The Rose-Garden of Mystery

۱ سؤال

Question 1

🎙Listen on Ganjoor ↗ · read by رضا · vv. 71–71

First [question]: I am in bewilderment about my own thought: what is it that they call thinking (tafakkur)?

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads چه چیزاست for که چبود.

۱ جواب

Answer 1

🎙Listen on Ganjoor ↗ · read by رضا · vv. 72–95

You said to me: "Say, what is thinking?" for this matter has thrown me into bewilderment.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads بماندم for فتادم.

Thinking is going from the false toward the Real, and seeing the absolute whole in the part.

The philosophers, who have written on this, said when giving the definition:

that when a conception arises in the heart, its first name is recollection (tadhakkur);

and when you pass on from that in the time of reflection (fikrat), its name in common usage is consideration (ʿibrat).

Conception directed to deliberation (tadabbur) is called thinking (tafakkur) by the people of reason.

By arranging known conceptions, an assent (taṣdīq) not understood becomes understood.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads ترتیب for تدبیر.

The first premise (muqaddam) is like the father, the second (tālī) like the mother, and the conclusion is the child, O brother.

But the arrangement just mentioned, as to its what and how, needs the use of a rule (qānūn) [i.e. logic].

Again, if there is no [divine] confirmation in it, it is assuredly nothing but blind imitation (taqlīd).

Doubtful reading. As printed, the second hemistich does not scan in the metre. The Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) reads که باشد محض تقلید (bāshad for hast), which scans.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads ان گر for دراو چون.

This road is far and long; leave it. Like Moses, throw away the staff for a time.

Come for a moment into the blessed valley, and hear without doubt "Truly I am God" [Q 28:30; 20:12–14].

For the realiser (muḥaqqiq), whose witnessing is of oneness, the first glance falls on the light of being.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads وحدت در for بر وحدت.

The saint (walī) who saw from gnosis the light of purity, saw God first in everything he saw. [or: But one who saw … (?)]

Doubtful reading. The first word is printed ولی ("but", or walī, "the saint"); the Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) has the same. Read here as the saint who saw the light of gnosis.

For good thinking the condition is detachment (tajrīd), and after that a gleam from the lightning of [divine] confirmation.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads نور for برق.

Whoever God has not shown the way, nothing has opened for him from the use of logic.

Since the philosopher is bewildered, he sees in things nothing but contingency (imkān).

From contingency he proves the Necessary (wājib); hence he is bewildered in the essence of the Necessary.

Now he travels backward by way of the circle (dawr), now he is imprisoned in the infinite chain (tasalsul).

When his intellect pressed deep into being, his foot became entangled in the chain.

All things become manifest through their opposites; but the Real has no like and no equal.

Since the essence of the Real has no opposite and no peer, I do not know how you could know Him.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads داند for دانی.

The Necessary has no example in the contingent: how then can you know Him, how?

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads داندش for دانیش.

What a fool, who seeks the shining sun by the light of a candle in the desert!

Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) omits او.

تمثیل

Illustration

🎙Listen on Ganjoor ↗ · read by رضا · vv. 96–111

If the sun stayed always in one state, its rays would be always in one manner;

no one would know that this is its radiance; there would be no difference between kernel and husk.

Know the whole world as the radiance of the light of the Real; the Real is hidden in it by His very manifestness.

Since the light of the Real has no movement and no change, there is in it no alteration and no exchange.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads نیابد نور for ندارد اندر.

You think the world is lasting of itself, standing forever by its own essence.

Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads نیست for هست.

Whoever has a far-calculating intellect has much bewilderment before him.

From the far-calculating of meddling intellect, one became a philosopher, another a believer in incarnation (ḥulūlī).

Intellect cannot bear the light of that face; go, seek another eye for it.

Since the philosopher's two eyes squinted (saw double), he became incapable of seeing the Real as one.

From blindness came the doctrine of likeness (tashbīh); from one-eyedness come the perceptions of transcendence (tanzīh).

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads چشمی بود for چشمیست; Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads تنزه for تنزیه.

Transmigration (tanāsukh) became unbelief and falsehood for this reason: it arose from narrowness of eye.

Like one born blind, he is without share in any perfection, whose way is that of the Muʿtazila (iʿtizāl).

Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads انکس for اکمه.

The two eyes of the people of the outward have an inflammation, so that from the outward they see nothing but outward forms (maẓāhir).

The theologian (kalāmī) who has no taste of oneness (tawḥīd) is in darkness, under the cloud of imitation (taqlīd).

Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads بیم for غیم.

Whatever they have said of it, more or less, they have given tidings of their own sight.

His essence is free of how-much, what and how; "exalted is He above what they say" [Q 17:43].