OMAR KHAYYAM Quotes and Philosophy
OMAR Khayyam was an important philosopher, Scientist and practical instructor in Sufism. His name is well known in European literature mainly because of Edward Fitzgerald, who in Victorian times published a few of Omar's quatrains in English. Fitzgerald - like, it must be noted, many Eastern scholastics - imagined that because Khayyam was at times talking about widely conflicting points of view, he himself was a victim to some sort of alteration of mind. This attitude, while characteristics of many academicians, is just about as profound as that of a man who thinks that if someone shows you something he must believe it; and that if he shows you several things, he must be subject to identification with these things.
Fitzgerald was guilty of far more, however, than poor thinking capacity. His interpolation of anti-Sufi propaganda into his rendering of Khayyam cannot be excused even by his most ardent supporters. As a result they tend to ignore this amazing dishonesty, and based upon the special terminology and allegory of Sufism. A full investigation and translation was made by Swami Govinda Tirtha in 1941, published under the title of The Nectar of Grace.
This book is virtually that last word on the question of the meaning (so far as it can be transposed into English) of the materials. It is interesting to note that few Western scholars have made use of this essential work in their expositions of Khayyam.
The result is that Khayyam effectively remains all but unknown.
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| "Earth could not answer nor the Seas that mourn" Khayyam |
See Also: Ibn El Arabi Quotes & Philospohy
The Secret
The secret must be kept from all no-people:
The mystery must be hidden from all idiots.
See what you do to people -
The Eye has to be hidden from all men.
Mankind
The circle of this world is like a ring:
There is no doubt at all that we are the
Naqsh, the Design of its bezel.
Seeds like These
In cell and cloister, in monastery and synagogue :
Some fear hell and other dream of Paradise.
But no man who really knows the secrets of his God
Has planted seeds like this within his heart.
The Enemy of Faith
I drink wine, and opponents from right and left say:
'Drink no drink for it is against faith.'
Since I know that wine is against faith,
By God let me drink - the blood of the enemy is lawful to me.
Meditations
Though 'wine' is forbidden, this is according to who drinks it,
As to how much, also with whom it is drunk.
The Way of the Sufi
When these three requirements are fulfilled; speak truly -
Then, if the Wise may not drink 'wine', who should?
Those who try to be ostracized
And those who spend the night in prayer,
None is on dry land, all are at sea.
One is awake, and all the others are asleep.
I fell asleep, and Wisdom said to me:
'Sleeping, the rose of happiness never bloomed.
Why do you do a thing which is next to death?
Drink "wine", for you will have long to sleep.'
Friends, when you hold a meeting
You must much remember the Friend.
When you drink successfully together,
When my turn comes,'turn the glass upside down'.
Those who have gone before us, O Cupbearer,
Are sleeping in the dust of self-pride.
Go, drink 'wine', and hear from me the Truth:
What they have only said is in our hands, O Cupbearer.
Under the Earth
You are not gold, ignorantly heedless one:
That, once put in the earth, anyone
Will bring you out again.
Man
Do you know what a man of earth may be, Khayyam,
A lantern of imaginings, and inside a lamp.
Do Not Go Empty-Handed
Take some substance from Here to There -
You will make no profit if you go with empty hand
I Am
Every clique has a theory about me -
I am mine; what I am, I am