{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/srg/srg07.htm","path":"isl/srg/srg07.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/srg/srg07.htm","text":"The Secret Rose Garden, by Florence Lederer, [1920]\nBEHOLD how this drop of sea-water\n Has taken so many forms and names;\n It has existed as mist, cloud, rain, dew, and mud,\n Then plant, animal, and perfect man;\n And yet it was a drop of water\n From which these things appeared.\n Even so this universe of reason, soul, heavens, and bodies,\n Was but a drop of water in its beginning and ending.\n. . . When a wave strikes it, the world vanishes;\n And when the appointed time comes to heaven and stars,\n Their being is lost in not being.\nIN Being's silver sea\n Lustrous pearls of knowledge are washed up\n On the shore of speech,\n And dainty shells bring poems in their curving forms\n To strew the beach with beauty.\nEach wave that breaks in foaming arcs\n Casts up a thousand royal pearls\n That hold strange murmuring voices,\n Gems of devotion, joy, and love.\nYet though a thousand waves\n At every moment rise and fall,\n Scattering pearls and shells,\n Yet are there ever more and more to come,\n Nor is that sea of Being less by one sheer drop.\nIN the sea of \u2019Uman, the pearl oysters\n Rise to the surface from the lowest depths,\n And wait with opened mouths.\n Then arises from the sea a mist,\nWhich falls again in raindrops\n Into the mouths of the shells\n (At the command of the Truth).\n Straightway is each closed as by a hundred bonds,\n And the shells sink back again\n Into the ocean's depths,\n Bearing in their hearts the pearl drops\n Which the divers seek and find.\nThe sea is Being, the shore the body;\n The mist, grace, and the rain, knowledge of the Name;\n Human Wisdom is the diver\n Who holds enwrapped in his garment\n A hundred pearls;\n The soul in a swift lightning's flash\n Bears to the listening ear voices and messages\n From the shells of knowledge;\n Then when the husks are opened,\n Behold the royal shimmering pearls!","title":"The Secret Rose Garden: Part III. The Sea and its Pearls","type":"page"}