Rumi – 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.

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.

Rumi – Out of yourself

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 every morning
the world be lit 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 Yussef 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!

Rumi – We are as the flute

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.

Rumi – Drum of the Realization

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.

Rumi – Soul Receives from Soul

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.

Rumi – Reality and Appearance

‘Tis light makes color visible: at night
Red, green, and russet vanish from thy sight.
So to thee light by darkness 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 light.

Rumi – Death

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.

Bostan – Apropos of Nemesis

A poor man complained of his distressed condition to one who was rich as well as ill-positioned. The latter refused to help him, and turned roughly upon him in anger. The beggar’s heart bled by reason of this violence, “Strange!” He reflected, “that this rich man should be of such forbidding countenance! Perhaps he fears not the bitterness of begging.” The rich man ordered his slave to drive the beggar away. As a result of his ingratitude for the blessings that he enjoyed, fortune forsook him, and he lost all that he possessed. His slave passed into the hands of a generous man of enlightened mind, who was as gladdened at the sight of a beggar as the latter is at the sight of riches. One night a beggar asked alms of the latter, and he commanded his slave to give the man to eat. When the slave involuntarily uttered a cry, and went back weeping. “Why these tears?” His master asked. “My heart is grieved at the plight of this unfortunate old man,” the slave replied. “Once was he the owner of much wealth, and I his slave.” The master smiled and said, “this is not cause for grief, O, son. Time, in its revolutions, is not unjust. Was not that indigent man formerly a merchant who carried his head high in the air through pride? I am he whom that day he drove from his door. Fate has now put him in the place that I then occupied. Heaven befriended me and washed the dust of sorrow from my face. Though God, in His wisdom, closed one door, another, in His mercy, did He open.” Many a needy one has become filled, and many a Plutos has gone empty.

Bostan (The Orchard) by Saadi

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