The moth circles the lamp until morning, taking on form after form. Then it relates its state in the sweetest words. Then, coy and boastful, it takes pride in union, aspiring to kamāl (perfection). The light of the lamp is the knowledge of ḥaqīqa (inner reality); its warmth is the reality of that reality. To plunge into the flame is the right of reality itself. The moth was not satisfied with the light or the warmth. With all its might, it threw itself into the fire. The forms are still waiting for its arrival, so that it may bear witness to the news it could not be content with. The moth flew, turned, melted itself, and at that moment, vanished. It remained without image, without body, without name, without title. Why should it return to forms now? After union, what state is there to return to? One who has attained the vision does not heed the report. One who has reached the spectacle pays no mind to the vision. (Tawāsin, 194)
The beloved said to the lover: Come, make yourself Me. If I make Myself you, then the beloved becomes needy; but if you become Me, then the increase is in the beloved. Thus, everything becomes the beloved, not the lover; everything is pride, not supplication; everything is present and existent, not needy; all is wealth, not poverty; everything is remedy, not helplessness. (Sawāniḥ, 39)
The process by which the lover loses himself in the beloved reaches such a point that the lover becomes jealous even of himself, even of his own gaze.
wahdat al-wujūd – wahdat al-shuhūd
I love you because of you, my beloved
Out of jealousy, I am not even a friend to myself with my own eyes
My sorrow is not from being apart from you
My pain is not being in the same body as you
This subtlety sometimes reaches such a point that if one day the beloved were to become even more beautiful, the lover would be hurt and angered. This is not a state that can be understood by those who have not tasted this delight. (Sawāniḥ, 40)
By its very nature, love is tribulation; intimacy and comfort are foreign and borrowed to it. For separation in love is, in essence, duality, while union is, by its nature, unity. Everything else is not true union, but an illusion of union. Regarding this, it has been said:
Love is tribulation—I do not hesitate, I press on
If it should fall asleep, I myself awaken it
Friends tell me: escape this tribulation
But tribulation is the heart—how can I keep away from my heart?
The tree of love has blossomed in the very center of my heart
When it thirsts, I water it with my tears
If love is sweet but its pain is not sweet
Then it is sweet to me—I balance the two together
To be a lover is to be entirely He; to be the beloved is to be entirely You. For being yourself does not befit you; what befits you is to belong to the beloved. What befits the lover is never to belong to himself, never to be left alone.
As long as you are attached to desire, your path is either gold or women
Be a lover, for your salvation is to escape these
Does it befit a lover to have two qiblas on the path of tawhid (the oneness of God)?
Either follow your own desire or win the contentment of your Friend
Kings have no value at our door
No one but the humble lover befits our dignity
As long as you say 'I, I,' you cannot reach the secret of our master
For our crown befits only those who are headless
Love is a mysterious mirror for both lover and beloved: a mirror that shows both oneself, the beloved, and the stranger (everything other than these). If the jealousy of love dominates, the lover cannot look at another; the perfection of the beloved's beauty can never be seen except in the mirror of love. (Sawāniḥ, 109)
wahdat al-wujūd – wahdat al-shuhūd 1153
Sometimes the beloved's tribulation and hardship, with utmost care and the grace of love, become a seed cast into the soil of the lover's desire, from which the rose of apology grows, buds, and leads to union.
And if fortune is favorable, this union turns into unity. As long as no lightning flashes, no thunderbolt falls, and no obstacle appears on the path; as long as fortune is favorable. For this reason, the lover understands that the path of love is not safe. Thus, it has been said:
If you think I have given you my heart, know this:
Hundreds of caravans have passed this way before
Even if I see my heart joyful from union with you
I also see the share of separation in between
Just as union is not hidden in separation
So too, in union, separation is clear to me
With rational tawhid (tawhid-i ʿaqlī) and tawhid of acts (tawhid-i afʿāl), that is, Lā fāʿila