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.
Come, come again, whoever you are, come!
Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come!
Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times,
Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.
Every object and being in the universe is
a jar overflowing with wisdom and beauty,
a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained
by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth
more shining, as though covered in satin.
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.
If you dig a pit for others to fall into,
you will fall into it yourself.
If you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.
Didn't I tell you?
I am an ocean, you are a fish;
do not go to the dry land,
it is me, who is your comforting body of water.
Out beyond ideas of rightdoing
and wrongdoing
There is a field.
I will meet you there.
Gamble everything for love,
if you are a true human being.
Even though you're not equipped,
keep searching:
equipment isn't necessary on the way to the Lord.
He whose intellect overcomes his desire is higher than the angels; he whose desire overcomes his intellect is less than an animal.
There is no reality but God,
says the completely surrendered sheik, who is an ocean for all beings.
That which God said to the rose,
and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty,
He said to my heart,
and made it a hundred times more beautiful.
Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still.
The lower self does not want anyone to receive anything from anybody else, and if it is aware of something receiving a special boon, it seeks to destroy it.
There is no worse sickness for the soul,
O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.
The heart and eyes must bleed a lot
before self-complacency falls away.
The idol of your self is the mother of all idols.
To regard the self as easy to subdue is a mistake.
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.
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.
You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.
They will ask you
what you have produced.
Say to them,
except for Love,
what else can a Lover produce?