A Persian Mystic's Glimpses of Illumination

Kushroo, who lived around 1200-1300 A.D., wrote these glimpses, here translated and interpreted by Dr. Fredoon C. Birdi:

O Thou, whose glorious face is the envy of the most beautiful ones!

However much I praise Thee, still Thou art beyond all praises!

Even just a glimpse of illumination fills a man with so much ecstasy and rapture, that he never forgets that thrill, and often it becomes a turning point in his life.

To find Thy peer, I have searched the whole blue-vaulted sky, scrutinized even the glorious Sun, and the resplendent Moon, aye, even dipped into Venus and Jupiter, but all to no purpose ―Thou art incomparable.

Even a moment of cosmic-conscious state is a unique never-to-be-forgotten experience. It is a sort of ethereal and heavenly condition that cannot be translated into our material sensations and experiences.

I become Thou, and Thou becomest me; I become soul and Thou becomest the body, that none dare say that I am this and Thou art that.

This is the mystic's way of putting the Christ's "I and the Father are One," the Buddha's "Divine Unity;" the Zarathustra's “Soul of Nature"; when the individual soul unifies itself with the Universal, and so is in tune with the Infinite.

Thou hast dawned upon me so suddenly and unexpectedly that I am almost taken by surprise and overpowered completely, and have lost my heart and soul at Thy feet.

This condition of divine illumination often comes when it is least expected, and takes its subject almost off his feet, so that sometimes he falls into a fit of ecstatic laughter, and on other occasions he indulges in rapturous wailings.

I have seen the precious rubies of Badakhshan and I have handled the priceless pearls of Aden, but Thou! O Beloved! art a unique Jewel, beyond all praise or price.