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The Secret Rose Garden

By Florence Lederer

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The One

THE ONE
THE NAME

EACH creature has its being
From the One Name,
From which it comes forth,
And to which it returns,
With praises unending.

THE BELOVED GUEST
CAST away your existence entirely,
For it is nought but weeds and refuse,
Go, clear out your heart's chamber,
Arrange it as the abiding-place of the Beloved.
When you go forth, He will come in,
And to you, with self discarded,
He will unveil His beauty.

THE SHADOWLESS
ON the narrow path of Truth,
On the Meridian line, He stands upright,
Throwing no shadow before or behind Him,
To the right hand or the left.

East and west is His Kibla cast,
Drowned in a blaze of radiant light.

Hail, O Light of God, O Shadowless Divinity!

THE UNKNOWABLE
PONDER on God's mercies,
But not on His essence.
For His works come forth from His essence,
Not His essence from His works.
His light shines on the whole universe,
Yet He Himself is hidden from the universe.

THE BOOK OF GOD
THE universe is God's book,
And he to whom the vision of the Divine

Has been vouchsafed
Reads therein and understands.
Substance is its consonants and accidents its vowels,
And different creatures are its signs and pauses.
The first verse is "Universal Reason,"
The second "Universal Soul," the "verse of light,"
And this is as a brightly shining lamp.
The third is the "Highest heavens,
The fourth "The Throne."
After there are seven transcendent spheres,
The "chapter of the seven limbs,"
And forms of the four elements,
Then Nature's three kingdoms
Whose verses none can count.
And last of all came down the soul of man.

THE UNCHANGING LIGHT
You fancy this world is permanent of itself
And endures because of its own nature,
But really it is a ray of light from the Truth
And within it the Truth is concealed.

And this light alters not nor varies
And is void of change or degree.
If the sun tarried always in one spot,
And ever shone in the same degree,
None would know that the light comes from him.

FUTURE REWARD
PONDER here and now on His qualities,
That you may behold Him Himself to-morrow.