Rumi
Sufism inspired writings of Persian poet and mystic Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi; these writings express the longing of the soul for union with the divine.
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī - also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mevlânâ/Mawlānā (مولانا, "our master"), Mevlevî/Mawlawī (مولوی, "my master") and more popularly simply as Rumi - was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, Islamic scholar, theologian and Sufi mystic who lived in Konya, a city of Ottoman Empire (Today's Turkey). His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages, and he has been described as the most popular poet and the best-selling poet in the United States.
His poetry has influenced Persian literature, but also Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani, Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, as well as the literature of some other Turkic, Iranian, and Indo-Aryan languages including Chagatai, Pashto, and Bengali.
Due to quarrels between different dynasties in Khorāṣān, opposition to the Khwarizmid Shahs who were considered devious by his father, Bahā ud-Dīn Wālad or fear of the impending Mongol cataclysm, his father decided to migrate westwards, eventually settling in the Anatolian city Konya, where he lived most of his life, composed one of the crowning glories of Persian literature, and profoundly affected the culture of the area.
When his father died, Rumi, aged 25, inherited his position as the head of an Islamic school. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din Muhaqqiq Termazi, continued to train Rumi in the Shariah as well as the Tariqa, especially that of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practised Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240 or 1241. Rumi's public life then began: he became an Islamic Jurist, issuing fatwas and giving sermons in the mosques of Konya. He also served as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and taught his adherents in the madrassa. During this period, Rumi also travelled to Damascus and is said to have spent four years there.
It was his meeting with the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi on 15 November 1244 that completely changed his life. From an accomplished teacher and jurist, Rumi was transformed into an ascetic.
On the night of 5 December 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Rumi's love for, and his bereavement at the death of, Shams found their expression in an outpouring of lyric poems, Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus.
Rumi found another companion in Salaḥ ud-Din-e Zarkub, a goldsmith. After Salah ud-Din's death, Rumi's scribe and favourite student, Hussam-e Chalabi, assumed the role of Rumi's companion. Hussam implored Rumi to write more. Rumi spent the next 12 years of his life in Anatolia dictating the six volumes of this masterwork, the Masnavi, to Hussam.
In December 1273, Rumi fell ill and died on the 17th of December in Konya.
“Shut your eyes so the heart may become your eye, and with that vision look upon another world. If you can step away from your need for self-approval, all that you do, top to bottom, will be approved.”
“If the Beautiful One is not inside you, then what is that Light hidden under your cloak?”
“People who repress desiresoften turn, suddenly,into hypocrites.”
“I lamented in every gathering;I associated with those in bad or happy circumstances.(But) everyone became my friend from his (own) opinion;he did not seek my secrets from within me.My secret is not far from my lament,but eyes and ears do not have the light (to sense it.”
“I am not from east or westnot up from the groundor out of the oceanmy place is placelessa trace of the tracelessI belong to the beloved”
“Kemarin aku menjadi pintarAku ingin merubah duniaHari ini aku menjadi bijakAku ingin merubah diriku sendiri”
“Your misconceptions veil the holy. The Princess is nakedbeneath the surface of every form. Your boredom wouldvanish if you had more of a clue about the Reality I know.”
“I went inside my heartto see how it was.Something there makes me hearthe whole world weeping.”
“Your eyelashes will write on my heartthe poem that could never come from the pen of a poet.”
“Truth lifts the heart, like water refreshes thirst.”
“Im Garten sind tausend Entzückende feinUnd Rosen und Veilchen mit Düften so reinUnd rinnendes, plätscherndes Wasser im Fluß – Dies alles ist Vorwand: Er ist alles allein.”
“If I could repeat it,people passing by would be enlightened and go free.”
“You hurt and have sharp desire,yet your presence is a healing calm.”
“Only union with you gives joy. The rest if tearing down one building to put up another.”
“Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.”
“When someone critises or disagrees with you, a small ant of hatred and antagonism is born in your heart. If you do not squash that ant at once, it might grow into a snake, or even a dragon.”
“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. Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?I cannot stop asking.If I could taste one sip of an answer,I could break out of this prison for drunks.I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.”
“A Mixed-breed Apple"A little mixed-breed apple,half red, half yellow, tells this story.A lover and beloved get separated.Their being apart was one thing,but they have opposite responses.The lover feels pain and grows pale.The beloved flushes and feels proud.I am a thorn next to my master's rose.We seem to be two, but we are not.”
“From "Wetness and Water"How does a part of the world leave the world?How can wetness leave water?Do not try to put out a fireby throwing on more fire.Do not wash a wound with blood.No matter how fast you run,your shadow more than keeps up.Sometimes it's in front.Only full, overhead sundiminishes your shadow.But that shadow has been serving you.What hurts you blesses you.Darkness is your candle.Your boundaries are your quest.”
“You are sitting here with us,but you are also out walking in a field at dawn.You are yourself the animal we huntwhen you come with us on the hunt.You are in your bodylike a plant is solid in the ground,yet you are wind.You are the diver's clotheslying empty on the beach.You are the fish.In the ocean are many bright strandsand many dark strands like veins that are seenwhen a wing is lifted up.Your hidden self is blood in those,those veins that are lute stringsthat make ocean music,not the sad edge of surf,but the sound of no shore.”
“I wonderfrom these thousand of "me's",which one am I?Listen to my cry, do not drown my voiceI am completely filled with the thought of you.Don't lay broken glass on my pathI will crush it into dust.I am nothing, just a mirror in the palm of your hand,reflecting your kindness, your sadness, your anger.If you were a blade of grass or a tiny flowerI will pitch my tent in your shadow.Only your presence revives my withered heart.You are the candle that lights the whole worldand I am an empty vessel for your light. Rumi - "Hidden Music”
“Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.”
“When you are with everyone but me,you're with no one.When you are with no one but me, you're with everyone.Instead of being so bound up with everyone, be everyone. When youbecome that many, you're nothing. Empty.”
“There is a moon inside every human being. Learn to be companions with it.”
“Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.”
“Why do you stay in prison, when the door is so wide open?”
“Are you jealous of the ocean’s generosity?Why would you refuse to givethis joy to anyone?Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups!They swim the huge fluid freedom.”
“Every fragile beauty, every perfect forgotten sentence,you grieve their going away, but that is not how it is.Where they come from never goes dry.It is an always flowing spring.”
“The Ripe FigNow that You live here in my chest,anywhere we sit is a mountaintop.And those other images,which have enchanted peoplelike porcelain dolls from China,which have made men and women weepfor centuries, even those have changed now.What used to be pain is a lovely benchwhere we can rest under the roses.A left hand has become a right.A dark wall, a window.A cushion in a shoe heel,the leader of the community!Now silence. What we sayis poison to someand nourishing to others.What we say is a ripe fig,but not every bird that flieseats figs.”
“I don't want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music, and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine.”
“You have no idea how hard I've looked for a gift to bring You. Nothing seemed right. What's the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It's no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I've brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.”
“Limp along until your legs are spent, and you fall flat and your energy is drained. Then the grace of the Divine will lift you.”
“Look carefully around you and recognizethe luminosity of souls.Sit beside those who draw you to that.”
“Try something different. Surrender.”
“Run from what's comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I'll be mad.”
“If there were no way into God, I would not have lain in the grave of this body so long.”
“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”
“Whatever purifies you is the right path, I will not try to define it.”
“You have been walking the ocean's edge,holding up your robes to keep them dry.You must dive naked under and deeper under,a thousand times deeper. Love flows down. The ground submits to the sky and suffers what comes.Tell me, is the earth worse for giving in like that?Do not put blankets over the drum.Open completely.”
“You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
“I said to the night, "If you are in love with the moon, it is because you never stay for long."The night turned to me and said, "It is not my fault. I never see the Sun, how can I know that love is endless?”
“And he misses herLike a wind starved sailHe sits knowing what direction to goBut the current keeps pulling him Down river.”
“Und wenn Er alle Wege und Pässe vor dir schließt,Zeigt einen Weg, geheim, Er, den niemand noch gekannt!”
“If Light Is In Your HeartYou Will Find Your Way Home.”
“I am yours.Don't give myself back to me.”
“In his mind she lay at his lap with his fingers gliding thru her straight beautiful hair. He smiles and says" your beauty lights up everything around you.”
“Your longing for ME is my message to you,All your attempts to reach ME, Are in reality MY attempts to reach you.”
“There's no one with intelligence in this town except that man over there playing with the children, the one riding the stick horse. He has keen, fiery insight and vast dignity like the night sky, but he conceals it in the madness of child's play.”
“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.”
“Brother, stand the pain.Escape the poison of your impulses.The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do.Learn to light the candle. Rise with the sun. Turn away from the cave of your sleeping.That way a thorn expands to a rose.”