153
Distance and nearness are attributes of bodies, The journeys of spirits are after another sort. You journeyed from the embryo state to rationality Without footsteps or stages or change of place, The journey of the soul involves not time and place. And my body learnt from the soul its mode of journeying, Now my body has renounced the bodily mode of journeying; It journeys secretly and without form, though under a form." He added, "One day I was thus filled with longing To behold in human form the splendours of 'The Friend,' To witness the Ocean gathered up into a drop, The Sun compressed into a single atom; And when I drew near to the shore of the sea The day was drawing to a close." All religions are in substance one and the same. In the adorations and benedictions of righteous men The praises of all the prophets are kneaded together. All their praises are mingled into one stream, All the vessels are emptied into one ewer. Because He that is praised is, in fact, only One, In this respect all religions are only one religion. Because all praises are directed towards God's light, Their various forms and figures are borrowed from it. Men never address praises but to One deemed worthy, They err only through mistaken opinions of Him. So, when a light falls upon a wall, That wall is a connecting-link between all its beams; Yet when it casts that reflection back to its source, It wrongly shows great as small, and halts in its praises. Or if the moon be reflected in a well, And one looks down the well, and mistakenly praises it, In reality he is intending to praise the moon, Although, through ignorance, he is looking down the well. The object of his praises is the moon, not its reflection; His infidelity arises from mistake of the circumstances. That well-meaning man goes wrong through his mistake; The moon is in heaven, and he fancies it in the well. By these false idols mankind are perplexed,