surpass yourself

The pilgrim sees no form but His and knows
That He subsists beneath all passing shows --

The pilgrim comes from Him whom he can see,
Lives in Him, with Him, and beyond all three.

Be lost in Unity's inclusive span,
Or you are human but not yet a man.

Whoever lives, the wicked and the blessed,
Contains a hidden sun within his breast --

Its light must dawn though dogged by long delay;
The clouds that veil it must be torn away --

Whoever reaches to his hidden sun
Surpasses good and bad and knows the One.

The good and bad are here while you are here;
Surpass yourself and they will disappear.

 ~ Farid Attar

English version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

the man who lost his key

A Sufi heard a cry: "I've lost my key;

If it's been found, please give it back to me -

My door's locked fast; I wish to God I knew

How I could get back in.  What can I do?"

The Sufi said: "And why should you complain?

You know where this door is; if you remain

Outside it - even if it is shut fast -

Someone no doubt will open it at last.

You make this fuss for nothing; how much more

Should I complain, who've lost both key and door!"

But if this Sufi presses on, he'll find

The closed or open door which haunts his mind.

Men cannot understand the sufis' state,

That deep Bewilderment which is their fate.

To those who ask: "What can I do?" reply:

"Bid all that you have done till now goodbye!"

Once in the Valley of Bewilderment

The pilgrim suffers endless discontent,

Crying: "How long must I endure delay,

Uncertainty? When shall I see the Way?

When shall I know? Oh, when?"  But knowledge here

Is turned again to indecisive fear;

Complaints become an grateful eulogy

And blasphemy is faith, faith blasphemy.

~Farid Attar

from The Conference of Birds

translation by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

a man whose eyes love opens

The other birds in turn received their chance

To show off their loquacious ignorance.

All made their excuses - floods of foolish words

Flowed from these babbling, rumor-loving birds.

Forgive me, reader, if I do not say

All these excuses to avoid the Way;

But in an incoherent rush they came,

And all were inappropriate and lame.

How could they gain the Simorgh?  Such a goal

Belongs to those who discipline the soul.

The hoopoe counseled them: 'The world holds few

As worthy of the Simorgh's throne as you,

But you must empty this first glass; the wine

That follows it is love's devoted sign.

If petty problems keep you back - or none -

How will you seek the treasures of the sun?

In drops you lose yourselves, yet you must dive

Through untold fathoms and remain alive.

This is no journey for the indolent -

Our quest is Truth itself, not just its scent!'

When they had understood the hoopoe's words,

A clamor of complaint rose from the birds:

'Although we recognize you as our guide,

You must accept - it cannot be denied -

We are a wretched, flimsy crew at best,

And lack the bare essentials for this quest.

Our feathers and our wings, our bodies' strength

Are quite unequal to the journey's length;

For one of us to reach the Simorgh's throne

Would be miraculous, a thing unknown.

At least say what relationship obtains

Between His might and ours; who can take pains

To search for mysteries when he is blind?

If there were some connection we could find,

We would be more prepared to take our chance.

He seems like Solomon, and we like ants;

How can mere ants climb from their darkened pit

Up to the Simorgh's realm?  And is it fit

That beggars try the glory of a king?

How ever could they manage such a thing?'

The hoopoe answered them:  'How can love thrive

in hearts impoverished and half alive?

"Beggars," you say - such niggling poverty

Will not encourage truth or charity.

A man whose eyes love opens risks his soul -

His dancing breaks beyond the mind's control.

When long ago the Simorgh first appeared -

His face like sunlight when the clouds have cleared -

He cast unnumbered shadows on the earth,

On each one fixed His eyes, and each gave birth.

Thus we were born; the birds of every land

Are still his shadows - think, and understand.

If you had known this secret you would you would see

The link between yourselves and majesty.

Do not reveal this truth, and God for-fend

That you mistake for God Himself God's friend.

If you become that substance I propound,

You are not God, though in God you are drowned;

Those lost in Him are not the Deity -

This problem can be argued endlessly.

You are His shadow, and cannot be moved

By thoughts of life or death once this is proved.

If He had kept His majesty concealed,

No earth shadow would have been revealed,

And where that shadow was directly cast

The race of bird sprang up before it passed.

Your heart is not a mirror bright and clear

If there the Simorgh's form does not appear;

No one can bear His beauty face to face,

And for this reason, of His perfect grace,

He makes a mirror in our hearts - look there

To see Him, search your hearts with anxious care.

~ Farid Attar

from The Conference of Birds

translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

the story of moths

One night, moths, who were driven by desire,

Met together to discuss their obsession

To see if it was one and the same.  They enquired:

'How can we know?'  Truth was their possession,

They thought, and sent forth one of their number to bring

Any information he could to feed their yearning.

He fluttered to and fro between the curtains of night

Till he spied a candle spluttering in a castle tower,

Then he reported back the wonder he saw on his flight.

But one amongst his friends whose knowledge gave him power

Said this messenger understood nothing at all about the candle.

So another moth was sent, he saw and touched the flame

With the tip of his wing, but his report had no handle

On the truth since the heat drove him off, he had no claim.

A third went forth, was so intoxicated with love 

He threw himself on the fire and was consumed.

The wise moth seeing how the flame fitted like a glove

The moth's glowing body, said when he resumed

His place amongst his peers: 'That moth now knows

What he can never utter nor any language ever disclose.'

~ Farid ud-Din Attar

from The Conference of the Birds

beneath all passing shows

The pilgrim sees no form but His and knows

That He subsists beneath all passing shows --

The pilgrim comes from Him whom he can see,

Lives in Him, with Him, and beyond all three.

Be lost in Unity's inclusive span,

Or you are human but not yet a man.

Whoever lives, the wicked and the blessed,

Contains a hidden sun within his breast --

Its light must dawn though dogged by long delay;

The clouds that veil it must be torn away --

Whoever reaches to his hidden sun

Surpasses good and bad and knows the One.

The good and bad are here while you are here;

Surpass yourself and they will disappear.

~ Farid ud-Din Attar (1120? - 1220?)

from The Conference of the Birds

English version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

a living flame

Love's valley is the next, and here desire

Will plunge the pilgrim into seas of fire,

Until his very being is en-flamed

And those whom fire rejects turn back ashamed.

The lover is a man who flares and burns,

Whose face is fevered, who in frenzy yearns,

Who knows no prudence, who will gladly send

A hundred worlds toward their blazing end,

Who knows of neither faith nor blasphemy,

Who has no time for doubt or certainty,

To whom both good and evil are the same,

And who is neither, but a living flame.

But you! Lukewarm in all you say or do,

Backsliding, weak - oh no, this is not you!

True lovers give up everything they own

To steal one moment with the Friend alone -

They make no vague, procrastinating vow,

But risk their livelihood and risk it now.

Until their hearts are burned, how can they flee

From their desire's incessant misery?

They are the falcon when it flies distressed

In circles, searching for its absent nest -

They are the fish cast up upon the land

That seeks the sea and shudders on the sand.

Love here is fire; its thick smoke clouds the head -

When love has come the intellect has fled;

It cannot tutor love, and all its care

Supplies no remedy for love's despair.

If you could seek the unseen you would find

Love's home, which is not reason or the mind,

And love's intoxication tumbles down

The world's designs for glory and renown -

If you could penetrate their passing show

And see the world's wild atoms, you would know

That reason's eyes will never glimpse one spark

Of shining love to mitigate the dark.

Love leads whoever starts along our Way;

The noblest bow to love and must obey -

But you, unwilling both to love and tread

The pilgrim's path, you might as well be dead!

The lover chafes, impatient to depart,

And longs to sacrifice his life and heart.

~ Farid Attar

translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

from The Conference of Birds

the birds' doubt

The hoopoe intones: 'So you must desire with your heart and more

Beyond the enticement of words and knowledge of the stars.

You must want with all your being, you must be sure

Of your substance, which first you have to find far

Within you, to mine your soul's gold to start on the Way.

If you cannot stomach a grain nor sip a simple glass

How do you think that you can sit at the Simurgh's table, pray?

If you drown in a drop, blotted out by a hand's pass,

You will never learn to plumb the depths nor rise 

To the heaven you say you seek, that waits for you.

You must learn to be bewildered, restore surprise

In your heart and eyes, and learn to know what's true.'

The birds consider his challenge with hooded eyes, let it burn

Their serried minds, then they reply: 'We are weak

And aimless atoms, we have no wit to seek and discern

Him who stands above and beyond yet within, we cannot seek

What we do not understand.  He is Solomon, the Ark

That contains us all, we are peripheral, mere ants

At the bottom of the pit scrabbling about in the dark.

We cannot see nor speak of the great Simurgh, we pant

With trepidation when we even begin to consider His being;

He is beyond all moral exchange, or the burden of seeing.'

The hoopoe hears these words with rising ire:

'You are without true aspiration, your hearts are 

Devoid of discrimination, you chatter as you enter the fire

Unwittingly, you fail to see that you can be within that far

And near mystery if only you would charter love and set out

With opened eyes, do not falter, discount your petty life here.

He is the light that ferries shadows which crave to live without

But always fail, His gaze turns them into fleeing birds where

All is form and substance erased; you are shadows of His word.

You must pierce this empty space with your shadowed mind

And if you speak with the discipline of love, you will sense

The Simurgh's shadow which is you, and in your desert find

The Way, that ocean in which you can immerse yourself, in His being

That resides in your heart and in the planted stars without you seeing.'

~ Farid ud-Din Attar

from The Conference of Birds

interpreted by Raficq Abdulla

photo of the Folger Shakespear Theatre's production

by Scott Suchman

two water-sellers

A man who lived by selling water found

He'd very little left; he looked around

And saw another water-seller there -

"Have you got any water you could spare?"

He asked.  "No, fool, I certainly have not,"

The other snapped; "make do with what you've got!"

"Oh, give me some," the man began to plead;

"I'm sick of what I have; it's yours I need."

When Adam's heart grew tired of all he knew,

He yearned for wheat, a substance strange and new -

He gave up all he owned for one small grain,

And naked suffered love's relentless pain;

He disappeared in love's intensity -

The old and new were gone and so was he;

He was annihilated, lost, made naught -

Nothingness swallowed all his hands had sought.

To turn from what we are, to yearn and die

Is not for us to choose or to deny."

~ Farid Attar

from The Conference of Birds

art by Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez

a story about Alexander the great

When Alexander, that unconquered lord,

Who subjugated empires with his sword,

Required a lengthy message to be sent

He dressed up as the messenger and went.

"The king gives such an order," he would say,

And none of those who hurried to obey

Once guessed this messenger's identity -

They had no knowledge of such majesty,

And even if he said:  "I am your lord,"

The claim was thought preposterous and ignored.

Deluded natures cannot recognize

The royal way that stands before their eyes.

~ Farid Attar

from The Conference of Birds

translation by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis