RELIGION OF THE SLAVES

IN servitude, religion and love are separated
Honey of life becomes bitter.
What is love? It is imprinting of Tawhid on the heart,
Then to strike oneself against difficulties.
In servitude love is nothing but an idle talk, 5
Our actions do not correspond with our professions.
The caravan of his ambition has no inclination for a journey,
It lacks faith, has no knowledge of the road, and is without a guide.
A slave underestimates both religion and wisdom;
In order to keep his body alive, he gives away his soul. 10
Although the name of God is on his lips,
His centre of attention is the power of the ruler—
Power that is nothing but ever-increasing falsehood,
Nothing but falsehood can come from it.
As long as you prostrate before it, this idol is your god, 15
But as soon as you stand up before it, it disappears.
That God gives you bread as well as life
This god gives you bread but snatches life away.
That God is One par excellence, this is divided into hundred parts;
That God provides everything for everybody; this god is totally helpless. 20
That God cures the ailment of separation,
The word of this god sows the seeds of disunity.
He makes his worshipper intimate with himself,
And then makes his eyes, ears, and consciousness infidels.
When he rides on the soul of his slave, 25
It is (no doubt) in his body but (in reality) is absent from it.
Alive and yet soulless! What is the mystery?
Listen, I unfold for you its manifold meaning.
O wise man! dying and living are
Nothing but relative events. 30
For the fish, mountains and deserts do not exist;
For the birds, the depth of the-sea is simply a nonentity.
For a deaf person, there is no charm in a song;
For him sound is non-existent.
A blind man enjoys the song of the harp, 35
But before a display of colours, he remains unaffected.
The soul with God is living and lasting;
For one it is dead, for the other it is alive.
It is God who is living and never dies;
To live with God is absolute life; 40
He who lives without God is nothing but dead.
Although nobody weeps and bewails over him.
To his-eyes, thing worth seeing is hidden,
His heart is unaware of the desire for change.
There is no mark of devotion in his deeds; 45
There is no breadth of vision in his talk
His religion is as narrow as his world,
His forenoon is darker than the night.
Life is a heavy burden on his-shoulders;
He nourishes death in his own bosom. 50
In his company even love suffers from manifold diseases,
With his breath is extinguished many a fire.
For a worm that did not rise from the earth
The sun, the moon, and the revolving sky do not exist at all.
You cannot expect from a slave any desire for "vision," 55
Nor is there in him any sign of an awakened soul.
His eyes never bore the trouble of "seeing";
He ate, slept well, and died.
If the ruler unfastens one bond,
He imposes another on him. 60
He produces a complex and intricate canon,
And expects from the slave unswerving obedience.
He sometimes shows a bit of wrath and malice towards the slave;
This increases in him the fear of sudden death.
When the slave. loses all faith in himself, 65
From his heart vanish all desires.
Sometimes he bestows on him handsome bounty,
And also invests him with some powers.
The chess-player throws the chessman out, of his hand,
And raises his pawn to the status of queen. 70
He becomes so much enamoured of to-day's well-being,
That in reality he becomes a denier of to-morrow.
His body fattens through the benevolence of the kings,
His dear soul becomes thin like a spindle.
It is better that a whole village of men be destroyed 75
Than that a single pure soul be subjected to sorrow and grief.
The fetters are not on feet, but (in fact) on the heart and soul;

This is indeed a very intriguing situation.