Layli's Ring

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Layli's Ring - A Love Parable

[Last update February 17, 2013. For Questions or TO DOWNLOAD MUSIC, page down to Web host contact information below....] 

Welcome to Layli's Ring Website! 

Below is the beautiful Persian folk tale of Layli's ring as related by Baha'u'llah in His "Seven Valleys", one of His many tablets (links to the Baha'i World Faith follow the parable).  Layli was lost to Majnun as she searched the Garden for a ring, the universal symbol of unity, and puts tests in this life into a useful and uplifting context...

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Majnun & Layli

There was once a lover [Majnun] who had sighed for long years in separation from his beloved [Layli], and wasted in the fire of remoteness. From the rule of love, his heart was empty of patience, and his body weary of his spirit; he reckoned life without her as a mockery, and time consumed him away. How many a day he found no rest in longing for her; how many a night the pain of her kept him from sleep; his body was worn to a sigh, his heart's wound had turned him to a cry of sorrow. He had given a thousand lives for one taste of the cup of her presence, but it availed him not. The doctors knew no cure for him, and companions avoided his company; yea, physicians have no medicine for one sick of love, unless the favor of the beloved one deliver him.

At last, the tree of his longing yielded the fruit of despair, and the fire of his hope fell to ashes. Then one night he could live no more, and he went out of his house and made for the marketplace. On a sudden, a watchman followed after him. He broke into a run, with the watchman following; then other watchmen came together, and barred every passage to the weary one. And the wretched one cried from his heart, and ran here and there, and moaned to himself: "Surely this watchman is Izra'il, my angel of death, following so fast upon me; or he is a tyrant of men, seeking to harm me." His feet carried him on, the one bleeding with the arrow of love, and his heart lamented. Then he came to a garden wall, and with untold pain he scaled it, for it proved very high; and forgetting his life, he threw himself down to the garden.

And there he beheld his beloved with a lamp in her hand, searching for a ring she had lost. When the heart-surrendered lover looked on his ravishing love, he drew a great breath and raised up his hands in prayer, crying: "O God! Give Thou glory to the watchman, and riches and long life. For the watchman was Gabriel, guiding this poor one; or he was Israfil, bringing life to this wretched one!"

Indeed, his words were true, for he had found many a secret justice in this seeming tyranny of the watchman, and seen how many a mercy lay hid behind the veil. Out of wrath, the guard had led him who was athirst in love's desert to the sea of his loved one, and lit up the dark night of absence with the light of reunion. He had driven one who was afar, into the garden of nearness, had guided an ailing soul to the heart's physician.

Now if the lover could have looked ahead, he would have blessed the watchman at the start, and prayed on his behalf, and he would have seen that tyranny as justice; but since the end was veiled to him, he moaned and made his plaint in the beginning. Yet those who journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end in the beginning, see peace in war and friendliness in anger.

Such is the state of the wayfarers in this Valley [the Valley of Knowledge - the last plane of limitation preceding the Valley of Unity]; but the people of the Valleys above this see the end and the beginning as one; nay, they see neither beginning nor end, and witness neither "first" nor "last." [1] Nay rather, the denizens of the undying city, who dwell in the green garden land, see not even "neither first nor last"; they fly from all that is first, and repulse all that is last. For these have passed over the worlds of names, and fled beyond the worlds of attributes as swift as lightning. Thus is it said: "Absolute Unity excludeth all attributes." [2] And they have made their dwelling-place in the shadow of the Essence.
[1 Qur'án 57:3.]
[2 Saying attributed to Ali.] 16 

 (Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 13)

 

 

Web Sites to UPlift the spirit and stimulate the imagination

Is unity a distant ideal to be achieved only after the other great problems of our time have been resolved?  Bahá’u’lláh says the opposite is the case. The disease of our time is disunity. Only after humanity has overcome it will our social, economic, political, and other problems find solution.  Today, several million people around the world are discovering what He means. We invite you to explore His message with us.

Official web site for the Baha'is of the United States.

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