The wound is the place

I said what about my eyes

God said Keep them on the road.

I said what about my passion

God said Keep it burning.

I said what about my heart

God said Tell me what you hold inside it

I said pain and sorrow

He said… stay with it.
The wound is the place where the Light enters you. 

~ Rumi

 

Who Says Words With My Mouth?

By Jalaluddin Rumi 



All day I think about it, then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.



This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place,

I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,

I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?



Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.



This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.

I don't plan it.

When I'm outside the saying of it,

I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.




From : Essential Rumi by Rumi, Coleman Barks (Translator)

Look at yourself and remember me

You have no idea how hard I've looked
for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.
What's the point of bringing gold to
the gold mine, or water to the ocean.
Everything I came up with was like
taking spices to the Orient.
It's no good giving my heart and my
soul because you already have these.
So I've brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me.

~ Rumi

This being human

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be cleaning you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from the beyond. 

~ Rumi
 

Wedding Night

MAWLANA JALAL AL-DIN AL-RUMI passed away on Dec 17, 1273. This date is known as Sheb-i Arus (Wedding Night). Every year the 17th of December is celebrated as the night of Rumi's reunion with his Beloved.





When I die
when my coffin
is being taken out
you must never think
i am missing this world

don’t shed any tears
don’t lament or
feel sorry
I’m not falling
into a monster’s abyss

when you see
my corpse is being carried
don’t cry for my leaving
i’m not leaving
i’m arriving at eternal love

when you leave me
in the grave
don’t say goodbye
remember a grave is
only a curtain
for the paradise behind

you’ll only see me
descending into a grave
now watch me rise
how can there be an end
when the sun sets or
the moon goes down

it looks like the end
it seems like a sunset
but in reality it is a dawn
when the grave locks you up
that is when your soul is freed

have you ever seen
a seed fallen to earth
not rise with a new life
why should you doubt the rise
of a seed named human

have you ever seen
a bucket lowered into a well
coming back empty
why lament for a soul
when it can come back
like Joseph from the well

when for the last time
you close your mouth
your words and soul
will belong to the world of
no place no time.

~ Rumi

The human house

This being human is a guest-house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture.
Still, treat each guest honorably.
Who may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi

Return to sender

"As a breeze carries the Ocean inside it,
so underneath every sentence is:
‘Come back to the Source´."

~ Rumi

What is your life about?

What is your life about, anyway?
Nothing but a struggle to be someone.
Nothing but a running from your own silence.

~ Rumi

Rumi

Don't be fooled by my beauty - the light of

my face comes from the candle of my spirit. 

~ Rumi

Pain

If you feel hurt, know that there is a way through it. Know that you will only deepen yourself and your world if you allow the pain to be there so that you can heal it. Go with it instead of fighting it. “The cure for pain is in the pain." 

– Rumi

Seek not love

“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.” 

~ Rumi

Light up the Fire

I gaze into the heart, lowly it may be,
Thought the words be higher still.
For the heart is all the substance,
The speech an accident.
How many phrases will you speak,
Too many for me.
How much burning, burning will you feel,
Be friendly with the fire, enough for me.
Light up the fire of love inside,
And blaze the thoughts away.

- Rumi

From The Love Poems of Rumi by Philip Dunn

The Temple of Love

The temple of love is not love itself;
True love is the treasure,
Not the walls about it.
Do not admire the decoration,
But involve yourself in the essence,
The perfume that invades and touches you-
The beginning and the end.
Discovered, this replace all else,
The apparent and the unknowable.
Time and space are slaves to this presence.

- Rumi


From The Love Poems of Rumi by Philip Dunn

Defeated by Love

The sky was lit
by the splendor of the moon

So powerful
I fell to the ground

Your love
has made me sure

I am ready to forsake
this worldly life
and surrender
to the magnificence
of your Being.

- Rumi

from 'Love Poems of Rumi' by Deepak Chopra
Translated by: Fereydoun Kia

Love poems from God

LOVE IS THE CURE

Love is the cure,
for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.


WITH PASSION

With
passion pray. With
passion work. With passion make love.

With passion eat and drink and dance and play.

Why look like a dead fish
in this ocean
of
God?

From 'Love poems from God' by Rumi
translated by Daniel Ladinsky

The Meaning of Love by Rumi

Both light and shadow
are the dance of Love.

Love has no cause;
it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets.

Lover and Loving are inseparable
and timeless.

Although I may try to describe Love
when I experience it I am speechless.

Although I may try to write about Love
I am rendered helpless;
my pen breaks and the paper slips away
at the ineffable place
where Lover, Loving and Loved are one.

Every moment is made glorious
by the light of Love.

- Rumi

from 'Love Poems of Rumi' by Deepak Chopra

Translated by: Fereydoun Kia

Be Lost in the Call

------ a beautiful poem by Rumi -------------

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.

- Rumi

Rumi

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.

Look ! This is Love

----- poem by Rumi, Sufi saint -----

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 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!

- Rumi