THE DERWISH, HIS JUGULAR VEINS, AND…
FROM RAIN APOCRYPHA (2004)
To Mesha Selimovic
1. I swear upon the revolving orbit, the footsteps, and the road; I swear upon the dervish's dance; upon creation, the Uncreatable and the created, both; upon the dervish who revolves and turns, coiling creation around his jugular veins; I swear upon the road, which turns and winds upwards -- from the feet towards the sky, towards a sky the road to which remains still untrodden.That's why the dervish would rather dance--the road winds and remains untrodden, untrampled by his feet. The dervish moves lightly. His jugular veins point the way towards the moving target, and the target dances in sync with the swelling tide of roads.From below and downwards.
2.
Down below, the Sufis continue dancing till the trance sends them flying towards the target, and--merging with it--they fall motionless: The soul, dashing out of their exhausted bodies, plunges itself into their jugular veins. Meanwhile, creation does not stop revolving.
3. One of the Sufis stirs, arises, and sees, that all the disciples are already seated around the standing master.
“Master, forgive my boldness,” says the Sufi, lifting to his face the scriptures kept in the abode of dervishes. “Here it is written, that ‘the night does not precede the day,’ but also that ‘(God) shrouds the day with night, which follows it ...’”
4. They say that when God shrouded the day with night, he asked the brothers not to light the oil-lamps. He stood inside the temple and -- as was his wont--invited the Sufis to prayer with the sound of his flute. And only when he felt the breeze of the approaching robes, he lit the oil lamp, damp with rusty glow.
“In the name of the Beneficent, the Merciful. Now the day shines on your faces. But if you revolve in an orbit around your jugular veins, after a step or two your day will turn to night, and the night shrouding your backs will turn to day. If your eyes would rather seek the day--you need to take another step or two. You'll find the day, but then you'll lose the night. And only if--towards the end of prayer, swept by the whirlwind of the dance--your soul succeeds in dashing forth to take a glimpse beyond you, then you will see what you have read already: ‘the day is not preceded by the night’; for you,the oil-lamp, andthe entire universe, it will besimultaneously day and night.”
5. Day and night the dervishes stay in the Temple-of-the-day-and-night. The night does not hide its darkness, but the brothers light their oil-lamps, trying to hide it in the temple.
6. In order not to blind those rushing at the target -- some from below and some downwards--during prayer the dervishes shroud in darkness the lamps of their bodies. The prayer has no words, only a feeling, and premonition of gratitude…
In the name of the Beneficent, the Merciful. If left without water, bread, or light, the dervish tries to forget the roads that could lead to them, because he knows that the Almighty has prescribed for him healing thirst, healing hunger, and healing darkness.At such a time, there is nothing more insulting than to pray to the Almighty for water, bread, or light.
Pray that your prayers be bereft of words.You need the verbal prayers only sothat through them your soul and body could reveal to you the things that you have wished for (in)advertantly. Instead of forwarding such prayers on to God, you better hurry to forget them. Forget them--all but one: the one received from heaven.
7. Quran 24:35: “God is the light of the heavens and of earth. The semblance of His light is that of a niche in which is a lamp, the flame within a glass, the glass a glittering star as it were, lit with the oil of a blessed tree, the olive, neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil appears to light up even though fire touches it not--light upon light.”
8. When shrouded in darkness, the oil-lamp does not stop registering the passage of light-years; the light--already radiated-- travels on until the moment when someone notices it.And when that happens, the one who caught a glimpse of the light, embarks upon the road leading to the oil-lamp. His wish is-- once he arrives--to light it up.But only those arrivewho realize that not the oil-lamp, but they themselves are shrouding and shrouded in darkness.
The dervish knows that the oil-lamp is hidden in his body. That is why he seeks the light with his eyes closed. If he finds it, he shrouds himself in darkness.But this is not the sort of darkness which remains unpierced by the eyes of those shrouded in it. It is the darkness of the night--the night, which turns into a day with step or two, but only if you have decided to revolve in orbit around your jugular veins…
Translation from Bulgarian: Michael Beard with Aziz Tash,and with Marta Simidchieva
