the walled (and enchanted) garden of Tao

دیوان اشعار

Hakim Sanai - Hakim Abul-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam Sanā'ī Ghaznavi (حکیم ابوالمجد مجدود ‌بن آدم سنایی غزنوی‎), lived in Ghazna, today's Afghanistan, between the 11th and the 12th century, died around 1131, is acknowledged as one of the major Sufi poets, the mystical-spiritual tradition of research developed within Islam orthodoxy. Among his writings The Hadiqat al Haqiqa, Hadiquatu'l Haqiquat, Hadiqat al-Haqiqa wa Shari'at al-Tariqa, Al Hadiqa in brief, is the most known for the 1974 english translation, and recognized as his masterpiece. His writings later inspired other Sufi mystics, especially Attar - Farīd al-Dīn ʿAttār - in the 12-13th century and Rumi - Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī - in the 13th century. Together are regarded as the three greatest Masters of the Sufi tradition.
The story tells that Sanai accompanied as court poet the Sultan of Ghazna,  Ghaznavid Bahram-shah, in a military expedition to India, where he met the Sufi mystic Lai-Khur. The title of "Walled garden of Truth" comes from a double meaning in persian: the term "walled garden" is the same for Paradise, but also is in a walled garden that Lai-Khur taught to Sanai the truth toward the path of Wisdom.

Similarly to other middle and far east texts of several traditions, Al Hadiqa exposes - in the form of poetic text - the fundamental characteristics of a sacred experience: the disjunction between the divine and the mind, the disappearance of the Self as necessary condition for the appearance of Truth, the overcoming of the Duality toward Unity. 

  The walled Garden of Truth

We tried reasoning

our way to Him:

it did not work;

but the moment we gave up,

no obstacle remained.

He introduced himself to us

out of kindness: how else

could we have known him?

Reason took us as far as the door;

but it was his presence that let us in.

 

But how will you ever know him,

as long as you are unable

to know yourself?

 

Once one is one,

no more, no less:

error begins with duality;

unity knows no error.

 

The road your self must journey on

lies in polishing the heart.

It is not by rebellion and discord

that the heart's mirror is polished free

of the rust of hypocrisy and unbelief:

your mirror is polished by your certitude -

by the unalloyed purity of your faith.

 

Break free

from your chains you have forged about yourself;

for you will be free when you are free of clay.

The body is dark - the heart is shining bright;

the body is mere compost - the heart a blooming garden.

He doesn't know his own self:

how should he know the self of another?

He knows only his hands and feet,

how should he know about God?

This is beyond the sage's grasp:

you must be a fool

if you think that you know it.

When you can expound on this,

you will know the pure essence of faith;

till then,

what have faith and you in common?

It is better to be silent

then to talk nonsense

like one of the learned;

faith is not woven

into every garment.

 

You were made for work:

a robe of honor awaits you.

How is it that you are satisfied

with mere rags?

How will you ever have riches

if you are idle sixty days a month?

 

Knowing what you know,

be serene also, like the mountain;

and do not be distressed by misfortune.

Knowledge without serenity is an unlit candle;

together they are honey-comb;

honey without wax is a noble thing;

wax without honey is only fit for burning.

 

Leave this abode

of birth and decay;

leave this pit,

and make for your destined home.

This heap of dust is mirage,

where fire seems like water.

The pure man unites

two in one;

the lover unites

three in one.

 

But I am frightened

lest your ignorance and stupidity

leave you stranded on the bridge.

 

He is the provider

of both faith and worldly goods;

he is none other

than the disposer of our lives.

 

He is no tyrant:

for everything he takes,

he gives back seventy-fold;

and if he closes one door

he opens ten others for you.

 

He treasures you more

than you do yourself.

Rise, have done with fairy tales;

leave your base passions,

and come to me.

 

You have to realize

that it is his guidance

that keeps you on the path

and not your own strength

A Ruby there is just a piece of stone:

and spiritual excellence the height of folly.

Silence is praise - have done with speech;

your chatter will only bring you harm and sorrow -

have done!

 

Belief and unbelief

both have their origin

in your hypocryte's heart;

the way is long only

because you delay to start on it;

one single step

would bring you to him:

become a slave,

and you will become a king.

 

The dumb find tongues,

when the scent of life reaches them

from his soul

 

Listen truly - and don't be fooled -

this is not for fools:

all these different shades

become one color

in the jar of unity;

the rope becomes slender

when reduced to a single strand.

 

Your intellect is just hotchpotch

of guesswork and thought,

limping over the face of the earth;

wherever they are, he is not;

they are contained within his creation.

Man and his reason are just the latest

ripening plants in his garden.

Whatever you assert about his nature

you are bound to be out of your depth,

like a blind man trying to describe

the appearance of his mother.

While reason is still tracking down the secret,

you end your quest on the open field of love.

 

The path consists in neither words nor deeds:

only desolation can come from these,

and never any lasting edifice.

Sweetness and life are the words

of the man who threads this path in silence;

when he speaks it is not from ignorance,

and when he is silent it is not from sloth.

For the wise man

evil and good

are both exceeding good.

No evil ever comes from God;

whenever you think to see

evil proceeding from him,

you were better to look on it

as good.

I'm afraid that on the way of faith,

you are like a squinter seeing double,

or a fool quarreling with the shape of a camel.

If he gives you poison, deem it honey;

and if he shows you anger, deem it mercy.

 

Be contented with your lot;

but if you have any complaints,

go and take them to the Cadi,

and obtain satisfaction from him.

That's how the fool's mind works!

 

Whatever befalls you, misfortune or fortune,

is unalloyed blessing;

the attendant evil

a fleeing shadow.

 

'Good' and 'evil' have no meaning

in the world of the Word:

they are names, coined

in the world of 'me' and 'you'.

 

Your life is just morsel in his mouth;

his feast is both wedding and a wake.

Why should darkness grieve the heart?

- for night is pregnant with new day.

 

You say you've unrolled the carpet of time,

step then beyond life itself and reason,

till you arrive at God's command.

 

You cannot see anything, being blind by night,

and by day one-eyed with your foolish wisdom!

My friend, everything existing

exists through him;

your own existence is a mere pretense.

No more nonsense! Lose yourself,

and the hell of your heart becomes a heaven.

Lose yourself, and anything can be accomplished.

Your selfishness is an untrained colt.

 

You are what you are:

hence your loves and hates;

you are what you are:

hence faith and unbelief.

 

Hope and fear drive fortune from your door;

lose yourself, and they will be no more.

 

At his door, what is the difference

between Moslem and Christian,

virtuous and guilty?

At his door all are seekers

and he the sought.

 

God is without cause:

why are you looking for causes?

The sun of truth rises unbidden,

and with it sets the moon of learning.

 

In this halt of just a week,

to be is not to be,

and to come is to go.

 

And does the sun exist

for the cock to crow at?

What is it to him

whether you are there or not?

Many have come, just like you,

to his door.

 

You won't find your way

in this street; if there is a way,

it is on your road of sighs.

All of you are far

from the road of devotion:

sometimes you are virtuous,

sometimes you are wicked:

so you hope for yourselves, fear for yourselves;

but when your mask of wisdom and folly

at last turns white, you will see

that hope and fear are one.

If you know your own worth,

what need you care about

the acceptance or rejection of others?

 

Worship him as if you could see him with your physical eyes;

though you don't see him,

he sees you.

 

Whilst in this land

of fruitless pursuits,

you are always unbalanced, always

either all back or all front;

but once the seeking soul has progressed

just a few paces beyond this state,

love seizes the reins.

 

The coming of death

is the key which unlocks

the unknown domain;

but for death, the door of true faith

would remain unopened,

 

If you yourself

are upside down in reality,

then your wisdom and faith

are bound to be topsy-turvy.

 

Stop weaving a net about yourself:

burst like a lion from the cage.

 

Melt yourself down in his search:

venture your life and your soul

in the path of sincerity;

strive to pass from nothingness to being,

and make yourself drunk with the wine of God.

From Him forgiveness comes so fast,

it reaches us before repentance

has even taken shape on our lips.

 

He is your shepherd,

and you prefer the wolf;

he invites you to him,

and yet you stay unfed;

he gives you his protection,

yet you are sound asleep:

Oh, well done,

you senseless upstart fool!

 

He heals our nature from within,

kinder to us than we ourselves are.

A mother does not love her child

with half the love that he bestows.

 

You have broken faith,

yet still he keeps his faith with you:

he is truer to you

than you are to yourself,

 

He created your mental powers;

yet his knowledge is innocent

of the passage of thought.

He knows what is in your heart;

or he made your heart along with your clay;

but if you think that he knows

in the same way that you do,

then you are stuck like a donkey

in your own mud.

 

In His presence,silence is the gift of tongues.

 

He knows the touch

of an ant's foot

moving in darkness

over a rock.

He always knows

what is in men's minds:

you would do well

to reflect on this.

Love's conqueror is he

whom love conquers.

 

Apply yourself, hand and foot,

to the search;

but when you reach the sea,

stop talking of the stream.

 

When he admits you to his presence

ask from him nothing other than himself,

When he has chosen you for a friend,

you have seen that there is to see.

There's no duality in the world of love

what's all this talk of 'you' and 'me'?

How can you fill a cup that's full already?

 

Bring all of yourself to his door:

bring only a part

and you've brought nothing at all.

 

It's your own self defining faith and unbelief:

inevitably it colors your perception.

Eternity knows nothing

of belief or unbelief;

for a pure nature

there is no such thing.

 

And if, my friend, you ask me the way

I'll tell you plainly, it is this:

to turn your face towards the world of life,

and turn your back on rank and reputation;

and, spurning outward prosperity, to bend

your back double in his service;

to part company with those who deal in words,

and take your place in the presence of the worldless.

 

The way is not far

from you to a friend:you yourself are that way:

so set out along it.

 

You who know nothing of the life

that comes from the juice of the grape,

how long will you remain intoxicated

by the outward form of the grape?

Why do you lie that you are drunk?

 

How can you go forward?

There is no place to go;

how will you leap?

You have no foot.

Not one knows how far it is

from nothingness to God.

As long as you cling to your self

you will wander right and left,

day and night, for thousands of years;

and when, after all that effort,

you finally open your eyes,

you will see your self, through inherent defects,

wandering around itself like the ox on the mill;

but, if, once freed from your self,

you finally get down to work,

this door will open to you within two minutes.

 

God will not be yours,

as long as you cling to soul and life:

you cannot have both this and that.

Bruise your self for months and years on end;

leave it for dead, and when you have done with it,

you will have reached eternal life.

 

Remain unmoved by hope and fear.

To non-existence mosque and church are one;

to a shadow, heaven and hell likewise.

For someone whose guide is love,

belief and disbelief are equally a veil,

concealing the doorway of the friend;

his very being is a veil

which hides God's essence.

 

Until you throw your sword way,

you'll not become a shield

untill you lay your crown aside,

you'll not be fit to lead.

 

The death oif soul

is the destruction of life;

buth death of life

is the soul's salvation.

 

Never stand still on the path

become non-existent.

Non-existent even to the notion

of becoming non-existent.

And when you have abandoned both

individuality and understanding,

the world will become that.

 

When the eye is pure

it sees purity.

 

Unself yourself...

until you see your self as a speck of dust

you cannot possibly reach that place;

self could never breathe that air,

so wend your way there without self

Tao of form

The text of philosophical logic that historically was the foundation of the cybernetic epistemology is Laws of Form by G. Spencer-Brown, first published in 1969. Brown is a figure always surrounded by a shroud of mystery, he is considered an eclectic expert in various disciplines - a polymath - he associated and studied with figures like Russell, Wittgenstein and Laing and has strongly influenced with his work many authors of the systemic-cybernetic movement such Von Foerster, Maturana, Varela, Kauffman and Bateson himself. For example he is also novelist James Keys with his mystic vision of the "five levels of eternity":

A story by Bateson on a meeting with Spencer-Brown together with Heinz Von Foerster, from Keeney (1977), shows how Brown manages to keep his territory obscure: 

I talked to Von Foerster the morning before I met Brown to see if I was getting it right. I said these upside-down L-shaped symbols of this fellow are some sort of negative ... He said, "Yes, you've got it Gregory". At that moment Brown came into the room and Heinz turned to Brown and said, "Gregory has got it - those things are sort of negative". And Brown said, "They are not!".

G. Bateson, quoted by Keeney, "Aesthetics of Change", 1983

Von Foerster saw Spencer-Brown as similar to Wittgenstein (of which he was the nephew) and Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda's teacher, in that all three shared "a state of melancholy that befalls those who know that they know".

The historical-logical base of the Brown text is the overcoming of the classical Logic (or Aristotelian) that the monumental work by Russell and Whitehead Principia Mathematica of 1910 sought to preserve against mathematical paradoxes and demonstrated impossible in 1931 by the Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Since 1931 any type of formal logic should explicitly take into account the existence of logical paradoxes since, as demonstrated by Gödel, in any formal system "powerful" enough - such arithmetic - one can derive undecidable propositions, which are neither true nor false but paradoxical: if they are true then they are false and back.
As stated by Brown in the preface: 

Recalling Russell's connexion with the Theory of Types, it was with some trepidation that I approached him in 1967 with the proof that it was unnecessary. To my relief he was delighted. The Theory was, he said, the most arbitrary thing he and Whitehead had ever had to do, not really a theory but a stopgap, and he was glad to have lived long enough to see the matter resolved.

The theory of logical types, though refuted in formal logic by the work of Gödel, has defined the fundamental idea of logical levels of meta- type, applied by Bateson on human and animal interaction and communication models, and fundamental to define meta-classes, meta-terms, meta-descriptions and meta-explanations in the theory of complexity.

The subject is introduced by Brown in his preface:

PREFACE TO THE FIRST AMERICAN EDITION

Apart from the standard university logic problems, which the calculus published in this text renders so easy that we need not trouble ourselves further with them, perhaps the most significant thing, from the mathematical angle, that it enables us to do is to use complex values in the algebra of logic. They are the analogs, in ordinary algebra, to complex numbers a + b √- 1 . My brother and I (*) had been using their Boolean counterparts in practical engineering for several years before realizing what they were. Of course, being what they are, they work perfectly well, but understandably we felt a bit guilty  about using them, just as the first mathematicians to use 'square roots of negative numbers' had felt guilty, because they too could see no plausible way of giving them a respectable academic meaning. All the same, we were quite sure there was a perfectly good theory that would support them, if only we could think of it.

The position is simply this. In ordinary algebra, complex values are accepted as a matter of course, and the more advanced techniques would be impossible without them. In Boolean algebra (and thus, for example, in all our reasoning processes) we disallow them. Whitehead and Russell introduced a special rule, which they called the Theory of Types, expressly to do so. Mistakenly, as it now turns out. So, in this field, the more advanced techniques, although not impossible, simply don't yet exist. At the present moment we are constrained, in our reasoning processes, to do it the way it was done in Aristotle's day. The poet Blake might have had some insight into this, for in 1788 he wrote that 'reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.'

Recalling Russell's connexion with the Theory of Types, it was with some trepidation that I approached him in 1967 with the proof that it was unnecessary. To my relief he was delighted. The Theory was, he said, the most arbitrary thing he and Whitehead had ever had to do, not really a theory but a stopgap, and he was glad to have lived long enough to see the matter resolved.

Put as simply as I can make it, the resolution is as follows. All we have to show is that the self-referential paradoxes, discarded with the Theory of Types, are no worse than similar self-referential paradoxes, which are considered quite acceptable, in the ordinary theory of equations.

The most famous such paradox in logic is in the statement, 'This statement is false.'

Suppose we assume that a statement falls into one of three categories, true, false, or meaningless, and that a meaningful statement that is not true must be false, and one that is not false must be true. The statement under consideration does not appear to be meaningless (some philosophers have claimed that it is, but it is easy to refute this), so it must be true or false. If it is true, it must be, as it says, false. But if it is false, since this is what it says, it must be true.

It has not hitherto been noticed that we have an equally vicious paradox in ordinary equation theory, because we have carefully guarded ourselves against expressing it this way. Let us now do so.
We will make assumptions analogous to those above. We assume that a number can be either positive, negative, or zero. We assume further that a nonzero number that is not positive must be negative, and one that is not negative must be positive.
We now consider the equation

x²+1=0

Transposing, we have 

x²=-1

and dividing both sides by x gives ,

x=-1/x

We can see that this (like the analogous statement in logic) is self-referential: the root-value of x that we seek must be put back into the expression from which we seek it.

Mere inspection shows us that x must be a form of unity, or the equation would not balance numerically. We have assumed only two forms of unity, +1 and — 1, so we may now try them each in turn. Set x = +1. This gives

+ 1= -1/+1= - 1

which is clearly paradoxical. So set x= -1. This time we have

- 1= -1/-1= + 1

and it is equally paradoxical.
Of course, as everybody knows, the paradox in this case is resolved by introducing a fourth class of number, called imaginary, so that we can say the roots of the equation above are ± i, where i is a new kind of unity that consists of a square root of minus one.
 

... 

G SPENCER-BROWN

Cambridge, England
Maundy Thursday 1972

(*): there are reasons to believe Spencer-Brown is only child.

Brown's epistemology is clearly stated in the beginning of text:

A NOTE ON THE MATHEMATICAL APPROACH

The theme of this book is that a universe comes into being when a space is severed or taken apart. The skin of a living organism cuts off an outside from an inside. So does the circumference of a circle in a plane. By tracing the way we represent such a severance, we can begin to reconstruct, with an accuracy and coverage that appear almost uncanny, the basic forms underlying linguistic, mathematical, physical, and biological science, and can begin to see how the familiar laws of our own experience follow inexorably from the original act of severance.
The act is itself already remembered, even if unconsciously, as our first attempt to distinguish different things in a world where, in the first place, the boundaries can be drawn anywhere we please. At this stage the universe cannot be distinguished from how we act upon it, and the world may seem like shifting sand beneath our feet.

Although all forms, and thus all universes, are possible, and any particular form is mutable, it becomes evident that the laws relating such forms are the same in any universe. It is this sameness, the idea that we can find a reality which is independent of how the universe actually appears, that lends such fascination to the study of mathematics. That mathematics, in common with other art forms, can lead us beyond ordinary existence, and can show us something of the structure in which all creation hangs together, is no new idea. But mathematical texts generally begin the story somewhere in the middle, leaving the reader to pick up the thread as best he can. Here the story is traced from the beginning.

Unlike more superficial forms of expertise, mathematics is a way of saying less and less about more and more. A mathematical text is thus not an end in itself, but a key to a world beyond the compass of ordinary description.

An initial exploration of such a world is usually undertaken in the company of an experienced guide. To undertake it alone, although possible, is perhaps as difficult as to enter the world of music by attempting, without personal guidance, to read the score-sheets of a master composer, or to set out on a first solo flight in an aeroplane with no other preparation than a study of the pilots' manual.

In the first section Brown outlines what a form is:

T H E  F O R M

We take as given the idea of distinction and the idea of indication, and that we cannot make an indication without drawing a distinction. We take, therefore, the form of distinction for the form.

Definition
Distinction is perfect continence. 

That is to say, a distinction is drawn by arranging a boundary with separate sides so that a point on one side cannot reach the other side without crossing the boundary. For example,in a plane space a circle draws a distinction.
Once a distinction is drawn, the spaces, states, or contents on each side of the boundary, being distinct, can be indicated.
There can be no distinction without motive, and there can be no motive unless contents are seen to differ in value.
If a content is of value, a name can be taken to indicate this value.
Thus the calling of the name can be identified with the value of the content.

Axiom 1. The law of calling
The value of a call made again is the value of the call. 

That is to say, if a name is called and then is called again, the value indicated by the two calls taken together is the value indicated by one of them.
That is to say, for any name, to recall is to call.

Equally, if the content is of value, a motive or an intention or instruction to cross the boundary into the content can be taken to indicate this value.

Thus, also, the crossing of the boundary can be identified with the value of the content.

Axiom 2 . The law of crossing

The value of a crossing made again is not the value of the crossing. 

That is to say, if it is intended to cross a boundary and then it is intended to cross it again, the value indicated by the two intentions taken together is the value indicated by none of them.

That is to say, for any boundary, to recross is not to cross.

In the following he defines how forms are taken out of forms:

F O R M S  T A K E N  O U T  O F  T H E  F O RM

Construction
Draw a distinction.

Content
Call it the first distinction.
Call the space in which it is drawn the space severed or cloven by the distinction.
Call the parts of the space shaped by the severance or cleft the sides of the distinction or, alternatively, the spaces, states,or contents distinguished by the distinction.

Intent
Let any mark, token, or sign be taken in any way with or with regard to the distinction as a signal.
Call the use of any signal its intent.

First canon. Convention of intention
Let the intent of a signal be limited to the use allowed to it.
Call this the convention of intention. In general, what is not allowed is forbidden.

Knowledge
Let a state distinguished by the distinction be marked with a mark

of distinction.

Let the state be known by the mark.

Call the state the marked state.

Form

Call the space cloven by any distinction, together with the entire content of the space, the form of the distinction.

Call the form of the first distinction the form.

Name

Let there be a form distinct from the form.

Let the mark of distinction be copied out of the form into such another form.

Call any such copy of the mark a token of the mark.

Let any token of the mark be called as a name of the marked state.

Let the name indicate the state.

Arrangement

Call the form of a number of tokens considered with regard to one another (that is to say, considered in the same form) an arrangement.

Expression

Call any arrangement intended as an indicator an expression.

Value

Call a state indicated by an expression the value of the expression.

The mark or cross operator:

is the main symbol used by Brown.

The symbol represents the distinction between its inside and outside:

The inside state defined by the symbol is called marked state, the outside state unmarked state, meaning by state the two sides of a distinction, where the symbol itself represents the distinction between the two states:

with such definitions and axioms Brown derives a formal logical system for the description of primary arithmetic, primary algebra and second order equations.