The Water We Seek

The eye or the spirit that focuses on the transient falls on its face wherever it goes. Someone who focuses on the distance, without knowledge, may see far, but just as we do in a dream. Asleep on the bank of a river, lips parched, you dream you are running toward water. In the distance you see the water of your desire and, caught by your seeing, you run toward it.
In the dream you boast, "I am the one whose heart can see through the veils." Yet every step carries you further away toward the perilous mirage. From the moment you dreamed you set out you created the distance from that which had been near to you.
Many set out on a journey that leads them farther away from their goal. The intuitive claims of the sleeper are a fantasy. You, too, are sleepy; But for God's sake, if you must sleep, sleep on the Way of God, and maybe some other seeker on the Way will awaken you from your fantasies and slumber.
No matter how subtle the sleeper's thought becomes, his dreams will not guide him Home. Whether the sleeper's thought is twofold or threefold, it is error multiplying error.
The Masnawi - Volume 4, 3226