Outward Acts as Witness to the Inner Light
From Rumi’s Masnavi (مثنوی معنوی), Book 5, section 10 of 175: The testimony of external acts and words to the hidden mind and the inner light (گواهی فعل و قول بیرونی بر ضمیر و نور اندرونی). Below, each of its 12 couplets is given in Persian, followed by R. A. Nicholson’s English translation.
The testimony of external acts and words to the hidden mind and the inner light. گواهی فعل و قول بیرونی بر ضمیر و نور اندرونی
فعل و قول آمد گواهان ضمیر
زین دو بر باطن تو استدلال گیر
Act and word are witnesses to the hidden mind: from these twain infer the inward state.
چون ندارد سیر سرت در درون
بنگر اندر بول رنجور از برون
When your thought does not penetrate within, inspect the patient’s urine from without.
فعل و قول آن بول رنجوران بود
که طبیب جسم را برهان بود
Act and word are (as) the urine of the sick, which is clear evidence for the physician of the body.
وآن طبیب روح در جانش رود
وز ره جان اندر ایمانش رود
But the spiritual physician enters into his (patient’s) soul and by the spiritual way penetrates into his (inmost) belief.
حاجتش ناید به فعل و قول خوب
احذروهم هم جواسیس القلوب
He hath no need of fine acts and words: “beware of them (the spiritual physicians), they are spies on (men’s) hearts.”
این گواه فعل و قول از وی بجو
کو به دریا نیست واصل هم‌چو جو
Demand this testimony of acts and words from him (only) who is not united with the Sea like a river.
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by: Reza about (category: Masnavi, Persian Poetry)
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