When man is about to undergo his change,

How does he know that it has not taken place?

When he is not about to undergo his change,

How does he know that it has taken place?

Talking about us, you and me, are we in a dream

From which we have not begun to awake?

We sometimes dream that we are a bird

And seem to be soaring to the sky

Or that we are a fish and seem to be diving

In the deep blue sea. But we do not know

Whether we that are now speaking

Are awake or in a dream, a dream of lifetime.

When others lament their bitter fate

We also bemoans, having in ourselves

The reason why we do so. And we all

Have our individuality, which makes us

What we are as compared together,

But how do we know that we define

In any case correctly that individuality?

Life is not the meeting with what is pleasurable

That produces a smile; it is not the smile

Suddenly produced that produces the arrangement

Of that our individuality. For this reason,

When one rests in what has been arranged

And puts away all thought of the transfiguration,

He is in unity with the divine will of Heaven.