Since there is unity, there can be no duality; there neither I nor thou can arise.

Excerpt

A man of eminence said to a spiritual madman: “What is the world? Explain it to me!” — “This world,” said the madman, “which is full of honour and infamy, is like a palm tree made of wax imbued with a hundred colours. If anyone handles this tree, it becomes once more an amorphous mass of wax. Since wax alone matters, go, and be convinced that the colours thou admiredst are not worth a farthing. Since there is unity, there can be no duality; there neither I nor thou can arise.”

Source Mantic uttaïr, The fifth valley, or valley of unity (Tauhid), §1 · 📖 Read the full passage

✨ To meditate on today

According to Attar, a Persian Sufi poet, a “spiritual madman” — a sage whom the love of God has freed from appearances — compares the world to a wax palm tree of a hundred colours: beneath all these forms there is only one wax, one reality. Today, when a difference separates you from someone, remember that common wax and look for what unites you rather than what divides you.

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