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"The Witness, The Darling"
Muhammad could mediate
for every kind of disgrace,
because he looked so unswervingly
at God. His eye medicine came
from his ever-expanding into God.
Any orphan daubed with that salve
will get better. He could see all
the attainments of those on the way.
Hence God called him "the witness."
The tools of the witness are truthfulness
and keen seeing and the night vigil.
This is the witness a judge listens
most carefully to. A false witness
has some self-interest that makes
his testimony specious.
He can't see the whole. That's why God
wants you to deny your desires, so
you will learn how to give up self-interest.
It's the love of the manifest world
that makes you an unreliable witness.
There is another way of seeing
that sees through your love of this place,
through the exciting drunkenness to the headache.
The witness can cure that hurting.
God is the just judge,
who calls the true witness,
the eye of pure love,
the darling,
the dalliance,
the reason inside the playfulness
that created phenomena.
-- Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)
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