Shah Nematollah Vali - I Beheld My Essence (Fragment)
I beheld my essence
by Shah Nematollah Vali
English version by Peter Lamborn Wilson & Nasrollah Pourjavady
Original Language Persian/Farsi
I beheld my essence. What I saw
Was like the very light of the eye itself:
How wonderful that a single Essence should
Refract itself like a light, a single source
Into a million essences and hues.
The being of the lover and Beloved
Are the same, for where is Love without
A lover and Beloved to be found?
Behold His Essence by His Light, that you
May be yourself the seer and the Seen.
I have wandered through the essences
And found that His Reality makes up
The essence of all beings. To ourselves
We manifest ourselves; were it not so
There could be no relationship between
The One and many........." etc,
The rest of the poem is at this link Poetry Chaikhana | Shah Nematollah Vali - I beheld my essence
To describe the indescribable is both too difficult and too easy.
It is too difficult because, of course, it is impossible.
If we are made in the "image of the divine"
we still do not know, cannot know what that could possibly mean.
So we, the shepherd and Moses and me
stammer out our equally silly and incoherent praises and pleas.
knowing without knowing that they are accepted.
To describe the Indescribable is too easy.
I imagine that something has been revealed to me!!!
No problem, in fact i kind of like it.
The problem is that i must share this revelation with you.
when it was not the answer you sought,
and you know it came from me, rather than from God.
And this may cause me pain
which turns of fear
which turns to anger
which turns to hate,
which makes me tell lies about you.
So yes, describing the Indescribable is way too easy.
by Shah Nematollah Vali
English version by Peter Lamborn Wilson & Nasrollah Pourjavady
Original Language Persian/Farsi
I beheld my essence. What I saw
Was like the very light of the eye itself:
How wonderful that a single Essence should
Refract itself like a light, a single source
Into a million essences and hues.
The being of the lover and Beloved
Are the same, for where is Love without
A lover and Beloved to be found?
Behold His Essence by His Light, that you
May be yourself the seer and the Seen.
I have wandered through the essences
And found that His Reality makes up
The essence of all beings. To ourselves
We manifest ourselves; were it not so
There could be no relationship between
The One and many........." etc,
The rest of the poem is at this link Poetry Chaikhana | Shah Nematollah Vali - I beheld my essence
To describe the indescribable is both too difficult and too easy.
It is too difficult because, of course, it is impossible.
If we are made in the "image of the divine"
we still do not know, cannot know what that could possibly mean.
So we, the shepherd and Moses and me
stammer out our equally silly and incoherent praises and pleas.
knowing without knowing that they are accepted.
To describe the Indescribable is too easy.
I imagine that something has been revealed to me!!!
No problem, in fact i kind of like it.
The problem is that i must share this revelation with you.
when it was not the answer you sought,
and you know it came from me, rather than from God.
And this may cause me pain
which turns of fear
which turns to anger
which turns to hate,
which makes me tell lies about you.
So yes, describing the Indescribable is way too easy.