So every offender against me counts, in my eyes, as a benefactor, and everyone who leads me astray is, to me, like a guide (1).
No distinction (2) do I make between intimacy and estrangement, between light and darkness, between what is near and what is far.
Alike to me are my breaking the fast and my fasting, my lassitude and my striving, my sleep and my claimed tahajjud (night vigil) (3).
At times I am seen in the wine-tavern, having cast aside my restraint, and at other times in the prayer-niche of a mosque (4).
A draught of Reality has been unveiled to the core of my secret, so my moments are blended with a perpetual disclosure.
The lands have come to life through me; their manifestations stand realized before my very eyes and in my witnessing.
My heart, with respect to all things, is the most comprehensive of hearts, while my inner secret (5) is apportioned to every scene.
A pagan shrine, a monk’s cloister, a house of fire-worship, and the qiblah of my own sanctuary (6);
A meadow for gazelles (7), a coffee-house tavern (8), a garden of blossoms, and the rising-place of felicity;
Secrets of gnosis and the key to wisdom (9), breaths of direct experience and the overflow of benumbed bewilderment (10);
The lair of a lion and the chamber (11) of a youthful bride, the darkness of one bewildered (12) and the light of one rightly guided.
All opposites have converged within me, like the ordeal of one exhausted and the gift bestowed on an earnest seeker (13).
I have perfected the establishment of the ranks, in form and in meaning; from the very well-spring of uniqueness is my draught.
There is no station without a standing for me in it (14), founded upon the Pre-Eternal One who truly possesses absolute singularity.