[Sunlight] "I want no kingdoms"

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If you don't have sovereignty over your own beard,
how will you exercise sovereignty over good and evil?
Without your wish, your beard grows white:
be ashamed of your beard, you with your self-serving dreams.
God is the Owner of the Kingdom:
whoever lays his head before Him
will receive a hundred kingdoms without the terrestrial world;
but the inward savor of a single prostration before God
will be sweeter to you than a hundred empires:
then you will cry humbly, "I want no kingdoms
except the kingdom of that prostration."

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Pâdeshâhi nistet bar rish-e khvod
pâdeshâhi chon koni bar nik o bad?
Bi morâd-e to rishet sapid
sharm dâr az rish-e khvod ay kazh omid
Mâlek al-Molkast harkesh sar nehad
bi jahân-e khâk sad molkesh dehad
Lik zawq-e sajdeh-'i pish-e Khodâ
khvoshtar âyad az do sad dawlat torâ
Pas be-nâli keh "Na-khvâham molk-hâ
molk-e ân sajdeh mosallam kon merâ"

-- Mathnawi IV: 662-666
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)

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[Sunlight] "I want no kingdoms"