On Losing Hope

The interpretation of a sacred text is true
if it stirs you to hope, activity, and awe;
and if it makes you slacken your service,
know the real truth to be this:
it’s a distortion of the sense of the saying,
not a true interpretation.

This saying has come down to inspire you to serve—
that God may take the hands of those who have lost hope.

Ask the meaning of the Qur’an from the Qur’an alone,
and from that one who has set fire to his idle fancy
and burned it away,
and has become a sacrifice to the Qur’an,
bowing low in humbleness,
so that the Qur’an has become the essence of his spirit.

If an essential oil that has utterly devoted itself to the rose,
you can smell either that oil or the rose, as you please.

His father was to be admired,
quiet and noble were his manners,
pure his life, wise his words,
delicate and noble thoughts lived behind its brow
—but even he, who knew so much,
did he live in blissfulness,
did he have peace,
was he not also just a searching man, a thirsty man?

Did he not, again and again,
have to drink from holy sources, as a thirsty man,
from the offerings, from the books,
from the disputes of the Brahmans?
Why did he, the irreproachable one,
have to wash off sins every day,
strive for a cleansing every day, over and over every day?
Was not Atman in him,
did not the pristine source spring from his heart?
It had to be found, the pristine source in one’s own self,
it had to be possessed!
Everything else was searching, was a detour, was getting lost.