When you have come to live through God

From Sunlight:

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To exalt oneself is to claim partnership with God.
Unless you have died and become living through Him,
you are an enemy seeking to hold the power.
But when you have come to live through God,
that which you have become is in truth He:
it is no longer copartnership, but absolute Unity.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In foru`ast va osulesh ân bovad
keh taraffo` sherkat-e Yazdân bovad
Chon na-mordi o na-gashti zendeh zu
yâghiyi bâshi be-sherkat-e molk ju
Chon bedu zendeh shodi ân khvod Vayst
vahdat-e mahz ast ân sherkat kayst

-- Mathnawi IV: 2765-2767
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)

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Mary pregnant

From Sunlight today, an interesting snippet from the Masnawi by the Helminskis:

The Universal Soul met a separate soul
and placed a pearl on her breast.
Through such contact the soul, like Mary,
became pregnant with a heart-winning messiah.

Mathnawi II: 1183-1184
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

This comes from Book II, STORY IV. The Falcon and the Owls., where it is rendered thus by Whinfield:

Universal Soul had connection with Partial Soul,
Which thence conceived a pearl and retained it in its bosom.
From that connection, like Mary,
Soul became pregnant of a fair Messiah;
Not that Messiah who walked upon earth and water,
But that Messiah who is higher than space. *
Next, as Soul became pregnant by the Soul of souls,
So by the former Soul did the world become pregnant;
Then the World brought forth another world,
And of this last are brought forth other worlds.
Should I reckon them in my speech till the last day
I should fail to tell the total of these resurrections.

Abridged and Translated by E.H. Whinfield [1898]
* i.e., the spirit of the Prophet Muhammad, whom the Sufis identify with the Primal Soul.

invitation to Islam?

From sunlight, a passage from the Masnavi that seems to invite the reader to Islam:

All selfish pleasures are false:
surrounding that flash of lightning is a wall of darkness.
The lightning gleams but a moment,
then surrounded by darkness, you'll find the way long.
By that light you can neither read a letter
nor ride to your destination.
But, because of your enchantment with the lightning,
the beams of sunrise withdraw from you.
Mile after mile through the night
the lightning's deception leads you,
without a guide, in a dark wilderness.

One moment you fall against a mountain, the next into a river;
now you wander in this direction, now in that.
O seeker of worldly position, you'll never find the guide;
and if you find him, you'll turn your face from him,
saying, "I've already traveled sixty miles on this road,
and now this guide tells me I've lost my way.
If I pay attention to his strange advice,
I'd have to begin my journey all over again under his orders.
I've devoted my life to this journey:
I'll pursue it come what may. Go away, O master!"

"Yes, you have journeyed far,
but only in opinion insubstantial as lightning:
come, make even a tenth of that journey
for the sake of the glorious sun of Divine inspiration.
You have read the verse, Opinion cannot serve instead of truth,
and yet by a lightning flash like that
you've been blinded to a rising sun.
Listen, climb into our boat, O wretched one,
or at least tie that boat of yours to this boat."

Mathnawi VI: 4094-4106
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

A possible verse from the Koran as referred to in "You have read the verse" at the 5th line from the end:

6:116 Pickthall
If thou obeyedst most of those on earth they would mislead thee far from Allah's way. They follow naught but an opinion, and they do but guess.