[Sunlight] From heedlessness to Him

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God said, "It is not because he is despicable
that I delay My gift to him: That very delay is an aid.
His need brought him from heedlessness to Me,
pulling him by the hair to My lane.
Were I to satisfy his need, he would go back
and immerse himself in that game.
Although he laments to the bottom of his soul:
'Oh Thou whose protection is sought!' - let him weep with
broken heart and wounded breast.
For I am pleased by his voice, his saying, 'Oh
God!' and his secret prayers. . . ."
People cage parrots and nightingales to hear the
sound of their sweet songs.
But how should they put crows and owls into
cages? Who indeed has heard tale of that? . . .
Know for certain that this is the reason the
believers suffer disappointment in good and evil.

-- Mathnawi, VI: 4222-26, 28-29, 37
Translation by William C. Chittick
The Sufi Path of Love - The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi
State University of New York Press, Albany, 1983

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[Sunlight] From heedlessness to Him