The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) · 33 of 37 · tr. E.H. Whinfield
STORY XV-a
Counsels of Reserve given by the Prophet to his Freedman Zaid.
At dawn the Prophet said to Zaid, "How is it with thee this morning, O pure disciple?" He replied, "Thy faithful slave am I." Again he said, "If the garden of faith has bloomed, show a token of it." He answered, "I was athirst many days, By night I slept not for the burning pangs of love; So that I passed by days and nights, As the point of a spear glances off a shield.
For in that state all faith is one, A hundred thousand years and a moment are all one; World without beginning and world without end are one; Reason finds no entrance when mind is thus lost." The Prophet again urged Zaid to deliver to him a present from that celestial region, as a token that he had really been there in the spirit.
Zaid answered that he had seen the eight heavens and the seven hells, and the destinies of all men, whether bound to heaven or hell.
The body, he said, is as a mother, and the soul as her infant, and death is the time of parturition, when it becomes manifest to what class the infant soul belongs.
As, on the day of judgment it will be manifest to all men whether a soul belongs to the saved or to the lost, so now it was plain and manifest to him.
He went on to ask the Prophet if he should publish this secret knowledge of his to all men, or hold his peace.
The Prophet told him to hold his peace.
Zaid, however, proceeded to detail the vision of the last judgment, which he had seen when in the spirit; and the Prophet again commanded him to pause, adding that" God is never ashamed to say the truth," l and allows His Prophet to speak forth the truth, but that for Zaid to blab forth the secrets seen in ecstatic vision would be wrong.
Zaid replied that it was impossible for one who had once beheld the Sun of "The Truth" to keep his vision a secret.
But the Prophet in reply instructed him that all men are masters of their own wills, and that he must not reveal what God has determined to keep secret till the last day, in order to leave men till then under the stimulus of hope and fear, and to give them the credit of "believing what is not seen." 2 More honour is given to the warder of a castle who faithfully executes his trust at a distance from the court than to those courtiers who serve constantly under the king's own eye.
Zaid submitted to tho Prophet's injunctions, and remained self-contained in his ecstatic visions.
Anecdotes of the sage Luqman, of King Solomon, and of a conflagration in the days of the Khalifa 'Omar complete the section.
The Prophet's final counsels of "Reserve".
The Prophet said, "My companions are as the stars, Lights to them that walk aright, missiles against Satan.
If every man had strength of eyesight To look straight at the light of the sun in heaven, What need were there of stars, O humble one, To one who was guided by the light of the sun?
Neither moon nor planets would be needed By one who saw directly the Sun of 'The Truth.' The Moon 3 declares, as also the clouds and shadows, ' I am a man, yet it hath been revealed to me.' 4 Like you, I was naturally dark, 'Twas the Sun's revelation that gave me such light.
I still am dark compared to the Sun, Though I am light compared to the dark souls of men.
Therefore is my light weak, that you may bear it, For you are not strong enough to bear the dazzling Sun.
I have, as it were, mixed honey with vinegar, To succour the sickness of your hearts.
Ecstatic, non-rational receptivity to the divine figured as drunkenness — Plato's symposium wine, Rumi's sukr, Eckhart's 'sober drunkenness'; the passive/receptive metaphor for divine encounter, distinct from divine_madness's active possessing rapture.
The 'burning pangs of love' and the loss of reason depict an ecstatic receptivity to the divine akin to spiritual intoxication.
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
[auto] The passage concludes with an extended metaphor of the Sun of Truth, the Prophet as the Moon, and companions as stars, illustrating divine illumination.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
Zaid's state is described as one where 'Reason finds no entrance when mind is thus lost,' framing ecstatic irrationality as higher knowledge.
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.
[auto] Zaid describes a vision of the last judgment where the destinies of all men and their classification as saved or lost are made manifest.
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 text describes the mind being lost and reason finding no entrance, characteristic of Sufi self-effacement in God.