Formless Beauty — and the Mirror, Reflection, and Person

بَیبولی وصورت — مِرآت وعکس وشخص

Formless Beauty (بیبولی وصورت)

Formless and without form — and the ornamentation and marvellous decoration it provides. Look at it — large tree, big animal, person — somewhere it says 'it is tall', somewhere 'it is short', somewhere 'it is lazy', somewhere 'it is incapable', somewhere 'it is majestic and dignified', somewhere 'it is weak'. Where is this formless being? Is this the height of its beauty? Where is the manufactured compound? Where are the stages? How many stages come. After those stages — the craft and quality — where is the compound from? More stages. Which stage then is that of the pure Essence — incomparable — Qāʾim bi-dhātihi (Self-Sustaining)?

Is Allah absent from the universe or is He present? He is the 'Alān-Kān-Kān (the Eternal, the Being). No path passes there. Non-existence has no foothold. By this: 'Subḥān-Allāh — Glory be to Allah.'

What has happened to the world — is it non-existent and also present? He is the 'Alān-Kān — He is not absent. No path passes there — non-existence has no foothold — and there is no direction there.

[Verse:] "Tawḥīd (Oneness) is in truth the whole truth — / and everywhere the footstep of tawḥīd is present." (Hasrat Haydarabadi)

The Mirror, Reflection, and Person (مِرآت وعکس وشخص)

A mirror of truth — in this world in its every manifestation somewhere the light of me comes. In my colours everywhere the image of me comes. In my greens there everywhere the single image of me comes. (Hasrat Haydarabadi)

The āyāt (signs) of the aʿyān (entities) and the marāt (mirrors) of ḥaqāʾiq (realities) — the manifestation of the ḥaqīqī wujūd (true being) is within them. The āʾina (mirror) — to you I am sending a strange look. A mirror was placed before me — at this same moment you became astonished — because in the mirror was an image exactly like yours. The mirror — you see yourself in it — and the 'you' image formed there. And with wonder — the mirror too — saw itself — and that wonder saw itself and joined itself — and then asked: who are you — my friend? Are you ahead or behind? Are you — coming, or going away? Those images in it — are not my thought — never from mine are they made. I am in no way competing with these images. However they are made of me in the mirror — in them I am always as one that encompasses. In the same way I am encompassing every atom of the ʿālam — yet none is outside my personal self-encompassing. With the personal encompassing — none is outside.

In such an imaginary form as this — whatever form is visible in it — those who are in it by that — them I cannot perceive or settle any motion. And their motion — what does it do to me? Why is there no connection? Because for the continuity of my attention, there is no need of their continuing. Rather, if I imagine — a person will also be imagined. What kind of beautiful person is this? What colour? What size? What is the gait? What is the character? What is the face like? A grown-up man, bound with ropes and chains — what is each thing? Come — now we understand: everything is correct.

Then think of the person and the horse — and then in this imagination the horse of me appears. What kind of beautiful person is this horse? Its non-being — but the horse's quality is a wondrous reflection of mine. I want to find it — and in my imagination — I feel: 'What am I? I am Muhammad Abdul Qadeer the Siddiqī — one and whole. My dhātī (essential) information is one — and in my personal identity no distinction is possible. My information and attributes are my essential — they keep repeating in their essence.

[Verse:] "I, the self — looking within — / and in the sleep of imagination — seeing only my own forms. / I never see anything other than myself — / myself always encompassing." (Hasrat Haydarabadi)

In this imagination — in this interior dream — look inside your thoughts. I sometimes see nothing in me. I sometimes see myself elsewhere in sleep. But I always see nothing but myself — and myself I am always encompassing. The same dhāt of Allah Almighty encompasses every atom of the ʿālam, and none is outside His personal encompassing. The personal encompassing is from none outside.

[Verse:] "In Unity your hidden fine beauty / Mirror — what dwelling does it depict?" (Hasrat Haydarabadi)

The mirror — a string of the body is being pulled. In the mirror — the form of another — in the mirror — what is this? Then we both in it see the mirror. So in the imaginary scenario of me — from whom the imagination follows — I sometimes do not see it. Whenever I think of some imagined form — it appears. As long as I don't think of it — it doesn't appear. In the same way Allah Almighty's knowledge and glorification — whatever is in the heavens or the earth — all the atoms are encompassed — none is outside it. The mirror contains no person — the mirror is only where it is.

The mirror — look at it — look at the colours. Then look at the end — you lose yourself — and in the mirror no one is truly present — since the mirror is just where it stands. The mirror is wherever it is — but behind that mirror — no other person. The person is the same as the reflection — no — the person is the same as the mirror — no — the reflection. The reflection is the person's mirror — no. This is its reflection.

[Verse:] "In Unity the hidden form — O mirror — whatever fine beauty — / depict what dwelling it is." (Hasrat Haydarabadi)

[Discourse continuing:] The mirror is clear — a string of the body is being pulled — the forms of myself changing in the lāfangi (idleness) manner — I am looking at myself and am seeing myself — ah me! What mirror is being made! It is full of colours — and these colours are always the same colours of me. These hues — when they are — so many hues — that the opposing mirror faces you. Walk away from it — and in it such hues remain that the mirror in the imagination is no hue — it is infinite — this is plurality — a thought.

And in the same way the realities, ḥaqāʾiq, and aʿyān point back to their own attributes and names — and the names in themselves are two forms of knowledge: (1) Dhātī ḥaqq — the Truth from the perspective of the Essence; (2) Dhātī mumkin — Possible from the perspective of the Essence. As a spectacle — it is the same manifest and existing being. He is the First — He is the manifest — He is the Hū'l-Awwal.

هُوَ الْأَوَّلُ وَالْآخِرُ وَالظَّاهِرُ وَالْبَاطِنُ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ ۚ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ

"He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden — and He is, of all things, Knowing. And all praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds." (Qur'an 57:3)

O Allah! With your sight — the understanding is on the edge of a towering height, destroyed — and your maʿrifat (gnosis) is in the hearts of those who have known Your sanctuaries — yet You grant nothing to me. How can I attain Your maʿrifat? Who has found You? As if You shielded Yourself to the Throne — if You are near — then give me the eye to see. If You are far — I will look at You from within my own secret. If You are not to be grasped — we seek Your law — if we make one effort after another, then in the ordeals we will be preparing thousands of things for you. But in the world I am putting one effort for you — and in the love of you — the torment will go until there is dust of earth — and the screen of me — and the border — and then — they will reach the pure place. I myself — nothing more — for the formless beauty.

[Verse:] "Break this talisman — we are together — my mirror / Mirror: the heart is without blemish." (Hasrat Haydarabadi)

[Verse:] "The fanāʾ (annihilation) of fanāʾ is itself the true awwal (first) / The remaining is the best of all — the truest of all." (Hasrat Haydarabadi)

[Verse:] "May the earth become dust — the footstep of the image will be without trace. / 'Hasrat' — this too has become apparent — where it goes." (Hasrat Haydarabadi)