The story is told of a mystic knower, who went on a journey with a learned grammarian as his companion. They came to the shore of the Sea of Grandeur. The knower straightway flung himself into the waves, but the grammarian stood lost in his reasonings, which were as words that are written on water. The knower called out to him, “Why dost thou not follow?” The grammarian answered, “O Brother, I dare not advance. I must needs go back again.” Then the knower cried, “Forget what thou didst read in the books [of certain famed writers on grammar and rhetoric] … and cross the water.”
The death of self is needed here, not rhetoric:
Be nothing, then, and walk upon the waves. [The Mathnaví, by Rumi, a Persian poet]
Likewise is it written, “And be ye not like those who forget God, and whom He hath therefore caused to forget their own selves. These are the wicked doers.” [Qur’án 59:19] (Baha’u’llah, ‘The Four Valleys’)
