One night the famous saint of Tus, that ocean of spiritual secrets, said to his disciple: “Melt perpetually. If in the path of love you waste away continually, your body will through weakness become as thin as a hair and then you can easily find a place in the ringlets of your beloved. Whoever becomes a hair in search of his beloved, doubtless becomes one of the hairs of the beloved. If you are gifted with spiritual insight, penetrate this mystery of hair in hair. If of your self even a tip of a hair remains, seven hells will be filled with that sin of yours.”
He who renounces the world to tread this path finds death. When he loses all consciousness of death, he attains immortality.* O my heart, if you feel bewildered, cross the narrow bridge over the burning fire. Do not give yourself up to grief, because the oil in the lamp, while burning, produces a smoke as black as an old raven. When the oil has been consumed by fire, it transcends the grossness of its existence. If you seek to arrive at this place and to attain this lofty position, strip yourself of your self first and take a passport to the world of nothingness. Throw the sheet of nothingness over your head and cover your body with the robe of non-existence. Put your feet in the stirrup of renunciation and give reins to the horse of aimlessness towards the place where there is nothing. If you possess even the end of a hair of this world, you cannot hope to have any news of the other world. Clothe yourself in the garment of nothingness and drink the cup of annihilation. In this topsyturvy world, put round your waist the girdle of nothingness.
He who tears himself away from himself attains fidelity. He who is annihilated in annihilation forgets that he is annihilated, is not conscious even of annihilation, enters Eternity and lives everlastingly.* “When I saw the rays of that sun, I was swept out of existence. Water flew back to water.*”