Rumi's Masnavi - Go, recite (the text) to whom so We grant length of days, him We cause to decline. Seek the heart (spirit), set not thy heart on bones;

Go, recite (the text) to whom so We grant length of days, him We cause to decline. Seek the heart (spirit), set not thy heart on bones; 715

رو نعمره ننکسه بخوان ** دل طلب کن دل منه بر استخوان‏

For that beauty of the heart is the lasting beauty: its fortune gives to drink of the Water of Life.

کان جمال دل جمال باقی است ** دولتش از آب حیوان ساقی است‏

Truly it is both the water and the giver of drink and the drunken: all three become one when your talisman is shattered.

خود هم او آب است و هم ساقی و مست ** هر سه یک شد چون طلسم تو شکست‏

That oneness you cannot know by reasoning. Do service (to God) and refrain from foolish gabble, O undiscerning man!

آن یکی را تو ندانی از قیاس ** بندگی کن ژاژ کم خا ناشناس‏

Your reality is the form and that which is borrowed: you rejoice in what is relative and (secondary like) rhyme.

معنی تو صورت است و عاریت ** بر مناسب شادی و بر قافیت‏

Reality is that which seizes (enraptures) you and makes you independent of form. 720

معنی آن باشد که بستاند ترا ** بی‏نیاز از نقش گرداند ترا

Reality is not that which makes blind and deaf and causes a man to be more in love with form.

معنی آن نبود که کور و کر کند ** مرد را بر نقش عاشق‏تر کند

The portion of the blind is the fancy that increases pain; the share of the (spiritual) eye is these fancies (ideas) of dying to self (faná).

کور را قسمت خیال غم فزاست ** بهره‏ی چشم این خیالات فناست‏

The blind are a mine (full) of the letter of the Qur’án: they do not see the ass, and (only) cling to the pack-saddle.

حرف قرآن را ضریران معدن‏اند ** خر نبینند و به پالان بر زنند

Since you have sight, go after the ass which has jumped (away from you): how long (will you persist in) stitching the saddle, O saddle-worshipper?

چون تو بینایی پی خر رو که جست ** چند پالان دوزی ای پالان پرست‏