Paranoid Couplets

If permission granted this world to be,
then let it be; there is other way. But stay

near to the world in which X couldn’t possibly
happen, and you’ll be loath to see that day is day.

This sun, these trees, these passers-by will seem
like grounds for things to be no other way

(permission permits no trace but in the free
motion of all of those objects it makes play

along, and turns a trophy out of atrophy.
Permission's gift is motion’s prey).

Then world will be for you a gravity
and yourself a vacuum bent, as if to pray.

I started another blog for theoretically-inclined thoughts on culture and aesthetics:

http://khidr.tumblr.com/

I'll continue to post translations on this blog, however.

Tawasin of the Secrets in Unity

An image of the tawasin of the secretes in unity:

Secrets tend from Him & towards Him, & are spread in Him with no sense of necessity. Those secrets from Him alarm, & those toward Him tend, for He is spread. The pronoun of unity is His pronoun, for “I” is hidden. The pronoun of the hidden is His “H.”

If I said “Wah,” they’d say “Ah.”

Varieties & types, & signs don’t pry into the Unknown, “as if they formed a tightly sealed building.” It is one. His oneness doesn’t turn towards the One. The One is one & the attributes of the one tend toward what’s bounded; the Unified lacks boundaries.

The True is the refuge of the True, not the True itself. Unity didn’t speak; speech & truth don’t prove creation true, so how would they do so for the True?

That which takes form is nothing but substance.

That which doesn’t part with body is nothing but body. 

That which doesn’t part with the spirit for a moment is nothing but spirit.

Verily we are spiritual digestions returning to what contained in him -- from what’s contained in Him & His digestion; from His word & His destruction; from His carried load. 

The first circle is for actions. The second circle is for traces. These are the circles of the two existences. The point is the meaning of unity, not unity itself; how would the circle be separate, if so?

- al Hallaj

Tawasin of Unity

 The True is one, unique & lone.

Oneness & unity are in Him and from Him.

Here’s an image of this meaning:

Knowledge of His unity is solitary & discrete. This is an image of that knowledge:

Unity is an attribute of the unifier, not the unified with. If I say “I,” he says “I.” It’s for you, not for him. If I say “Unity returns to the unifier," & if I asked “how does one already unified return to unity?” & if I answered “from the unifier to the unified with,” then He appears attached in His lonesomeness.

If I say “the unity comes from His creation,” then his Essence becomes two essences, & that which converges with an essence. When the Essence isn’t essential, then it’s an essence, inessential. He disappeared when He revealed; where’d He go where there’s nowhere? O that & this can't be comprised.

- al Hallaj

Tawasin of Divine Will

The first circle is his will; the second is his rule; the third is his power; the fourth is his knowledge & his pre-eternity.

Iblis said: “If I entered the first circle I would be tried by the second. If I was made to pass the second, I would be tried by the third. If I was satisfied with the third, I would be tried by the fourth.

So no, no, no, no, no.

Even if I stayed at the first, I'd be cursed until the second, & rejected until the third. What's the fourth to me? If I knew that bowing would save me, I would have bowed, but I knew that there were circles beyond this circle. I said, in my state: “If I’m saved from this circle, how will I be rescued from the second & the third & the fourth?”

The fifth alif is Him, the Ever Living.

- al Hallaj