The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) · 25 of 37 · tr. E.H. Whinfield
STORY IX-d
I knew of myself what ye thought, But I desired that ye should speak it; As this boasting of yours is very improper, So shall my mercy be shown to prevail over my wrath: O angels, in order to show forth that prevailing, I inspired that pretension to cavil and doubt; If you say your say, and I forbear to punish you, The gainsayers of my mercy must hold their peace.
My mercy equals that of a hundred fathers and mothers; Every soul that is born is amazed thereat.
Their mercy is as the foam of the sea of my mercy; It is mere foam of waves, but the sea abides ever!
What more shall I say?
In that earthly shell There is naught but foam of foam of foam of foam!'" God is that foam; God is also that pure sea, For His words are neither a temptation nor a vain boast.
Plurality and Partial Evil, though seemingly opposed to Unity, subserve Good.
The story is now concluded, with its ups and downs, Like lovers' musings, without beginning or ending.
It has no beginning, even as eternity, Nor ending, for 'tis akin to world without end.
Or like water, each drop whereof is at once Beginning and end, and also has no beginning or end.
But God forbid!
This story is not a vain fable, 'Tis the ready money of your state and mine, be sure!
Before every Sufi who is enlightened Whatever is past is never mentioned.
When his whole thoughts are absorbed in present ecstasy, No thought of consequences enters his mind.
l0 Arab, water-pot, and angels are all ourselves!
"Whatsoever turneth from God is turned from Him." 11 Know the husband is reason, the wife lust and greed; She is vested with darkness and a gainsayer of reason.
Learn now whence springs the root of this circumstance, From this, that the Whole has parts of divers kinds.
These parts of the Whole are not parts in relation to it, Not in the way that rose's scent is a part of the rose.
The beauty of the green shoot is part of the rose's beauty, But the turtle-dove's cooing is a part of that Bulbuls music.
But if I engage in doubts and answers, How can I give water to thirsty souls?
Yet, if you are perplexed by Whole and finite parts, Have patience, for c( patience is the key of joy." Be abstinent, abstinent from vague thoughts, Since there are lions in that desert (of thoughts).
Abstinence is the prince of medicines, As scratching only aggravates a scab.
Abstinence is certainly the root of medicine; Practise abstinence, see how it invigorates thy soul!
Accept this counsel and give ear thereto, That it may be to thee as an earring of gold!
Nay, not a mere earring, but that thou mayest be a mine of gold, Or that thou mayest surpass moon and Pleiades.
First, know creation is in various forms; Souls are as various as the letters from Alif to Ya.
In this variety of letters there seems disorder, Though in fact they agree in an integral unity.
In one aspect they are opposed, in another united; In one aspect capricious, in another serious.
The day of judgment is the day of tho great review; Whoso is fair and enlightened longs for that review; Whoso, like a Hindoo, is black (with sin), The day of review will sound the knell of his disgrace.
Since he has not a face like a sun, He desires only night like to a veil!
If his thorn puts not forth a single rosebud, The spring in disclosing him is his foe.
But he who is from head to foot a perfect rose or lily, To him spring brings rejoicing.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The soul is encouraged to become a mine of gold and surpass the moon, using transformation imagery.
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.
The statement that angels and worldly objects are all ourselves implies a reflection of the self in the cosmos.
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.
The text urges abstinence from vague thoughts and letting go of consequences to achieve joy.
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's mercy is shown to prevail over wrath, indicating an active divine ordering of affairs.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The passage explicitly mentions the day of judgment as a great review where the enlightened and the sinful are distinguished.
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.
Partial evil is described as subserving good rather than being an ontological opposite, aligning with the privation theory.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The Sufi state is described as having thoughts absorbed in present ecstasy where no thought of consequences enters the mind.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The enlightened Sufi is described as having thoughts absorbed in present ecstasy.
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.
The text declares that external elements like the Arab, water-pot, and angels are all ourselves, identifying the human as a mirror of the cosmos.
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.
The soul is urged to become a mine of gold and surpass celestial bodies, implying transformation into divine likeness.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The passage explicitly states that plurality and partial evil subserve good and agree in an integral unity, reflecting the Sufi doctrine of Wahdat al-Wujud.