Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207 – 1273)
Persian philosopher, theologian, poet, teacher, and founder of the Mevlevi order of Sufism; also known as Mevlana, Jalaluddin Rumi, or simply Rumi.
I want a heart which is split, part by part, because of the pain of separation from God, so that I might explain my longing and complaint to it.
Whatever posessions and objects of its desires the lower self may obtain, it hangs on to them, refusing to let them go out of greed for more, or out of fear of poverty and need.
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.
I don't know where I am.
At times I plunge
to the bottom of the sea,
at times, rise up
like the Sun.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.
Love said to me,
there is nothing that is not me.
Be silent.
Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it.
Whoever has polished it more sees more — more unseen forms become manifest to him.
From Hallaj, I learned to hunt lions, but I became something hungrier than a lion.
When you see anyone complaining
of such and such a person's ill-nature and bad temper,
know that the complainant is bad-tempered,
forasmuch as he speaks ill of that bad-tempered person,
because he alone is good-tempered who is quietly forbearing
towards the bad-tempered and ill-natured.
Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game.
Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom. At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."
You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with eyes closed. Listen to the answer.
There is no "other world." I only know what I've experienced. You must be hallucinating.
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.
Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded.
Someone sober will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.
You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?
Didn't I tell you
not to be satisfied with the veil of this world?
I am the master illusionist,
it is me, who is the welcoming banner at the gate of your contentment.
"There's no courage", The Prophet said, "before the war has begun."
Drunkards vaunt their bravery when you speak of war.
But in the blaze of battle they scatter like mice.
I'm astonished by the man who wants purity
And yet trembles when the harshness of polishing begin...
When a man beats a carpet again and again
It's not the carpet he's attacking, but the dirt in it.
Do not grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Fortunate is he who does not carry envy as a companion.
The place that Solomon made to worship in,
called the Far Mosque, is not built of earth
and water and stone, but of intention and wisdom
and mystical conversation and compassionate action.
If you are wholly perplexed and in straits,
have patience, for patience is the key to joy.