Third Volume
Have you heard? A wise man saw that two or three of his friends had returned from a distant journey in India, finding them hungry and naked. His compassion, born of knowledge, overflowed and he said, “Welcome,” blooming like a rose. I know your stomachs are empty, you are very hungry. You have almost fallen to Karbala from hunger. Because of this, you have suffered all kinds of hardship.
But friends, for God’s sake, do not eat elephant calves. There are elephants on the road you will now travel; listen to my advice with all your heart and soul. You will want to hunt the elephant calves on your way. This will greatly please your hearts. They are very weak, very delicate and fat. But their mothers lie in wait, protecting them.
She walks a hundred leagues, crying and wailing after her young, searching for her child. She breathes fire from her trunk, scatters smoke. Her compassion for her young is immense. Do not, by any means, hunt her young,” he said. My child, the friends of God (walī / awliyāʾ — friends of God) are also Allah’s children. Whether they are present or not.
Allah protects their property and lives, and is aware of their states. Do not find their faults and backbite against them. The one who bears enmity against them, the one who takes their revenge, is Allah. Allah said: These friends (walī / awliyāʾ) are My children. They are in the world of estrangement, they have no peers. They have no business, no power.
They appear lowly and orphaned to test the people. But in reality, their friends are also Mine, their companions are Mine. All of them have taken refuge in My protection. It is as if they are My juzʾ (a thirtieth of the Qur'an). Beware, beware! These are those who wear My cloak. Among thousands, they are hundreds of thousands. Yet all are but one body.”
If it were not so, could Noah have drowned the East and West with a single curse? Could Lot, the possessor of grace and generosity, have destroyed the cities of the oppressors, sunk them into the earth? The cities that resembled paradise turned into black water. Their Tigris became so. Go and see. This black water is towards Damascus. You see it on the road to Jerusalem.
Because of the hundreds of thousands of prophets who worshipped the Truth, many torments befell every era. If I were to tell, it would take long. What is the liver compared to this? Even the mountains turn to blood. The mountains turn to blood and then freeze again, remain. You do not see this turning to blood, for you are blind, you are evil. How far you are from this vision!
This blind man, what a strange blind man, sees far, his eye is sharp. But he only sees the load on the camel. Out of greed, man sees everything down to the finest detail, knows it, but there is no good in his playing and strutting about. This play is full of evil. Play and strut in a way that will break your ego, and pull, tear away the cotton over the wound of lust.
The brave ones play and whirl in the square, they dance in their own blood. Have they rid themselves of their existence? When they clap their hands, when they part from their deficiencies, they enter the dance. Their musicians, among them, play the daf (frame drum), the seas, seeing their ecstasy, foam up. You do not see, but even the leaves on the branches clap their hands from their zeal.
Do you not see the clapping of the branches? For this, you need the ear of the soul; it cannot be heard with the ear of the body. Close your physical ear to mockery, lies, and deceit, so that you may see the luminous city of the soul. The ear of Muhammad hears the inner meaning of words. Allah says to him in the Qur’an, “He is but a hearing ear.”
This prophet is all ear, all eye. His compassion is for the nursling; we are his suckling children. The end of this discourse does not come. You, however, return to that story of the elephant, begin again and tell it.
The elephant is sniffing the mouths of each of them, circling around all their stomachs. Whoever had roasted and eaten its young, it sought out, trying to take revenge and show its strength. You too are eating the flesh of Allah’s servants, speaking against them and earning sin.
Come to your senses, the one sniffing your mouth is Allah. Who but the Truth can save his soul? If the one sniffing a man’s mouth in the grave is Munkar or Nakir, woe to that person worthy of sorrow! There is no way to hide your mouth from those great angels, nor to make it good with pleasant scents.
For the one who enters the grave, it is not possible to flatter them; there is no way for intellect or thought to resort to trickery! Clubs rain down on the head of the one who speaks nonsense, their claws strike. If you do not see Azrael’s staff, his iron, with your eye, look at the effect of his club! Sometimes he appears even in form, and only the sick one perceives and hears this.
Those sick friends say, What is this sword standing atop this hill? The listeners say, “We see no such thing, it is but imagination.” But what imagination? It is the time of departure! What imagination, even this lowly sky has become an illusion out of fear of it. Swords and clubs have entered the realm of perception before the dying patient.
He sees these swords drawn against him. But apart from him, neither the enemy’s eye nor the friend’s eye sees these things. Worldly greed has left, so the patient’s eye has grown strong; his eye has become clear at the time of bloodshed. Because of his pride and wrath, his eye has become like a rooster that crows before its time.
It is obligatory to cut off the head of the one who rings the bell or the rooster that crows before its time. At every moment, a part of your soul is in the state of death. At every moment, it is the time of giving up the soul. At the moment of giving up the soul, observe and guard your iman (faith)! Your life is like a purse of gold, and day and night are the man counting the coins. He counts without knowing, without understanding, until finally the purse is empty, the moon is eclipsed.
Even if you take from the mountain and do not put it back, even the mountain will not remain in its place, it will disappear. Therefore, at every moment, put something in its place, so that you may find what is meant by the verse, “Prostrate and draw near.” Do not strive for all tasks in this way, do not fight for anything but the work of religion. Otherwise, you will pass away before completing it in the end.
Your works will not be completed, your bread will remain raw. Making your grave, your tomb, is not done with stone, wood, carpet, or felt. You must see this ego in your heart. You must become its dust, be buried in its sorrow, so that your breath may attain help from its breath, your breath may become blessed and effective.
Building a tomb over the grave, erecting a dome on it, is not acceptable to those who possess meaning. Look and see, do those silks and satins ever increase the wisdom of a person who is wrapped in them while alive, do they make his opinion sound?
The soul that has suffered the torment of Munkar and Nakir, in its sorrowful heart, the scorpions of sorrow have taken hold. You see another who has adorned his outward, but inside, from his thoughts, he has fallen into lamentations; you see another who wears old clothes, but in those worn garments he is like a reed, and his words are like sugar.
The counselor said, “Take this advice of mine so that your hearts and souls do not fall into calamities. Be content with grass and leaves, do not go to hunt elephant calves. I have paid my debt of advice around my neck. The end of the one who heeds advice is only blessedness. I have acted as your messenger to save you from regrets.
Come to your senses, do not let greed cut off your path. Greed will uproot your leaves from the very root,” saying these things, he bade them farewell, saying, “Go towards good,” and departed in peace. On the road, they fell into famine, their thirst increased more and more. Suddenly, on the road, they saw a beautiful, newly born elephant calf.
Like drunken wolves, they flocked to it. They ate it cleanly and washed their hands of the matter. One of their companions gave them advice. He remembered the advice of that man. This word prevented the man from roasting and eating the elephant. Old and experienced wisdom grants you new fortune.
They ate the elephant calf and lay down to sleep. But that hungry man was awake like a shepherd watching the herd. Suddenly, he saw an enraged elephant appear. First, it came upon the watcher. It sniffed his mouth three times. But no bad smell came from him. It circled around him several times and left.
That great elephant did not touch the man at all. It sniffed the mouths of all the sleepers, and from all of them it caught a scent. It immediately tore apart and killed those who had roasted and eaten its young. At that moment, it was tearing each of them apart one by one, not fearing them at all. It was lifting each one into the air and smashing them to the ground, tearing them to pieces.
O you who suck the blood of the people, stay away from this, for the wealth of the people is their blood. For wealth is gained by strength, power, and labor. The mothers of those elephant calves seek blood, they take revenge on and kill the one who eats the elephant calf. O you who take bribes, you are eating elephant calves; the elephant that is your enemy will uproot you, destroy you.
The scent betrays the one who resorts to trickery. It knows the scent of the elephant calf. How could it not sense the false scent in me, when it senses the scent of the Truth from your eating? Mustafā (the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him) senses a scent from a far journey, so how could he not sense the good scent in our mouths? He senses it, but does not strike us in the face, he covers it.
Good scent rises to the heavens, and so does bad scent. You sleep on, but that forbidden scent rises to the green sky. It travels, accompanying your foul breaths, up to those in the heavens who sense scents. The scent of pride, greed, and lust, when you speak, reeks like onions. You swear, “When did I ever eat them?
I even avoid onions, and garlic,” you say, but while making that false oath, your breath acts as a talebearer. Its scent strikes the minds of those who sit with you. Because of that scent, prayers are rejected. That evil heart reveals itself in speech. To that prayer comes the answer, “Be silent.” The punishment for every transgressor is the stick that drives him away. But if your words are crooked and your essence is straight, that crookedness of speech is acceptable to Allah.