Attar of Nishapur Quotes

Attar

If the eye of the heart is open, in each atom there will be one hundred secrets.

Attar

Let love lead your soul.

Attar of Nishapur (The Newborn)

The home we seek is in eternity.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

To seek death is death's only cure.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

From each a mystic silence Love demands.

Attar of Nishapur (The Jawhar Al-Dhat)

A man whose eyes love opens risks his soul - His dancing breaks beyond the mind's control.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

Had I known how listening is superior to speaking, I would not have wasted my life preaching.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

When first you enter Wisdom's sea, beware
A wave of indecision floods you there.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds - A Story About Rabia)

He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.

Attar of Nishapur (The Jawhar Al-Dhat)

If you would glimpse the beauty we revere
Look in your heart-its image will appear.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

All things are but masks at God's beck and call,
They are symbols that instruct us that God is all.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

The Sea
Will be the Sea
Whatever the drop's philosophy.

Attar of Nishapur

Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.

Attar of Nishapur (Looking For Your Own Face - Translation by Coleman Barks)

Farid al-Din Attar Quote: Let love lead your soul.
    Make it a place to retire to, ...

Let love lead your soul.
Make it a place to retire to,
a kind of monastery cave,
a retreat for the deepest core of your being.

Attar of Nishapur

Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

I am alone; make me your single goal -
My presence is sufficient for your soul;
I am your God, your one necessity -
With every breath you breathe, remember Me.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

Wanderer, you are distraught; Be calm. Our
glorious King cannot admit
All comers to His court; it is not fit
That every rascal who sleeps out the night
Should be allowed to glimpse its radiant light.
Most are turned back, and few perceive the throne;
Among a hundred thousand there is one.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

Attar of Nishapur (Looking For Your Own Face - Translation by Coleman Barks)

Since love has spoken in your soul, reject
The Self, that whirlpool where our lives are wrecked;
As Jesus rode his donkey, ride on it;
Your stubborn Self must bear you and submit -
Then burn this Self and purify your soul;
Let Jesus' spotless spirit be your goal.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)

Yet what are seas and what is air? For all
Is God, and but a talisman are heaven and earth
To veil Divinity. For heaven and earth,
Did He not permeate them, were but names;
Know then, that both this visible world and that
Which unseen is, alike are God Himself,
Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.

Attar of Nishapur



The home we seek is in eternity;
The Truth we seek is like a shoreless sea,
Of which your paradise is but a drop.
This ocean can be yours; why should you stop
Beguiled by dreams of evanescent dew?
The secrets of the sun are yours, but you
Content yourself with motes trapped in its beams.
Turn to what truly lives, reject what seems -
Which matters more, the body or the soul?
Be whole: desire and journey to the Whole.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds)



From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
What do all seek so earnestly? Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer "Thou" and "I" exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find that the secret of them both is Love.

Attar of Nishapur (The Jawhar Al-Dhat)

The sun can only be seen by the light
of the sun. The more a man or woman knows,
the greater the bewilderment, the closer
to the sun the more dazzled, until a point
is reached where one no longer is.
      A mystic knows without knowledge, without
intuition or information, without contemplation
or description or revelation. Mystics
are not themselves. They do not exist
in selves. They move as they are moved,
talk as words come, see with sight
that enters their eyes. I met a woman
once and asked her where love had led her.
"Fool, there's no destination to arrive at.
Loved one and lover and love are infinite."

Attar of Nishapur (Mysticism - Translated by Coleman Barks)

In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, 'This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers

Attar of Nishapur

In this valley, Love is represented by fire, Reason by smoke. When Love bursts into flame, Reason is forthwith dissipated like smoke. Reason cannot coexist with Love’s mania, for Love has nothing whatever to do with human Reason. If ever you attain a clear vision of the unseen world, then only will you be able to realize the source of Love. By the odour of Love every atom in the world is intoxicated. It owes its existence to the existence of Love.
     If you possessed the spiritual insight to penetrate the invisible world, the atoms of the visible world would also become unveiled to you, but if you regard these with the eye of intellect, you will never comprehend love as you should. Only one who has gone through the test and has become free can feel this spiritual devotion. You have not acquired such experience. You have not even the inspiration of love. You are selfish, dead, so to say, and therefore unworthy of love. He who enters upon this path should have thousands of hearts, fired with devotion, so that every moment he may be able to sacrifice a hundred souls.

Attar of Nishapur (The Conference of the Birds - Part 3: The Valley of Love)

Muhammed spoke to his friends
about a newborn baby, “This child
may cry out in its helplessness,
but it doesn’t want to go back
to the darkness of the womb

And so it is with your soul
when it finally leaves the nest
and flies out into the sky
over the wide plain of a new life.
Your soul would not trade that freedom
for the warmth of where it was.

Let loving lead your soul.
Make it a place to retire to,
A kind of monastery cave, a retreat
for the deepest core of your being

Then build a road
from there to God

Let every action be in harmony with your soul
and its soul-place, but don’t parade
those doings down the street
on the end of a stick!

Keep quiet and secret with soul-work.
Don’t worry so much about your body.
God sewed that robe. Leave it as it is.

Be more deeply courageous.
Change your soul.

Farid al-Din Attar


Have a look here for more quotes and poems by other beloved Sufi Mystics

Farid al-Din Attar Biography

Attar of Nishapur portrait

Born: 1145
Died: 1220

Attar of Nishapur was a Persian sufi mystic poet and has had a immense influence on Persian and sufi culture. He is best known for his masterpieces 'The Conference of the Birds' and 'Memorial of the Saints'.

Notable Works

Memorial of the Saints
The Conference of the Birds (1177)