QUESTION 4
| How did the eternal and temporal separate, |
| That one became the world, and the other God? |
| If the knower and known are the One pure essence, |
| What are the aspirations of this handful of earth? |
Answer
| THE life of the ego is to bring non-ego into existence, | |
| The separation of the knower and known is good. | |
| Our ideas of eternal and temporal are due to our way of reckoning, | |
| Our reckoning is the result of the spell of mathematical time. | |
| We constantly talk of yesterday and to-morrow, | 5 |
| We deal with "is," "was," and "might be." | |
| To sever ourselves from Him is our nature, | |
| And also to be restless and not to reach the goal. | |
| Neither do we get worth in separation from Him, | |
| Nor does He feel peace without union with us; | 10 |
| Neither He without us, nor we without Him! How strange! | |
| Our separation is separation-in-union. | |
| Separation gives to this dust (i.e. man) an insight, | |
| It gives the weight of a mountain to a straw. | |
| Separation is a token of love; | 15 |
| It agrees with the nature of lovers. | |
| If we are alive, it is due to this affliction (of separation), | |
| And if we are immortal, it is due to it. | |
| What is "I" and "He"? It is a divine mystery | |
| "I" and "He" are a witness to our immortality.1 | 20 |
| The light of the Essence is everywhere, hidden and apparent ; | |
| To live in company is real life. | |
| Love does not acquire insight without company, | |
| And without company, it does not become self-conscious. | |
| In our assembly, there are divine manifestations, behold! | 25 |
| The world is non-existent and He is existent,2 behold. | |
| Doors and walls, cities, towns and streets are not there, | |
| For here there is nothing existent except we and He. | |
| Sometimes He makes Himself a stranger to us, | |
| Sometimes He plays upon us as upon a musical instrument. | 30 |
| Sometimes we fashion His idol out of stone, | |
| Sometimes we prostrate before Him without having seen Him. | |
| Sometimes we tear every veil of Nature, | |
| And boldly see His beautiful face. | |
| What fancy has this handful of dust? | 35 |
| It is due to this fancy that his inner self is illumined. | |
| What a nice fancy that he bewails in separation | |
| And yet he grows and develops through it. | |
| This separation developed in him such a spiritual insight, | |
| That he turned his dusk into a dawn. | 40 |
| He made the ego subject to affliction: | |
| Thus turned the ancient grief into an ever-living joy. | |
| He got strings of pearls from the tears of his eyes | |
| From the tree of bewailing he got sweet fruit. | |
| To press the ego tightly to the bosom | 45 |
| Is to turn death into everlasting life. | |
| What is Love? It is to tie all the different stages in a knot. | |
| What is Love? It is to pass beyond all goals. | |
| Love does not know of any termination, | |
| Its dawn has no dusk. | 50 |
| There are no bends in its way as in that of intellect, | |
| In its lustre of a moment, there is a world. | |
| Thousands of worlds lie along our path, | |
| How can our endeavours reach their finale? | |
| O traveller I live for ever and die for ever, | 55 |
| Take hold of the world that comes before you. | |
| It is not the goal of our journey to merge ourselves in His ocean. | |
| If you catch hold of Him, it is not fana (extinction). | |
| It is impossible for an ego to be absorbed in another ego, | |
| For the ego to be itself is its perfection.3 | 60 |