The door would become now the window, now the sunbeams;
the earth would become now the wheat, now the bushel.
In eyes the heavens are very old and threadbare;
in his eye it was a new creation at every moment.
When the beauteous spirit is delivered from the body,
no doubt an eye like this will be conferred upon it by destiny.
A hundred thousand mysteries were revealed to him:
he beheld that which the eyes of the initiated behold.
The second prince thus experiences the manifold manifestations of the
divine in the ordinary material world, moving from the stage of learning
about the divine to engaging with it through inner sensation.
He opened eye on the form
of that which he had read in books.
From the dust of the mighty King’s horse
he obtained a precious eye salve for his eyesight.
In such a garden offlowers he was trailing his skirt,
while every part of him was crying,“Is there any more?”
Theflowers that grow from plants are a moment;
theflowers that grow from Reason are fresh.
Theflowers that bloom from earth become faded;
theflowers that bloom from the heart–oh, what a joy!
Know that the delightful sciences known to us
are two or three bunches offlowers from that Garden.
We are devoted to these two or three bunches offlowers
because we have shut the Garden-door on ourselves.^89
Unlike thefirst son, whose pure love saved him from pride and enabled his
undiminished recognition of the blessings of the divine, the second son
becomes prideful:
Pangs of jealousy arose in the King:
the reflection of the King’s pangs entered into him.
The bird of his felicityfluttered violently in reproaching him
and tore the veil of him who had sought seclusion.(^89) Rumi, 1934 : 514 (4635–4652).
218 The Transcendent Image