One day a child goes to his mother and asks her, “Ma, who is that inane old man sitting on the mountain? ”
Mother answers, “Don’t call him an old man, for he is a wise one, who knows the answer to every question in this universe.”
“Really, he knows answers to all questions?” asks the child.
“Yes my dear” replies the mother.
The child goes to the mountain where the ancient is meditating, catches a butterfly in from the garden, and cupping the butterfly gently in his hands, he approaches him. Keeping his hand behind his back, he asks him, ” Is the thing in my hand alive or dead?” The child thinks that if the ancient answers that the thing is alive, he will crush the butterfly in his hand and show the dead butterfly proving him wrong. And if the ancient answers that the thing is dead, he will open his gently cupped hand, allowing the butterfly to fly away showing that the butterfly was alive and again proving him wrong. Thus,no one can know the answer to all questions.
“Is the thing in my hand alive or dead?” repeats the eager child.
The Ancient opens his eyes, nods his head and replies,

“My dear son, the answer lies in your hands!”

Naomi Shihab Nye

What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments?

I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don’t kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don’t suck candy, pop balloons, drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don’t lose the yellow gloves.
I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a stream—the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches—I let a glove go. Into the stream, sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn’t have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother’s eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn’t want to be the one to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks, lining up donkeys in windowsills. To be good, a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night. If you don’t get in my bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.

The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and drew and fattened the cat. Don’t scream, don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t fight—you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change—next June I was stirring the stream like a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he’d only hurry up with the bread, when I saw it. The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.

Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos?

Part of the difference between floating and going down.

William Shakespeare

Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain:

As, painfully to pore upon a book, To seek the light of truth,

which truth the while doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.

Hasan al Basri RA

Death has shown the reality of this worldly life.

It did not leave any happiness for those who are wise.

Patrick White

"I am uncomfortably aware of the very little I have seen and experienced of things in general, and of our country in particular,' Miss Trevelyan had just confessed, 'but the little I have seen is less, I like to feel, than what I know. Knowledge was never a matter of geography. Quite the reverse, it overflows all maps that exist. Perhaps true knowledge only comes of death by torture in the country of the mind."

(Voss)

William Butler Yeats

All the words that I utter,

And all the words that I write,

Must spread out their wings untiring,

And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,

And sing to you in the night,

Beyond where the waters are moving,

Storm-darken'd or starry bright.

"Allah will provide," said Nasrudin one day to a man who was complaining that someone had stolen some cash from his house.
The man expressed doubt.
Nasrudin took him to the mosque, and rolled on the ground, calling upon Allah to restore the man's twenty silver coins.
Annoyed by his presence, the congregation made a collection and the sum was handed to the surprised loser.
"You may not understand the means which operate in this world," said the Mullah, "but I trust that you understand the end when it is handed to you in such a concrete form."

Peter Gizzi

You stand far from the crowd, adjacent to power.

You consider the edge as well as the frame.

You consider beauty, depth of field, lighting

to understand the field, the crowd.

Late into the day, the atmosphere explodes

and revolution, well, revolution is everything.

You begin to see for the first time

everything is just like the last thing

only its opposite and only for a moment.

When a revolution completes its orbit

the objects return only different

for having stayed the same throughout.

To continue is not what you imagined.

But what you imagined was to change

and so you have and so has the crowd.

Emily Dickinson

How happy is the little Stone

That rambles in the Road alone,

And doesn't care about Careers

And Exigencies never fears

Whose Coat of elemental Brown

A passing Universe put on,

And independent as the Sun

Associates or glows alone,

Fulfilling absolute Decree

In casual simplicity

Idries Shah

The ordinary man writes a letter with little thought for the state of the person who reads it; and much regard for his own state.The thoughtful man writes a letter bearing in mind what he thinks will be the mind of the person who reads it.The learned man writes few letters, in case he cannot anticipate the state of the recipient.The Sufi writes no letter until he can know exactly what will be the state of mind in the man who receives it.The Adept writes any letter which has to be written.The Arif (gnostic) has no need of writing nor receiving letters.But such is the confusion of mankind that:If the Arif does not write, he will be thought very great or perhaps very heedless. The Adept, writing a necessary letter, will be judged as if he was an emotionalist or propangandist. The Sufi,divining the state of mind of the recipient, will be thought to write unsuitable letters. The learned man will be thought, from his paucity of letters, to be more occupied in something else. The thoughtful man will not be able to communicate well, in case something he writes gives offense. The ordinary man, writing all kinds of letters, may have them collected and selected. If he writes enough, people will choose those which seem to them valuable. On the basis of these, he can be erroneously styled a saint.

~as collected by Idries Shah

Gennady Aygi

Listening – in place of speaking.

Even – more important than vision,

than any vision (even – in imagination)….

pauses are the places of reverence before:

the Song

Harun ar-Rashid received a party of intending students whose heads were filled with his wonders and the excitement of arriving so near to the source of the Teaching.
He said :-“Let one of you be your spokesman, and let him tell me of your feelings.”
One of the visitors stepped forward and said :-“We are stimulated by the Presence, and eager for the Knowledge, and elevated by the Tradition.”
Rashid said :-“That is a truthful account of your feelings. Because you all love the exciting, I shall have to give you the banal. You are to learn through life. And life - the key to knowledge - is the most banal of all things. You will have to undergo experiences which will make you understand life, not make it more interesting.”
One of those present exclaimed :-“That man whom you asked to represent us speaks for himself, and yet we must all be judged by his behaviour!”
Rashid said :-“He may think that he speaks for all of you. You may think that he speaks only for himself. But it is I who have agreed that he speaks for all. Are you already disputing my authority ? To do so shows that you crave excitement, and verifies the words which you are trying to refute!”

Peter Gizzi

Vincent, Homesick for the Land of Pictures

Is this what you intended, Vincent
that we take our rest at the end of the grove
nestled into our portion beneath the bird’s migration
saying, who and how am I made better through struggle.
Or why am I I inside this empty arboretum
this inward spiral of whoop ass and vision
the leafy vine twisting and choking the tree.
O, dear heaven, if you are indeed that
or if you can indeed hear what I might say
heal me and grant me laughter’s bounty
of eyes and smiles, of eyes and affection.
To not be naive and think of silly answers only
not to imagine answers would be the only destination
nor is questioning color even useful now
now that the white ray in the distant tree beacons.
That the sun can do this to us, every one of us
that the sun can do this to everything inside
the broken light refracted through leaves.
What the ancients called peace, no clearer example
what our fathers called the good, what better celebration.
Leaves shine in the body and in the head alike
the sun touches deeper than thought.
O to be useful, of use, to the actual seen thing
to be in some way related by one’s actions in the world.
There might be nothing greater than this
nothing truer to the good feelings that vibrate within
like in the middle of the flower I call your name.
To correspond, to be in equanimity with organic stuff
to toil and to reflect and to home and to paint
father, and further, the migration of things.
The homing action of geese and wood mice.
The ample evidence of the sun inside all life
inside all life seen and felt and all the atomic pieces too.
But felt things exist in shadow, let us reflect.
The darkness bears a shine as yet unpunished by clarity
but perhaps a depth that outshines clarity and is true.
The dark is close to doubt and therefore close to the sun
at least what the old books called science or bowed down to.
The dark is not evil for it has indigo and cobalt inside
and let us never forget indigo and the warmth of that
the warmth of the mind reflected in a dark time
in the time of pictures and refracted light.
Ah, the sun is here too in the polar region of night
the animal proximity of another and of nigh.
To step into it as into a large surf in late August
to go out underneath it all above and sparkling.
To wonder and to dream and to look up at it
wondrous and strange companion to all our days
and the toil and worry and animal fear always with us.
The night sky, the deep sense of space, actual bodies of light
the gemstone brushstrokes in rays and shimmers
to be held tight, wound tighter in the act of seeing.
The sheer vertical act of feeling caught up in it
the sky, the moon, the many heavenly forms
these starry nights alone and connected alive at the edge.
Now to think of the silver and the almost blue in pewter.
To feel these hues down deep, feel color wax and wane
and yellow, yellows are the tonality of work and bread.
The deep abiding sun touching down and making its impression
making so much more of itself here than where it signals
the great burning orb installed at the center of each and every thing.
Isn’t it comforting this notion of each and every thing
thought nothing might be the final and actual expression of it
that nothing at the center of something alive and burning
green then mint, blue then shale, gray and gray into violet
into luminous dusk into dust then scattered now gone.
But what is the use now of this narrow ray, this door ajar
the narrow path canopied in dense wood calling
what of the striated purposelessness in lapidary shading and line.
To move on, to push forward, to take the next step, to die.
The circles grow large and ripple in the hatch-marked forever
the circle on the horizon rolling over and over into paint
into the not near, the now far, the distant long-off line of daylight.
That light was my enemy and one great source of agony
one great solace in paint and brotherhood the sky and grass.
The fragrant hills spoke in flowering tones I could hear
the gnarled cut stumps tearing the sky, eating the sun.
The gnarled cut stumps tearing the sky, eating the sun
the fragrant hills spoke in flowering tones I could hear
one great solace in paint and brotherhood the sky and grass.
That light was my enemy and one great source of agony
into the not near, the now far, the distant long-off line of daylight
the circle on the horizon rolling over and over into paint.
The circles grow large and ripple in the hatch-marked forever.
To move on, to push forward, to take the next step, to die.
What of the striated purposelessness in lapidary shading and line
the narrow path canopied in dense wood calling
but what is the use now of this narrow ray, this door ajar.
Into luminous dusk into dust then scattered now gone
green then mint, blue then shale, gray and gray into violet
that nothing at the center of something alive and burning
through nothing might be the final and actual expression of it.
Isn’t it comforting this notion of each and every thing
the great burning orb installed at the center of each and every thing
making so much more of itself here than where it signals.
The deep abiding sun touching down and making its impression
and yellow, yellows are the tonality of work and bread.
To feel these hues down deep, feel color wax and wane
now to think of the silver and the almost blue in pewter.
These starry nights alone and connected alive at the edge
the sky, the moon, the many heavenly forms
the sheer vertical act of feeling caught up in it.
To be held tight, wound tighter in the act of seeing
the gemstone brushstrokes in rays and shimmers.
The night sky, the deep sense of space, actual bodies of light
and the toil and worry and animal fear always with us
wondrous and strange companion to all our days.
To wonder and to dream and to look up at it
to go out underneath it all above and sparkling
to step into it as into a large surf in late August.
The animal proximity of another and of nigh.
Ah, the sun is here too in the polar region of night
in the time of pictures and refracted light
the warmth of the mind reflected in a dark time
and let us never forget indigo and the warmth of that.
The dark is not evil for it has indigo and cobalt inside
at least what the old books called science or bowed down to.
The dark is close to doubt and therefore close to the sun
but perhaps a depth that outshines clarity and is true.
The darkness bears a shine as yet unpunished by clarity
but felt things exist in shadow, let us reflect.
Inside all life seen and felt and all the atomic pieces too
the ample evidence of the sun inside all life
the homing action of geese and wood mice
father, and furhter, the migration of things.
To toil and to reflect and to home and to paint
to correspond, to be in equanimity with organic stuff
like in the middle of the flower I call your name.
Nothing truer to the good feelings that vibrate within
there might be nothing greater than this
to be in some way related by one’s actions in the world.
O to be useful, of use, to the actual seen thing.
The sun touches deeper than thought
leaves shine in the body and in the head alike
what our fathers called the good, what better celebration.
What the ancients called peace, no clearer example
the broken light refracted through leaves.
That the sun can do this to everything inside
that the sun can do this to us, every one of us
now that the white ray in the distant tree beacons.
Nor is questioning color even useful now
nor to imagine answers would be the only destination
to not be naive and think of silly answers only.
Of eyes and smiles, of eyes and affection
heal me and grant me laughter’s bounty.
Or if you can indeed hear what I might say
O, dear heaven, if you are indeed that
the leafy vine twisting and choking the tree
this inward spiral of whoop ass and vision.
Or why am I I inside this empty arboretum
saying, who and how am I made better through struggle
nestled into our portion beneath the bird’s migration
that we take our rest at the end of the grove
is this what you intended, Vincent.

Amjad Nasser

A Song and Three Questions

I.Talk is silver,poetry is gold,

and women are the ringing of both metals.

Poems will be our songs from now on.

Let’s start then without borrowings or embellishments

and look at the living things between us with an eye for praise.

Let the song celebrate our contentedness

and those joys only shepherds know,

whose song and the smell of their armpits

have spread among goat paths and scrub grass

and who have disappeared never to return.

II.Shall we blow into a silver trumpet?

But how can shepherds live without songs

and sheep and desires?

No, we’ll sing,

How could there be shepherds without horses and violins

and wounds that never heal?

III.Talk is silver,poetry is gold,

and women are the ringing of both metals.

Poetry will be our songs from now on.

Let’s dedicate themto those who will never return,

to the shepherds of freckled dawns,

to the chants dressed in wedding clothes,

to the women who loved the fiercest stags

and who preferred the Eros of copper,

spring grasses and buried wells,

falcons and night predators and the tiger of Arabia,

cymbals, bayonets, skiffs and saddles,

studded with the blood of the tribes,

the shouts of young lads yet to learn how to

tame their mares,and the flight of whole tribes from open country

pulling hard at iron bits.
And even further than that—

broken flutes and hollow bones will surprise us with three questions:

How much time has passed?

Have the old wounds healed?

What names are still in use?

How do we answer?

Will it be enough to say,

Talk is silver, poetry is gold

and women are the ringing of both metals

and poetry will be our language from now on?

Fellow shepherds, let’s dig into our bowls filled to the brim.

Let us begin our chants.

Idries Shah

Valuable and Worthless

A certain king one day called a counsellor to him and said: "The strength of real thinking depends upon the examination of alternatives. Tell me which alternative is better: to increase the knowledge of my people or to give them more to eat. In either case they will benefit."
The Sufi said: "Majesty, there is no point in giving knowledge to those who cannot receive it, any more than there is point in giving food to those who cannot understand your motives. Therefore it is not correct to assume that 'in either case they will benefit.' If they cannot digest the food, or if they think you give it to them as a bribe, or that they can get more--you have failed. If they cannot see that they are being given knowledge, or whether it is knowledge or not, or even why you are giving it to them--they will not benefit. Therefore the question must be taken by degrees. The first degree is the consideration: 'The most valuable person is worthless and the most worthless person is valuable.'"
"Demonstrate this truth to me, for I cannot understand it," said the king.
The Sufi then called the chief dervish of Afghanistan, and he came to the Court. "If you had your way, what would you have someone in Kabul do?" he asked.
"It so happens that there is a man near such-and-such a place who, if he knew it, could be giving a pound of cherries to a certain necessitous man, gain a fortune for himself and also great advancement for the whole country and progress for the Path," said the chief dervish, who knew of the inner correspondence of things.
The king was excited, for Sufis do not generally discourse upon such things. "Call him here and we will have it done," he cried. The others silenced him with a gesture. "No," said the first Sufi, "this cannot work unless it is done voluntarily."
In disguise, in order not to influence the man's choice, the three of them went straight to the Kabul bazaar. Divested of his turban and robe, the chief Sufi looked very much like any ordinary man. "I will take the part of the exciting cause," he whispered, as the group stood looking at the fruit. He approached the greengrocer and wished him good day. Then he said, "I know a poor man. Will you give him a pound of cherries, as a charity?" The greengrocer bellowed with laughter. "Well, I have heard some tricks, but this is the first time that someone who wanted cherries has stooped to ask me as if it were for charity!"
"You see what I mean?" the first Sufi asked the king. "the most valuable man we have has just made the most valuable suggestion, and the event has proved that he is worthless to the man to whom he speaks."
"But what about 'the most worthless person' being valuable?" asked the king.
The two dervishes beckoned him to follow them.
As they were about to cross the Kabul River, the two Sufis suddenly seized the king and threw him into the water. He could not swim.
As he felt himself about to drown, Kaka Divana--whose name means Insane Uncle--a well-known pauper and lunatic who roamed the streets, jumped in and brought him safely to the bank. Various other, more solid, citizens had seen him in the water, but none moved.
When the king was somewhat restored, the two dervishes intoned together: "The most worthless person is valuable!"
So the king went back to his old, traditional method of giving whatever he could--whether education or help of any kind--to those whom it was decided from time to time were the most worthy recipients of such aid.

-as quoted by Idries Shah in Tales of the Dervishes-

Richard Purdy Wilbur

I.Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones:

But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.

II.We milk the cow of the world, and as we do

We whisper in her ear, 'You are not true.'

E. E. Cummings

stand with your lover on the ending earth-

and while a (huge by which huger than huge)

whoing sea leaps to greenly hurl snow,

suppose we could not love, dear; imagine

ourselves like living neither nor dead these

(or many thousands hearts which don't and dream

or many million minds which sleep and move)

blind sand, at pitiless the mercy of

time time time time time

how fortunate are you and I, whose home

is timelessness: we who have wondered down

from fragrant mountains of eternal now

to frolic in such mysteries as birth

and death a day (or maybe even less)

Rumi(RA)

I know of a bond that connects soul to soul,

in a way much deeper than familiarity or blood.
Forged by Divine decree.

Duly registered as apportioned Rizq.
The Teacher and the Student meet somewhere before time,

and they are eternally connected.
A teacher of religion opens whole worlds to his pupil:

the secrets of this life, the spiritual realm,

the Divine and the self. Perfection and imperfection.
He is visionary, he is powerful.

He is the guide, and you are the lost traveler.
If he is true, he will lead you to Paradise, step by careful step.
‘Empty your cup.’
Come blank, empty, open, so that you can receive.
You must take humility as your cloak.
But what of ties that strangle?
You believe that if you submit to him and his Way, you are guided.
You will no longer be lost.
The path to Allah is clear. It is at his feet.
He will take you by the hand to safe shores.
His love for you is overwhelming.

So he will shape you, mind and soul, and purge you of your evils.
Soul, did you not think, when you laid your whole being in his gentle hands:

What if he missteps?
Is he not formed by his experiences, by the ties that bind him?
This deen is wide. Why do you narrow it?
You must craft your cup from the firm clay of knowledge,

and bake it to solidity in the heat of courage,

deep thinking, and dependence on Allah alone.
And engrave on its side, in a delicate script, the following words:
Beauty lies in intelligent, mindful devotion.
Every love has an adab.
Even dervishes must have ijaaza before they spin.
I am no feather in the wind, nor an unmoulded being.
I am an empty cup, with a solid base and a structured rim,
Firm against passion. Shaped for sacred words.
I fill with good, whatever its source, and pour out wrong.