Muhsin Fani

“ The best men are those who content themselves with the least food, and who sequestrate themselves from this perishable world, and abstain from the enjoyments of eating, drinking, dress, and marriage. The vilest of the people are those who think it right to indulge the desire of generation, the passion for wine, and banquetting with eagerness, as if it were something divine. As the mode which the perfect prophet and apostle, Akbar the Wise, has prescribed to his followers, is difficult, certainly the demons excite the spirit of brutish passion against his regulations ”

“ He saw the high throne and the servants before him waiting for his orders. By this dream he was aroused from the emptiness of his illusion; he knew that the world is but an appearance without reality; and that, whatever we experience, being awake, is likewise nothing more than a dream. He found that the diversity of forms and of distinct bodies is but an image of existence, and that in truth there is but one real being, one praiseworthy, and raised above all others by superlative excellence. ”

“ Every nation acknowledges but one heavenly book, and rejects every other. Hence arises a very natural, and even respectable pre-conception against all that appears without the limits traced by religion, or mere early habit and adopted system. Thus a severe censure is provoked. To annihilate at once the impertinent pretension to a divine origin, all that ingenuity can suggest is brought forward to prove the book to be a fraudulent forgery; to strip it of the awful dignity of antiquity, it must by any means be represented as the work of yesterday. ”

“ He ought not to oppose the creed and religion of the creatures of God: inasmuch as a wise man chooses not his loss in the affairs of this perishable world, how in those of religion, which is permanent and eternal, should he knowingly tend to his perdition? If God be with his faith, then thou thyself carriest on controversy and opposition against God; and if God fails him, and he unknowingly takes the wrong way, then he proves to himself a rule of erroneous profession, which demands pity and assistance, not enmity or contradiction. Those who act and think well, bear friendship to every sect. ”

“ In the Bhagavad gita, it is intimated, that soul retains the senses and mind in the intervals of migration: “At the time that spirit obtains a body, and when it abandons one, it migrates, taking with it those senses, as the wind wafts along with it the perfumes of the flowers.” ”

“ Zardusht, being indignant at this speech, said to his father: “Abandon this erroneous way, and turn to the faith of God: hell must finally be the abode of magicians and enchanters.” These words greatly incensed Purtarúsh, who replied: “Of what consequence art thou before thy father! The intelligent of the earth, and the great men of the habitable world dare not address such insolence to me! Art thou not afraid of me? Dost thou not know me? For this thy insolence I shall spread amongst mankind such calumnies and lies respecting thy creed, that thou must remain in obscurity. ”

“ Let it be recommended to watch by night as much as possible; never to show violent enmity towards any man; and to beware of making one’s bosom the prison-house of rancour; should it nevertheless take place from the infirmity of human nature, let it soon be stifled: for, in the interior of our soul resides the true agent, the unparallelled God, and raises tumultuous strife for the sake of provoking the investigation of truth.
A governor should disdain laughing and joking: he should always be informed of every occurrence by spies ”

“ After careful examination, I must conscientiously declare, I discover no imposture aimed at by any artifice; there was no secret to be concealed; nothing to be disguised; the Mahabadian religion is as open as its temple, the vault of heaven, and as clear as the lights, flaming in their ethereal attitudes; its book is a sort of catechism of Asiatic religion; its prayer a litany of Oriental devotion, in which any man may join his voice. ”

“ To unite the soul with the body is as much as to drive Adam from heaven; to long for the body is to bear the commands of Eva; and to perform bad actions is to eat of the forbidden tree; anger is the serpent; lust is the peacock. They hold that Iblis represents the power of imagination which guides us, and the sensual influence which denies the knowledge of words and things consentient with reason, and contends with the power of reason ”

“ Among the Hindus it is an establised custom to bring flowers to God at the time of worship. One day Kabir saw a gardener’s wife who collected flowers for the image of a deity; he said to her: “In the leaves of the flower lives the soul of vegetation, and the idol to whom thou offerest flowers is without feeling, dead, without consciousness, in the sleep of inertness, and has no life; the condition of the vegetable is superior to that of the mineral. ”

“ The móbed is the teacher of thy truth, and the world a school.”
Blessing without limit to the mighty Being, the Lord of existence, the rider upon the sun of the celestial sphere which is the eye-witness of his glory; to Him whose servant is Saturn, Baharam (Mars) the messenger, Jupiter the star, the herald of good fortune, Venus the slave; to Him who is the ornament of the throne of the empire of the faith, and the crown of divinity of the kingdom of truth. ”

“ In the station of transition into God, Jabríil is the image of wisdom and of manifest knowledge, on which account it has been declared—
“There are moments when I am with God in such a manner that neither angel nor archangel, prophet nor apostle, can attain to it.”
When at the time of transition, science, comprehension, knowledge, and all qualities are cancelled and vanish, then transitory knowledge unites with the perfect science, the dangers of mankind are carried off and disappear, before the rays of light of the supreme Being. ”

“ Vessels of gold are esteemed more pure than those of any other metal. Whenever a Brahman sees an idol-temple, a cow, or a holy personage, he is to walk reverentially round each. He is not to perform the offices of nature in running water, nor in a cow-shed, nor in ashes; before a Brahman, or a cow, or in sight of the great luminary; when he retires to any place for this purpose, he is not in that state of nudity to look towards the stars ”

“ I am neither water nor dust, wind nor fire; not from the highest nor deepest, neither self-existent nor created; I am not from the two worlds, no son of Adam, not from hell nor from heaven, nor paradise. ”

“ He was desirous to perform the pilgrimage, but he was then too young for it, so it was postponed until he attained the truth of his religion. The words of God Almighty are:
“Verily, I am near to mankind, nearer than their own necks; there is no separation between me and mankind; and I am one with mankind; but mankind know it not: nor can a man attain the knowledge of me, unless by the means of the assiduous perusal of the sacred volume, and not by much travel of the feet; but he may attain the knowledge of me by ardent meditation, and, by obedience, a man becomes perfect.” ”

“ O Rama chander, thy condition is as fortunate as that of Saha dèv; such was his dignity and excellence, that men, by listening to his tale, feel themselves emancipated, and are no more subject to be born again. O Ramachander, he too was impressed with the idea that in no condition this world is permanent, but that all that is seen changes every moment, and passes from one state to another. One guest arrives and comes into the world, another dies and goes out of the world ”

“ These are the mystic Sufis.
Man, to express his most fervent adoration of the Divinity, uses the expressions by which he is wont to address the object of his most tender affections; he has but the fire of earth to kindle in sacrifice to heaven; and to elevate his soul to the Supreme Being, he makes wings of the most lively sentiments which he ever experienced, and can excite in himself. ”

“ Another evil attending submission to an incomprehensible doctrine is that, whatever the intellect possesses and offers by its ingenuity, turns to no instruction and advantage of mankind, whilst the prophet himself has said:
‘God imposes upon a man no more than he can bear.’
“And whatever the understanding does not comprise within the extent of reason, the truth of this remains hidden; and to assent thereto is silliness; because the doctrine of other wise men may be of a higher value than the tradition or the book of that prophet. ”

“ To this degree is subjoined the dogma of a possible ascension, from the undermost stage of hierarchy to the highest being, by an endless series of periods and revolutions; a new religion is established upon the ruins of the former; the resurrection, the end of the world, the last judgment, the rewards and punishments, are only emblematic expressions of the successive periodical revolutions of the stars and of the universe, of the destruction and renovation of all beings, produced by the disposition and combination of the elements. ”

“ But, in order to found and to expand the great and necessary truths, he knew no other means, but to attach the believers to his own person, and to accustom them to blind obedience to his dictates; he proclaimed: “There is no God but God, and Muhammed is his prophet;” he gave them the Koran, the only holy book, in which his precepts were as many commands proclaimed under the penalty of eternal damnation. In the Muhammedan all spontaneity is stifled; all desire, all attempt to be self-convinced is interdicted; every thing becomes exterior, the religious and civil Code but one. ”

“ To view the nature of God with the eye of the heart, and to see him face to face in every mansion and on every side, with the light of the intellect, and to cause no injury to the creatures of the All-Just: this is the business of mârifat, “true knowledge.”
To know the All-Just, and to perceive and comprehend the sound of the tasbíh, “rosary:” this is the business of kurbet, “proximity to God.” ”

“ He, the one perfect being, in what a multitude of beings does he not manifest himself! And if he removes from this creation the support of his will and of his providence, nothing remains but himself, the only being. O Saha dév, thou who hast purified thy heart from the attachments of this body, and liberated it from all desires and seductive propensities, thou hast convinced thyself of the trut that, whatever appears before our eyes, is nothing, and has neither reality nor substance ”

“ Serúsh or Serósh, is derived from the Zend, and signifies properly sí-roz, that is “thirty days, a month.” To the adorers of the stars, Serósh is the name of an angel who presides over the 17th day of the month; according to their religion, he is moreover the most active of the celestial spirits; as king of the earth, he passes every day and every night three times through his empire; his throne is the summit of the world; all light, all intelligence, he purifies and fertilizes the earth, blesses and protects mankind, strikes the evil spirits; in short, he is adored equal to the supreme being. ”

“ Let him attend to the beating of the kettle-drum at the rising of that luminary which bestows light upon the world; and at midnight, which is properly the beginning of sunrise, and during the progress of the great majestic light from station to station, let him order small and great guns to be fired, so that all men be called up to offer thanks to God. ”

“ He visited the Guru, and seated himself one day upon the bed of Bába Jév, who was the son of a Guru. The people said: “Do not sit there.” He asked: “Why not?” They answered: “This is the place of the Guru.” He said: “Is perhaps the figure of a Guru not that of a man, or have I not a rational soul manifest in me? or can I not enjoy what another eats or drinks?” This speech came to the ears of the Guru Hargovind. He called that man before him, and said: “O Déva! it is not the whole world but one being?” ”

“ Muhammed seemed not to know that religion cannot be the gift, as it is not the property, of any single man; it belongs to mankind. Any particular creed lives only by its inherent force, independently of the founder, who retires and leaves nothing behind him but his name as a mere distinction from that of another religion. Every individual action is of little avail, if it does not proceed from the free and pure impulse of the spirit, which must revive in all succeeding generations. ”

“ When in an elemental matter, the energy conjoins in such a manner that by it an exuberance results in the composition of the mineral form; then it may happen that it assumes such a superior aptness as to invest itself with a vegetable guise; when its faculty and fitness gains a further increase, then the animal vest adapts itself to a suitable shape, and becomes worthy, that the elemental matter, fitted for the dignity of a human constitution, converges to such an excellence as to manifest itself in the perfection of mankind. ”

“ The Jnánindra says: “Our fire is piety, and in it I burn the wood of duality; instead of a sheep, I sacrifice egotism: this is my Hóm.” Thus he interprets the whole religion of the Hindus, and a great number of men became his disciples. He has a nephew, called Gangu, ten years old, and younger than Sádarshan. One day, Gangu was crying from anger; the author of this book said to him: “Yesterday thou saidst: ‘The world and what it contains are but illusion;’ now, why dost thou cry?” He replied: “If the world is nothing, then my crying has no reality; I am not in contradiction with myself.” ”

“ Having thus taught Zardusht the Avesta and the Zand, he said to him: “Recite this celebrated volume to king Gushtasp, that through it he may obtain wisdom; tell him also to attain a perfect knowledge of me; no one should ever call me the worker of injustice; command the Mobeds and all mankind to separate themselves from demons and magicians.” ”

“ God is the world in its universality, but in its particularity mutable conformably with the whole, as it has been stated in the doctrine of the Yezdánían. They maintain, the work of God is according to his will; he does; if he wills not, he does not; but a good work is conformable to his nature: because all his attributes are perfection, in which sense they draw necessary conclusions with regard to the nature of God. ”

“ We know by the application of the intellect that nothing can be like the Lord’s divine power, and that at all times nothing of what is created can be like him, and firmly convinced of it, we think these words are to be considered as a mere simile, such as: ‘God seated upon his throne,’ or such as ‘I created you with my hand, and I preserve you.’ Except these words, which are to be considered as a mere simile, we know no other meaning, and to know thoroughly the meaning and interpretation of it, we feel ourselves perplexed ”

“ Prayers of the pious, salutations of the saints, sacrifice for the holy spirits of the prophets and apostles, blessing and peace be upon our prophet and upon them! who are the guides of the roads, those who walk before us on the ways, parts of the whole. ”

“ There was one theme in which all agreed: the grandeur, majesty, and beneficence of one supreme Being, the Creator, ruler, and preserver of the world, which is the effulgence of his power. This is expressed in the Koran in such a strain of sublimity as may unite men of all religions in one feeling of admiration. This excellence is an inheritance of the most ancient Asiatic religion. God can but be always the object of boundless adoration, but never that of human reasoning. ”

“ They declare: “When we say that Jesus is seated at the right side of God, his Father, we mean not to say that God has a body and is any thing corporeal. No! the Divine Being has neither right nor left side. By such a description we intend to be intelligible to the vulgar; for Jesus, in the abstract sense of being the son of God, possesses the same greatness and power which his Father has, and in the abstract sense of his being a man, he dwells in the most glorious and most excellent place, which is in heaven.” ”

“ I wished to proceed on the footsteps of brutishness, and compared it to wine, the power of which is seducing, clouding, and ignorance-increasing, like passion and lust, and wine is the darkener of the two other powers. And he compared nature to water, because from it is derived the support and stability of a person, and man depends upon the temperament of the agents which act in the body ”

“ A judgment, so expressed, might induce an impartial mind to ascribe originality to at least a part of the Asmáni language; which would naturally render the other part less liable to suspicion, inasmuch as it would have been not less difficult to execute, but less easy to conceal, a partial than a total forgery. Nevertheless it so happens that the dissimilarity from any other, as well as the similarity to one particular idiom, are both equally turned against the genuineness of the language in question: where dissimilarity exists, there is absolute forgery—where similarity, an awkward disguise! ”

“ Borák, the vehicle of devotion, is like an image of prayer; the saddle and bridle represent the ready mind and the perfect union of religion. The members of Borák, of precious jewels, typify purity, candor, affection, submission, humility, and perfect love of God, rejecting all other desire except that tending towards the supreme Being in prayer. The restiveness of Borak, and the aid given by Jabríil in mounting Borák present a similitude of the reluctance of the human mind to the wisdom of its knowledge of God, and Jabríil figures the science of divinity. ”

“ When Yásán Asám had abandoned this elementary body and passed away from this abode of wickedness, the state of mankind fell into utter ruin, as his son Gilsháh, who was enlightened in spirit, intelligent in nature, adorned by good deeds, feeling no wish for sovereign power, had given himself so entirely up to the service of God, that no one knew the retreat of this holy personage.—Men therefore, shutting up the eyes of social intercourse, extended the arm of oppression against each other ”

“ When Zardusht had departed from Bahman, the Amshásfand Shahrivar came forward and said to him: “On thy arrival from the upper to the lower world, tell men to furbish and polish up their arms, and always to keep them in good order and readiness; in the day of battle let them not quit their posts, but display heroic exertion and not resign their post to any other.”
Asfandármaz then coming forward, after many benedictions said to Zardusht: “This is the command of the Almighty to mankind, let them keep the earth pure, and remove blood, pollution, and dead bodies to some uncultivated place. ”

“ Above the six circles, into which the Hindus divide the human body, is “the window of life, and the passage of the soul, which is the top and middle of the head, and in that place is the flower of the back of one thousand leaves: this is the residence of the glorious divinity, that is, of the world-deceiving queen, and in this beautiful site reposes her origin. ”

“ Simplicity may be a mere restriction to one object or to few objects; purity, nothing else but homogeneity in good or bad, true or false; we shall not confound them with rationality, which may subsist with multiplicity and mixture. Thus, the adoration of one deified man, one great serpent, one huge stone, is by no means more rational than the worship of numerous generations of gods, the ingenious personification sof multiform nature, ever acknowledged as the genuine offspring of the happy marriage between intellect and imagination. ”

“ The struggle of the human mind is without term, but not without aim. We see two principal movers of human intellect—PHILOSOPHY and RELIGION. The one employs reason as a sufficient power for the solution of a solvable problem, which comprehends knowledge, morality, and civilisation. The other distrusts reason, and relies upon a supernatural power for the revelation of a secret, or for the word of an enigma, which relates to a destination beyond the bounds of this world. The philosopher, self-confident, is liable to error for various reasons ”

“ He moreover commanded me: ‘Say thou to mankind, if ye adopt the pure faith, then shall paradise be your place; but if ye receive it not, you follow the institutes of Ahriman, and hell shall be your abode.’ The several demonstrations of Zardusht and his wondrous works are to you an abundant proof of the truth of his faith. Know also that at first he sought the world; but finally regarded wife, children, and relations as strangers to himself; he has moreover attained to such perfect faith, that the king and the mendicant are the same in his sight. ”

“ The Asiatic, from the dawn of his reason, is nourished with the marvellous, trained to credulity, and prepared for mysticism, the bane of practical life; in short, he imbibes from his infancy a superstition from which he never frees himself, always prone to interpret every unusual phenomenon as a miracle. No sort of study enables him to correct his first impressions, or to enlighten his ignorance; natural history and experimental philosophy are not cultivated in Asia. ”