The Masnavi, Book One (Oxford World's Classics)

The Jewish Vizier who Misled Christians
32

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Renounce the world now on your own accord
And it will seek you out to be its lord!’
The next one said, ‘What God has brought to view
He’s made look good especially for you:
It’s for your sake, accept it happily,
485
Don’t choose to wallow in your misery!’
The next one said, ‘Abandon what you own,
Since what the self desires you can’t condone!
Each path seems easily followed to the goal
So each one loves his sect more than his soul,
But if the path were open to each creed
Then Jews and Magians also could succeed.’
The next said, ‘This is all I know for sure,
The soul’s food is what makes your heart endure:
Our sensual tasting’s transient, like blown sand,
490
And nothing ever grows from barren land:
Its produce is regret for farming it,
Its sale results in a huge de
ficit,
It gives no bene
ficial fruit at all
So as ‘de
ficient’ it is known to all,
Choose what is favourable from what is not
To know the end-result before it’s sought!’
‘Seek out a trusty guide,’ the next one said,
‘You can’t tell what’s in front just by your head!
Each sect had thought that they could see the goal
495
Then fell in error deep inside a hole!
If everyone could know what to expect
There wouldn’t be disputes between each sect.’
The next said, ‘You’re the perfect guide, please rise,
For others only you can recognize,
Become a man, don’t be a foolish clown,
Hold up your head, don’t turn your gaze back down!’
The next said, ‘All around is unity,
Just cross-eyed wretches see duality!’
The next said, ‘How can millions equal one?
500
That’s just what madmen like to claim for fun!’
And so their rivals’ views each group would blame,
One’s meat and poison never judged the same:
The Jewish Vizier who Misled Christians
33

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Until you can transcend the di
fferences
You’ll never breathe in union’s fragrances;
Such di
fferent scrolls, each written in this style,
The foe of Jesus wrote with all his guile.
Explanation of how the di
fferences are apparent in form,
but not in the reality of the way
Not seeing Jesus’s one-colouredness
About his vat of dye he didn’t guess:
*
A multi-coloured garment placed in there
505
Comes out one-coloured, clearer than the air,
Not that one-colouredness which seems a bore
But like pure water which all 
fish adore:
A thousand colours decorate the land
But dryness on the shore no 
fish can stand,
So who’s the 
fish and what is water here
That the Almighty should like them appear!
Thousands of 
fish and seas lie down prostrate
Before the Lord, obeying his dictate!
How many rains have poured down 
filled with grace
510
And scattered pearls up from the ocean’s base,
And through His grace how many suns have shone
The clouds and seas with care to smile upon:
A ray of knowledge shone on soil and clay
To teach them how to nurture seeds this way,
Such ground is pure no matter what you sow,
Without a defect plants will quickly grow,
Its soundness comes from the primordial trust
*––
That’s why it gets its light from the All-Just,
But spring must give a signal from the Lord
515
Before the soil reveals its hidden horde.
He’s given to inanimate things too
Knowledge, a trust and rectitude –– it’s true!
His grace schools even things without a mind,
His wrath leaves educated scholars blind!