Whoever understands gathering in this way knows how things are:
Whoever knows gathering thus
Knows how the affair is.
It is the Real, none other;
So do not listen to it.
(The Fifth Pole and the Constancy of Love)
As for the fifth Pole, who is upon the footing of David, peace be upon him, his Sura from the Qur’an is ‘When it is shaken’ [al-Zalzala 99:1]. It has half the Qur’an, and his Abodes equal its verses in number. His state is separation, and he has the station of love: he is ailing with love, and his ailment is his remedy. There is no science in which he surpasses others except the science of the constancy of divine and cosmic love. For this reason he was in the station of separation. He had been among the Imams and was then transferred to Polehood.
This Pole says that love is what remains constant: any love that ceases is not love, and any that changes is not love. For love’s sovereignty is too great for anything to remove it, so that even heedlessness—the greatest sovereignty ruling the human being—cannot remove love from the lover.
In his view, it is possible for a person to become heedless of himself through his beloved, but it is not possible for the lover to become heedless of his beloved through anyone. Such is the lover, and such is love:
The ailment of love never departs,
And recovery from it is impossible.
Notes
Translator’s note: The final line of the first poem, فلا تسمعنه, is a compressed, unvocalized prohibition with an uncertain object. It can also be read causatively, ‘so do not make it heard.’ The printed negation is retained.
