[Sunlight] "Look and see who loses!”

~

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The deniers are their own enemies: by denying,
they keep on wounding themselves.
An enemy is a man who tries to take your life,
not one who takes his own.
The pitiful, veiled bat is its own enemy, not the
sun's.
The sun's shining will kill it -- but how can it
annoy the sun?
An enemy is one who inflicts torment, who bars
the ruby from glowing with light.
But the unbelievers all bar themselves from the
radiance of the prophets' gem.
How can people veil the eyes of those unique
men? No, they make their own eyes blind and perverse,
Like an angry Hindu slave who kills himself to
spite his master,
Throwing himself down from the roof of the
house to inflict on him a heavy loss.
If the patient becomes the physician's enemy, if
the child becomes hostile to his teacher,
In reality they waylay their own roads -- they
themselves have wasted their own lives and intellects.
If a washerman becomes angry with the sun, if
a fish becomes angry with the ocean,
Look and see who loses! In the end, who will
suffer misfortune?
If God has created you with an ugly face,
beware! Add not to it an ugly disposition!

-- Mathnawi II: 789 - 802
Translation by William Chittick
The Sufi Path of Love
SUNY Press, 1983

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[Sunlight] "Look and see who loses!”