Zarvan, the spirit of Time and Space, Conducts the traveller on his journey to the Supernal World

My soul was convulsed by the words that he spoke, every atom of my body trembled like quicksilver.

Suddenly I saw, between the West and the East, heaven immersed in a single cloud of light;

out of that cloud an angel descended having two faces, one like fire, one like smoke—

one dark as night, the other bright as a meteor, the eyes of one watchful, the other’s eyes asleep.

The hues of his wings were of crimson and gold, emerald and silver, azure and lapis lazuli;

his temper had the fleetness even of a phantom, he sped from earth to the Milky Way in an instant;

every moment he was seized by another desire, to spread his wings in yet another sky.

He said, ‘I am Zarvan, I am the world subduer, alike hidden from sight and manifest am I.

Every plan is bound up with my determining; voiced and voiceless—all alike are my prey.

Through me the bud swells upon the branch, through me the birdie bewails in the nest;

through my flight the seed becomes a stalk, through my effluence every parting turns to union.

I pronounce both reproach and exhortation; I render athirst, that I may offer wine.

I am life, I am death, I am resurrection, I am the Judgment, Hell, Heaven and Houri.

Man and angel are both in bondage to me, this transitory world is my own child;

I am every rose that you pluck from the branch, I am the matrix of every thing that you see.

This world is a prisoner in my talisman, every moment it ages through my breath.

But he who has in his heart I have a time with God, that doughty hero has broken my talisman;

if you wish that I should not be in the midst, recite from the depths of your soul I have a time with God.’

I know not what it was that was in his glance, it snatched away from my sight this ancient world;

either my sight opened on another world or this same world took on another form.

I died in the universe of colour and scent, I was born in a world without tumult and clamour;

my thread snapped from that ancient world, a whole new world came into my hands.

My soul trembled at the loss of a world until another world blossomed out of my dust;

my body became nimbler, my soul more adventurous, the eye of my heart was keener and more wakeful;

veiled things became manifest uncurtained, the melody of the stars reached my ears.