Showing posts with label Farid ud-Din Attar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Farid ud-Din Attar. Show all posts

Friday, April 16, 2021

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



Wednesday, February 10, 2021

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



Wednesday, October 16, 2019

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





Tuesday, April 16, 2019

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





Saturday, January 12, 2019

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



Unity's inclusive span








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
art by Andrew Wyeth

Friday, February 22, 2013

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


Wednesday, December 19, 2012

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


Tuesday, November 6, 2012

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