About True Seekers
by Farid ud-Din AttarEnglish version by Sholeh Wolpé
Original Language Persian/Farsi
Wayfarer, know that in the battlefield of pain,
love may come with annihilation.
You whose existence is mingled
with nonexistence,
you whose joys are mingled with grief,
if you don't experience some ups and downs,
how will you ever know relief?
You bravely strike like lightning,
then cover yourself with rubbish
to protect against the shock.
What are you doing?
Rise up like a true seeker.
Set fire to reason
and flare into a mad lover.
If you hesitate over this alchemy,
at least come and take a quick look.
How long will you stay in your head?
Become like me, leave your self.
For once, show foresight
so that in the end you too can become
a dervish and joyfully arrive
at annihilation of the self.
I who am neither myself nor other than myself
have traveled beyond reason, good and evil thoughts.
I've lost my self within myself.
The only cure is the incurable.
When the sun of poverty landed on me,
both worlds twirled together into a single shaft of light.
And when I saw that column of light
I passed on into no self; became
a drop of water and joined the stream.
All that I had won and lost,
I threw away into black waters.
I disappeared, became lost, void.
I became a shadow without a single atom,
a drop of water that had joined the ocean.
Good luck finding that droplet.
Such loss of self is not for all,
but I joined the eternal union
and there are many like me.
Who in the world, from a dust mote to the moon,
wouldn't want to be lost this way?
 | -- from The Conferences of the Birds, by Attar / Translated by Sholeh Wolpé |
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