when he occupied this station, leaving Bistam in search of the Real. A man among the men of God met him upon his road and said, “Abu Yazid,[31] what brought you out of your homeland?” He said, “Seeking the Real.” The man said, “The One you seek you left in Bistam.” Abu Yazid took heed, returned to Bistam, and remained in service until an opening was granted him, and what came from him came. These are the wanderers. God made this community’s wandering striving in God’s way.
(Seeking the Heart and Fleeing Magnification)
Know that this affair is not through the servant’s choice. Its possessor seeks to find his heart with his Lord within his state.
When he does not find it within a place, he says, “Perhaps God, exalted is He, has not decreed to appear to my heart within this place,” and leaves it hoping to attain this. He knows God, exalted is He, has ordered matters, and His knowledge eternally required that such-and-such occur only within such-and-such a place, with such-and-such an ascendant and through such-and-such a cause. When this possibility rules over him and he loses his heart within certain settings, whether following an earlier finding or not, he leaves that setting hoping to attain his desire. This is the cause of their estrangement from homelands and its like.
Some leave their homeland because of the might they possessed within it. If he sees that renunciation and repentance have increased his might,
Notes
[31]
(“با” was corrected to “يا” [the vocative “O”] by comparison with the newer edition.)
Translator’s note TN5448-1: The unvocalized lam yuqaddir/yaqdir is read “has not decreed,” following the subsequent account of places, ascendants, and causes ordered within eternal knowledge; no claim of divine inability is supplied.
