Death comes as the key of the house of the Secret;
without death, the door of true religion opens not.
While this world stays,
that is not;
while you exist,
God is not yours.
Know: your soul is a sealed casket;
the love-pearl within is the light of your faith.
The Past sealed the writing,
and delivered it for you to the Future;
as long as you shall depend for your life
upon the revolutions of Time,
You shall not know what is inside.
Only the hand of death shall unloose the binding
of the book of God, the Exalted, the Glorious.
So long as the breath of man flies not from you,
the morning of your true faith will not dawn in your soul’s East.

Adapted from “The Walled Garden of Truth” by Hakim Sanai of Ghazna
Tr. by Major J. Stephenson