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About the author:
Jabez L. Van Cleef takes foundational texts from many oral traditions and religions and creates a common poetic format to preserve, promote and disseminate the values of these cultures. His work also promotes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other frameworks intended to foster full realization of human potential. See more at www.sustainyourspirit.com. The Tawasin of Mansur Al-Hallaj, In VerseA Mystical Treatise on Knowing God, & Invitation to the DanceBy Jabez L. Van CleefHere a medieval Muslim mystic records his living meditation on becoming one with God, where he likens himself to a moth leaping into flame: In that bright instant, wings aflame, Reduced to fragments of his name, The moth-ash shows his body's form Where no mark will distinguish him. Rumi wrote three centuries later on Al-Hallaj's words, 'I am God,': "People imagine that it is a presumptive claim, whereas I find it is really a presumptive claim to say 'I am the slave of God'; for, 'I am God' is an expression of great humility. The man who says 'I am the slave of God' affirms two existences, his own and God's; but he that says, 'I am God,' has made himself non-existent and has given himself up, and says 'I am God,' that is, 'I am naught, He is all; there is no being but God's.' This is the extreme of humility and self-abasement."
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