Frasi di Farid al-Din &#39;Attar

“Resta davanti alla porta, se desideri che l'aprano. Non lasciare il percorso se vuoi che ti guidino. Nulla è mai chiuso, se non i tuoi stessi occhi.”

Origine: Citato in Raffaele Morelli, Il sesso è amore, Mondadori, 2010, p. 47.

“Un tale volle chiedere a un folle di Dio: Dimmi, cosa è mai questo mondo? Cos'è mai questa nostra immensa dimora? Quegli rispose: Questo mondo di gloria e d'infamia è simile ad una palma dagli infiniti colori. Se qualcuno sfregasse la sua corteccia con le mani, si scioglierebbe come cera. Ma essendo fatto realmente di cera, che altro può essere? E quegli infiniti colori in realtà sono pure apparenze! Poiché tutto è pura unità, ogni dualità è qui inconcepibile, per cui non ha senso dire io e tu. L'interminabile scala della creazione si snoda attraverso infiniti io e noi, e per questo è così facile cadere dai suoi gradini. Più in alto vuoi salire e più stolto ti dimostri, giacché scivolando conoscerai una caduta più rovinosa. Se non morrai a te stesso per vivere in Lui, sarai considerato un ribelle, giacché avrai scelto di associarti a un pugno di mosche. Ma se vivrai in Lui, potrai conoscere il mistero dell'unità: unità purissima, non volgare associazione.”

“Colui che si è fatto assiduo frequentatore del "tempio dei Magi" – Di che confessione sarà? A quale rito si piegherà? – Io sono al di là del bene e del male, al di là della miscredenza e della religione, al di là della teoria e della pratica – Perché al di là di tutte queste cose, molteplici sono ancora le tappe.”

da Il Canto degli Uccelli
informazioni bibliografiche?

“Joy! Joy! I triumph! Now no more I know
Myself as simply me. I burn with love
Unto myself, and bury me in love.
The centre is within me and its wonder
Lies as a circle everywhere about me.
Joy! Joy! No mortal thought can fathom me.”

Farid al-Din 'Attar: Frasi in inglese

“What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.”

"The Triumph of the Soul" as translated by Margaret Smith in The Persian Mystics

“Joy! Joy! I triumph! Now no more I know
Myself as simply me.”

"Looking For Your Own Face" as translated by Coleman Barks in The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia
Contesto: Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

“The Sea
Will be the Sea
Whatever the drop's philosophy.”

"The Triumph of the Soul" as translated by Margaret Smith in The Persian Mystics
Contesto: Joy! Joy! I triumph! Now no more I know
Myself as simply me. I burn with love
Unto myself, and bury me in love.
The centre is within me and its wonder
Lies as a circle everywhere about me.
Joy! Joy! No mortal thought can fathom me.

“Thou all Creation art, all we behold, but Thou,
The soul within the body lies concealed,
And Thou dost hide Thyself within the soul,
O soul in soul! Myst'ry in myst'ry hid!
Before all wert Thou, and are more than all!”

As quoted in The Sun at Midnight : The Revealed Mysteries of the Ahlul Bayt Sufis (2003) by Laurence Galian

“In Love no longer "thou" and "I" exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.”

"All Pervading Consciousness"

“Know then, that both this visible world and that
Which unseen is, alike are God Himself,
Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.”

"Intoxicated by the Wine of Love" as translated by Margaret Smith from "The Jawhar Al-Dhat"
Variant translation:
From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
As translated in Essential Sufism, by James Fadiman and Robert Frager
Contesto: From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? 'Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer "thou" and "I" exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.

“Yet what are seas and what is air? For all
Is God, and but a talisman are heaven and earth
To veil Divinity.”

"All Pervading Consciousness"
Contesto: Yet what are seas and what is air? For all
Is God, and but a talisman are heaven and earth
To veil Divinity. For heaven and earth,
Did He not permeate them, were but names;
Know then, that both this visible world and that
Which unseen is, alike are God Himself,
Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.

“From each a mystic silence Love demands.”

“Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw”

“Since I have neither sign nor name
I shall speak only of things unnamed and without sign.”

Attar of Nishapur libro The Conference of the Birds

The Conference of the Birds (1177)
Contesto: Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside.

“I shall grasp the soul's skirt with my hand
and stamp on the world's head with my foot.”

As quoted in Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems (2001) by Bernard Lewis, p. 119
Contesto: I shall grasp the soul's skirt with my hand
and stamp on the world's head with my foot.
I shall trample Matter and Space with my horse,
beyond all Being I shall utter a great shout,
and in that moment when I shall be alone with Him,
I shall whisper secrets to all mankind.
Since I have neither sign nor name
I shall speak only of things unnamed and without sign.