Good News / Mystic Traditions

The Eternal Mirror
by Farid al-Din Attar 24.05.2007, changed 04.06.2007

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All you have been, and seen, and done, and thought

Not You but I, have seen and been and wrought. . . .

Who in your Fraction of Myself behold

Myself within the Mirror Myself hold

To see Myself in, and each part of Me

That sees himself, though drown'd, shall ever see.

Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,

And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:

Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide

Return, and back into your Sun subside.

[Editor's Note: This article is based on an excerpt from Farid al-Din Attar's Mantiq-ut-Tair, or Bird Parliament, translated by Edward FitzGerald (sometimes referred to as "The Conference of Birds" or "The Speech of Birds" or "The Colloquy of the Birds"). The title is my own. See also Hazrat Inayat Khan's lecture on the Sufi Poetry of Fariduddin Attar.]