QUESTION 6
| WHAT is that part which is greater than its whole? |
| What is the way to find that part? |
Answer
| EGO is greater than what we imagine it to be; | |
| Ego is greater than the whole which you see. | |
| It falls from the heaven again and again to rise, | |
| It falls into the sea of the world to rise. | |
| Who else in the world is self-conscious | 5 |
| Who else can fly without wings? | |
| It lies in darkness and yet has a light in its bosom, | |
| Outside the paradise and yet has a houri in embrace! | |
| With the charming wisdom that it possesses, | |
| It brings out pearls from the depth of life. | 10 |
| The impulse of life is eternal, | |
| But looked at from outside, it is bound by time. | |
| Upon its destiny depends the position of this universe, | |
| Its manifestation and preservation of it. | |
| What do you ask about its nature? | 15 |
| Destiny is not something separate from its nature. | |
| What should I say about its character? | |
| Outwardly it is determined, inwardly it is free. | |
| Such is the saying of the Lord of Badr, | |
| That faith lies between determinism and indeterminism.1 | 20 |
| You call every creature to be determined, | |
| To be confined to the chains of "near" and "far." | |
| But the soul is from the breath of the Creator, | |
| Which lives in privacy with all its manifestations. | |
| Determinism with regard to it is out of question, | 25 |
| For soul without freedom is not a soul.2 | |
| It lay in ambush on this world of quantitative measurements. | |
| From determinism it passed over to freedom. | |
| When it (ego) removes from itself the dust of determinism, | |
| It drives its world like a camel. | 30 |
| The sky does not revolve without its permission, | |
| Nor do stars shine without its grace. | |
| One day it reveals its hidden nature, | |
| And sees its essence with its own eyes. | |
| Rows of heavenly choir stand on either side of the road, | 35 |
| Waiting for a glimpse of its countenance. | |
| The angel gets wine from its vine, | |
| It gets significance from its earth. | |
| You ask about the way of its seeking; | |
| Come down to the state of lamentation.3 | 40 |
| Change your days and nights for eternity, | |
| Change from intellect to the morning lamentation (intuition). | |
| Intellect has its source in senses, | |
| Lamentation gets light from love. | |
| Intellect grasps the part, lamentation the whole | 45 |
| Intellect dies but lamentation is immortal. | |
| Intellect has no categories to comprehend eternity, | |
| It counts moments as the hands of the watch. | |
| It contrives days and nights and mornings; | |
| It cannot catch the flames; therefore it takes on sparks. | 50 |
| The lamentation of the lovers is the ultimate goal, | |
| In one moment of it lies hidden a world. | |
| When the ego manifests its potentialities, | |
| It removes its inner knots and veil. | |
| You do not have that light by which it sees | 55 |
| You look upon it as momentary and mortal. | |
| Why fear that death which comes from without? | |
| For when the "I" ripens, into a self it has no danger of dissolution. | |
| There is a more subtle inner death | |
| Which makes me tremble! | 60 |
| This death is falling down from love's frenzy, | |
| Saving one's spark and not giving it away freely to the heaps of chaff; | |
| Cutting one's shroud with one's own hands; | |
| Seeing one's. death with one's own eyes; | |
| This death lies in ambush for thee! | 65 |
| Fear it, for that is really our death.5 | |
| It digs your grave in your body, | |
| Its Munkar and Nakir are with it.6 |