STORY XV.] COUNSELS OF RESERVE. 53
That you may see your own pure bright essence!1 Yea, see in your heart the knowledge of the Prophet, Without book, without tutor, without preceptor. The Prophet saith, "He is one of my people, Whoso is of like temper and spirit with me. His soul beholds me by the selfsame light Whereby I myself behold him,- Without traditions and scriptures and histories, In the fount of the water of life." Learn the mystery, "I was last night a Kurd, And this morning am become an Arab."1 This mystery of "last night" and "this morning" Leads you into the road that brings you to God. But if you want an instance of this secret knowledge, Hear the story of the Greeks and the Chinese.
STORY XV. Conscis of Reserve given by the Prophet to his Freedman Zaid (p. 87). At dawn the Prophet said to Zaid, "How is it with thee this morning, O pure disciple?" He replied, "Thy faithful slave am I." Again he said, "If the garden of faith has bloomed, show a token of it." He answered, "I was athirst many days, By night I slept not for the burning pangs of love; So that I passed by days and nights, As the point of a spear glances off a shield. For in that state all faith is one, A hundred thousand years and a moment are all one; World without beginning and world without end are one; Reason finds no entrance when mind is thus lost." The Prophet again urged Zaid to deliver to him a present from that celestial region, as a token that he had really been there in the spirit. Zaid answered that he had seen¹ Syad Abu'l Wafa, an unlettered Kurd, found a paper with the words Bismillah upon it, and, after spend. ing the night in prayer, found him- self able to understand Arabic (Luck- now Commentator),
