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“La’illaha il’Allahu”: There's no reality but God;
there is only God
In the Name of God the Most Merciful, and the Most
Compassionate.
This is the fourth journey toward home, toward
where the great advantages are waiting for us. Reading it, mystics will feel
very happy, as a meadow feels when it hears thunder, the good news of rain
coming, as tired eyes look forward to sleeping. Joy for the spirit, health for
the body. In here is what genuine devotion wants, refreshment, sweet fruit ripe
enough for the pickiest picker, medicine, detailed directions on how to get to
the Friend.
All praise to God. Here is the way to renew
connection with your soul, and rest from difficulties. The study of this book
will be painful to those who feel separate from God. It will make the others
grateful. In the hold of this ship is a cargo not found in the attractiveness
of young women.
Here is a reward for lovers of God. A full moon and
an inheritance you thought you lost are now returned to you. More hope for the
hopeful, lucky finds for foragers, wonderful things thought of to do.
Anticipation thought of after depression, expanding after contraction. The sun
comes out, and that light is what we give, in this book, to our spiritual
descendents. Our gratitude to God holds them to us, and brings more besides.
As
the Andalusian (Spanish Muslim) poet Adi al-Riga says,
“I was sleeping, and being comforted by a cool
breeze, when suddenly a gray dove from a thicket sang and sobbed with longing, and reminded me of my own passion.
“I had been far away from my own soul so long, so
late sleeping, but that dove's crying woke me and made me cry!
“Praise to all early-waking grievers.”
.....................................
Some go first, and others come long afterward. God blesses both and all in the
line, and replaces what has been consumed, and provides for those who work the
soil of helpfulness, and blesses … every … messenger and prophet.
Amen, and may the Lord of all created beings bless
you.
.....................................
— from the
Mathnawi by Jelaluddin Balkh, a.k.a. Rumi (which means “from Roman
[Byzantine] Anatolia”)
Rumi was
an Afghan (born 1207), from Balkh, Afghanistan, whose family fled the Mongol
invaders and settled in Konya, Anatolia (now Turkey).
“... Putting aside
duality, I have seen that this world and the next are one. I seek the One, I
know the One, I see the One. I invoke the One. Allah is the First and the Last,
the Outward and the Inward.”
— Rumi
