The Rose-Garden of Mystery

۸ سؤال

Question 8

Why do they call a created being "joined"? How did his journeying and journey come about?

۸ جواب

Answer 8

Union with the Real is separation from creatureliness; to become a stranger to oneself is [true] acquaintance.

Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads نیست for جدا یست / آشنایست.

When the contingent shakes off the dust of contingency, nothing else remains but the Necessary.

Doubtful reading. Printed ندنما, a misprint for نماند, "remains", which the Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) reads.

Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads نشاند for فشاند.

The being of both worlds is like a phantom, for in the very moment of its subsisting it is perishing itself.

He who has become joined is no created being: the perfect man does not say these words [that a creature is joined] (?).

How can non-being find a way into this matter? What relation has dust to the Lord of lords?

What is non-being, that it should come to be joined with the Real, and that journey and journeying should come about from it?

If your soul becomes aware of this meaning, you will at once say, "I ask God's forgiveness."

You are non-existent, and non-being is ever at rest; how should the contingent non-existent reach the Necessary?

No substance has existence without accident; and what is accident? That which "does not endure two moments".

The philosopher who wrote on this road defined it by its length, breadth and depth.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads فن for ره.

What is prime matter but absolute non-existence, through which form becomes actual?

Since form without matter is nothing but non-being, matter too without it is nothing but non-being.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads درقدم for جز عدم.

The bodies of the world are made of these two non-existents, of which nothing is known but non-existence.

Look at a quiddity without more or less: in itself it is neither non-existent nor existent.

Look at contingency in truth, for without Him being became deficiency itself.

Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads بی او که for بی او.

Being, in its own perfection, pervades [all things]; individuations are merely posited things.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads کمال for کمالش.

Posited things are not existent: number is many, but what is numbered is one thing.

The world has no being but a metaphorical one; its whole condition is play and sport [cf. Q 6:32, 29:64].

تمثیل در اطوار وجود

Illustration: the stages of being

🎙Listen on Ganjoor ↗ · read by فاطمه زندی · vv. 487–512

A vapour rises from the sea; by the command of the Real it comes down onto the open land.

The ray of the sun rains down from the fourth sphere; they become compounded together.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads برو افتد for فروبارد.

The heat sets out upward once more; the water of the sea clings to it.

When earth and air are joined with them, a green and flourishing plant comes forth.

Doubtful reading. the Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) reads آب و هوا, "water and air", for Whinfield's خاک و هوا, "earth and air".

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads نبات for نباتی.

It becomes the food of animals by transformation; man eats [it], and it is dissolved again.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads غذای for غدای.

It becomes a single point (L.: a drop of seed) and passes through the stages, and from it a human being appears once more.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads نطفه for نقطه; Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads وگر for و.

When the light of the rational soul came into the body, it became a subtle and luminous body.

He becomes child, youth, man of middle years and [at length] old (?); he comes to know knowledge, judgement, understanding and planning.

Doubtful reading. Printed کم پیر; the Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) reads و هم پیر, "and also old", as the English takes it.

Then the appointed term comes from the pure Presence: the pure goes to the Pure, and dust to dust.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads بپاکی خاک for بپاک.

All the parts of the world are like plants, for they are one drop from the sea of life.

When time passes over it, their end becomes again just like the beginning.

Each one of them goes toward the centre, for nature does not give up seeking (?) the centre.

Doubtful reading. Printed جوی مرکز, "seeking the centre" (?); the Lahore lithograph (1347/1928–29) reads خوی مرکز, "the centre's habit".

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads خوی هرگز for طبیعت.

Oneness is like a sea, but full of blood, from which a thousand mad waves rise.

See how a raindrop from the sea took so many shapes and names.

Vapour and water, rain, moisture and clay, plant and animal and the Perfect Human.

All was one drop in the end and in the beginning, from which all these things took form.

Know the world, of intellect and soul, sphere and bodies, to be like that one drop, from beginning to end.

When the appointed term arrives for the sphere and the stars, all being is lost in non-being.

When a wave rises up, the world is effaced, and it becomes certain that this "had not flourished yesterday" [Q 10:24].

Imagination departs from before [you] all at once; nothing remains in the house but the Real, the [sole] inhabitant.

In that moment a nearness comes to you: you become, without "you", yourself, united with the Friend.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads تو بی for بی تو.

Union here is the removal of imagination; when the other departs from before [you], that is union.

Whinfield's margin. The Midnapore MS reads خیال for غیر.

Do not say that the contingent has passed beyond its own limit: it has not become the necessary, nor has the necessary become it.

Whoever has excelled in [the knowledge of] meanings does not say this, for that would be an inversion of realities.

O master, you have thousands of states of growth ahead of you: go, and consider your own coming and going.

Of the question of the part and the whole and the growth of the human being I will tell you one by one, the manifest and the hidden.

Whinfield's margin. Hammer-Purgstall (1838) reads جزؤ و for جز; the Midnapore MS reads نشات for ونشاء; other manuscripts reads به for و.