Once someone asked a dervish to portray
The nature of this world in which we stray.
He said: “This various world is like a toy –
A coloured palm-tree given to a boy,
But made of wax – now knead it in your fist,
And there’s the wax of which its shapes consist;
The lovely forms and colours are undone,
And what seemed many things is only one.
All things are one – there isn’t any two;
It isn’t me who speaks;
it isn’t you.
Farīd ud-Dīn Aṭṭār
(the conference of the birds)
The conference of the birds is an incredible work of art by the Persian mystic / #Sufi poet https://systems.social/notificationsFarid ud-Din Attar. Written in 1177, it describes the journey of a group of birds on a mission to find the Simorgh, the "king of all birds" (a metaphor for God) only to discover God within themselves.
The home we seek is in eternity;
The Truth we seek is like a shoreless sea,
Of which your paradise is but a drop.
This ocean can be yours; why should you stop
Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?
The secrets of the sun are yours, but you
Content yourself with motes trapped in its beams.
Turn to what truly lives, reject what seems --
Which matters more, the body or the soul?
Be whole: desire and journey to the Whole.
Dirk-Jan Swagerman