The One Thing You Must Do

There is one thing in this world which you must never forget to do.

If you forget everything else and not this, there is nothing to worry

about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you

will have done nothing in your life.

It is as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you

perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do.

So human beings come to this world to do particular work. That

work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't

do it, it's as though a knife of the finest tempering were nailed into a

wall to hang things on. For a penny an iron nail could be bought to

serve for that.

Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord.

Give your life to the one who already owns your breath and your

moments. If you don't, you will be like the one who takes a precious

dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his

dipper gourd. You will be wasting valuable keenness and foolishly

ignoring your dignity and your purpose.

A Pilgrimage to a Person

When you are not with close friends,

you are not in the presence.

It is sad to leave the people you travel with.

How much moreso those who remind you of God.

Hurry back to the ones protecting you.

On every trip, have only one objective,

to meet those who are friends

inside the presence.

If you stay home, keep the same purpose,

to meet the innermost presence

as it lives in people.

Be a pilgrim to the kaaba inside a human being,

and Mecca will rise into view on its own.

I Honor Those

I honor those who try

to rid themselves of any lying,

who empty the self

and have only clear being there.

Unfold Your Own Myth

Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?

Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?

Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,

smells the shirt of his lost son

and can see again?

Who lets a bucket down and brings up

a flowing prophet? Or like Moses goes for fire

and finds what burns inside the sunrise?

Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,

and opens a door to the other world.

Solomon cuts open a fish, and there's a gold ring.

Omar storms in to kill the prophet

and leaves with blessings.

But don't be satisfied with stories, how things

have gone with others. Unfold

your own myth, so everyone will understand

the passage, We have opened you.

Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy

and tired. Then comes a moment of feeling

the wings you've grown, lifting.

Throat-Song

The Nightingale, by Grace Ndirtu, 32-second video here

Let your throat-song

be clear and strong enough

to make an emperor fall full-length,

suppliant, at the door.

Someone Digging in the Ground

May Picture, by Paul Klee

An eye is meant to see things.

The soul is here for its own joy.

A head has one use: for loving a true love.

Legs: to run after.

Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,

for learning what men have done and tried to do.

Mysteries are not to be solved. The eye goes blind

when it only wants to see why.

A lover is always accused of something.

But when he finds his love, whatever was lost

in the looking comes back completely changed.

On the way to Mecca, many dangers: thieves,

the blowing sand, only camel's milk to drink.

Still, each pilgrim kisses the black stone there

with pure longing, feeling in the surface

the taste of the lips he wants.

This talk is like stamping new coins. They pile up,

while the real work is being done outside

by someone digging in the ground.

The Freshness

When it's cold and raining,

you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me

even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,

you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,

or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again.

Inside the majesty.