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Chapter 40
The Inner Child
It is a rough path which Iqbal climbed up the hill.
Each poem in this portion is a step on that path.
After the first six steps, the next seven are marked “for
Children.” Even if you are a grown-up, Iqbal probably wants
you to get in touch with your inner child because each of these
steps offers a vision that may be seen best with the eyes of a child.
A Spider and the Fly
(Adapted)
A spider tells three lies to the fly: he is a friend from whom she shouldn’t stay away, his parlor is well-furnished and she is very pretty. She refutes the first two but gets tempted by the third and the spider devours her. By accepting the spider’s illusion as her reality, the fly ceased to exist.
A Mountain and the Squirrel
(Adapted from Emerson)
Now the fly has grown up into a squirrel and has overcome the personal insecurity that had turned out to be her nemesis. She answers the mountain’s taunt about her smallness by saying, “So what if I am not big like you: you are not small like me either! Nothing is without purpose in this world and nobody is bad in the Workshop of Providence.”
A Goat and the Cow
(Adapted)
Growing up still further and becoming a goat, the creature now learns to talk with maturity and defends the human being against the bickering of a cow. She has recognized the special status of the human being.
The Child's Prayer
(Adapted)
The human being now appears as a child and makes a prayer:
O Lord! My longing finds expression as a prayer: may my life be like that of a candle!
May the darkness disappear from the world through me and light spread everywhere by my shining.
May my homeland be adorned by me just as a flower brings adornment to the garden!
O Sustainer! May my life be like that of a moth! May I be in love with the lamp of knowledge, O Sustainer!
May it be my job to stand up for the poor and to love the meek and the weak!
O my Allah! Protect me from the path of evil and make me tread upon the way that is good.
Sympathy
(Adapted from William Cowper)
The soul is now a bird wailing on the Forbidden Tree: knowledge has cast darkness and the bird cannot fly home. Illumination granted through the prayer of the previous poem appears as a glow-worm ready to show light on the path.
The Mother's Dream
(Adapted)
The acquiring of this illumination is like a rebirth, and therefore too unsettling for overly possessive parents. In her dream, one such mother is confronted with the consequences of her fear: she sees her child walking among the dead but while everyone else is holding a light in their hands, the lamp of this child has been put out by the mother’s tears.
The Bird's Lament
The illumined soul sees worldly attachments as a prison and longs for returning to the heavenly garden from where it was exiled when it fell into the trap, not unlike the fly beguiled by the spider.
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The reader learns that Joseph is the calling of the inner child of everyone regardless of race, country or religion.
