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Masnavi I, 78-92
We should ask God
To help us toward manners. Inner gifts
Do not find their way
To creatures without just respect.
If a man or a woman flails about, he not only
Smashes his house,
He burns the world down.
Your depression is connected to your insolence
And your refusal to praise. If a man or a woman is
On the path, and refuses to praise - that man or woman
Steals from others every day - in fact is a shoplifter!
The sun became full of light when it got hold of itself.
Angels began shining when they achieved discipline.
The sun goes out whenever the cloud of non-praising comes
near.
The moment that foolish angel felt insolent, he heard the
door close.
Robert Bly, version based on Nicholson
from: "The Soul Is Here For Its Own Joy"
Ecco Press, 1995
We seek from God the ability (to have) good manners,1
(For) the one lacking good manners is deprived of the grace of the Lord.
The one lacking good manners doesn't keep himself (in a) foul (state)
alone,
But he sets fire to every region (of the world).
.........
Whatever gloom and grief comes to you
Is both from recklessness and rudeness.
Whoever acts recklessly in the path of the Beloved
Is a highway robber of men and is unmanly.
Because of good manners, the sky is full of light.
And because of good manners, the angel is innocent and pure.
From being rude, the sun became eclipsed.
And from being rash, Satan was denied the door (back to heaven).
1good
manners: "adab"
Mathnawi, Book I:78-79, 89-92
Translation by Ibrahim Gamard
Let us implore God to help us to self-control: one who lacks
self-control is
deprived of the grace of the Lord.
The undisciplined man does not maltreat himself alone, but he sets the
whole
world on fire.
A table (of food) was coming down from heaven without headache
(trouble) and
without selling and buying,
(When) some of the people of Moses cried disrespectfully, "Where is
garlic
and lentils?"1
(Straightway) the heavenly bread and dishes (of food) were cut off:
there
remained (for all of them) the toil of sowing and (labouring with)
mattock and
scythe.
Again, when Jesus made intercession, God sent food and bounty (from
heaven)
on trays,2
But once more the insolent fellows ommitted to show respect and, like
beggars, snatched away the viands,
(Although) Jesus entreated them, saying, "This is lasting and will not
fail
from off the earth."
To show suspicion and greed at the table of Majesty is ingratitude.
Because of those impudent wretches who were blinded by greed, that gate
of
mercy was closed upon them.
On account of withholding the poor-tax no rain-clouds arise, and in
consequence of fornication the plague spreads in all directions.
Whatever befalls thee of gloom and sorrow is the result of irreverence
and
insolence withal.
Any one behaving with irreverence in the path of the Friend is a
brigand who
robs men, and he is no man.
Through discipline this Heaven has been filled with light, and through
discipline the angels became immaculate and holy.
By reaon of irreverence the sun was eclipsed, and insolence caused an
'Azázíl3
to be turned back from the door.
1Qur'ân,
2:61
2Qur'ân,
5:117
3in Islamic
legend, the angelic name of Iblîs/Satan before
his fall
Translation by Nicholson, Mathnawi I: 78-92
The undisciplined man doesn't wrong himself alone—
he sets fire to the whole world.
Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light;
discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy.
Mathnawi I:79;91
Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
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