Letter of Secrets by Attar of Nishapur
Select Verses from “The Letter of Secrets”
دلا یک دم رها کن آب و گل را
صلای عشق درده اهل دل را
Dela yek dam raha kon abo gel ra
Salaye eshgh darde ahle del ra
Dela-heart; yek-one; dam-breath; raha-surrender; kon-do; ab-water; o-and; gel-mud; ra-of; Salaye-prayer; eshgh-love; darde-pain; ahle-original; del-soul or heart; ra-of.
Oh heart, for just one breath, surrender this life of water and mud (let go of thinking you’re the body).
Respond to the call of love and soothe the primal pain of your soul.
ز نور عشق شمع جان برافروز
زبور عشق از جانان درآموز
Ze noore eshgh sham-e jaan barafrooz
Zaboore eshgh az jaanan daramooz
Ze-from; noor-light; e-of; eshgh-love; sham-candle; e-of; jaan-soul; barafrooz-burning brilliant; Zaboor-Psalms of David; eshgh-love; az-from; jaanan-the lovers; dar-internal or essence; amooz-discover or learn.
The book of love is directly coming from God - like the Psalms were given to David. Come learn the book of love directly from the lovers. Surrender to discover the essence.
Love has a quality: pay attention…
Lovers have a brilliant light beaming from within.
Love can’t be explained. Only experienced.
How can you know honey - unless you’ve tasted it?
حدیث عشق ورد عاشقان ساز
دل و جان در هوای عاشقان باز
Hadis-e eshgh verde asheghan saz
Del-o-jan dar havaye asheghan baz
Hadis-sayings; e-of; eshgh-love; verde-blossom; asheghan-the Lovers; saz-instrument;
Del-heart, o-and; jan-soul; dar-inside; havaye-the skies; asheghan-the Lovers; baz-lose.
The mantra from the mouth of Lovers is only, “Love! Love! Bring me my Lover!”
Body and soul - surrender it, give it all to the Lovers [or those who reached great heights]!
(love can’t be explained through logic - only through feeling / experience).
Follow these Truth knowers - they are the Lovers, Dervishes, and the most Sincere.
چوعشق آمد خرد را میل درکش
بداغ عشق خود را نیل درکش
Cho eshgh amad kheradra meyl darkesh
Be dagh-e eshgh khodra nil darkesh
Cho-rumor; eshgh-love; amad-came; kherad-reason/logic; meyle-desire; darkesh-understanding. Be-of, dagh-hot; e-of; eshgh-love; khod-Self; ra-to; nil-the River Nile; darkesh-understand or pull towards.
Once you surrender [to Love] lose your mind. Stop questioning, calculating. Dive into love. Go into the heat of love fully …Fall in love like someone who drops themselves in the Nile river: drown yourself! There is so much depth to this love… Become intoxicated! Forget yourself!
خرد آبست و عشق آتش بصورت
نسازد آب با آتش ضرورت
Kherad ab asto eshgh atash be soorat
Nasazad ab ba atash zaroorat
Kherad-wisdom, knowledge; ab-water; ast-is; eshgh-love; atash-fire; be-in; soorat-face or form; Na-not; sazad-play together; ab-water; ba-with; atash-fire; zaroorat-necessity.
Knowledge appears like water, Love appears like fire;
In form, these instruments don’t play well together.
Often we have no patience for real love. We get sick of each other, and don’t want to deal with the fire of love. The mind tells us to let go (like water on fire). If you follow the mind, you will certainly lose love. Know as long as you are following your mind, you abandon Love.
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Translated from Farsi by Leila Musavi and into English by Parastou Marashi
Parastou’s Note:
The mind is often so busy thinking: let me do this! Let me call this person, get this done, go here, go there. We can get lost in a mad chase, following the whims of our minds! But what if instead we take a moment to pause and get truly present to what we are doing RIGHT NOW, to breathe more fully, to listen more attentively, to speak with intention, to dive deeply in our divine relationship, and to be with what is right in front of us…
Context:
I was asked if I could help producer Holmes Ives find an English translation of a section from the Persian Sufi poet Attar’s poem, Letter of Secrets, Part Five. The poem was brought to Ives by a Persian vocalist for an album project to be released on Six Degrees Records (label of the Persian fusion group, Niyaz).
For the select translated verses, I provide the source in Farsi, a transliteration, and a translation that provides the essential meaning of the poem, from the perspective of Islamic spirituality and mysticism. For translations, I opted to use the essential translations as defined by Leila.
About Attar:
Abū Ḥamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm, better known by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn and ʿAṭṭār (Attar means apothecary) was a Persian poet, theoretician of Sufism, and hagiographer from Nishapur who had an immense and lasting influence on Persian poetry and sufism.The Conference of the Birds] and The Book of Divine are among his most famous works.
The Poet, Attar, is a True Knower, a Hakim (one who knows mysticism).
He is a Lover of God, Fully Surrendered.
Note: all the greatest Persian poets of the past were true hakims, and they explained deep spiritual subjects in their poetry.
Summary of Letter of Secrets | Part Five
In Islamic philosophy, Love has the highest position, and is the very root and source of all existence. Love is higher than the mind, logic, or any knowledge that exists. Everything that exists in this universe comes from the mind—and mind was created as a servant of Love. In many mystical traditions (sufism, kabbalah, bhakti yoga) it is clearly defined that if a person wants to walk toward Truth, they must surrender their mind to the Path of Love.
The purpose of knowledge is to get us to the experience of love, to understand what love is capable of… but ultimately, we must surrender to the process and experience it firsthand.
Our minds can get us to a certain point - but we have to offer our minds to the process of connection with the divine.
In Letter of Secrets, Attar wants to speak about the highest stages of love. Not only the love of your lover, another person, your child—though these are all important and essential loving relationships—he wants us to learn about the existence of the universe as a result of divine love.
