The Shop Of Nothingness

Every shop has a different (kind of) merchandise: the Mathnawi is the shop for (spiritual) poverty, O son.
In the shoemaker’s shop there is fine leather: if you see wood (there), it is (only) the mould for the shoe.
The drapers have (in their shops) silk and dun-coloured cloth: if iron be (there), it is (only to serve) for a yard-measure.
Our Mathnawi is the shop for Unity: anything that you see (there) except the One (God) is (only) an idol

The Masnawi - Volume 6, 1525