ON AFFECTION AND ISOLATION.

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The lovers are drunk in His Presence, their reason in their sleeve

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and their soul in their hand. Lo, when they urge the Burâq of their heart on towards Him, they cast all away under his feet; they throw down life and heart in His path. and make themselves of His company. In the face of his belief in the Unity, there exists for him no old or new; all is naught, naught; He alone is. What worth have reason and life in his eyes? the heart and the true faith pursue the road together. The veil of the lovers is very transparent; the tracings on these veils are very delicate. Love's conqueror is he who is conquered by love; 'love' inverted will itself explain this to thee.

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When the clouds fall away from the Sun, the world of love is filled with light. The cloud is dark and murky as a Magian, but water may be useful as well as harmful;--a little of it is man's life, but his life is destroyed by too much of it; so he who believes in the Unity is the beloved of His Presence, though affection, too, is a veil over His glory.

He is not in evil plight to whom He addresses His instruction. What then is evil?--to be the friend who toils. Look at the letters

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of mahabbat (friendship); the very word mihnat (labour) is shown in its characters. O thou who lovest the Beauty of the Presence of the Invisible, till thou seek for the meeting with His face thou wilt never drink the draught of communion with Him, nor taste the sweetness of inward converse with Him. Since thou knowest the One, and assertest the One, why search after the two, and three, and four? Together with alif go be and te,--count be and te an idol, and alif God.

Continue to ply hand and foot in search; when thou reachest the sea, talk not of the rill. Since glory and shame have made of thee a slave, O youth, what hast thou to do with the Eternal? Thou art but newly come into existence,--talk not of the Eternal, thou who dost not know thy head from thy foot. There are a hundred

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thousand obstructions in thy path; thy courage fails, and falls short; thy talk is trickery still, still thou remainest in the snare. Betake thyself at once to the ocean of righteousness and true religion, thy body naked like wheat-grains, or like Adam; that so He may approve thy complete renunciation; then see that thou meddle not again with these useless encumbrances. Thou art as yet a follower of Satan; how canst thou become a man without repenting?

When He admits thee in His court, ask from Him no object of desire,--ask Himself; when thy Lord has chosen thee for friendship, thy unabashed eye has seen all there is to see. The world of love suffers not duality,--what talk is this of Me and Thee?

When thy Thee-ness leaves thee, fortune will uplift thy state and seat; in a compact of intimacy it is not well to claim to be a friend, and then-still Me and Thee! How shall he that is free become a slave? How canst thou fill a vessel already full? Go thou, all of thee, to His door; for whoso in the world shall present himself there in part only, is wholly naught. When thou hast reached to the kiss and love-glance of the Friend, count poison honey from Him, and the thorn a flower.

For the rust on the mirror of the free, No is the nail-parer,---with it cut off existence. Be not filled with thy incapacity time

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after time, as a boat is filled; dost thou not read in God's book that those who die are not dead but living? (Qur. 3:164)

Receive alike good and evil, fair and foul; whatever God sends thee, take it to thy soul. Did not `Azâzîl, receiving from God both His mercy and His curse, deem them both alike? Whatsoever he obtained from God, good or evil, he held both equal. But the likeness of him who waits at the door of princes is as a sail in unskilled hands.