The Ta-Sin of the Circle

1. The first door represents the one who reaches the circle of Truth. The second door represents the person who reaches it, who after entering it comes to a closed door. The third door represents the one who goes astray in the desert of the Truth-Nature of the truth.
   
2. He that enters the circle is far from the Truth because the way is blocked and the seeker is sent back. The point on high represents his yearning. The lower point represents his return to his point of departure, and the middle point is his bewilderment.
   
3. The inner circle does not have a door, and the point which is in the center is Truth.
   
4. The meaning of Truth is that from which externals and internals are not absent, and it does not tolerate forms.
   
5. If you wish to understand what I have pointed to here, then ‘take four birds and twist them to thee,’ (2.260) because Allah does not fly.
   
6. It is His jealousy which makes it appear after He hid it. It was awe that kept us apart, it was bewilderment that deprived us of it.
   
7. These are the meanings of Truth. It is subtler than the circle of the origins, and the designation of the regions. And subtler still is the internal functioning of the understanding, because of the concealing of the imagination.
   
8. This is because the observer observes the circle from without not from within.
   
9. As for the Knowledge of the knowledge of Truth, he does not know it, because he is incapable. Knowledge denotes a place but the circle is a forbidden place (haram).
   
10. So they named the prophet ‘Haram’ because he alone came out of from the circle of Haram.
    
11. He was full of fear and awe, and wearing the garment of Truth, he went out and cried ‘Ah!!’ to all creation.

[Table of Contents]
Previous: The Ta-Sin of Purity
Next: The Ta-Sin of the Point