Suhrawardi - Three Treatises on Mysticism.pdf - Platonic Philosophy

48
them of past day**,
and displayed my helplessness. They
approached me. I asked them about; their state [saying]
"How did yon secure your freedom and how are you contented
with those remainders of the bonds?"
Then they helped me in the same way in which they
neck and
had contrived for themselves
;
so that I got my
wings out of the snare. And they opened the door of the
cage. When I came out they said to me, "Regard this
[much] freedom as a blessing". I requested, "Remove this
bond from my leg". They replied, "Had we the power to do
so we would have first removed it from our own legs.
And
no one asks for cure and medicine from a sick physician ;
and if he asks for medicine from him,
it is ineffective."
So I fle\r with them. They said to me, u We have before
us lengthy roads and frightful and fearful stages of which
we cannot be care-free. Rather we may likely loose this
state for a second time and be once again entangled in that
former state [of captivity ].
So we must take all
pains to
fly out of these fearful nets all at once and to fall on the
right path once again."
Then we took to the middle of two roads. It was a
valley abundant in water and green grass. We flew alright
till we passed those snare-houses. And we did not attend to
the whistle of any hunter. And we reached a mountain-top
and looked about. In front of us there were eight other
mountains, the summits of which the eyes of the onlookers
could not behold on account of their height. We said to
one another, "Alighting
is out of question, and there is no
security better than passing these mountains safely,
because in every mountain there is a number of
people who aim at iis. And if we attend to these
[mountains] and remain with the delights of these mountains
and the pleasures of these places, we will never reach our