Life but to be freed from moving round others 1405
And to regard thyself as the Holy Temple?
Beat thy wings and escape from the attraction of Earth;
Like birds, be safe from falling.
Unless thou art a bird, thou wilt do wisely
Not to build thy nest on the top of a cave. 1410
O thou that seekest to acquire knowledge,
I say o’er to thee the message of the Sage of Rúm:[97]
“Knowledge, if it lie on thy skin, is a snake;
Knowledge, if thou take it to heart, is a friend.”
Hast thou heard how the Master of Rúm 1415
Gave lectures on philosophy at Aleppo?—
Fast in the bonds of intellectual proofs,
Drifting o’er the dark and stormy sea of understanding;
A Moses unillumined by Love’s Sinai,
Ignorant of Love and of Love’s passion. 1420
He discoursed on Scepticism and Neoplatonism,
And strung many a brilliant pearl of metaphysic.
He unravelled the problems of the Peripatetics,
The light of his thought made clear whatever was obscure.
Heaps of books lay around and in front of him, 1425