Here is a portion of one of Fakhruddin Iraqi’s ‘Divine Flashes,’ touching on the inherent unity of the waves and the ocean, an image that Hazrat Inayat Khan also employed.  For more about Fakhruddin Iraqi, see this earlier post.

The sun shines in the moon’s mirror, but the moon contains naught of the sun’s essence.  Just so, in Love’s Essence there is naught but HE, nor is there aught of His essence in anything other-than-He. As sunlight is attributed to the moon, so is the Beloved’s form ascribed to the lover; but in truth

     each image painted
     on the canvas of existence
     is the form
     of the artist himself.
     Eternal Ocean 
     spews forth new waves.
     “Waves” we call them;
     but there is only the Sea.

Many and disparate waves do not make the sea a multiplicity; no more do the Names* make the Named more than One. When the sea breathes they call it mist; when mist piles up they call it clouds. It falls again, they name it rain; it gathers itself and rejoins the sea. And it is now the same sea it ever was.

     So Ocean is Ocean
     as it was in Eternity, 
     contingent beings
     [are] but its waves and currents.
     Do not let the ripples and mists of the world 
     veil you from Him
     who takes form within these veils.

*A reference to the ’99 Names’ or Divine qualities of the One Being.

Tr. William C. Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson