rumi-sufism

rumi poetries

Now sleeping, now awake, my hart is in constant fervor.
It is a covered saucepan, placed on fire.
O you! who have offered us from a cup a silencing wine;
Each moment a new tale is shouting to be told in silence.
In his wrath there are a hundred kindnesess,
In his meanness a hundred generosities;
In his ignorance immeasurable gnosis, silently speaking like the mind.
The words of those whom you have silenced,
Cannot hear but those whom you have made unconscious;
I m both silent and fermenting for you like the sea of Aden!
˜
I've had enough of sleepless nights, of my unspoke grief, of my tired wisdom. Come my treasure, my breath of life come and dress my wounds and be my cure. Enough of words. Come to me without a sound.
™
Events in London
Love whether of this kind or that kind, shall ultimately guide us to the king.
™
Stay in the company of lovers.
Those other kinds of people, they each
want to show you something.
A crow will lead you to an empty barn,
A parrot to sugar.
˜






™
Man craves winter in summer, and when winter comes, he likes it not, For he is never content with any state [of things], neither with poverty not with a life of plenty. May man be killed! How ungrateful he is! Whenever he obtains guidance, he spurns it.
˜

Ascension: Persian Symphonic Recitation from Khayyam to Rumi
















Bring Wine



Bring wine, for I am suffering crop sickness from the vintage;
God has seized me, and I am thus held fast.
By love’s soul, bring me a cup of wine that is the envy of the
sun, for I care aught but love.
Bring that which if I were to call it “soul” would be a shame,
for the reason that I am pained in the head because of the soul.
Bring that whose name is not contained in this mouth, through
which the fissures of my speech split asunder.
Bring that which, when it is not present, I am stupid and ig-
norant, but when I am with it, I am the king of the subtle and
crafty ones.
Bring that which, the moment it is void of my head, I become
black and dark, you might say I am of the infidels.
Bring that which delivers out of this “bring” and “do not
bring”; bring quickly, and repel me not, saying, “Whence shall
I bring it?”
Bring, and deliver the roof of the heavens through the long
night from my abundant smoke and lamentations.
Bring that which after my death, even out of my dust, will
restore me to speech and thanksgiving even as Najjar.
Bring me wine, for I am guardian of wine like a goblet, for
whatever has gone into my stomach I deliver back completely.
Najjar said, “After my death would that my people might be
open-eyed to the ecstasy within me.
“They would not regard my bones and blood; in spirit I ama
mighty king, even though in body I am vile.
“What a ladder I, the Carpenter, have chiseled! My going has
reached the roof of the seventh heaven.
“I journeyed like the Messiah, my ass remained below; I do
no grieve for my ass, nor am I asslike of ears.
“Do not like Eblis see in Adam only water and clay; see that
behind the clay are my hundred thousand rose bowers.”
Shams-e Tabrizi rose up from this flesh saying, “ I am the
sun. Bring up my head from this mire.
“Err not, when I enter the mire once more, for I am at rest,
and am ashamed of this veil.
“Every morning I will rise up, despite the blind; for the sake
of the blind I will not cease to rise and set.”









Did I Not Say To You

Did I not say to you, “Go not there, for I am your friend; in this
mirage of annihilation I am the fountain of life?”
Even though in anger you depart a hundred thousand years
from me, in the end you will come to me, for I am your goal.
Did I not say to you, “Be not content with worldly forms, for I
am the fashioner of the tabernacle of your contentment?”
Did I not say to you, “I am the sea and you are a single fish;
go not to dry land, for I am your crystal sea?”
Did I not say to you, “ Go not like birds to the snare; come, for
I am the power of flight and your wings and feet?”
Did I not say to you, “ They will waylay you and make you
cold, for I am the fire and warmth and heat of your desire?”
Did I not say to you, “ They will implant in you ugly qualities
so that you will forget that I am the source of purity to you?”
Did I not say to you, “Do not say from what direction the ser-
vant’s affairs come into order?” I am the Creator without
directions.
If you are the lamp of the heart, know where the road is to the
house; and if you are godlike of attribute, know that I am your
Maser.







Every day I bear a burden


Every day I bear a burden, and I bear this calamity for a purpose:
I bear the discomfort of cold and December's snow in hope of spring.
Before the fattener-up of all who are lean, I drag this so emaciated body;
Though they expel me from two hundred cities, I bear it for the sake of the love of a prince;
Though my shop and house be laid waste, I bear it in fidelity to a tulip bed.
God's love is a very strong fortress; I carry my soul's baggage inside a fortress.
I bear the arrogance of every stonehearted stranger for the sake of a friend, of one long-suffering;
For the sake of his ruby I dig out mountains and mine; for the sake of that rose-laden one I endure a thorn.
For the sake of those two intoxicating eyes of his, like the intoxicated I endure crop sickness;
For the sake of a quarry not to be contained in a snare, I spread out the snare and decoy of the hunter.
He said, "Will you bear this sorrow till the Resurrection?" Yes, Friend, I bear it, I bear it.
My breast is the Cave and Shams-e Tabrizi is the Companion of the Cave






I closed my eyes

I closed my eyes to creation when I beheld his beauty, I became
intoxicated with his beauty and bestowed my soul.
For the sake of Solomon’s seal I became wax in all my body,
and in order to become illumined I rubbed my wax.
I saw his opinion and cast away my own twisted opinion; I
became his reed pipe and likewise lamented on his lip.
He was in my hand, and blindly I groped for him with my
hand; I was in his hand, and yet I inquired of those who were
misinformed.
I must have been either a simpleton or drunk or mad that
fearfully I was stealing from my own gold.
Like a thief I crept through a crack in the wall into my own
vine, like a thief I gathered jasmine from my own garden.
Enough, do not twist my secret upon your fingertips, for I have
twisted off out of your twisted fist.
Shams-e Tabriz, from whom comes the light of moon and
stars–though I am grieving with sorrow for him, I am like the
crescent of the festival.




i have a fire
i have a fire for you in my mouth, but I have a hundred seals
on my tongue.
The flames which I have in my heart would make one mouth-
ful of both worlds.
Though the entire world should pass away, without the world
I possess the kingdom of a hundred worlds.
Caravans which are loaded with sugar I have in motion for
the Egypt of nonexistence.
The drunkenness of love makes me unaware whether I have
profit of loss therefrom.
The body’s eye was scattering pearls because of love, till now
I have a pearl-scattering soul.
I am not housebound, for like Jesus I have a home in the fourth
Heaven.
Thanks be to Him who gives soul to the body; if the soul
should depart, yet I have the soul of the soul.
Seek from me that which Shams-e Tabrizi has bestowed, for
I have the same.











I have fallen into unconsciousnes

I have got out of my own control, I have fallen into unconsciousness; in my utter unconsciousness how joyful I am with myself!
The darling sewed up my eyes so that I might not see other than him, so that suddenly I opened my eyes on his face.
My soul fought with me saying, “Do not pain me”; I said, “Take your divorce.” She said, “Grant it”; I granted it.
When my mother saw on my cheek the brand of your love she cut my umbilical cord on that, the moment I was born.
If I travel to heaven and read the Tablet of the Unseen, O you who are my soul’s salvation, without you how I am ruined!
When you cast aside the veil the dead become alive; the light of your face reminded me of the Covenant of Alast.
When I became lost, O soul, through love of the king of the peris, hidden from self and creatures, I am as if peri-born myself.
I said to the Tabriz of Shams-e Din, “O body, what are you?” Body said, “Earth”; Soul said, “I am distraught like the wind.”




I will beguile him with the tongue

Reason says, “ I will beguile him with the tongue.”; Love says,
“Be silent. I will beguile him with the soul.”
The soul says to the heart, “Go, do not laugh at me and yourself.
What is there that is not his, that I may beguile him
thereby?”
He is not sorrowful and anxious and seeking oblivion that I
may beguile him with wine and a heavy measure.
The arrow of his glance needs not a bow that I should beguile
the shaft of his gaze with a bow.
He is not prisoner of the world, fettered to this world of earth,
that I should beguile him with gold of the kingdom of the world.
He is an angel, though in form he is a man; he is not lustful
that I should beguile him with women.
Angels start away from the house wherein this form is, so how
should I beguile him with such a form and likeness?
He does not take a flock of horses, since he flies on wings; his
food is light, so how should I beguile him with bread?
He is not a merchant and trafficker in the market of the world
that I should beguile him with enchantment of grain and loss.
He is not veiled that I should make myself out sick and utter
sighs, to beguile him with lamentation.
I will bind my head and bow my head, for I have got out of
hand; I will not beguile his compassion with sickness or fluttering.
Hair by hair he sees my crookedness and feigning; what’s
hidden from him that I should beguile him with anything hidden.
He is not a seeker of fame, a prince addicted to poets, that I
should beguile him with verses and lyrics and flowing poetry.
The glory of the unseen form is too great for me to beguile it
with blessing or Paradise.
Shams-e Tabriz, who is his chosen and beloved–perchance I
will beguile him with this same pole of the age.



If I weep

If I weep, if I come with excuses, my beloved puts cotton wool in his ears.
Every cruelty which he commits becomes him, every cruelty which he commits I endure.
If he accounts me nonexistent, I account his tyranny generosity.
The cure of the ache of my heart is the ache for him; how shall I not surrender my heart to his ache?
Only then are glory and respect mine, when his glorious love renders me contemptible.
Only then does the vine of my body become wine, when the wine-presser stamps on me and spurns me underfoot.
I yield my soul like grapes under the trampling, that my secret heart may make merry,
Though the grapes weep only blood, for I am vexed with this cruelty and tyranny.
He who pounds upon me puts cotton wool in his ears saying, “I do not press unwittingly.
If you disbelieve, you are excusable, but I am the Abu’l Hikam [the expert] in this affair.
When you burst under the labor of my feet, then you will render much thanks to me.”





Laila and the Khalifa.

The Khalifa said to Laila, "Art thou really she
For whom Majnun lost his head and went distracted?
Thou art not fairer than many other fair ones."
She replied, "Be silent; thou art not Majnun!"


If thou hadst Majnun's eyes,
The two worlds would be within thy view.
Thou art in thy senses, but Majnun is beside himself.
In love to be wide awake is treason.
The more a man is awake, the more he sleeps (to love);
His (critical) wakefulness is worse than slumbering.


Our wakefulness fetters our spirits,
Then our souls are a prey to divers whims,
Thoughts of loss and gain and fears of misery.
They retain not purity, nor dignity, nor lustre,
Nor aspiration to soar heavenwards.
That one is really sleeping who hankers after each whim
And holds parley with each fancy.




Last night my soul cried O exalted sphere of Heaven

last night my soul cried, “O exalted sphere of Heaven, you hang indeed inverted, with flames in your belly.
“Without sin and crime, eternally revolving upon your body in its complaining is the indigo of mourning;
“Now happy, now unhappy, like Abraham in the fire; at once king and beggar like Ebrahim-e Adham.
“In your form you are terrifying, yet your state is full of anguish: you turn round like a millstone and writhe like a snake.”
Heaven the blessed replied, “How should I not fear that one who makes the Paradise of the world as Hell?
“In his hand earth is as wax, he makes it Zangi and Rumi , he makes it falcon and owl, he makes it sugar and poison.
“He is hidden, friend, and has set us forth thus patent so that he may become concealed.
“How should the ocean of the world be concealed under straws? The straws have been set adancing, the waves tumbling up and down’
“Your body is like the land floating on the waters of the soul; your soul is veiled in the body alike in wedding feast or sorrow.
“In the veil you are a new bride, hot-tempered and obstinate; he is railing sweetly at the good and the bad of the world.
“Through him the earth is a green meadow, the heavens are unresting; on every side through him a fortunate one pardoned and preserved.
“Reason a seeker of certainty through him, patience a seeker of help through him, love seeing the unseen through him, earth taking the form of Adam through him.
“Air seeking and searching, water hand-washing, we Messiah-like speaking, earth Mary-like silent.
“Behold the sea with its billows circling round the earthy ship; behold Kaabas and Meccas at the bottom of this well of Zamzam!”
The king says, “Be silent, do not cast yourself into the well, for you do not know how to make a bucket and a rope out of my withered stumps.








Lord, what a Beloved is mine!
Lord, what a Beloved is mine! I have a sweet quarry; I possess
in my breast a hundred meadows from his reed.
When in anger the messenger comes and repairs towards me,
he says, “Whither are you fleeing? I have business with you.”
Last night I asked the new moon concerning my Moon. The
moon said, “I am running in his wake, my foot is in his dust.”
When the sun arose I said,” How yellow of face you are!” The
sun said, “Out of shame for his countenance I have a face of
gold.”


“Water, you are prostrate, you are running on your head and
face.” Water said, “Because of his incantation I move like a
snake.”
“Noble fire, why do you writhe so?” Fire said, “Because of
the lightning of his face my heart is restless.”
“Wind-messenger of the world, why are you light of heart?”
Wind said, “My heart would burn if the choice were mine.”
“Earth, what are you meditation, silent and watchful?” Earth
said, “Within me I have a garden and spring.”
Pass over these elements, God is our succorer; my head is
aching, in my hand I hold wine.
If you have barred sleep to us, the way of intoxication is open.
Since I have one to assist, he offers wine in both hands.
Be silent, that without this tongue the heart may speak; when
I hear the speech of the heart, I feel ashamed of this speech.


Masnavi

In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.

God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.

When the Light of God illumines the inner person, one is freed from effects and has no need of signs for the assurance of love. Beauty busies itself with a mirror. Since not being is the mirror of being, the wise choose the self-abnegation of not being so that being may be displayed in that not being. The wealthy show their liberality on the poor, and the hungry are the mirror of bread. Those recognizing and confessing their defects are hastening toward perfection; but whoever considers oneself perfect already is not advancing. The poet suggested driving out this sickness of arrogance with tears from the heart. The fault of the devil (Iblis) was in thinking himself better than others, and the same weakness lurks in the soul of all creatures. Heart knowledge bears people up in friendship, but body knowledge weighs them down with burdens.

Rumi wrote how through love all things become better. Doing kindness is the game of the good, who seek to alleviate suffering in the world. Wherever there is a pain, a remedy is sent. Call on God so that the love of God may manifest. Rumi recommended the proverb that the moral way is not to find fault with others but to be admonished by their bad example. The mosque built in the hearts of the saints is the place for all worship, for God dwells there. Rumi began the third book of his Masnavi as follows:

In the Name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful.
The sciences of (Divine) Wisdom are God's armies,
wherewith He strengthens the spirits of the initiates,
and purifies their knowledge from the defilement of ignorance,
their justice from the defilement of iniquity,
their generosity from the defilement of ostentation,
and their forbearance from the defilement of foolishness;
and brings near to them whatever was far from them
in respect of the understanding of the state hereafter;
and makes easy to them whatever was hard to them
in respect of obedience (to Him) and zealous endeavor (to serve Him).9

A sage warns travelers that if they kill a baby elephant to eat, its parents will probably track them down and kill them; yet they do so, although one refrains from the killing and eating. As they sleep, a huge elephant smells their breath and kills all those who had eaten the young elephant but spares the one who had abstained. From foul breath the stench of pride, lust, and greed rises to heaven. Pain may be better than dominion in the world so that one may call on God in secret; the cries of the sorrowful come from burning hearts. Rumi also told the story of the Hindus feeling the different parts of an elephant in a dark room. He emphasized that in substance all religions are one and the same, because all praises are directed to God's light. They err only because they have mistaken opinions. Sinners and criminals betray themselves especially in times of passion and angry talk. Prophets warn you of hidden dangers the worldly cannot see. Humans have the ability to engage in any action, but for Rumi worship of God is the main object of human existence.

Rumi wrote that Sufism is to find joy in the heart whenever distress and care assail it. He believed the power of choice is like capital yielding profit, but he advised us to remember well the day of final accounting. Many of his stories are designed to show the difference between what is self-evident by experience and what is inferred through the authority of others. His philosophy of evolution of consciousness is encapsulated in the following verses:

I died as inanimate matter and arose a plant,
I died as a plant and rose again an animal.
I died as an animal and arose a man.
Why then should I fear to become less by dying?
I shall die once again as a man
To rise an angel perfect from head to foot!
Again when I suffer dissolution as an angel,
I shall become what passes the conception of man!
Let me then become non-existent, for non-existence
Sings to me in organ tones, "To him shall we return."10

When the love of God arises in your heart, without doubt God also feels love for you. The soul loves wisdom, knowledge, and exalted things; but the body desires houses, gardens, vineyards, food, and material goods. Rumi also believed that there is no absolute bad; the evils in the world are only relative. A serpent's poison protects its own life; but in relation to a person it can mean death. When what is hateful leads you to your beloved, it immediately becomes agreeable to you. Solomon built the temple by hiring workers, for humans can be controlled bymoney.

Men are as demons, and lust of wealth their chain,
Which drags them forth to toil in shop and field.
This chain is made of their fears and anxieties.
Deem not that these men have no chain upon them.
It causes them to engage in labor and the chase,
It forces them to toil in mines and on the sea,
It urges them towards good and towards evil.11

Rumi warned against bad friends who can be like weeds in the temple of the heart; for if a liking for bad friends grows in you, they can subvert you and your temple. He also warned against the judges who confine their view to externals and base their decisions on outward appearances; these heretics have secretly shed the blood of many believers. Partial reason cannot see beyond the grave; but true reason looks beyond to the day of judgment and thus is able to steer a better course in this world. Therefore it is better for those with partial reason to follow the guidance of the saints.

In the fifth book of the Masnavi Rumi included several stories to illustrate why one should cut down the duck of gluttony, the cock of concupiscence, the peacock of ambition and ostentation, and the crow of bad desires. The story of how Muhammad converted a glutton who drank the milk of seven goats and then made a mess after being locked in a room shows the humility of the prophet in cleaningup the mess himself. He concluded that the infidels eat with seven bellies but the faithful with one. The peacock catches people by displaying itself. Pursuing the vulgar is like hunting a pig; the fatigue is extensive, and it is unlawful to eat it. Love alone is worth pursuing, but how can God be contained in anyone's trap? The most deadly evil eye is the eye of self-approval. The greed of the gluttonous duck is limited as is the greed of the lusty snake; but the peacock's ambition to rule can be many times as great. Worldly wealth and even accomplishments can be enemies to the spiritual life. These are the human trials that create virtue. If there were no temptations, there could be no virtue. Abraham killed the crow of desire in response to the command of God so that he would not crave anything else, and he killed the cock to subjugate pernicious desires.

Rumi suggested that God uses prophets and saints as mirrors to instruct people while the divine remains hidden behind the mirrors. People hear the words from the mirrors but are ignorant that they are spoken by universal reason or the word of God. Ultimately God will place in people's hands their books of greed and generosity, of sin and piety, whatever they have practiced. When they awake on that morning, all the good and evil they have done will recur to them. After enumerating their faults, God in the end will grant them pardon as a free gift. To tell an angry person of faults, one must have a face as hard as a mirror to reflect the ugliness without fear or favor. Like 'Attar, Rumi wrote of the mystic's attaining annihilation, but he explained that the end and object of negation is to attain the subsequent affirmation just as the cardinal principle of Islam "There is no God" concludes with the affirmation "but God," and to the mystic this really means "There is nothing but God." Negation of the individual self clears the way for apprehending the existence of the One. The intoxication of life in pleasures and occupations which veil the truth should pass into the spiritual intoxication that lifts people to the beatific vision of eternal truth.

In the Discourses Rumi presented his teachings more directly. In the first chapter he suggested that the true scholar should serve God above the prince so that in their encounters the scholar will give more than take, thus making princes visitors of scholars rather than the reverse. Rumi advised stripping prejudices from one's discriminative faculty by seeing a friend in Faith, which is knowing who is one's true friend. Those who spend time with the undiscriminating have that faculty deteriorate and are unable to recognize a true friend in the Faith. Rumi taught the universal principle that if you have done evil, you have done it to yourself, for how could wickedness reach out to affect God? Yet when you become straight, all your crookedness will disappear; so beware but have hope! Those who assist an oppressor will find that God gives the oppressor power over them. God loves us by reproving us. One reproves friends, not a stranger. So long as you perceive longing and regret within yourself, that is proof that God loves and cares for you. If you perceive a fault in your brother, that fault is also within yourself. The learned are like mirrors. Get rid of that fault in yourself, for what distresses you about the other person distresses you inside yourself.

Rumi taught that all things in relation to God are good and perfect, but in relation to humans some things are considered bad. To a king prisons and gallows are part of the ornament of his kingdom; but Rumi asked if to his people they are the same as robes of honor. He argued that faith is better than prayer, because faith without prayer is beneficial, but prayer without faith is not. Rumi explained to his disciples that the desire to see the Master may prevent them from perceiving the Master without a veil. He went on,

So it is with all desires and affections, all loves and fondnesses
which people have for every variety of thing-
father, mother, heaven, earth, gardens, palaces,
branches of knowledge, acts, things to eat and drink.
The man of God realizes that all these desires are the desire for God,
and all those things are veils.
When men pass out of this world and behold that King without those veils,
then they will realize that all these things were veils and coverings,
their quest being in reality that One Thing.
All difficulties will then be resolved,
and they will hear in their hearts
the answer to all questions and all problems,
and every thing will be seen face to face.12

Rumi suggested God created these veils because if God's beauty were displayed without veils, we would not be able to endure and enjoy it just as the Sun lights up the world and warms us. The Sun enables trees and orchards to become fruitful, and its energy makes fruit that is unripe, bitter, and sour become mature and sweet. Yet if the Sun came too near, it would not bestow benefits but destroy the whole world.









Rumi compared this world to the dream of a sleeper. It seems real while it is happening; but when one awakes, one does not benefit from the material things one had while asleep. The present then depends on what one requested while asleep. God teaches in every way. A thief hanged on the gallows is an object lesson as is the person whom the king gives a robe of honor; but you should consider the difference between those two preachers. Even suffering is a divine grace, and hell becomes a place of worship as souls turn back to God just as being in prison or suffering pain often urges one to pray for relief. Yet after people are released or healed, they often forget to seek God. Believers, however, do not need to suffer,


because even in ease they are mindful that suffering is constantly present. An intelligent child that has been punished does not forget the punishment; but the stupid child forgets it and is punished again. The wickedness and vice of humans can be great, because they are what veil the better element, which is also great. These veils cannot be removed without great striving, and Rumi recommended that the best method is to mingle with friends who have turned their backs to the world and their faces to God.




My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty

My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty; I
am joy, son of joy, son of joy, son of joy.
Behold, the Marquis of Glee has attainted felicity; this city and
plain are filled with soldiers and drums and flags.
If I encounter a wolf, he becomes moonfaced Joseph; if I go
down into a well, it converts into a Garden of Eram.
He whose heart is as iron and stone out of miserliness is now
changed before me into a Hatem of the age in generosity and
bounty.
Dust becomes gold and pure silver in my hand; how then
should the temptation of gold and silver waylay me?
I have an idol such that, were his sweet scent scattered
abroad, even an idol of stone would receive life through joy.
Sorrow has died for joy in him of “may God bind your consolation”;
how should not such a sword strike the neck of sorrow?
By tyranny he seizes the soul of whom he desires; justices are
all slaves of such injustice and tyranny.
What is that mole on that face? Should it manifest itself, out
of desire for it forthwith maternal aunt would be estranged from
paternal [uncle].
I said, “If I am done and send my story, will you finish it and
expound it?” He answered, “Yes.”


















Rise, lovers

Rise, lovers, that we may go towards heaven; we have seen this world, so let us go to that world.
No, no, for thought these two gardens are beautiful and fair, let us pass beyond these two, and go to that Gardener.
Let us go prostrating to the sea like a torrent, then let us go foaming upon the face of the sea.
Let us journey from this street of mourning to the wedding feast, let us go from this saffron face to the face of the Judas tree blossom.
Trembling like a leaf and twig from fear of falling, our hearts are throbbing; let us go to the Abode of Security.
There is no escape from pain, since we are in exile, and there is no escape from dust, seeing that we are going to a dustbowl.
Like parrots green of wing and with fine pinions, let us become sugar-gatherers and go to the sugar-bed.
These forms are signs of the signless fashioner; hidden from the evil eye, come, let us go to the signless.
It is a road full of tribulation, but love is the guide, giving us instruction how we should go thereon;
Though the shadow of the king’s grace surely protects, yet it is better that on that road we go with the caravan.
We are like rain falling on a leaky roof; let us spring from the leak and go by that waterspout.
We are crooked as a bow, for the string is in our own throats; when we become straight, then we will go like an arrow from the bow.
We cower like mice in the house because of the cats; if we are lion’s whelps, let us go to that Lion.
Let us make our soul a mirror in passion for a Joseph; let us go before Joseph’s beauty with a present.
Let us be silent, that the giver of speech may say this; even as he shall say, so let us go.














The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart

The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart;
the secret thoughts he harbored against me I also perceived.
His dog bit my foot, he showed me much injustice; I do not
bite him like a dog, I have bitten my own lip.
Since I have penetrated into the secrets of individuals like men
of God, why should I take glory in having penetrated his secret?
I reproach myself that through my doubtings it so happened
that purposely I drew a scorpion towards my own foot.
Like Eblis who saw nothing of Adam except his fire, by God I
was invisible to his insignificant Eblis.
Convey to my friends why I am afflicted in mind; when the
snake bit my thigh I started away from the black rope.
The blessed silent ones, their lips and eyes closed -by a way
unknown to any man, I ran into their thoughts;
Since there is a secret and perfect way from heart to heart, I
gathered gold and silver from the treasuries of hearts.
Into the thought that was like a brazen stove I flung the dead
dog; out of the thought that was like a rose bower I plucked roses
and jasmine.
If I have hinted at the evil and good ofm y friends, I have spun
flax like a weaver as the choicest veil.
When my heart rushed suddenly to a heart mighty and aware,
out of awe for his heart I fluttered like the heart.
As you are happy with your own state, how did you fall in with
me? Attend to your own business, for I am neither shaikh nor
disciple.
As far as you are concerned, brother, I am neither copper nor
red gold; drive me from your door, for I am neither lock nor key.
Take it as if I had not ever spoken these words; if you had been
in my mind, by God I would not have quarreled.



The time has come for us to become madmen in your chain

The time has come for us to become madmen in your chain, to
burst our bonds and become estranged from all;
To yield up our souls, no more to bear the disgrace of such a
soul, to set fire to our house, and run like fire to the tavern.
Until we ferment, we shall not escape from this vat of the
world- how then shall we become intimate with the lip of that
flagon and bowl?
Listen to the words from a madman: do not suppose that we
become true men until we die.
It is necessary that we should become more inverted than the
tip of a comb in the top of the twisted tress of felicity;
Spread our wings and pinions like a tree in the orchard, if like
a seed we are to be scattered on this road of annihilation.
Though we are of stone, we shall become like wax for you
seal; though we be candles, we shall become a moth in the track
of your light.
Though we are kings, we shall travel straight as rocks for your
sake, that we may become blessed through your queen on this
chessboard.
In the face of the mirror of love we must not breathe a word of
ourselves; we must become intimate with your treasure when
we are changed to waste.
Like the tale of the heart we must be without bread or ending,
that we may become dwellers in the heart of lovers like a tale.
If he acts like the seeker, we shall attain to being sought; if he acts
the key, we shall become all the wards of the lock.
If Mostafa does not make his way and couch in our hearts, it is
meet that we should lament and become like the Wailing
Column.
No, be silent; for one must observe silence towards the watch-
man when we go towards the pavilion by night.




Weary not of us, for we are very beautiful
Weary not of us, for we are very beautiful; it is out of very jealousy and proper pride that we entered the veil.
On the day when we cast of the body’s veil from the soul, you will see that we are the envy of despair of man and the Polestars.
Wash your face and become clean for beholding us, else remain afar, for we are beloveds of ourselves.
We are not that beauty who tomorrow will become a crone; till eternity we are young and heart-comforting and fair of stature.
If that veil become worn out, the beauty has not grown old; the life of the Veil is transient, and we are boundless life.
When Eblis saw the veil of Adam, he refused; Adam called to him, “You are the rejected one, not I.”
The rest of the angels fell down prostrate, saying as they bowed themselves, “We have encountered a beauty:
“Beneath the veil is an idol who by his qualities robbed us of reason, and we, prostrate, fell.”
If our reason does not know the forms of the foul old men from those of the beauties, we are apostates from love.
What place is there for a beauty? For he is the Lion of God. Like a child we prattled, for we are children of the alphabet.
Children are beguiled with nuts and raisins, else, how are we meet for nuts and sesame-grains?
When an old woman is hidden in helmet and chainmail, she says, “I am the illustrious Rostam of the battle ranks.”
By her boast all know that she is a woman; how should we make a mistake, seeing that we are in the light of Ahmad?
“The believer is discriminating” - so said the Prophet; now close your mouth, for we are guided rightly without speech.
Hear the rest of from Shams the Pride of Tabiz for we did not take the end of the story from that king.

What Hidden Sweetness Is There

What hidden sweetness there is in this emptiness of the belly!
Man is surely like a lute, no more and no less;
For if, for instance, the belly of the lute becomes full, no
lament high or low will arise from that full lute.
If your brain and belly are on fire through fasting, because of
the fire every moment a lament will arise from your breast.
Every moment you will burn a thousand veils by that fire; you
will mount a hundred steps with zeal and endeavor.
Become empty of belly, and weep entreatingly like the reed
pipe; become empty of belly, and tell secrets with the reed pen.
If your belly is full at the time of concourse, it will bring Satan
in place of your reason, an idol in place of the Kaaba.
When you keep the fast, good habits gather together before
you like slaves and servants and retinue.
Keep the fast, for that is Solomon’s ring; give not the ring to
the div, destroy not your kingdom.
Even if your kingdom has gone from your head and your army
has fled, your army will rise up, pennants flying above them.
The table arrived from heaven to the tents of the fast, by the
intervention of the prayers of Jesus, son of Mary.
In the fast, be expectant of the table of bounty, for the table of
bounty is better than the broth of cabbages.






When I am asleep and crumbling in the tomb

When I am asleep and crumbling in the tomb, should you come
to visit me, I will come forth with speed.
You are for me the blast of the trumpet and the resurrection,
so what shall I do? Dead or living, wherever you are, there am I.
Without your lip I am a frozen and silent reed; what melodies
I play the moment you breathe on my reed!
Your wretched reed has become accustomed to your sugar lip;
remember wretched me, for I am seeking you.
When I do not find the moon of your countenance, I bind up
my head [veil myself in your mourning]; when I do not find your
sweet lip, gnaw my own hand.


Poems by Rumi

Wedding Poems
Be Lost in the Call
O you who've gone on pilgrimage
We are as the flute
On the Deathbed
This Marriage
This World
Call of Love
Our Death is our Wedding
I've said before that every craftsman
"NOONE" says it better
These Spiritual Window-shoppers
The drum of the realization
From Fihi ma Fihi
I Died from minerality
Soul receives from soul
If thou wilt be observant
I said, 'Thou art harsh' Make yourself free
The Many Wines
A Star Without a Name
How Did you Get Away
Gone to the Unseen
Poor Copies
Departure
I am Part of the Load
Remembered Music
The Spirit of the Saints
The True Sufi
Unseen Power
The Progress of Man
Reality And Appearance
Descent

Be Lost in the Call
Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
why did you create these two worlds?
Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
and I wished this treasure to be known,
so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
its darkened back, the world;
The back would please you if you've never seen the face.
Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?
Yet clean away the mud and straw,
and a mirror might be revealed.
Until the juice ferments a while in the cask,
it isn't wine. If you wish your heart to be bright,
you must do a little work.
My King addressed the soul of my flesh:
You return just as you left.
Where are the traces of my gifts?
We know that alchemy transforms copper into gold.
This Sun doesn't want a crown or robe from God's grace.
He is a hat to a hundred bald men,
a covering for ten who were naked.
Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!
How could a zephyr ride an ass?
Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.
Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.
Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.
-
"Love is a Stranger", Kabir Helminski
Threshold Books, 1993
Ý


O you who've gone on pilgrimage -
where are you, where, oh where?
Here, here is the Beloved!
Oh come now, come, oh come!
Your friend, he is your neighbor,
he is next to your wall -
You, erring in the desert -
what air of love is this?
If you'd see the Beloved's
form without any form -
You are the house, the master,
You are the Kaaba, you! . . .
Where is a bunch of roses,
if you would be this garden?
Where, one soul's pearly essence
when you're the Sea of God?
That's true - and yet your troubles
may turn to treasures rich -
How sad that you yourself veil
the treasure that is yours!
Rumi 'I Am Wind, You are Fire'
Translation by Annemarie Schimmel
Ý

Oh, if a tree could wander
and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
and not the pain of saws!
For would the sun not wander
away in every night ?
How could at ev?ry morning
the world be lighted up?
And if the ocean?s water
would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?
The drop that left its homeland,
the sea, and then returned ?
It found an oyster waiting
and grew into a pearl.
Did Yusaf not leave his father,
in grief and tears and despair?
Did he not, by such a journey,
gain kingdom and fortune wide?
Did not the Prophet travel
to far Medina, friend?
And there he found a new kingdom
and ruled a hundred lands.
You lack a foot to travel?
Then journey into yourself!
And like a mine of rubies
receive the sunbeams? print!
Out of yourself ? such a journey
will lead you to your self,
It leads to transformation
of dust into pure gold!

Look! This is Love - Poems of Rumi,
Annemarie Schimme
Ý

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.
Ý


We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.
We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!
Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain in being beside thee?
We and our existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.
We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.
Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us!
Our wind whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
our whole existence is from thy bringing into being.

Masnavi Book I, 599-607

Ý

On the DeathbedGo, rest your head on a pillow, leave me alone;
leave me ruined, exhausted from the journey of this night,
writhing in a wave of passion till the dawn.
Either stay and be forgiving,
or, if you like, be cruel and leave.
Flee from me, away from trouble;
take the path of safety, far from this danger.
We have crept into this corner of grief,
turning the water wheel with a flow of tears.
While a tyrant with a heart of flint slays,
and no one says, "Prepare to pay the blood money."
Faith in the king comes easily in lovely times,
but be faithful now and endure, pale lover.
No cure exists for this pain but to die,
So why should I say, "Cure this pain"?
In a dream last night I saw
an ancient one in the garden of love,
beckoning with his hand, saying, "Come here."
On this path, Love is the emerald,
the beautiful green that wards off dragonsnough, I am losing myself.
If you are a man of learning,
read something classic,
a history of the human struggle
and don't settle for mediocre verse.
Kulliyat-i-Shams 2039

Ý


This Marriage
May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.
Kulliyat-i-Shams 2667

Ý

This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness
Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!
Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.
These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.
Ý

"It is said that after Muhammad and the prophets revelation does not descend upon anyone else. Why not? In fact it does, but then it is not called 'revelation.' It is what the Prophet referred to when he said, 'The believer sees with the Light of God.' When the believer looks with 'The believer sees with the Light of God.' When the believer looks with God's Light, he sees all things: the first and the last, the present and the absent. For how can anything be hidden from God's Light? And if something is hidden, then it is not the Light of God. Therefore the meaning of revelation exists, even if it is not called revelation."

Fihi ma fihi [Discourses of Rumi]
quoted from William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love:
The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi

Ý

The drum of the realization of the promise is beating,
we are sweeping the road to the sky. Your joy is here today, what remains for tomorrow?
The armies of the day have chased the army of the night,
Heaven and earth are filled with purity and light.
Oh! joy for he who has escaped from this world of perfumes and color!
For beyond these colors and these perfumes, these are other colors in the heart and the soul.
Oh! joy for this soul and this heart who have escaped
the earth of water and clay,
Although this water and this clay contain the hearth of the
philosophical stone.

(Mystic Odes 473)

Ý

At every instant and from every side, resounds the call of Love:
We are going to sky, who wants to come with us?
We have gone to heaven, we have been the friends of the angels,
And now we will go back there, for there is our country.
We are higher than heaven, more noble than the angels:
Why not go beyond them? Our goal is the Supreme Majesty.
What has the fine pearl to do with the world of dust?
Why have you come down here? Take your baggage back. What is this place?
Luck is with us, to us is the sacrifice!...
Like the birds of the sea, men come from the ocean--the ocean of the soul.
Like the birds of the sea, men come from the ocean--the ocean of the soul.
How could this bird, born from that sea, make his dwelling here?
No, we are the pearls from the bosom of the sea, it is there that we dwell:
Otherwise how could the wave succeed to the wave that comes from the soul?
The wave named 'Am I not your Lord' has come, it has broken the vessel of the body;
And when the vessel is broken, the vision comes back, and the union with Him.

Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch, 'Rumi and Sufism' trans. Simone Fattal
Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press, 1977, 1987.

Ý

Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? "God is One."
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don't call all these lights "the Light of God";
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
...Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire.
(Mystic Odes 833)

Ý


I've said before that every craftsman
searches for what's not there
to practice his craft.
A builder looks for the rotten hole
where the roof caved in. A water-carrier
picks the empty pot. A carpenter
stops at the house with no door.
Workers rush toward some hint
of emptiness, which they then
start to fill. Their hope, though,
is for emptiness, so don't think
you must avoid it. It contains
what you need!
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting you net
into it, and waiting so patiently?
This invisible ocean has given you such abundance,
but still you call it "death",
that which provides you sustenance and work.
God has allowed some magical reversal to occur,
so that you see the scorpion pit
as an object of desire,
and all the beautiful expanse around it,
as dangerous and swarming with snakes.
This is how strange your fear of death
and emptiness is, and how perverse
the attachment to what you want.
Now that you've heard me
on your misapprehensions, dear friend,
listen to Attar's story on the same subject.
He strung the pearls of this
about King Mahmud, how among the spoils
of his Indian campaign there was a Hindu boy,
whom he adopted as a son. He educated
and provided royally for the boy
and later made him vice-regent, seated
on a gold throne beside himself.
One day he found the young man weeping..
"Why are you crying? You're the companion
of an emperor! The entire nation is ranged out
before you like stars that you can command!"
The young man replied, "I am remembering
my mother and father, and how they
scared me as a child with threats of you!
'Uh-oh, he's headed for King Mahmud's court!
Nothing could be more hellish!' Where are they now
when they should see me sitting here?"
This incident is about your fear of changing.
You are the Hindu boy. Mahmud, which means
Praise to the End, is the spirit's
poverty or emptiness.
The mother and father are your attachment
to beliefs and blood ties
and desires and comforting habits.
Don't listen to them!
They seem to protect
but they imprison.
They are your worst enemies.
They make you afraid
of living in emptiness.
Some day you'll weep tears of delight in that court,
remembering your mistaken parents!
Know that your body nurtures the spirit,
helps it grow, and gives it wrong advise.
The body becomes, eventually, like a vest
of chain mail in peaceful years,
too hot in summer and too cold in winter.
But the body's desires, in another way, are like
an unpredictable associate, whom you must be
patient with. And that companion is helpful,
because patience expands your capacity
to love and feel peace.
The patience of a rose close to a thorn
keeps it fragrant. It's patience that gives milk
to the male camel still nursing in its third year,
and patience is what the prophets show to us.
The beauty of careful sewing on a shirt
is the patience it contains.
Friendship and loyalty have patience
as the strength of their connection.
Feeling lonely and ignoble indicates
that you haven't been patient.
Be with those who mix with God
as honey blends with milk, and say,
"Anything that comes and goes,
rises and sets, is not
what I love." else you'll be like a caravan fire left
to flare itself out alone beside the road.


Rumi VI (1369-1420) from 'Rumi : One-Handed Basket Weaving

Ý


"NOONE" says it better:
What is the mi'raj12 of the heavens?
Non-existence.
The religion and creed of the lovers is non- existence.
Masnavi VI 233
Ý


These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.
What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.
Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."
Even if you don't know what you want,
buy _something,_ to be part of the exchanging flow.
Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.
It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.
Rumi, 'We Are Three', Mathnawi VI, 831-845

Ý


I died from minerality and became vegetable;
And From vegetativeness I died and became animal.
I died from animality and became man.
Then why fear disappearance through death?
Next time I shall die
Bringing forth wings and feathers like angels;
After that, soaring higher than angels -
What you cannot imagine,
I shall be that.
Ý


Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book
nor from tongue.
If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind, that is
illumination of heart.
Ý


If thou wilt be observant and vigilant, thou wilt see at every moment the response to thy action. Be observant if thou wouldst have a pure heart, for something is born to thee in consequence of every action.
Ý


I said, 'Thou art harsh, like such a one.'
'Know,' he replied,
'That I am harsh for good, not from rancor and spite.
Whoever enters saying, "This I," I smite him on the brow;
For this is the shrine of Love, o fool! it is not a sheep cote!
Rub thine eyes, and behold the image of the heart.'
Ý


Make yourself free from self at one stroke!
Like a sword be without trace of soft iron;
Like a steel mirror, scour off all rust with contrition.
Ý

A Star Without a Name

When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,
it easily forgets her
and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,
then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light
and work your way toward wisdom
with no personal covering.

That's how you came here, like a star
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.

(Mathnawi III, 1284-1288)

"Say I am You" Coleman Barks Maypop, 1994
Ý


God has given us a dark wine so potent that,
drinking it, we leave the two worlds.
God has put into the form of hashish a power
to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.
God has made sleep so
that it erases every thought.
God made Majnun love Layla so much that
just her dog would cause confusion in him.
There are thousands of wines
that can take over our minds.
Don't think all ecstacies
are the same!
Jesus was lost in his love for God.
His donkey was drunk with barley.
Drink from the presence of saints,
not from those other jars.
Every object, every being,
is a jar full of delight.
Be a conoisseur,
and taste with caution.
Any wine will get you high.
Judge like a king, and choose the purest,
the ones unadulterated with fear,
or some urgency about "what's needed."
Drink the wine that moves you
as a camel moves when it's been untied,
and is just ambling about.
Mathnawi IV, 2683-96
The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks
Ý

Gone to the Unseen
At last you have departed and gone to the Unseen.
What marvelous route did you take from this world?
Beating your wings and feathers,
you broke free from this cage.
Rising up to the sky
you attained the world of the soul.
You were a prized falcon trapped by an Old Woman.
Then you heard the drummer's call
and flew beyond space and time.
As a lovesick nightingale, you flew among the owls.
Then came the scent of the rosegarden
and you flew off to meet the Rose.
The wine of this fleeting world
caused your head to ache.
Finally you joined the tavern of Eternity.
Like an arrow, you sped from the bow
and went straight for the bull's eye of bliss.
This phantom world gave you false signs
But you turned from the illusion
and journeyed to the land of truth.
You are now the Sun -
what need have you for a crown?
You have vanished from this world -
what need have you to tie your robe?
I've heard that you can barely see your soul.
But why look at all? -
yours is now the Soul of Souls!
O heart, what a wonderful bird you are.
Seeking divine heights,
Flapping your wings,
you smashed the pointed spears of your enemy.
The flowers flee from Autumn, but not you -
You are the fearless rose
that grows amidst the freezing wind.
Pouring down like the rain of heaven
you fell upon the rooftop of this world.
Then you ran in every direction
and escaped through the drain spout . . .
Now the words are over
and the pain they bring is gone.
Now you have gone to rest
in the arms of the Beloved.

"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved", Jonathan Star
New York 1997
Ý

How did you get away?
You were the pet falcon of an old woman.
Did you hear the falcon-drum?
You were a drunken songbird put in with owls.
Did you smell the odor of a garden?
You got tired of sour fermenting
and left the tavern.
You went like an arrow to the target
from the bow of time and place.
The man who stays at the cemetery pointed the way,
but you didn't go.
You became light and gave up wanting to be famous.
You don't worry about what you're going to eat,
so why buy an engraved belt?
I've heard of living at the center, but what about
leaving the center of the center?
Flying toward thankfulness, you become
the rare bird with one wing made of fear,
and one of hope. In autumn,
a rose crawling along the ground in the cold wind.
Rain on the roof runs down and out by the spout
as fast as it can.
Talking is pain. Lie down and rest,
now that you've found a friend to be with.

"These Branching Moments", Coleman Barks
Copper Beech Press, 1988
Ý

He Comes
He comes, a moon whose like the sky ne'er saw, awake or dreaming.
Crowned with eternal flame no flood can lay.
Lo, from the flagon of thy love, O Lord, my soul is swimming,
And ruined all my body's house of clay!
When first the Giver of the grape my lonely heart befriended,
Wine fired my bosom and my veins filled up;
But when his image all min eye possessed, a voice descended:
'Well done, O sovereign Wine and peerless Cup!'
Love's mighty arm from roof to base each dark abode is hewing,
Where chinks reluctant catch a golden ray.
My heart, when Love's sea of a sudden burst into its viewing,
Leaped headlong in, with 'Find me now who may!'
As, the sun moving, clouds behind him run,
All hearts attend thee, O Tabriz's Sun!
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

Poor copies out of heaven's originals,
Pale earthly pictures mouldering to decay,
What care although your beauties break and fall,
When that which gave them life endures for aye?
Oh never vex thine heart with idle woes:
All high discourse enchanting the rapt ear,
All gilded landscapes and brave glistering shows
Fade-perish, but it is not as we fear.
Whilst far away the living fountains ply,
each petty brook goes brimful to the main
Since baron nor fountain can for ever die,
Thy fears how foolish, thy lament how vain!
What is this fountain, wouldst thou rightly know?
The Soul whence issue all created things.
Doubtless the rivers shall not cease to flow,
Till silenced are the everlasting springs.
Farewell to sorrow, and with quiet mind
Drink long and deep: let others fondly deem
The channel empty they perchance may find,
Or fathom that unfathomable stream.
The moment thou to this low world wast given,
A ladder stood whereby thou might'st aspire;
And first thy steps, which upward still have striven,
From mineral mounted to the plant; then higher
To animal existence; next, the Man,
With knowledge, reason, faith. Oh wondrous goal!
This body, which a crumb of dust began-
How fairly fashioned the consummate whole!
Yet stay not here thy journey: thou shalt grow
An angel bright and home far off in heaven.
Plod on, plunge last in the great Sea, that so
Thy little drop make oceans seven times seven.
'The Son of God!' Nay, leave that word unsaid,
Say: 'God is One, the pure, the single Truth.'
What though thy frame be withered, old, and dead,
If the soul keep her fresh immortal youth?
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

DEPARTURE
Up, O ye lovers, and away! 'Tis time to leave the world for aye.
Hark, loud and clear from heaven the from of parting calls-let none delay!
The cameleer hat risen amain, made ready all the camel-train,
And quittance now desires to gain: why sleep ye, travellers, I pray?
Behind us and before there swells the din of parting and of bells;
To shoreless space each moment sails a disembodied spirit away.
From yonder starry lights, and through those curtain-awnings darkly blue,
Mysterious figures float in view, all strange and secret things display.
From this orb, wheeling round its pole, a wondrous slumber o'er thee stole:
O weary life that weighest naught, O sleep that on my soul dost weigh!
O heart, toward they heart's love wend, and O friend, fly toward the Friend,
Be wakeful, watchman, to the end: drowse seemingly no watchman may.
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

REMEMBERED MUSIC
'Tis said, the pipe and lute that charm our ears
Derive their melody from rolling spheres;
But Faith, o'erpassing speculation's bound,
Can see what sweetens every jangled sound.
We, who are parts of Adam, heard with him
The song of angels and of seraphim.
Out memory, though dull and sad, retains
Some echo still of those unearthly strains.
Oh, music is the meat of all who love,
Music uplifts the soul to realms above.
The ashes glow, the latent fires increase:
We listen and are fed with joy and peace.
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

THE SPIRIT OF THE SAINTS
There is a Water that flows down from Heaven
To cleanse the world of sin by grace Divine.
At last, its whole stock spent, its virtue gone.
Dark with pollution not its own, it speeds
Back to the Fountain of all purities;
Whence, freshly bathed, earthward it sweeps again,
Trailing a robe of glory bright and pure.
This Water is the Spirit of the Saints,
Which ever sheds, until itself is beggared,
God's balm on the sick soul; and then returns
To Him who made the purest light of Heaven.
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

THE TRUE SUFI
What makes the Sufi? Purity of heart;
Not the patched mantle and the lust perverse
Of those vile earth-bound men who steal his name.
He in all dregs discerns the essence pure:
In hardship ease, in tribulation joy.
The phantom sentries, who with batons drawn
Guard Beauty's place-gate and curtained bower,
Give way before him, unafraid he passes,
And showing the King's arrow, enters in.
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

THE UNSEEN POWER
We are the flute, our music is all Thine;
We are the mountains echoing only Thee;
And movest to defeat or victory;
Lions emblazoned high on flags unfurled-
They wind invisible sweeps us through the world.
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

THE PROGRESS OF MAN
First he appeared in the realm inanimate;
Thence came into the world of plants and lived
The plant-life many a year, nor called to mind
What he had been; then took the onward way
To animal existence, and once more
Remembers naught of what life vegetive,
Save when he feels himself moved with desire
Towards it in the season of sweet flowers,
As babes that seek the breast and know not why.
Again the wise Creator whom thou knowest
Uplifted him from animality
To Man's estate; and so from realm to realm
Advancing, he became intelligent,
Cunning and keen of wit, as he is now.
No memory of his past abides with him,
And from his present soul he shall be changes.
Though he is fallen asleep, God will not leave him
In this forgetfulness. Awakened, he
Will laugh to think what troublous dreams he had.
And wonder how his happy state of being
He could forget, and not perceive that all
Those pains and sorrows were the effect of sleep
And guile and vain illusion. So this world
Seems lasting, though 'tis but the sleepers' dream;
Who, when the appointed Day shall dawn, escapes
From dark imaginings that haunted him,
And turns with laughter on his phantom griefs
When he beholds his everlasting home.
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

REALITY AND APPEARANCE
'Tis light makes colour visible: at night
Red, greene, and russet vanish from thy sight.
So to thee light by darness is made known:
Since God hat none, He, seeing all, denies
Himself eternally to mortal eyes.
From the dark jungle as a tiger bright,
Form from the viewless Spirit leaps to ligth.
R. A. Nicholson
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972
Ý

DESCENT
I made a far journey
Earth's fair cities to view,
but like to love's city
City none I knew
At the first I knew not
That city's worth,
And turned in my folly
A wanderer on earth.
From so sweet a country
I must needs pass,
And like to cattle
Grazed on every grass.
As Moses' people
I would liefer eat
Garlic, than manna
And celestial meat.
What voice in this world
to my ear has come
Save the voice of love
Was a tapped drum.
Yet for that drum-tap
From the world of All
Into this perishing
Land I did fall.
That world a lone spirit
Inhabiting.
Like a snake I crept
Without foot or wing.
The wine that was laughter
And grace to sip
Like a rose I tasted
Without throat or lip.
'Spirit, go a journey,'
Love's voice said:
'Lo, a home of travail
I have made.'
Much, much I cried:
'I will not go';
Yea, and rent my raiment
And made great woe.
Even as now I shrink
To be gone from here,
Even so thence
To part I did fear.
'Spirit, go thy way,'
Love called again,
'And I shall be ever nigh thee
As they neck's vein.'
Much did love enchant me
And made much guile;
Love's guile and enchantment
Capture me the while.
In ignorance and folly
When my wings I spread,
From palace unto prison
I was swiftly sped.
Now I would tell
How thither thou mayst come;
But ah, my pen is broke
And I am dumb.
A..J. Arberry
'Persian Poems', an Anthology of verse translations
edited by A.J.Arberry, Everyman's Library, 1972

Ý


I am part of the load
Not rightly balanced
I drop off in the grass,
like the old Cave-sleepers, to browse
wherever I fall.
For hundreds of thousands of years I have been dust-grains
floating and flying in the will of the air,
often forgetting ever being
in that state, but in sleep
I migrate back. I spring loose
from the four-branched, time -and-space cross,
this waiting room.
I walk into a huge pasture
I nurse the milk of millennia
Everyone does this in different ways.
Knowing that conscious decisions
and personal memory
are much too small a place to live,
every human being streams at night
into the loving nowhere, or during the day,
in some absorbing work.
(Mathnawi, VI 216-227)
Rumi, 'We Are Three'
Ý

+ Thinking gives off smoke to prove the existence of fire. A mystic sits inside the burning. There are wonderful shapes in rising smoke that imagination loves to watch. But it's a mistake to leave the fire for that filmy sight. Stay here at the flame's core.

+ The ground's generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty!. Try to be more like the ground.

+ The universe and the light of the stars come through me.

+ When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

+ Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.

+ Like a thief reason sneaked in and sat amongst the lovers eager to give them advice. They were unwilling to listen, so reason kissed their feet and went on its way.

+ If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?

+ If the foot of the trees were not tied to earth, they would be pursuing me.. For I have blossomed so much, I am the envy of the gardens.














Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Rumi

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.
Rumi

It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home.
Rumi

Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.
Rumi

Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.
Rumi

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.
Rumi




The way you make love
is the way God will be with you.
RUMI, The Book of Love
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
RUMI, Essential Rumi
Every object, every being,
is a jar full of delight.
RUMI, Essential Rumi
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.
RUMI, Essential Rumi
The agony of lovers
burns with the fire of passion.
Lovers leave traces of where they've been.
The wailing of broken hearts
is the doorway to God.
RUMI, The Love Poems of Rumi



“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Jalal ad-Din Rumi quote
Similar Quotes. About: Love quotes, Self awareness quotes, Open mindedness quotes. Suggestions: Quotes on love.
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“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”
Jalal ad-Din Rumi quote



Rumi Love and Ecstasy Poems
The following is a collection of Rumi's ecstatic love poems, translated by Coleman Barks and Shahram Shiva. He spoke of lover and beloved as well as Lover and Beloved. He was in touch with them being the same, and both as being one.
The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
When I am with you, we stay up all night,
When you're not here, I can't get to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Suddenly the drunken sweetheart appeared out of my door.
She drank a cup of ruby wine and sat by my side.
Seeing and holding the lockets of her hair
My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
I have phrases and whole pages memorized,
but nothing can be told of love.
You must wait until you and I
are living together.
In the conversation we'll have
then...be patient...then.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
A Smile and A Gentleness

There is a smile and a gentleness
inside. When I learned the name

and address of that, I went to where
you sell perfume. I begged you not

to trouble me so with longing. Come
out and play! Flirt more naturally.

Teach me how to kiss. On the ground
a spread blanket, flame that's caught

and burning well, cumin seeds browning,
I am inside all of this with my soul.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
When the sweet glance of my true love caught my eyes,
Like alchemy, it transformed my copper-like soul.
I searched for Him with a thousand hands,
He stretched out His arms and clutched my feet.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
With the Beloved's water of life, no illness remains
In the Beloved's rose garden of union, no thorn remains.
They say there is a window from one heart to another
How can there be a window where no wall remains?

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
When your chest is free of your limiting ego,
Then you will see the ageless Beloved.
You can not see yourself without a mirror;
Look at the Beloved, He is the brightest mirror.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva

Rumi Pages: 1 2 3

Visit: ColemanBarks.com/
Back to Poetry Index
River photo by: Mike Norton
From: www.BigStockPhoto.com
Above poems from the books, Essential Rumi and Soul of Rumi both translated by Coleman Barks, and Thief of Sleeptranslated by Shahram Shiva.
The Freshness

When it's cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again.
Inside the majesty.

From Soul of Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of

spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language- door and

open the love window. The moon
won't use the door, only the window.






Jelaluddin Rumi, the 13th century mystic poet, was truly one of the most passionate and profound poets in history. Now, today his presence still remains strong, due in part to how his words seem to drip of the divine, and startle a profound rememberance that links all back to the Soul-Essence. Born in what is present day Afghanistan in 1207, he produced his master work the Masnawiwhich consists of over 60,000 poems before he died in 1273. The best way to fully say in words his impact, is that he has the ability to describe the Indescribable, Ineffable-- God.

I have included two different translators of his work. Coleman Barks on the first two pages, Shahram Shiva on the third. On the fourth page is a selection of Rumi love poems by both translators.

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
This We Have Now

This we have now
is not imagination.

This is not
grief or joy.

Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.

Those come and go.
This is the presence that doesn't.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
There is a way between voice and presence
where information flows.
In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.
Moving Water

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river
moving in you, a joy.

When actions come from another section, the feeling
disappears. Don't let

others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures.
Reach for the rope

of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will.
Because of willfulness

people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied,
fish sizzle in the skillet.

The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate
inflict visible punishment. Now

see the invisible. If you could leave your selfishness, you
would see how you've

been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well.

How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don't
insist on going where

you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring. Your
living pieces will form

a harmony. There is a moving palace that floats in the air
with balconies and clear

water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained
under a single tent.

From The Glance
by Coleman Barks


Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

Light Breeze

As regards feeling pain, like a hand cut in battle,
consider the body a robe

you wear. When you meet someone you love, do you kiss their clothes? Search out

who's inside. Union with God is sweeter than body comforts.
We have hands and feet

different from these. Sometimes in dream we see them.
That is not

illusion. It's seeing truly. You do have a spirit body;
don't dread leaving the

physical one. Sometimes someone feels this truth so strongly
that he or she can live in

mountain solitude totally refreshed. The worried, heroic
doings of men and women seem weary

and futile to dervishes enjoying the light breeze of spirit.

From Soul of Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloudcover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface,
yet I'm already under
and living with the ocean.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
The translations on this page from the books, The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, The Glance by Coleman Barks, and Soul of Rumi by Coleman Barks.
2 3 4
If you want what visible reality
can give, you're an employee.
If you want the unseen world,
you're not living your truth.
Both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human being.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Birdsong brings relief
to my longing
I'm just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!
Please universal soul, practice
some song or something through me!

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Not Intrigued With Evening

What the material world values does
not shine the same in the truth of

the soul. You have been interested
in your shadow. Look instead directly

at the sun. What can we know by just
watching the time-and-space shapes of

each other? Someone half awake in the night sees imaginary dangers; the

morning star rises; the horizon grows
defined; people become friends in a

moving caravan. Night birds may think
daybreak a kind of darkness, because

that's all they know. It's a fortunate
bird who's not intrigued with evening,

who flies in the sun we call Shams.

From Soul of Rumi
by Coleman Barks


For awhile we lived with people, but we saw no sign in them of the faithfulness we wanted. It's better to hide completely within
as water hides in metal, as fire hides in rock.
Back to Poetry Index
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
There Is A Community Of spirit...
Out Beyond Ideas...
Moving Water
Not Intrigued With Evening
The Breeze At Dawn...
There is A Way...
For Awhile We Lived With People....
This We Have Now
Birdsong...
Light Breeze
Only Breath
One Who Does What the Friend...
Not Here
If You Want What Visible Reality...
Late By Myself...













Photo by: Mike Norton
From: www.bigstockphoto.com









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Not Here

There's courage involved if you want
to become truth. There is a broken-

open place in a lover. Where are
those qualities of bravery and sharp

compassion in this group? What's the
use of old and frozen thought? I want

a howling hurt. This is not a treasury
where gold is stored; this is for copper.

We alchemists look for talent that
can heat up and change. Lukewarm

won't do. Halfhearted holding back,
well-enough getting by? Not here.

From Soul of Rumi
by Coleman Barks
One who does what the Friend wants done
will never need a friend.

There's a bankruptcy that's pure gain.
The moon stays bright when it
doesn't avoid the night.

A rose's rarest essence
lives in the thorn.

From Soul of Rumi
by Coleman Barks








Rumi Love and Ecstasy Poems
The following is a collection of Rumi's ecstatic love poems, translated by Coleman Barks and Shahram Shiva. He spoke of lover and beloved as well as Lover and Beloved. He was in touch with them being the same, and both as being one.
The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
When I am with you, we stay up all night,
When you're not here, I can't get to sleep.
Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Suddenly the drunken sweetheart appeared out of my door.
She drank a cup of ruby wine and sat by my side.
Seeing and holding the lockets of her hair
My face became all eyes, and my eyes all hands.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
I have phrases and whole pages memorized,
but nothing can be told of love.
You must wait until you and I
are living together.
In the conversation we'll have
then...be patient...then.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
A Smile and A Gentleness

There is a smile and a gentleness
inside. When I learned the name

and address of that, I went to where
you sell perfume. I begged you not

to trouble me so with longing. Come
out and play! Flirt more naturally.

Teach me how to kiss. On the ground
a spread blanket, flame that's caught

and burning well, cumin seeds browning,
I am inside all of this with my soul.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
When the sweet glance of my true love caught my eyes,
Like alchemy, it transformed my copper-like soul.
I searched for Him with a thousand hands,
He stretched out His arms and clutched my feet.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
With the Beloved's water of life, no illness remains
In the Beloved's rose garden of union, no thorn remains.
They say there is a window from one heart to another
How can there be a window where no wall remains?

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,
absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
When your chest is free of your limiting ego,
Then you will see the ageless Beloved.
You can not see yourself without a mirror;
Look at the Beloved, He is the brightest mirror.

From Thief of Sleep
by Shahram Shiva

Rumi Pages: 1 2 3

Visit: ColemanBarks.com/
Back to Poetry Index
River photo by: Mike Norton
From: www.BigStockPhoto.com
Above poems from the books, Essential Rumi and Soul of Rumi both translated by Coleman Barks, and Thief of Sleeptranslated by Shahram Shiva.
The Freshness

When it's cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,

and I am nowhere again.
Inside the majesty.

From Soul of Rumi
by Coleman Barks
Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of

spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At

night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its

face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language- door and

open the love window. The moon
won't use the door, only the window.