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.
This dance is the joy of existence.
If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.
This is what is signified by the words An? l-?aqq, "I am God." People imagine that it is a presumptuous claim, whereas it is really a presumptuous claim to say Ana 'l-'abd, "I am the slave of God"; and An? l-?aqq, "I am God" is an expression of great humility. The man who says Ana 'l-'abd, "I am the servant of God" affirms two existences, his own and God's, but he that says An? l-?aqq, "I am God" has made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says "I am God", that is, "I am naught, He is all; there is no being but God's." This is the extreme of humility and self-abasement.
Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,
Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape.
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.
The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.
What is the body? That shadow of a shadow
of your love, that somehow contains
the entire universe.
This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace
to extract the silver from the dross.
This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away.
Many have been led astray by the Qur'an:
by clinging to that rope many have fallen into the well.
There is no fault in the rope, O perverse man,
for it was you who had no desire to reach the top.
Spring is Christ,
Raising martyred plants from their shrouds.
Their mouths open in gratitude, wanting to be kissed.
The glow of the rose and the tulip means a lamp is inside.
A leaf trembles. I tremble in the wind-beauty like silk from Turkestan.
The censer fans into flame.
I am so happy, I cannot be contained in the world;
But like a spirit, I am hidden from the eyes of the world.
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.
This heart sanctuary does
exist, but it can't be described. Why try!
Reason is like an officer when the King appears;
The officer then loses his power and hides himself.
Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.
My head is bursting
with the joy of the unknown.
My heart is expanding a thousand fold.
Every cell,
taking wings,
flies about the world.
All seek separately
the many faces of my Beloved.
Even if you lose yourself in wrath
for a hundred thousand years,
at the end you will discover,
it is me, who is the culmination of your dreams.
He whose intellect overcomes his desire is higher than the angels; he whose desire overcomes his intellect is less than an animal.
God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.
They will ask you
what you have produced.
Say to them,
except for Love,
what else can a Lover produce?
You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.
There is a certain cloud,
impregnated with a
thousand lightnings.
There is my body,
in it an ocean formed of his glory,
all the creation,
all the universes,
all the galaxies,
are lost in it.
The cure for pain is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed. If you don't have both,
you don't belong with us.