‘t is forty times better to follow the perfume, than to be led by the tracks!
–aphorism of Shams, ra

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In That Shop

These spiritual windowshoppers,
who idly ask, How much is that? Oh, I’m just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping,
But these walk into a shop
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? “Nowhere.”
What did you have to eat? “Nothing much.”

Even if you don’t know what you want,
buy something, to be a part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish, project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

Mevlana Jalal-al Din Rumi, r.a.
(translation by Coleman Barks and John Moyne)

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Lie down beside the flowing stream
and see Life passing by and know
That of the world’s transient nature
this one sign is enough for us
–Hafez, r.a

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Henri Corbin commenting on the fact of ascension
(as described by Ibn’ Arabi, r.a.)

Look upon our own existance. Is it continuous ?
Or is it incessantly renewing on every breath ?
Does not being cease then come into being
with every breath, and upon His sigh of compassion?
Hexeities, themselves pure possibles do not demand concrete existance.
recurrent creation manifests infinitely, essentially, divinely.
Divine being descends, is epiphanized in our individuality
such being thus ascends to return to the source.
Every being ascends with the instant
to see this is to see the multiple existing in the one.
And so the man who knows that is his “soul”,
such a man knows his Lord.

S.C. 1991
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God is the Light of the heavens and the earth;
the likeness of His Light is as a niche
wherein is a lamp
(the lamp in a glass,
the glass as it were a glittering star)
kindled from a Blessed Tree
an olive that is neither of the East nor of the West
whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it;
Light upon Light;
God guides to His Light whom He will.
And Allah speaketh to mankind in symbols
for Allah is knower of all things.
Quran, XXIV 35

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Look up, look to the clouds, look into their forms.

Behind the clouds - (see) what is there?
Watch your foot fall.
Steady sight upon the hollow space your walking everywhere leaves.

Focus your eyes on the breath moving outward.
Do you know you are breathing for two?
Hunger seeks but a taste.

Before thirst comes - signs above, steps below, breath behind breath.
When time comes closed to you, all your actions will be well known.
Seeing closes then, you.

S.C. 1991