To what point belongs the aphorism, ‘I am The Truth?’*
Why call you that impostor a vain babbler?*

Verily ‘I am The Truth’ is a revelation of absolute mystery,
Save ‘The Truth,’ who can say ‘I am The Truth?’
All the atoms of the world, like Mansur,
You will take to be drunken and heavy with wine;
Continually are they singing this song of praise,*
Continually dwelling on this mystic verity.
440 If you desire that its meaning may be clear to you,
Then read the text, ‘All praise Allah.’*
When you have carded ‘self’ as cotton,
You, like the ‘wool carder,’ will raise this cry.
Take out the cotton of your illusion from your ears,
Hearken to the call of The One, The Almighty.*
This call is ever coming to you from “The Truth,”
Why are you tarrying for the last day?
Come into the “valley of peace,” for straightway*
The bush will say to you, ‘Verily I am Allah.’
445 The saying “I am ‘The Truth’” was lawful for the bush,
Why is it unlawful in the mouth of a good man?
Every man whose heart is pure from doubt,
Knows for a surety that there is no being but ‘One.’
Saying ‘I am’ belongs only to “The Truth,”
For essence is absent, and illusive appearance is absent.*
The glory of “The Truth” admits no duality,
In that glory is no ‘I’ or ‘We’ or ‘Thou.’
‘I,’ ‘We,’ ‘Thou’ and ‘He’ are all one thing,
For in Unity there is no distinction of persons.
450 Every man who as a void is empty of self,
Re-echoes within him the cry ‘I am The Truth;’
He takes his eternal side, ‘other’ perishes,*
Travelling, travel, and traveller all become One.
Incarnation and Communion spring from ‘other,’
But very Unity comes from the mystic journey.*
That which is separate from “The Truth” is phenomenal existence,
Neither does “The Truth” become a creature, nor is a creature united with Allah.*
Incarnation and Communion are here impossible,*
For duality in unity is clearly absurd.
455 The existence of creatures and plurality is but a semblance,
And not every thing that seems to be really is.

Set a mirror over against you,*
Look on it and see that other person.
Again see what that reflection is,
It is not this nor that, what then is that reflection?
Since I am limited to my own proper self,
I know not what is this shadow of me;
In fine, how can not being be joined with being?
The two, light and darkness, cannot be united.
460 Like the past the future month and year exist not,
What is there but this one point of the present?
Time is one imaginary point, and that ever passing away,
You have named it the fleeting river.
There is none other in this desert, but only I,
Tell me what is this echo and noise?
Accidents are fleeting, substance is compounded of them,
Say how does it exist or where is this compound?*
Bodies exist only through length, breadth and depth,
Since their existence proceeds from these nonentities.*
465 And of this kind is all the fabric of the two worlds;
Now you know this, have faith and be stablished.
Of a truth there is no other existence than “The Truth,”
Whether you say ‘He is the Truth,’ or ‘I am the Truth.’
Separate imaginary appearances from True Being,
Make not yourself a stranger but a friend.*