The Visit

ONE day at the dawn

The fair idol entered my door

And woke me from my sleep

Of slothful ignorance.

The secret chamber of my soul

Was illumined by His face,

And my being was revealed to me

In its true light.

I heaved a sigh of wonder

When I saw that fair face.

He spoke to me, saying,

"All thy life thou has sought

Name and fame;

This self-seeking of thine

Is an illusion, keeping thee back from Me.

To glance at My face for an instant

Is worth a thousand years of devotion."

Yes, the face of that world-adorner

Was shown unveiled before mine eyes;

My soul was darkened with shame

To remember my lost life,

My wasted days.

Poem by SA’D UD DIN MAHMŪD SHABISTARĪ who was born at Shabistar, near Tabriz, about A.D. 1250. He wrote the Gulshan i Rāz, or Secret Rose Garden, as a reply to questions put forth by a Sūfī doctor of Herat named Dmir Syad Hosaini.

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark