Spring, and everything outside is growing,
even the tall cypress tree.
We must not leave this place.
Around the lip of the cup we share, these words,
My Life Is Not Mine.
Author: DJ
Unfold your own myth
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Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling,
bewildered, like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?
Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,
smells the shirt of his lost son and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up a flowing prophet?
Or like Moses goes for fire and finds what burns inside the sunrise?
Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,
and opens a door to the other world.
Solomon cuts open a fish, and there’s a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the prophet and leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere!
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.
Now there’s a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he’s wealthy.
But don’t be satisfied with stories,
how things have gone with others.
Unfold your own myth,
without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.
Start walking toward Shams.
Your legs will get heavy and tired.
Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you’ve grown,
lifting
Only Breath
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Not Christian or Jew or Muslim,
not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen.
Not any religion or cultural system.
I am not from the East or the West,
not out of the ocean or up from the ground,
not natural or ethereal,
not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless,
a trace of the traceless.
Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved,
have seen the two worlds as one
and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath breathing human being.
There is a way between voice and presence
where information flows.
In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.
The Valley of Poverty and Nothingness
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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.
Bismillah
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It’s a habit of yours to walk slowly.
You hold a grudge for years.
With such heaviness, how can you be modest?
With such attachments, do you expect to arrive anywhere?
Be wide as the air to learn a secret.
Right now you’re equal portions clay and water, thick mud.
Abraham learned how the sun and moon and the stars all set.
He said, No langer will I try to assign partners for Cod.
You are so weak. Give up to grave.
The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore.
You need more help than you know.
You’re trying to live your life in open scaffolding.
Say Bismillah,
In the name of God,
as the priest does with a knife when he offers an animal.
Bismillah your old self to find your real name.
Muhammed and the huge eater
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Husam demands that we begin
Book V. Ziya-Haqq,
the radiance of truth,
Husamuddin, master to the pure masters,
if my human throat were not so narrow,
I would praise you as you should be praised,
in some language other than this word-language,
but a domestic fowl is not a falcon.
We must mix the varnish we have and brush it on.
I’m not talking to materialists.
When I mention Husam,
I speak only to those who know spiritual secrets.
Praise is simply drawing back the curtains to let his qualities in.
The sun, of course, remains apart from what I say.
What the sayer of praise is really praising is himself,
by saying implicitly, “My eyes are clear.”
Likewise, someone who criticizes is criticizing himself,
saying implicitly,
“I can’t see very well with my eyes so inflamed.”
Don’t ever feel sorry for someone who wants to be the sun,
that other sun, the one that makes rotten things fresh.
And don’t ever envy someone who wants to be this world.
Husam is the sun I mean.
He can’t be understood with the mind,
or said, but we’ll stumble and stagger trying to.
Just because you can’t drink all that falls
doesn’t mean you give up taking sips of rainwater.
If the nut of the mystery can’t be held,
at least let me touch the shell.
Husam, refresh my words, your words.
My words are only a husk to your knowing,
an earth atmosphere to your enormous spaces.
What I say is meant only to point to that, to you,
so that whoever ever hears these words
will not grieve that they never had a chance to look.
Your presence draws me out from vanity and imagination and opinion.
Awe is the salve that will heal our eyes.
And keen, constant listening.
Stay out in the open like a date palm lifting its arms.
Don’t bore mouse holes in the ground,
arguing inside some doctrinal labyrinth.
That intellectual warp and woof keeps you wrapped in blindness.
And four other characteristics keep you from loving.
The Qur’an calls them four birds.
Say Bismillah, “In the name of God,”
and chop the heads off those mischief-birds.
The rooster of lust, the peacock of wanting to be famous,
the crow of ownership, and the duck of urgency,
kill them and revive them in another form,
changed and harmless.
There is a duck inside you.
Her bill is never still, searching through dry and wet alike,
like the robber in an empty house cramming objects in his sack,
pearls, chickpeas, anything.
Always thinking,
“There’s no time! I won’t get another chance!”
A True Person is more calm and deliberate.
He or she doesn’t worry about interruptions.
But that duck is so afraid of missing out that it’s lost all generosity,
and frighteningly expanded its capacity to take in food.
A large group of unbelievers once came to see Muhammad,
knowing he would feed them.
Muhammad told his friends,
“Divide these guests among you and tend to them.
Since you are all filled with me, it will be as though I am the host.”
Each friend of Muhammad chose a guest,
but there was one huge person left behind.
He sat in the entrance of the mosque like thick dregs in a cup.
So Muhammad invited the man to his own household,
where the enormous son of a Ghuzz Turk ate everything,
the milk of seven goats and enough food for eighteen people!
The others in the house were furious.
When the man went to bed,
the maid slammed the door behind him and chained it shut,
out of meanness and resentment.
Around midnight, the man felt several strong urges at once.
But the door! He works it, puts a blade through the crack.
Nothing.
The urgency increases.
The room contracts.
He falls back into a confused sleep and dreams of a desolate place,
since he himself is such a desolate place.
So, dreaming he’s by himself, he squeezes out a huge amount,
and another huge amount.
But he soon becomes conscious enough
to know that the covers he gathers around him are full of shit.
He shakes with spasms of the shame
that usually keeps men from doing such things.
He thinks, “My sleep is worse than my being awake.
The waking is just full of food.
My sleep is all this.”
Now he’s crying, bitterly embarrassed,
waiting for dawn and the noise of the door opening,
hoping that somehow he can get out
without anyone seeing him as he is.
I’ll shorten it.
The door opens. He’s saved.
Muhammad comes at dawn.
He opens the door and becomes invisible
so the man won’t feel ashamed,
so he can escape and wash himself
and not have to face the door-opener.
Someone completely absorbed in Allah like Muhammad can do this.
Muhammad had seen all that went on in the night,
but he held back from letting the man out,
until all happened as it needed to happen.
Many actions which seem cruel are from a deep friendship.
Many demolitions are actually renovations.
Later, a meddlesome servant brought Muhammad the bedclothes.
“Look what your guest has done!”
Muhammad smiles, himself a mercy given to all beings, “
Bring me a bucket of water.”
Everyone jumps up, “No! Let us do this.
We live to serve you, and this is the kind of hand-work we can do.
Yours is the inner heart-work.”
“I know that, but this is an extraordinary occasion.”
A voice inside him is saying,
“There is great wisdom in washing these bedclothes. Wash them.”
Meanwhile, the man who soiled the covers and fled
is returning to Muhammad’s house.
He has left behind an amulet that he always carried.
He enters and sees the hands of God
washing his incredibly dirty linen.
He forgets the amulet.
A great love suddenly enters him.
He tears his shirt open.
He strikes his head against the wall and the door.
Blood pours from his nose.
People come from other parts of the house.
He’s shrieking, “Stay away!”
He hits his head,
“I have no understanding!”
He prostrates himself before Muhammad
“You are the whole.
I am a despicable, tiny, meaningless piece.
I can’t look at you.”
He’s quiet and quivering with remorse.
Muhammad bends over and holds him and caresses him and
opens his inner knowing.
The cloud weeps, and then the garden sprouts.
The baby cries, and the mother’s milk flows.
The nurse of creation has said,
Let them cry a lot.
This rain-weeping and sun-burning twine together to make us grow.
Keep your intelligence white-hot and your grief glistening,
so your life will stay fresh.
Cry easily like a little child.
Let body needs dwindle and soul decisions increase.
Diminish what you give your physical self.
Your spiritual eye will begin to open.
When the body empties and stays empty,
God fills it with musk and mother-of-pearl.
That way a man gives his dung and gets purity.
Listen to the prophets,
not to some adolescent boy.
The foundation and the walls of the spiritual life
are made of self-denials and disciplines.
Stay with friends who support you in these.
Talk with them about sacred texts,
and how you’re doing,
and how they’re doing,
and keep your practices together.
Dissolver of sugar
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Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me,
if this is the time.
Do it gently
with a touch of a hand, or a look.
Every morning I wait at dawn.
That’s when it’s happened before.
Or do it suddenly like an execution.
How else can I get ready for death?
You breathe without a body like a spark.
You grieve, and I begin to feel lighter.
You keep me away with your arm,
but the keeping away is pulling me in.
Pale sunlight, pale the wall.
Love moves away.
The light changes.
I need more grace
than i thought
The grasses
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The same wind that uproots trees makes the grasses shine.
The lordly wind loves the weakness and the lowness of grasses.
Never brag of being strong.
The axe doesn’t worry how thick the branches are.
It cuts them to pieces.
But not the leaves.
It leaves the leaves alone.
A flame doesn’t consider the size of the woodpile.
A butcher doesn’t run from a flock of sheep.
What is form in the presence of reality?
Very feeble.
Reality keeps the sky turned over
Like a cup above us, revolving.
Who turns the sky wheel?
The universal intelligence.
And the motion of the body
comes from the spirit like a waterwheel that’s held in a stream.
The inhaling-exhaling is from spirit, now angry, now peaceful.
Wind destroys, and wind protects.
There is no reality but God,
says the completely surrendered sheikh,
who is an ocean for all beings.
The levels of creation are straws in that ocean.
The movement of the straws comes from an agitation in the water.
When the ocean wants the straws calm,
it sends them close to shore.
When it wants them back in the deep surge,
it does with them as the wind does with the grasses.
This never ends.
The hoopoe answers the parrot
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The hoopoe said: ‘You are a cringing slave–
This is not noble, generous or brave,
To think your being has no other end
Than finding water and a loyal friend.
Think well – what is it that you hope to gain?
Your coat is beautiful, but where’s your brain?
Act as a lover and renounce your soul;
With love’s defiance seek the lover’s goal.
The parrot’s excuse
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