Without beginning is the river’s start:

It rises from the mountain’s unknown ground

And seeks the endless. So the wise man’s heart:

The river flows; its end is never found.

Neither the mountain nor the sea can limit

The river’s song. Love flows from God to God;

Forms have an end, yet timeless is the Spirit.

They think that out of nothing God has made

The Universe, and that it is His shade —

Less than reality, more than a play.

The world is real and unreal, so to say.

The hidden Treasure never had been shown;

God made the world, He wanted to be known.

Some people ask: Had God to make the world?

First let us say: there is in God no need;

And then: He radiates His nature’s Good;

And so He did conceive the cosmic seed.

We should say that Reality is He

Who needs no thing; but Mâyâ wants to be.

Why should the Sovereign Good not overflow?

Its brightness and its bliss cannot but glow.

A hidden treasure nobody can see;

Therefore the whole creation had to be.

We have been made in order that we might

Be as a mirror for the Godhead’s Light.

O men of little faith, do not forget

What prophets, saints and pious men have said:

Remember God, God will remember you.

A better thing on earth we cannot do.

Albeit low, we should not be ashamed;

God wanted us; He needed to be named.

Thou art more than a symbol; Thou art near

To me as blood and heart; Thou art the air

That makes me live, that makes me pure and wise;

A sweet and tender air from Paradise.

Thou art more than the words describing Thee

And more than all the sacred songs that we

Sing in Thy praise; my ecstasy was Thine

Before God’s very making of the vine.

Because the drink is of an earthly brand

The drinker’s heart they do not understand.

Now earthly beauty, to the wise, is more

Than just a sign; it is an open door.

They think the lover’s pilgrimage will fail

Because he meets not Layla, but her veil.

They do not see that with the Angel’s kiss

We drink the wine of everlasting Bliss.

They think the world is blooming, while the heart

Renouncing it for God is poor and dark;

In this abyss, they say, thou wilt not find

The golden Paradise thou hast in mind;

They see not that the mystery of night

Means Layla dancing in a globe of light.

Thy deepest heart contains the holy shrine,

The naked goddess and the cup of wine.

She may be dark, a deep and silent night,

Yet she is beautiful, a wondrous sight.

By greedy men she never will be seen;

Her peerless body hides behind a screen.

Her breasts are like the sun, now East, now West;

They are the pilgrim’s refuge and his rest;

She gives him joy and peace with tender lips

And with the rapture of her dancing hips.

Thou knowest that thou canst not change the world;

Renounce it, let things be what they must be.

There are things we can change and others not;

There is a meaning in all destiny.

Do not forget: there is a Sovereign Good

Whose Mercy may defeat Fatality.

The reason is that Being’s deepest sound

Comes from the harp of pure Felicity.