Why call they a creature ‘united,’*
How can he achieve travelling and journey?

Union with “The Truth” is separation from the creature state,*
Friendship with Him is estrangement from self.*
470 When the contingent wipes off the dust of contingency,
Nothing remains save Necessary Being.
The existence of the two worlds is as a dream,
In the moment of eternity they become naught.
He who is ‘united’ is not a creature,*
The perfect man says not so.
How shall not being find entrance at that door?
What connection has the dust with the Lord of Lords?
How can not being be united with “The Truth?”
How can not being achieve travelling and journey?
475 If your soul were cognizant of this mystery,
You would straightway say “God pardon my error.”*
You are non-existent,* and not being is ever immovable,
How can this non-existent contingent move to the necessary?
No substance possesses objectivity* without accidents,
And what is an accident?—what “endures not two moments.”
Philosophers, who have written on natural science,
Define bodies by length, breadth and depth.*
What then is matter but an absolute nonentity
Wherein is demonstrated form?
480 As then form without matter is not self existent,*
So too matter without a form is naught but not being.
All the bodies in the universe consist of these two nonentities,
Whereof nothing is known, but their non-existence.
Consider then their whole essence without more or less,*
In itself it is neither existent nor non-existent.*
Look upon contingent being in spirit and in truth,
For apart from necessary being it is naught.
Absolute Being by its own perfection is pervading all,*
Phenomenal objects are mere imaginary things;*
485 Imaginary things are not really existent,
Though the numbers are many, only One is counted.
The world has only a simulated existence,
Its state is but an insubstantial pageant and a farce.*

The mist is raised up out of the sea,
By command of “The Truth” it rains down on the desert
The sun's rays are shed down from the fourth heaven,
And are mingled with the water.
Then the heat strives to ascend on high,
And the water of the sea clings to it.
490 And when with these are joined earth and air,
There comes forth the green and pleasant plant.*
This becomes the food of and is transformed into animals,
Which are eaten by and transmuted into man.
It becomes seed, and passes through divers states,
And then there is born of it another man.
Then when the reasonable soul as a light enters the body,*
There is produced a fair and brilliant form;
It becomes child, youth, adult and then aged man,
It knows wisdom, knowledge, reason, counsel.
495 Then comes his appointed time from the pure presence,
Pure spirit returns to spirit, dust to dust.*
All the parts of the world are like plants,
They are single drops from the ocean of life.*
When the set times of their manifestations pass by,
Their end becomes again their beginning.*
Every one of them tends towards its Centre,
For its nature forsakes not its centripetal character.
Unity is like a sea, albeit a sea of blood,*
Whereout rise thousands of mad waves.
500 Behold how this drop of water from that sea,
Has assumed so many names and forms!
Mist, cloud, rain, dew, clay,
Plant and animal, and perfect man.
In fine it was one drop of water at the first,
Wherefrom all these things were fashioned.*
This universe of reason, soul, heavens and bodies,*
Is as a drop of water in its beginning and ending.
When their appointed time comes to heaven and stars,
Their being is lost in not being.*
505 When a wave strikes it, the world vanishes away,
Then is fulfilled the text “It abounded not yesterday.”*
In a moment this world passes away,
None remains in the house save “The Truth.”
At that moment you attain proximity,
You stripped of ‘self’ are ‘united’ to “The Beloved.”
Union here means the cessation of this dream,
When this dream passes away, it is union.
Say not ‘the contingent outsteps its limits,’*
Contingent becomes not necessary, nor necessary contingent.
510 He who is transcendent in spiritual mysteries,
Says not this, for it is an inversion of verities.
O master! you have a thousand ‘processes’ before you,*
Go and consider your own coming and going.
Of the argument of part and whole and the ‘process’ of man,
I tell you every whit both manifest and secret.