Lesson 16: Beyond The Darkness
 
A master (performer) behind the veil of darkness and imagination shows unnumbered shapes and varied forms. Movements and stillness staying-commands and divergent-changes—indeed often opposites—are all Its Edict and apparitions behind the shrouding veil. And once the veil dropped, you shall see for real, the truth and nature of those shapes and acts! That those shapes and acts are indeed Its activities. [0]
 
The secret: “verily thy Lord is ample (expansive) in forgiveness [1]” (Koran [53:32]) requires that the entire cosmos to serve as Its cloak:
 
Its Royal Presence likens to a sun upon both universes
I also find the shade of a canopy with Its Highness
 
And It is the potent participle doer of all actions. Underneath the shade of this canopy “And they understand not” [2], if the secret: “Allah created you and what you do” (Koran [37:96]) is danced in front of the latter, peacefully or forcibly, all understand that:
 
Ours the assignment of power and actions
From the same direction that came our creation
 
Therefore it becomes plain:
 
The one that did not create himself
How could he be acting independent?
 
How can there be willful use of power?
 
Know from It comes the prostrating life
The cloud indeed exists because of the sun
 
The source of all actions is only One! Except from one place to another shows a different color and has another name, Koran [13:4]  “And in the earth are tracts (diverse though) neighbouring, and gardens of vines and fields sown with corn, and palm trees - growing out of single roots or otherwise: watered with the same water, yet some of them We make more excellent than others to eat. Behold, verily in these things there are signs for those who understand!”
 
End.
 
 
Haitian child entangled, trapped within the bondage of a Cat’s Cradle, the very strings threading by his own playful fingers in depth of endless darkness.
 
While piercing his eyes through to see, little he suspects, Beloved seeing through his eyes, if only for a moment he loosened the strings, if only for a moment he could see that the enervating self-bondage is nothing but a child’s play…
 
Look upon me my Beloved! Glance upon this saddened Persian through the eyes of the Haitian slave-child. See me and see me beautiful for one moment through the eyes of the AIDS Orphans…
 
Burn me! Roast me upon the smoldering flames of Your love. And let the moaning sighs of the Haitian child-slave carry my ashes, these poems, to the courtyard of Your majestic throne, where a million times again and again I shall fall prostrating kissing the grounds, where these children play frolic in Gardens of Eden.
 
Look upon me my Love… see me… see me not broken hearted…
 
 
 
[0] Mankind lusts to believe that he is left behind in this vast universe alone. Wallows within the darkness of space-time, drowns within the darkness of wars and ignorance, and although clearly beholds SOMETHING moving and doing beyond the darkness… Mankind prefers and pretends to be all alone.
 
Builds massive radio telescope arrays (SETI) to listen to skies to find someone, but hears no one. Sees the incredible the digital scrolls of DNA writings of his Beloved Creator and blind to the writings continues to wage war against his brethren and the rest of the living nature.
 
Once the heart comes around and senses that there is SOMEONE behind this darkness, it becomes clear that the happenings and thoughts around and within us are just the conduit that guides towards ‘It’ the potent doer. Let wars be raged or let good be done, let faith to come or disbelief to drown, all these are of no importance. The paramount discovery is: all is Its doing.
 
This universe, this world is nothing. Just a cloak hiding the beautiful Face of the Beloved and he who is able to pull the veils away, shall be stunned with the resplendent Face and shall leave this world, mind and body.
 
[1] The Koranic/Arabic word for forgiveness is ‘Qafarah’ which also means to cover something up. Beloved, because of the impact of Its insatiable love for all creation at all times extends and expands forgiveness for them. This forgiveness covering the entire universe like a cloak hides the Beloved behind this veil.
 
[2] Koran [7:95], Mankind when he says, “I do not believe in God”, he is underneath the shade of a canopy the veil that is hiding the Face of his Creator. The very saying is the proof that the shade of the canopy is there, which guides us towards the Beloved. The man who questions the existence of his God, if he looks beyond the shadow will see the light. Because there is no shadow without light.



© 2003-2002,  Dara Shayda



Farsi scan courtesy of Amin Karimpour.