Цитаты
Eventually the hoopoe tells the birds that in the quest they have to traverse seven valleys. First of all is the Valley of the Quest, where all kinds of perils threaten, and where the pilgrim must renounce desires. Then comes the Valley of Love, the limitless area in which the Seeker is completely consumed by a thirst for the Beloved. Love is followed by the Valley of Intuitive Knowledge, in which the heart receives directly the illumination of Truth and an experience of God. In the Valley of Detachment the traveller becomes liberated from desires and dependence.
The hoopoe cried, ‘O laggard, busy with the mere shape of things! Leave off the pleasures of seductive form! The love of the face of the Rose has merely driven thorns into your heart. It is your master. However beautiful the Rose, the beauty vanishes in a few days. Love for something so perishable can only cause revulsion in the Perfected Man. If the Rose’s smile awakens your desire, it is only to hold you ceaselessly in sorrow. It is she who laughs at you each Spring, and she does not cry — leave the Rose and the redness.’
Commenting upon this passage, one teacher remarks that Attar refers not only to the ecstatic who does not take his mysticism further than rapture. He also means the ecstatic’s parallel, the person who feels frequent and incomplete love, and who, although deeply affected by it, is not regenerated and altered by it to such an extent that his very being undergoes a change: ‘This is the fire of love which purifies, which is different whenever it occurs, which sears the marrow and makes incandescent the kernel. The ore separates from the matrix, and the Perfected Man emerges, altered in such a way that every aspect of his life is ennobled. He is not changed in the sense of being different; but he is completed, and this makes him considered powerful of men. Every fibre has been purified, raised to a higher state, vibrates to a higher tune, gives out a more direct, more penetrating note, attracts the affinity in man and woman, is loved more and hated more; partakes of a destiny, a portion, infinitely assured and recognised, indifferent to the things which affected him while he pursued the mere shadow of which this is the substance, however sublime that former experience may have been.’
Commenting upon this passage, one teacher remarks that Attar refers not only to the ecstatic who does not take his mysticism further than rapture. He also means the ecstatic’s parallel, the person who feels frequent and incomplete love, and who, although deeply affected by it, is not regenerated and altered by it to such an extent that his very being undergoes a change: ‘This is the fire of love which purifies, which is different whenever it occurs, which sears the marrow and makes incandescent the kernel. The ore separates from the matrix, and the Perfected Man emerges, altered in such a way that every aspect of his life is ennobled. He is not changed in the sense of being different; but he is completed, and this makes him considered powerful of men. Every fibre has been purified, raised to a higher state, vibrates to a higher tune, gives out a more direct, more penetrating note, attracts the affinity in man and woman, is loved more and hated more; partakes of a destiny, a portion, infinitely assured and recognised, indifferent to the things which affected him while he pursued the mere shadow of which this is the substance, however sublime that former experience may have been.’
This teacher (Adil Alimi) warns that these sentiments will not appeal to all. They will be ‘disbelieved by the materialist; attacked by the theologian; ignored by the romantic; avoided by the shallow; rejected by the ecstatic; be welcomed but misunderstood by the theoretician and imitation Sufi’. But, he continues, we must remember qadam ba qadam (step by step): ‘Before you can drink the fifth cup, you must have drunk the first four, each of them delicious.’
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