[Sunlight] "Flee from the hordes of devourers"

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Every fantasy devours another fantasy:
one thought feeds on another.
You can't be delivered from fantasy
or fall asleep to escape from it altogether.
Your thoughts are like hornets, and your sleep is like the water
in which you are plunged: when you awake, the hornets return,
and many hornet-like fantasies fly in
and draw you now this way and then that way.
This mental fantasy is the least of the devourers:
the Almighty knows how great the others are.
Listen, flee from the hordes of devourers
toward the One who has said, "We are your Protector"*;
or if you can't hasten toward the Protector Himself,
toward the one who has gained that power of protection.

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Har khayâli-râ khayâli mi-khvorad
fekr ân fekr-e degar-râ mi charad
To na-tâni kaz khayâli vâ rahi
yâ be-khospi keh az ân birun jahi
Fekr zanburast va ân khvâb-e to âb
chon shavi bidâr bâz âyad zobâb
Chand zanbur-e khayâli dar parad
mi kashad in su o ân su mi barad
Kamtarin âkelân ast in khayâl
vân degar-hâ-râ shenâsad Zu al-Jalâl
Hin goriz az jawq-e okkâl-e ghaliz
su-ye U keh goft "Mâ-'imet Hafiz"*
Yâ beh-su-ye ânke U ân hefz yâft
gar na-tâni su-ye ân hâfez-e shetâft

*l `Imrân, 150

-- Mathnawi V: 729-735
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)

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[Sunlight] "Flee from the hordes of devourers"