Being is the Sea

Being is the sea, speech is the shore,

The shells are letters, the pearls knowledge of the heart,

In every wave it casts up a thousand royal pearls

Of traditions and holy sayings and texts.

Every moment a thousand waves rise out of it,

Yet it never becomes less by one drop.

Knowledge has its being from that sea,

The coverings of its pearls are voice and letters.

Since mysteries are here shown in an allegory,

It is necessary to have a recourse to illustrations:

I have heard that in the month Nisan

The pearl oysters rise to the surface of the sea of Uman.

From the lowest depths of the sea they come up

And rest on the surface with opened mouths.

The mist is lifted up from the sea,

And descends in rain at the command of 'The Truth'.

There fall some drops into each shell's mouth,

And each mouth is shut as by a hundred bonds.

Then each shell descends into the depths with full heart,

And each drop of rain becomes a pearl.

The diver goes down to the depths of the sea,

And thence brings up the glittering pearls.

The shore is your body, the sea is Being,

The mist Grace, the rain knowledge of the Names.

The diver of this mighty sea is human reason,

Who holds a hundred pearls wrapped in his cloth 

The heart is to knowledge as a vessel, 

The shells of knowledge of the heart are voice and letters...

Mahmud Shabistari, translation E.H. Whinfield

Islamic Mystical Poetry Sufi Verse from the Mystics to Rumi, Mahmood Jamal, 2009