"The Beloved is all, the lover just a veil.
We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
Our camel driver is at work;
Everywhere the murmur of departure;
This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness
Yet somehow comes emptiness,
Praise to that happening, over and over!
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Words and what they try to say swept
The armies of the day have chased the army of the night,
We Are As Flute
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.
We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!
that we should remain in being beside thee?
We and our existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.
because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.
Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us!
Our wind whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
our whole existence is from thy bringing into being.
........Mesnavi Book I, 599-607
Love is the Water of Life
"Everything other than love for the most beautiful God is agony of the spirit,
though it be sugar- eating. What is agony of the spirit? To advance toward death
without seizing hold of the Water of Life.".......Mesnevi I 3686-87
On the Deathbed
Go, rest your head on a pillow, leave me alone;
leave me ruined, exhausted from the journey of this night,
writhing in a wave of passion till the dawn.
Either stay and be forgiving,
or, if you like, be cruel and leave.
Flee from me, away from trouble;
take the path of safety, far from this danger.
We have crept into this corner of grief,
turning the water wheel with a flow of tears.
While a tyrant with a heart of flint slays,
and no one says, "Prepare to pay the blood money."
Faith in the king comes easily in lovely times,
but be faithful now and endure, pale lover.
No cure exists for this pain but to die,
So why should I say, "Cure this pain"?
In a dream last night I saw
an ancient one in the garden of love,
beckoning with his hand, saying, "Come here."
On this path, Love is the emerald,
the beautiful green that wards off dragonsnough, I am losing myself.
If you are a man of learning,
read something classic,
a history of the human struggle
and don't settle for mediocre verse.
...........Kulliyat-i-Shams 2039
This Marriage
May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
Msay this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcomes the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.
...........Kulliyat-i-Shams 2667
Lovers
O lovers, lovers it is time
to set out from the world.
I hear a drum in my soul's ear
coming from the depths of the stars.
the caravan is being readied.
He asks that we forgive him
for the disturbance he has caused us,
He asks why we travellers are asleep.
the stars, like candles
thrust at us from behind blue veils,
and as if to make the invisible plain,
a wondrous people have come forth.
Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!
this existence goes.
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
that work is over.
free of mountainous wanting.
blown off into emptiness.
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
out the window, down the slant of the roof.
"It is said that after Muhammad and the prophets revelation does not descend
upon anyone else. Why not? In fact it does, but then it is not called 'revelation.'
It is what the Prophet referred to when he said, 'The believer sees with the Light
of God.' When the believeer looks with 'The believer sees with the Light of God.'
When the believeer looks withGod's Light, he sees all things: the first and the
last, the present and the absent. For how can anything be hidden from God's
Light? And if something is hidden, then it is not the Light of God. Therefore the
meaning of revelation exists, even if it is not called revelation."
..............Fihi ma fihi [Discourses of Rumi]; quoted from William C. Chittick, "The Sufi Path of Love : The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi" (Albany: SUNY, 1983)
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?
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 thephilosophical stone.
............(Mystic Odes 473)
At every instant and from every side, resounds the call of Love:
We are going to sky, who wants to come with us?
We have gone to heaven, we have been the friends of the angels,
And now we will go back there, for there is our country.
We are higher than heaven, more noble than the angels:
Why not go beyond them? Our goal is the Supreme Majesty.
What has the fine pearl to do with the world of dust?
Why have you come down here? Take your baggage back. What is this place?
Luck is with us, to us is the sacrifice!...
Like the birds of the sea, men come from the ocean - the ocean of the soul.
Like the birds of the sea, men come from the ocean - the ocean of the soul.
How could this bird, born from that sea, make his dwelling here?
No, we are the pearls from the bosom of the sea, it is there that we dwell:
Otherwise how could the wave succeed to the wave that comes from the soul?
The wave named 'Am I not your Lord' has come, it has broken the vessel of the body;
And when the vessel is broken, the vision comes back, and the union with Him.
.........Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch,'Rumi and Sufism' trans. Simone Fattal Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press, 1977, 1987.
Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? "God is One."
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don't call all these lights "the Light of God";
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
...Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire.
.........(Mystic Odes 833)
Rumi : The Ocean That Has Many Harbours
Life & Times Of Maulana Jallaluddin Rumi
Rumi : A Builder Looks For A Rotten Hole
Rubaiyat Of Omar Khayyam
Makhdoom's Quest For The Truth
Please E-mail Ahmed H. Makhdoom