We have discussed his intention in this saying elsewhere and explained the unsoundness of the saying of the one objecting to him.
It is among the stations accompanying the servant so long as unveiling has not occurred for him. Once the covering is removed from the eye of his heart, he does not renounce, nor ought he to renounce. The servant does not renounce that for which he was created, and one is a renouncer only by renouncing what was created for his sake. This cannot be sound.
Renunciation, for one who maintains it, is ignorance in reality itself. What is not mine cannot be described as something I renounce, and I cannot separate myself from what is mine. Where, then, is renunciation? Let the person possessing this ruling say, “This is the renunciation that deserves this name.” We have verses concerning this station of renunciation:
The fault is yours, though you do not know:
renunciation is like my witr prayer.
The light of your soul's lamp is attached
to every affair within created being.
Extinguish the lamp, and every attachment vanishes:
renunciation within you is like the Night of Decree,
from sunset until it ends
in its ruling within you, like the rising of dawn.
Notes
Translator’s note TN4019-1: The first khuliqa lahu is read as ‘that for which he was created,’ contrasting with what was created for his sake. It also permits ‘what was created for him,’ which would make the two clauses a deliberate impasse, as the next paragraph says that one cannot renounce what is not one’s own or separate from what is one’s own. The poem compares renunciation's ending to the Night of Decree's ending at dawn.
