Self

From the opening words to the revelations when the pilgrims reach Simorgh's paradise, The Conference of the Birds stresses that pilgrims must shake off, renounce, clear away, sacrifice, slay, lose... Self and fly to Simorgh. When they do so, Simorgh—for the thirty surviving birds their specific stand-in for God; each pilgrim or group of pilgrims sees their own image, as in a mirror—sacrifices his inner soul for them. Until then, He remains veiled, transcendent, all-powerful, magnificent, and mysterious. Only when Self has died can a pilgrim be called a lover. Organized religion and the body must also be slain before one can take to the Way, because Self and the secrets of the Way are continually at war. Convinced by their spiritual guide, the hoopoe, not to be held back by Self, thousands of birds set out, and the hoopoe continues his teaching: only...