Rumi was a Sufi poet and mystic who lived and wrote in Turkey in the thirteenth century.
He honored all paths to Enlightenment and held all religions sacred.
You are ‘there.’ I ‘here.’
Worlds separate us.
Death’s angels, the void of space…
Yet I say your name,
And waves of Light wash to me silently from your Heart.
Drunk on the milky light of the stars, anyone staggers.
If I seem mad I am.
And if you see that, you are too.
Be glad.
My best days are when I melt
Love streams from me
Warm, timeless, honey
From your invisible comb.
With one silent laugh
You tilted the night
And the garden ran with stars.
No one ever sees that last moment
The eroded rock becomes sand
But if they did...
They would hear the Sea singing.
The law of Wonder rules my life at last
I burn each second of my life to love
Each second of my life burns out in love
In each leaping second
Love lives afresh.
Love is that flame that,
When it is kindled,
Burns everything away.
God only remains.
All the world’s passion are simple beside this passion;
Cool beside this fire I am in
That ignites the world
And shall destroy it.
Today, you pulled me to you secretly
I grew wild, broke my last chains.
I am thousands of drunks together, not just one.
Mad, in love with all madmen.
Everything I am
I draw from you
Battered old bucket
Dipping in your well.
You were in me; I brewed with ecstasy
Whipped like a sea by my own winds.
Shaken out in thunder, I told the sea’s secrets
Slept in clouds along the shore.
The tender words we said to one another
Are stored in the secret heart of heaven;
One day like rain they will fall and spread,
And our mystery will grow green over the world.
This body’s a mirror of heaven:
Its energies make angels jealous.
Our purity astounds seraphim:
Devils shiver at our nerve.
If I’d known how savage Love is
I’d have blocked the door of Love’s house
Beaten a drum, shouted ‘Keep away!’
But I’m in the house… helpless…
Tell the night ‘Our day has no night
Our religion no law but love
Love is this shoreless sea we drown in
Saying not a word.’
Tonight is the night; sad; radiant;
When our mysteries are fulfilled.
All my mysteries are images of you
Night, be long!
He and I are lost in love.
‘You could have had anything,’ you once said.
I laughed. What could anything be without you?
All the world is driftwood
Thrown up from your sea.
He is in each of my atoms,
Each of my raw nerves…
I’m a harp leaning against him
This grief… just a play of his fingers.
These atoms whirling through the world
Are nothing but madmen!
Can’t you see them dancing
Lost, dazzled, in him?
Whatever they say or think
I am in you and am you.
No one can understand this
Until he’s lost his mind.
Heart, you are lost;
But there’s a path from the lover to the soul,
Secret but visible.
Worlds blaze round you... don’t shrink;
The path’s secret, but yours.
So often I put up my hands
To shield my eyes from you
Wild hilarious miracle!
Your Light shines through my bones.
The One is pure and silent
Why go on talking?
The most radiant in me
Has never said a word.
Live to give everything away
So nothing keeps us apart
Love brings you here;
Light-atom pulsing always,
At the Sun’s heart.
No Heaven or earth,
Just this mysterious place we walk in dazedly,
Where being here or there, in time or not,
Are only two motions of the same ecstatic breathing.
When in Love,
Body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.
Become this… fall in Love
And you will not be separated again.
In the mystic garden of lovers,
‘You’ and ‘I’ have no such distinctions.
Today, like every other day,
we wake up empty and frightened.
Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a
musical instrument. Let the beauty
you love be what you do.
There are hundreds of ways
to kneel and kiss the ground.
Every moment a voice
out of this world
calls on our soul
to wake up and rise.
This soul of ours is like a flame
with more smoke than light
blackening our vision
letting no light through.
Lessen the smoke and
more light brightens your house
the house you dwell in now
and the abode you'll eventually move to.
Now my precious soul
how long are you going to waste yourself
in this wandering journey?
Can't you hear the voice?
Can't you use your swifter wings
and answer the call?