Tawasin of Understanding

The understanding of creation doesn’t depend on truth; the truth doesn’t depend on creation. Thoughts are dependencies; the dependencies of creation doesn’t relate to truths. Meeting with the knowledge of truth is difficult; so what’s to be done with the truth of truth? The True is behind the truth, which is below the True.

The moth flutters, till daybreak, ‘round the flame, & then returns to friends; he tells them, tenderly, of his state -- reveling in the details with his hunger for more. 

The light of the flame is the knowledge of truth; its heat is the truth of the truth; the meeting with it is the True of truth. The moth wasn’t satisfied with light & heat; he meets the flame with his whole body. His friends, meanwhile, knowing him unsatisfied with tales, expect him to return with a vision. But at that time, he’s utterly consumed --dwindled down & torn apart; devoid of form or body -- name or mark. In what form can he return to them, after what he has become?

In his meeting with vision, he dispensed with tales: whoever meets his eye’s object dispenses with sight.

These meanings do not vindicate the languid, or the transient, or the sinful, or he who seeks security. “As if I’m” is “as if I’m” & it’s as if I’m him or he is me; & you would not long for me, if you were me.

O you uncertain, don’t relate “I’m” with Me; now, or later, or then. Don’t think that I’m Me or that I am or, that I was; though I’m Gnostic & knowing is my state – it’s blemished. Though I’m his, I’m not him.

If you have understood thus, then understand: these meanings were not true to anyone but AHMD, because “Muhammad was a father to no one” save the prophets. He disappeared from men and jinn & closed his eyes to Where until there was no trace of ornament. There was a distance of two bows when he reached the desert of truth’s knowledge; he related from his heart. When he arrived at the truth of the True, his desire fled, so he gave himself to Generousness. After meeting with The True, he returned & said “the outer heart believes, while the hidden heart prostrates.” When he reached the limit’s Limit he said: “I can never praise you as you should be praised.” When he reached the truth of the truth he said: “You are the only that can praise yourself.” He renounced his desire and followed his vocation; “the heart did not fib what it saw” by the Lotus Tree. He did not turn right towards the truth & did not turn left towards the truth of the truth. “His eye strayed not, nor overstepped.”

- al Hallaj