The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) · 12 of 37 · tr. E.H. Whinfield
STORY V-c
The skill taught by God to the silkworm Is a learning beyond the reach of the elephant.
The earthly Adam was taught of God names, 4 So that his glory reached the seventh heaven.
He laid low the name and fame of the angels, 5 Yet blind indeed are they whom God dooms to doubt!
The devotee of seven hundred thousand years (Satan) Was made a muzzle for that yearling calf (Adam), 6 Lest he should suck milk of the knowledge of faith, And soar on high even to the towers of heaven.
The knowledge of men of external sense is a muzzle To stop them sucking milk of that sublime knowledge.
But God drops into the heart a single pearl-drop Which is not bestowed on oceans or skies!" "How long regard ye mere form, O form-worshippers?
Your souls, void of substance, rest still in forms.
If the form of man were all that made man, Ahmad and Abu Jahl would be upon a par.
A painting on a wall resembles a man, But see what it is lacking in that empty form.
'Tis life that is lacking to that mere semblance of man.
Go!
seek for that pearl it never will find.
The heads of earth's lions were bowed down When God gave might to the Seven Sleepers' dog.
7 What mattered its despised form When its soul was drowned in the sea of light?" Human wisdom, the manifestation of divine.
On his way to the lion the hare lingered, Devising a stratagem with himself.
He proceeded on his way after delaying long, In order to have a secret or two for the lion.
What worlds the principle of Reason embraces!
How broad is this ocean of Reason!
Yea, the Reason of man is a boundless ocean.
O son, that ocean requires, as it were, a diver.
8 On this fair ocean our human forms Float about, like bowls on the surface of water; Yea like cups on the surface, till they are.
filled; And when filled, these cups sink into the water.
The ocean of Reason is not seen ; reasoning men are seen; But our forms (minds) are only as waves or spray thereof.
Whatever form that ocean uses as its instrument, Therewith it casts its spray far and wide.
9 Till the heart sees the Giver of the secret, Till it espies that Bowman shooting from afar, It fancies its own steed lost, while in bewilderment It is urging that steed hither and thither; 10 It fancies its own steed lost, when all the while That swift steed is bearing it on like the wind.
In deep distress that blunder head Runs from door to door, searching and inquiring, "Who and where is he that hath stolen my steed?" They say, "What is this thou ridest on, O master?" He says, "True, 'tis a steed; but where is mine?" They say, "Look to thyself, O rider; thy steed is there." The real Soul is lost to view, and seems far off; 11 Thou art like a pitcher with full belly but dry lip; How canst thou ever see red, green, and scarlet Unless thou seest the light first of all?
When thy sight is dazzled by colors, These colors veil the light from thee.
But when night veils those colors from thee, Thou seest that colors are seen only through light.
As there is no seeing outward colors without light, So it is with the mental colors within.
Outward colors arise from the light of sun and stars, And inward colors from the Light on high.
The light that lights the eye is also the heart's Light; The eye's light proceeds from the Light of the heart.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
Outward colors from sun and stars correspond to inward colors from the Light on high.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
Souls void of substance resting in forms are criticized for attachment to external appearance.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
God actively orders knowledge and might, such as giving power to the Seven Sleepers' dog.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Blindness and doubt are described as a lack of light or knowledge rather than positive being.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
Human reason is described as an ocean and the heart mirrors cosmic light structures.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The rider searching for his steed while riding it symbolizes the soul's feeling of loss from its true nature.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
Adam's glory reached the seventh heaven through divine teaching and knowledge.