The Valley of Poverty and Nothingness – All mystics experienced the same!

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Next comes that valley words cannot express,

The Vale of Poverty and Nothingness:

Here you are lame and deaf, the mind has gone;

You enter an obscure oblivion.

When sunlight penetrates the atmosphere

A hundred thousand shadows disappear,

And when the sea arises what can save

The patterns on the surface of each wave?

The two worlds are those patterns, and in vain

Men tell themselves what passes will remain

Whoever sinks within this sea is blest

And in self-loss obtains eternal rest;

The heart that would be lost in this wide sea lines

Disperses in profound tranquillity,

And if it should emerge again it knows

The secret ways in which the world arose.

The pilgrim who has grown wise in the Quest,

The sufi who has weathered every test,

Are lost when they approach this painful place,

And other men leave not a single trace;

Because all disappear, you might believe

That all are equal (just as you perceive

That twigs and incense offered to a flame

Both turn to powdered ash and look the same).

But though they seem to share a common state,

Their inward essences are separate,

And evil souls sunk in this mighty sea

Retain unchanged their base identity;

But if a pure soul sinks the waves surround

His fading form, in beauty he is drowned –

He is not, yet he is; what could this mean?

He will receive, for forty thousand years,

iThe men who are deserving in this place;

Then from that summit of celestial grace lines

They will return and know themselves once more

Bereft of light, the poorest of the poor.

I will be shown myself –

I weep to think

That from such heights to such depths

I must sink;

I have no need of my identity –

I long for death; what use is ‘T’ to me?

I live with evil while my Self is here;

With God both Self and evil disappear.

When I escape the Self I will arise And be as God;

the yearning pilgrim flies

From this dark province of mortality

To Nothingness and to Eternity.

And though, my heart, you bid the world farewell

To cross the bridge that arches over hell,

Do not despair – think of the oil-lamp’s glow

That sends up smoke as black as any crow;

Its oil is changed and what was there before

The shining flame flared up exists no more.

So you, my quaking heart, when you endure

These threatening flames, will rise up rare and pure.”

First put aside the Self, and then prepare

To mount Boraq* and journey through the air;

Drink down the cup of Nothingness;

put on The cloak that signifies oblivion –

Your stirrup is the void; absence must be

The horse that bears you into vacancy.

Destroy the body and adorn your sight

With kohl of insubstantial, darkest night.

First lose yourself, then lose this loss and then

Withdraw from all that you have lost again –

Go peacefully, and stage by stage progress

Until you gain the realms of Nothingness;

But if you cling to any worldly trace,

No news will reach you from that promised place.

Next comes that valley words cannot express,

The Vale of Poverty and Nothingness:

Here you are lame and deaf, the mind has gone;

You enter an obscure oblivion.

When sunlight penetrates the atmosphere

A hundred thousand shadows disappear,

And when the sea arises what can save

The patterns on the surface of each wave?

The two worlds are those patterns, and in vain

Men tell themselves what passes will remain

Whoever sinks within this sea is blest

And in self-loss obtains eternal rest;

The heart that would be lost in this wide sea lines

Disperses in profound tranquillity,

And if it should emerge again it knows

The secret ways in which the world arose.

The pilgrim who has grown wise in the Quest,

The sufi who has weathered every test,

Are lost when they approach this painful place,

And other men leave not a single trace;

Because all disappear, you might believe

That all are equal (just as you perceive

That twigs and incense offered to a flame

Both turn to powdered ash and look the same).

But though they seem to share a common state,

Their inward essences are separate,

And evil souls sunk in this mighty sea

Retain unchanged their base identity;

But if a pure soul sinks the waves surround

His fading form, in beauty he is drowned –

He is not, yet he is; what could this mean?

He will receive, for forty thousand years,

iThe men who are deserving in this place;

Then from that summit of celestial grace lines

They will return and know themselves once more

Bereft of light, the poorest of the poor.

I will be shown myself –

I weep to think

That from such heights to such depths

I must sink;

I have no need of my identity –

I long for death; what use is ‘T’ to me?

I live with evil while my Self is here;

With God both Self and evil disappear.

When I escape the Self I will arise And be as God;

the yearning pilgrim flies

From this dark province of mortality

To Nothingness and to Eternity.

And though, my heart, you bid the world farewell

To cross the bridge that arches over hell,

Do not despair – think of the oil-lamp’s glow

That sends up smoke as black as any crow;

Its oil is changed and what was there before

The shining flame flared up exists no more.

So you, my quaking heart, when you endure

These threatening flames, will rise up rare and pure.”

First put aside the Self, and then prepare

To mount Boraq* and journey through the air;

Drink down the cup of Nothingness;

put on The cloak that signifies oblivion –

Your stirrup is the void; absence must be

The horse that bears you into vacancy.

Destroy the body and adorn your sight

With kohl of insubstantial, darkest night.

First lose yourself, then lose this loss and then

Withdraw from all that you have lost again –

Go peacefully, and stage by stage progress

Until you gain the realms of Nothingness;

But if you cling to any worldly trace,

No news will reach you from that promised place.

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