{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/srg/srg16.htm","path":"isl/srg/srg16.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/srg/srg16.htm","text":"The Secret Rose Garden, by Florence Lederer, [1920]\nARE you still turning to great and small?\n Pondering on religion and piety,\n Teachership and discipleship?\n Which mean hypocrisy and bondage.\n Then idols and girdles\n And Christianity are still yours.\nTHE idol's real being is not vain\n Because God created it,\n And all things from Him are good.\n Being is pure good, if it contains evil\n That comes from \"other.\"\n Truth is idol-worship,\n If the Mussulman only knew;\nBut he sees in idols\n Only the visible creature,\n Not the Truth hidden in the idol.\n Idol-worship is unification,\n Since all things are the symbols of Being.\nBy counting beads, repeating prayers,\n And reading the Koran,\n The heathen becomes not a Mussulman.\n The man to whom true infidelity becomes revealed\n With pretended faith becomes disgusted.\nWithin every body a soul is hidden,\n And true faith conceals infidelity.\nWho adorned the face of the idol\n With such beauty?\n And who becomes an idol-worshipper\n Unless God wills it?\nIn all things\n See but One, say One, know One,\nTHE mark of service\n Is the knotted girdle.\n So gird your loins, like a valiant man\n With manliness.\n Cast aside vain tales,\n And mystic states and visions;\n Dream not of lights,\n Of marvels, of miracles,\n For your miracles are contained\n In worshipping the Truth;\n All else is pride, conceit,\n And illusion of existence.\nI SEE the desire of Christianity\n Is purification from self,\n And liberty from bondage.\nThere is a sanctuary of the soul,\n The blessed portal of unity,\n The nest of the Eternal.\n God's Spirit (Jesus),\n Who proceeds from the blessed Spirit,\n Taught this doctrine.\nIn you is placed a soul,\n Which is a sample of this blessed Spirit.\n Find release from humanity's carnal desire\n And you will enter the Divine Life.\n And he who is pure as the angels are\n Will be carried up to the fourth heaven.\nIF \"other\" and \"others\" are before your eyes,\n Then a mosque is no better\n Than a Christian cloister;\n But when the garment of \"other\" is cast off by you,\n The cloister becomes a mosque.","title":"The Secret Rose Garden: Part XII. Idols, Girdles, and Christianity","type":"page"}