IV
Patience and Unity
33
Those who learned to be truly human
found everything in being humble.
While those who looked proudly from above
were pushed down the stairs.
A heart that must always feel superior
will one day lose its way.
What should be within, leaks out.
The old man with the white beard
never sees the state he's in.
He needn't waste money on making the Hajj
if he's broken someone's heart.
The heart is the seat of God,
where God is aware.
You won't find happiness in either world
if you break a heart.
The deaf man doesn't hear,
the blind man mistakes day for night.
Yet the universe is filled with light.
We've seen how those who came
later moved on.
Whatever you think of yourself
think the same of others.
This is the meaning of the Four Books
if they have one.
May Yunus not stray from the path
nor get on his high horse.
May the grave and the judgement be no concern
if what he loves is the face of God.
34
Whatever I say, You are the subject.
Wherever I go, every impulse is toward You.
It's true, those who don't love You
are soul-less dolls
but the living need a Beloved like You.
You've veiled Yourself from the whole universe.
At a single sight of You it would perish.
Giants and elves, humans, angelic powers
all beings are in love with You.
The seraphim and maidens of paradise
crowd around You and can't bear
to leave Your presence.
From Your hand poison is a delicious drink.
My soul is healed by anything You do.
When I eat something sweet without You, it's bitter.
You are the soul's taste, what else could I want?
If my soul suffered a hundred wounds
my joy would not decrease.
This love washes everything clean.
Yunus is just one atom of it.
This planet, this whole universe
is born from a taste of love.
35
Soul of my soul
Without You I have no work to do
If You are absent from Paradise
I don't need to go there.
If I look, all I see is You.
If I speak, I speak of You.
There is no better prey
than You whom I secretly watch.
Because I forgot myself
because I went to You,
in any conversation, in every state
I haven't got a moment's rest.
You can kill me seventy times
and like St. George, I'll resurrect
and crawl back unashamed.
Show Your face to Yunus.
He loves You and has no other.
36
I am a fatherless pearl unrecognized by the sea
I am the drop that contains the ocean.
Its waves are amazing.
It is beautiful to be a sea
hidden within an infinite drop.
When Majnun spoke Layla's name
he broke the meter of his poem.
I was both Layla and Majnun who adored her.
Mansur* did not speak idly of Unity.
He was not kidding when he said
"I am Truth".
In this world of many
You are Joseph and I am Jacob.
In the universe of Unity
there is neither Joseph nor Canaan.
That my name is Yunus
is a problem in this material world.
But if you ask my real name,
it is the Power behind all powers.
* Mansur al-Hallaj (d. 922), a great Sufi martyred for his ecstatic utterance.
37
My love for You goes deeper than my own soul.
My way amounts to this:
I don't say I'm inside of myself. I'm not.
The I within me is deeper than myself.
Anywhere I look, is filled with You.
Where can I put You if You're already inside.
You are Beauty without features
something deeper than any signs.
Don't ask me about myself. I'm not inside.
My body walks. I'm clothed, yet empty.
I can't lay a hand on the One
who took me from myself
You can't go over the head of the Boss.
Some people get their share of revelations
and some people go deeper than this.
In the beautiful light of His face
is a fire brighter than the light of day.
What a suffering it is
that's deeper than any remedy.
The Law and the Brotherhood are paths.
Truth and Wisdom are still deeper.
They say Solomon knew the language of birds.
Within Solomon is a deeper Solomon.
I've forgotten religion and piety.
What if there's a doctrine deeper than religion?
The works of those who leave the faith
are blasphemy.
What about a blasphemy
that goes deeper than faith?
Yunus chanced to meet a Friend
who showed him a door inside.
38
I have found the soul of souls.
Let this soul of mine be taken.
I've forgotten gain and loss.
Let this shop of mine be plundered.
I've passed beyond my very self.
I've removed the veils before me.
I am together with the Friend.
Let these doubts of mine fall away.
My own ego abandoned me.
The Friend took everything I had.
Those who give and take are friends.
Let this language of mine be jumbled.
I cut all ties and went to the Friend.
I fell in with God.
Let my poems be scattered.
I became tired of twoness
and ate at the table of Oneness.
I drank the wine of suffering.
Let all my remedies be thrown out.
Since this journey of Being began
the Friend has rushed to meet us.
Light has filled the ruins of this heart.
Let this universe of mine be shattered.
I have passed up dreams.
I have tired of summers and winters.
I have found the Gardener of flowers.
Let this garden of mine be dug up.
Yunus, you say it well, smooth as honey.
I have found the honey of honeys.
Let this hive of mine be given away.
39
I am before and I am after.
I am the life of many lives.
I am Khidr when he appears
to those who have lost their way.
I am the secret found
in settling down to work.
When I hide myself within a heart
the blind do not need eyes to see me.
The One who causes particles to collide
at the moment of "Be"*
the One whose glance constructs a world
the One through whom the table is set
I am the guardian of every love.
I've made the fields flat
and I've built the mountains.
I put the skies above you.
I sustain all things.
I am the faith of lovers.
I am Islam and I am blasphemy.
The One who gives life and also gives order
the One who correctly wrote the Four Books
the One putting black marks
on white sheets of paper
and the Quran —I am.
The one who is united with the Friend
and does what the Friend says
the Creator of possessions
Who sets up the world
I am the Gardener.
The One who carried Hamza over Mount Kaf**
The One who untied his hands and feet.
That poisonous snake
behind the Simurgh and Kaf are Me.
This is not Yunus speaking
but his very Self.
Not to believe this would be blasphemy.
The First, the Last, the Present
I am.
*The moment when God said "BE, " and it was.
** Mount Kafi Literally, the Caucasus Mountains; the cosmic
mountain and the home of the Simurgh, a Divine bird who
was the goal in Attar's Conference of the Birds.
40
Love is my sect and religion.
When my eyes saw the face of the Friend,
all sorrows became joys.
Here, my King
I give myself to You.
From beginning to end
all my treasure and richness is You.
The source of this mind and soul,
the origin of space
are with You.
You are the end and everything between.
I can only go toward You.
My way is from You to You.
My tongue speaks of You within You.
And yet my hand can't touch You.
This knowledge amazes me.
I can no longer call myself "I".
I can't call anybody "you" anymore.
I can't say this one is a servant
and that one is a king.
It doesn't make any sense.
Since I found the love of the friend
this world and the next world are one.
If you ask about the infinite beginning
and the infinite end
they are my night and day.
No longer do I mourn
or cloud my heart
because truth's voice is heard
and I'm at my own wedding.
41
Don't let me wander from Your love
don't let me leave Your door
and if I lose myself
let me find myself with You.
The Friend sent me here.
Go and see the world, he said.
I have come and seen
how beautifully it's arranged.
But those who love You don't stay here.
He tells His servants
Tomorrow I will give you paradise.
That tomorrow is my today.
Who else knows
this wisdom and this pain?
And if it is ever known
it cannot be said.
I turn my face to You.
You are the soul and the universe
the secret treasure.
All gain and loss is from You.
My acts are no longer my own.
Yunus turns his face to You
forgetting himself.
He speaks every word to You.
It is You who makes him speak.
41
Truth gave me a heart bewildered
before a syllable is spoken.
There comes a moment of happiness
then one of weeping.
The next is like winter —long and dark
the next like a birth
—flower gardens and fine vineyards appear.
A moment comes when he can't speak
he can't explain a thing!
In another, pearls fall from his tongue
remedies for those who suffer.
In another he rises to the heights
in the next he's beneath the earth.
In one moment he's a drop,
in another he's boiled over into an ocean.
One moment he remains in the dark
he can't know anything;
in the next he dives into a sea of wisdom.
He becomes a Galen, a Luqman.
One moment he becomes a giant or sprite
living in some ruins.
In the next he's flying with Belkis
he's a sultan of men and jinns.
One moment he enters the mosque
and puts his face to the floor
the next he's going to church,
reading the Gospel and becoming a monk.
A moment comes when like Jesus
he raises the dead.
A moment comes when he enters
the house of pride
and becomes another Pharoah or Hamam.
One moment he's Gabriel
bestowing abundantly to every gathering
next moment he's lost
and poor Yunus stands astonished.
42
The rivers of paradise flow, chanting Allah, Allah.
The nightingales of Islam are perched all around,
singing, Allah, Allah.
The branches of the Tuba tree wave
each heart and tongue reciting the Quran.
In the rose garden of Paradise, the fragrance of Allah.
Food and drink spread out for you by angels.
The Prophet Idris sewing your astral garments
chanting, Allah, Allah.
These strolling virgins of Paradise
their words are musk and amber.
Their faces are brighter than the moon
singing Allah, Allah.
You fall in love with Truth and begin to cry
You become holy light both inside and out
singing Allah, Allah.
Whatever you desire, ask it of Truth.
Be a guide on the straight path.
The nightingale has fallen in love with the rose
singing Allah.
The doors of the heavens opened
and the doors of eight paradises
all singing Allah, Allah.
Rizwan* opens the doors dressed in astral clothes.
Those who drink the wine of Kevser**
become content and chant, Allah, Allah.
Dervish Yunus, go to your lover now
don't delay another day.
Tomorrow you'll enter the court of Truth
singing Allah, Allah.
* Rizwan: the gatekeeper of Paradise.
** Kevser: the spring of Paradise.