Saying, “I will cut off your hands and feet on opposite sides
and hang you upside down.
You will not be spared punishment.”
He thought that they were in the same state of imagination, terror, distraction, and doubt,
Trembling in fear at these threats of the worldly ego.
He didn’t know that they were emancipated,
sitting at the window of the heart,
That they could tell the difference
between the shadow and their real selves,
That they were quick and alert, happy and alive.
Even if the mortar of Fortune should pound them into pieces in this material world,
Since they had seen the ever-present Origin,
They did not fear the Derivatives of Imagination. . .
The Prophet said that this apparently substantial world
Is but a sleeper’s dream. Some merely believe in these words,
But the mystic travelers have perceived it themselves,
Even without the Prophet’s words
Many are asleep in the daytime. Don’t think otherwise.
Your life may be as insubstantial
as a shadow cast by moonlight.
What you think is sleep and what you think is waking
Are both happening in your sleep.
What does it matter if a potter breaks a pot? He’ll make another one.
A blind man walking a road has a thousand fears,
But someone who can see knows the dangers and obstacles
Bring it on, Pharaoh!
We won’t be scared by the cries of ghouls!
Rend the fabric. We know who will re-sew it,
Or, if not, it’s better to be naked to embrace the Beloved,
Nothing is sweeter than to be stripped of physicality and personality’
(Mathnawi, III, 1721)
~ Rumi, Tales from Rumi: Essential Selections from the Mathnawi (Sacred Wisdom)
