Yet, We Still Keep Struggling (5/17/2020)

Yet, We Still Keep Struggling (5/17/2020)

O beauty, you are a beautiful charmer.

Give up acting with such poor appearance, such poor behavior.

If you are content, luck will be a slave and servant for us.

 

Because of greed, even ones who are close to you look strange.

If you had no greed, everyone would look like a relative to you.

 

Come, O moon-faced one, be like us.

Don’t ask for either blessings or glory.

If the devil were like that, he would become a sultan with a flag.

 

He would quit being Satan.

Even bad words would sound like praise.

He would accept cruelty as loyalty.

Even illness would become a favor to him.

 

Absence is such a kingdom.

Ecstasy is such a secret

that if you knew all,

Existence would become non-existent.

 

The world is nothing. We are nothing.

We and the world are nothing but dreams and images.

Even facts are like that.

Yet, we still keep struggling.

If a person who is asleep knew he was sleeping,

he wouldn’t be afraid of his nightmares.

 

One sees himself in the dungeon of sorrows,

while he sees others in the garden of Eden.

If he were to wake up, neither jail nor garden would remain.

Divan-i Kebir, Volume 16, Ghazal 151, verses 1777-1783, pages 119-120.

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