And when God promised you one of the two parties would be yours, and you wished that the one not armed would be yours. By way of allusion He is saying, “So long as the servant does not suffer he will not reach the treasure.” The Pir of the Tariqah said, “How should I have known that suffering is the mother of happi- ness and that beneath one disappointment lie a thousand treasures? How should I have known that life is in death and that what is desired by all lies in unreached desires?” Life is the life of the heart, and death the death of the soul. Until you die in yourself, you will not come to life through the Real. “Die, O friend, if you want to live!” [DS 52]. That chevalier said it beautifully: “Passion does not accept living souls, falcons do not hunt dead mice.” [DS 202] O God, when someone's life is You, how can he die? When someone's occupation is You, how can his occupation come to an end? O Found and Findable, nothing other than recognizing You is happiness, and nothing other than finding You is life. He who lives without You is imprisoned like a corpse, and he who finds companionship with You is neither of this world nor of that world.
