EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION



Before everything you own slips away
tell the material world, like Mary:
My refuge is with the Merciful.

In her room Mary had seen something
that won her heart, something intensely alive.
That trusted spirit rose from the face of the earth
like a sun or moon rising in the East,
like beauty unveiled.

Mary, who was undressed, began to tremble,
afraid of the evil that might be in it.
This kind of thing could cause
Joseph to cut his own wrist.
It flowered in front of her like a rose,
like a fantasy that lifts its head in the heart.

Mary became selfless and in this selflessness
she said, “I will leap into God’s protection,”
because that pure-bosomed one
could take herself to the Unseen.
Since she thought this world temporary kingdom,
she built her fortress in Presence,
so that in the hour of death
she would be invulnerable.

She saw no better protection than God;
she made her home near to God’s castle…

God is ahead, and all perceptions must fall behind.
All perceptions are riding on lame donkeys,
while God is riding on an arrow traveling through space.
If God chooses to escape,
none can even find the dust God leaves behind;
and if they choose to flee, God simply bars the way…

If night never came, people would waste themselves
pursuing all that they desire.
They would give their own bodies to be consumed
for the sake of their desire and greed,
but night appears, a treasure of Mercy,
to save them from desires for a short while.

When you feel contraction, traveler,
it’s for your own good.  Don’t burn with grief.
In the state of expansion and delight
you are spending something, and that spending
needs the income of pain.

If it were always summertime,
the blazing heat would burn the garden,
soil and roots, so that nothing would ever grow again.
December  is grim yet kind;
summer is all laughter, and yet it burns.

When contraction comes, see the expansion in it;
be cheerful, don’t frown.
The children laugh; the sages look serious.
Sorrow is from the liver and laughter from the lungs.
…The eyes of the wise see to the end.



excerpts from
MATHNAWI III, verses 3700-3741
(translated by Kabir Helminski)