The Sea Is Our Essence

by Shah Nematollah Vali

English version by Anonymous
Original Language Persian/Farsi

We are of the sea, and the sea is our essence;
why then is there this duality between us?
The world is an imaginary line before the sight;
read well that line, for it was inscribed by us.
Whatsoever we possess in both the worlds
in reality, my friend, belongs to God.

His love I keep secretly in my heart;
the less of the pain of His love is our cure.
Companions are we of the cup, comrades of the saki,
lest thou suppose that he is apart from us:
it is the assembly of love, and we are drunk --
who ever enjoyed so royal a party?
So long as Mi'mat Allah is the slave of the Lord,
the king of the world is a beggar at his door.

-- from Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty, Edited by Alan Jacobs

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Recommended Books: Shah Nematollah Vali

Poetry for the Spirit: Poems of Universal Wisdom and Beauty The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry Islamic Mystical Poetry: Sufi Verse from the Early Mystics to Rumi



The Sea Is Our