Only God I Saw

So much concerning the theory of illumination. But, as Mephistopheles says, "grau ist alle Theorie"; and though to most of us the living experience is denied, we can hear its loudest echoes and feel its warmest afterglow in the poetry which it has created. Let me translate part of a Persian ode by the dervish-poet, Baba Kuhi of Shiriz, who died in 1050 A.D.

In the market, in the cloister--only God I saw.
In the valley and on the mountain--only God I saw.
Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation; In favour and in fortune--only God I saw.
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation, In the religion of the Prophet--only God I saw.
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance, Qualities nor causes--only God I saw.
I opened mine eyes and by the light of His face around me In all the eye discovered--only God I saw.
Like a candle I was melting in His fire: Amidst the flames outflashing--only God I saw.
Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly, But when I looked with God's eyes--only God I saw.
I passed away into nothingness, I vanished, And lo, I was the All-living--only God I saw.

The whole of Sufism rests on the belief that when the individual self is lost, the Universal Self is found, or, in religious language, that ecstasy affords the only means by which the soul can directly communicate and become united with God. Asceticism, purification, love, gnosis, saintship--all the leading ideas of Sufism--are developed from this cardinal principle.

R. A. Nicholson - The Mystics Of Islam