Ibn ‘Arabi – ‘Alone with the Alone’

Hear, O My beloved!

You are the reason for the being of the world
You are the center-point of the sphere and its encompassing

You are its complexity and simplicity
You are the order brought down between heaven and earth

I did not create for you realizations
except that you realize Me in them

And when you realize Me, you realize yourself

Do not strive to realize Me in the realization of yourself

By My Eye you will see Me and yourself
You will not see Me by the eye of yourself

Beloved,
How often have I called you
and you do not hear

How often have I stood before you
and you do not witness Me

How often have I embodied Myself in sense
and you do not inhale
and in the flavors and you do not savor the taste
for My sake

What is the matter with you
that you do not feel Me when you touch?
Why do you not recognize Me in the fragrances of musk?
Why do you not see Me? Why do you not hear Me?

What is the matter with you!

What is the matter with you!

I Am your most heady rupture
beyond any delight

My craving for you is more intense
than any born for an object of desire

I Am better for you
than any good thing

I Am the Beautiful
I Am the Elegant

Love Me, Love Me
Love Me alone

Desire Me ardently

Be consumed in Me,
not engrossed in other than Me

Take Me in,
Receive Me

You will not find an intimate like Me

Everything wants you for itself
but I want you for your sake

But you, you avoid Me

Beloved,
You cannot meet Me half-way
in your drawing close to Me
My drawing close to you outweighs a hundredfold
of means by which you approach Me

I Am closer to you than your self
And yourself, which performs these acts,
is other than Me, created.

Beloved,
I am jealous of you, from you
I cannot bear to see you
with otherness or with yourself
Be with Me in Me
With yourself just as you are with Me

Then My Beloved
you will not even feel the Union.
The Union!

Had we found a path towards separation
We would let the separation savor separation

Beloved,
Come, hand in hand,
enter reality that it may decide
between us with a judgment of eternity

Beloved antagonist,
pleasure cannot be found
in dispute between lovers
pleasure is in the converse

As the poet said;
I wished her dead because of loving her
So that she’d be my adversary on the Last Day.

(Say; Do you have an understanding of the High Assembly when they are disputing?
Had the outcome of this severance been only appearance before the Judge, then what about the joy of and gazing upon the face of a beloved?)

O heart,
O heart