Showing posts with label Fakhruddin Iraqi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fakhruddin Iraqi. Show all posts

Monday, March 30, 2020

hands and shadows







While the hand moves
the shadow must follow.
Since the shadow gains its substance
from the hand
it has none of itself.
That which derives existence
from something else
how can we say
it truly exists?
It has a name, yes,
but is not that existence
which subsists through God.




~ Fakhruddin 'Iraqi
from Divine Flashes




Tuesday, October 22, 2019

the look of its landlord






For in this house, everything
has the look of its landlord.

While the hand moves
the shadow must follow.
Since the shadow gains its substance
from the hand
it has none of itself,
That which derives existence
from something else 
how can we say
it truly exists?

It has a name, yes,
but is not that existence
which subsists through God.



~ Fakhruddin Iraqi
from Divine Flashes



Some thought that all these loves were copies of 
our love for the landlord.


~ C.S. Lewis 
from God in the Dock

Sunday, May 26, 2019

poverty of the lover





The true lover gazes toward the reality of things:

My eyes so fix
upon your image
that whatever I gaze at
I imagine you.

Wherever he looks he finds that Face and therefore needs everything he sees. 
 "Poverty is intrinsic need; it has nothing to do with this or that."

And why does nothing need the lover? One can only need something which exists.  But the lover, outwardly detached and inwardly disengaged, has returned the robe of existence and all its trappings- which he only held in trust - ... Again he has donned the patched cloak of his own nothingness.  "He is ... as he was in eternity-without-beginning," and in such a state, who needs him?

But...in poverty there comes a state wherein the poor man himself needs nothing.  As one of them said, "The poor man is not is not in need of God Himself!"  Need, after all, is an attribute of the existent; but he who dives into the sea of nothingness needs no more.  His poverty is complete.

You are nothing 
when you wed the One;
but you are everything 
when you become nothing.




~ Fakhruddin 'Iraqi
from Divine Flashes



Tuesday, September 26, 2017

telling a story to her own ears





Every word of every tongue is
Love telling a story to her own ears.
Every thought in every mind,
She whispers a secret to her own Self.
Every vision in every eye,
She shows her beauty to her own sight.
Every smile on every face,
She reveals her own joy for herself to enjoy.

Love courses through everything,
No, Love is everything.
How can you say, there is no love,
when nothing but Love exists?
All that you see has appeared because of Love.
All shines from Love,
All pulses with Love,
All flows from Love--
No, once again, all IS Love!





~ Fakhruddin Iraqi


Sunday, November 8, 2015

first step







The first step in love
is losing your head.

After the petty ego
you then give up your life
and bear the calamity.

With this behind you, proceed:
Polish the ego's rust
from the mirror
of your self



~ Fakhr al-Din Iraqi
from Love's Alchemy
translations by David and Sabrineh Fideler




Wednesday, May 6, 2015

that crookedness is straightness itself





They asked al-Hallaj, "To which religious School do you belong?
he answered, "God's own."

He who limned 
a thousand worlds with paint-
you layabout! - do you expect
He'll use your color or mine?
Our paints and tints
are but opinions and fantasy,
He is colorless
and we must adopt His hue.

Look: a shadow lies crooked upon the ground because the very earth is laid rough; but no, 
that crookedness is straightness itself, for the perfection, the "straightness" of the eyebrow is in its 
sinuous curve.

Only because it is bent
is this piece of wood a bow.

Reality is a sphere: wherever you place your finger,
there is its dead center.




~ Fakhruddin Iraqi
from Divine Flashes


Monday, March 2, 2015

behind the screen





Love plays its lute behind the screen - 
where is a lover to listen to its tune?

With every breath a new song,
each split second a new string plucked,

The world has spilled Love's secret -
when could music ever hold its tongue?

Every atom babbles the mystery -
Listen yourself, for I'm no tattletale!



~ Fakhruddin Iraqi
from Divine Flashes
photo by Christine de Grancy

Sunday, June 22, 2014

a blaze of light








There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah


~ Leonard Cohen





My eyes so fix
upon your image
that whatever I gaze at
I imagine you.



~ Fakhruddin Iraqi
from Divine Flashes



Friday, November 8, 2013

sing






Sing
the matchless pleasure
of gypsy girl
and beggar
Toss
cap from head
fling sandals
from feet.
So
I kick my life away
and sacrifice
my heart
Trade
the caravanserai
of this world and the next
for One.



~ Fakhruddin Iraqi
from The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry
art by Rodin


Tuesday, November 5, 2013

before a trance








In those days
before a trace
of the two worlds,
no "other" yet imprinted
on the Tablet of Existence,
I, the Beloved, and Love
lived together
in the corner
of an uninhabited
cell.



~ Fakhruddin Iraqi
from Divine Flashes
translation by William Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

multiplicity in properties




He who has lifted the veil sees multiplicity in properties, 
not in Essence; hence he knows that changes in properties 
cannot touch Essence, which owns a perfection subject to no mutability. 
Light merely seems to change as it shines through colored glass, but

light has no color.
Its rays shine through the glass
and only then 
do hues and tints appear.

Don't you understand?

Come then into my eyes
and...look!

and you will see

a sun shining
through a thousand bits of glass
beaming to plain sight through each
a ray of color
Why should any difference appear
between this one and that?
All light is one
but colors a thousandfold.




~ Fakhruddin 'Iraqi
from Divine Flashes



Tuesday, March 19, 2013

many waves





each image painted
on the canvas of existence
is the form
of the artist himself.
Eternal Ocean
spews forth new waves,
"Waves" we call them;
but there is only the Sea.

Many and disparate waves do not make the sea a multiplicity;
no more do the Names make the Named more than One.
When the sea breathes they call it mist;
when mist piles up they call it clouds.
It falls again,
they name it rain;
it gathers itself and rejoins the sea.
And it is now the same sea it ever was.


~ Fakhruddin 'Iraqi
from Divine Flashes



Thursday, March 14, 2013

the wealth of poverty





I have seen that the lane of piety stretches out,
far, far into the distance;
My dearest friends, can you not show me then
the way of the madman?
Bring me a glass of Magian wine
that I may drink deep
for I have given up all thought
of ascetic piety;
or if the pure wine has all been downed
bring me the cloudy dregs
for thick residue lights up the heart 
and illuminates the eyes.
Tuppence for the Sufi meeting house!
I flee the company of the righteous;
fill up a row of glasses with wine
and bring me the first.
I have no rules or regulations,
nor heart nor religion -
only I remain, and you, sitting in the corner
and the wealth of Poverty.
All fear of God, all self-denial I deny;
bring wine, nothing but wine
for in all sincerity I repent
my worship which is but hypocrisy.
Yes, bring me wine, for I have renounced all renunciation
and all my vaunted self-righteousness
seems to me but swagger and self-display.
Now for a time let my proof be wine
against the sorrow of Time
for only in drunkenness can one be free
of the hour's grief.
Once I am thoroughly drunk, what difference
if I end up in a church or in Mecca?
Once I've abandoned myself, what matter
if I win Union - or separation?
I've been to the gambling house and seen 
that the losers there are pure;
I've been to the monastery and have found
no one but hypocrites.
Now I've broken my repentance, at least
do not break our covenant:
at least welcome this broken heart and say
"How are you? Where have you been?"
I've been to Mecca, to circle the Kaaba
but they refused me entrance
saying "Off with you!  What merit have you earned
outside, that we should admit you within?"
Then, last night, I knocked
at the tavern door;
from within came a voice: "'Iraqi! Come in!
for you are one of the chosen!"




~ Fakhruddin 'Iraqi
from the introduction to Divine Flashes
translation by William Chittick and Peter Wilson


Thursday, January 31, 2013

heaven kicks away the blankets and sheets




that because of the wine's pureness
and the crystal clarity of the glass
the color of glass and wine were confused.
All is glass - or, no, all is wine.
All is wine - or, no, all is glass.
When the sky is tainted
with the colors of the sun
heaven kicks away the blankets and sheets,
the shadows of nothingness.  Day and Night
make peace with each other:
thus have the world's affairs been ordered.



~ Fakhruddin 'Iraqi
from Divine Flashes
art by Lynda Lehmann


Thursday, December 27, 2012

every atom babbles the mystery






Love plays its lute behind the screen -
where is a lover to listen to its tune?

With every breath a new song,
each split second a new string plucked.

The world has spilled Love's secret -
when could music ever hold its tongue?

Every atom babbles the mystery -
Listen yourself, for I'm no tattletale!




~ Fakhruddin Iraqi
from Divine Flashes 
translation by William Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson
art by van gogh