“Surely thou wilt not be able to bear patiently with me.” The meaning according to true understanding is this allusion: “O Moses, the secret core of your disposition has so much expansiveness from the marks giving witness to the Divinity that you say, 'Show me, that I may gaze upon Thee!' [7:143]. I who am Khiẓr do not have the power and strength to pass these words over my heart or to busy my thoughts with them. Your ruling author- ity will not be able to put up with the grief of my deprivation. Surely thou wilt not be able to bear patiently with me.” As for the breaking the ship in the sea, killing the boy, and repairing the wall, each of these, in keeping with the understanding of the Folk of Findings, alludes to a great principle. It is said that the sea is the sea of recognition. Each of the one hundred twenty-some thousand center points of sinlessness dove into that sea with his community and people in the hope that from that sea they would gather the pearls of tawḤīd in the skirt of seeking, for “He who recognizes himself has rec- ognized his Lord.” The ship is the ship of human nature. Khiẓr wanted to ruin and break that ship with the hand of tenderness, for the owners of the ship were “indigent” [miskīn], and their attribute was “tranquil- ity” [sakīna]. The Court of Eternity had addressed them with these words: “He it is who sent down tranquility into the hearts of the faithful” [48:4]. When MuṣṬafā saw the Real's self-disclosure of Majesty to the hearts of the indigent, he said, “O God, give me life as an indigent, give me death as an indigent, and muster me among the indigent!” When Khiẓr ruined the ship of mortal nature with the hand of tenderness, Moses saw that outwardly it was adorned and flourishing with the ornament of the Shariah and the Tariqah. He said, “Have you made a hole in it to drown its folk?” [18:71]. Khiẓr responded, “And behind them was a king [18:79]: Behind its flourishing was a king, a Satan who had prepared the ambush of severity in the neighborhood of the ship so that he might take the ship with his severity and deception and travel in it by night and day, for 'Satan runs in the children of Adam like blood.
