Rumi

“You run back and forth listening for unusual events,peering into the faces of travelers."Why are you looking at me like a madman?"I have lost a friend. Please forgive me.”

“You dance inside my chest,where no one sees you,but sometimes I do, and thatsight becomes this art.”

“I said, “I just want to know you and then disappear.”She said, “Knowing me does not mean dying.”

“I will soothe you and heal you,I will bring you roses.I too have been covered with thorns.”

“I've come to take you with me even if I must drag you alongBut first I must steal your heartthen settle you in my soul.I've come as a springto lay beside your blossomsTo feel the glory of happinessand spread your flowers aroundI've come to show you offas the adornment in my houseand elevate you to the heavensas the prayers of those in love.I've come to take backthe kiss you once stoleEither return it with graceor i must take it by forceYou're my lifeYou're my soulPlease be my last prayerMy heart must hold you foreverFrom the lowly earthto the high human soulThere are a lot morethan a thousand stagesSince I've taken you alongfrom town to townno way will I abandonyou halfway down this roadThough you're in my handsThough i can throw you aroundlike a child and a ballI'll always need to chase after you”

“Woman is the light of God.”

“Come, come, whoever you are, come.Infidel, idolator, Wanderer, fire-worshipper, it doesn't matter, come.Ours is not a convent of despair.Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times,Come, come again.”

“Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.”

“Dance until you shatter yourself.”

“I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.”

“I once had a thousand desires. But in my one desire to know you all else melted away.”

“For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.From within, I couldn't decide what to do.Unable to see, I heard my name being called.Then I walked outside.”

“Der sprachlose PapageiEin Kaufmann einen Papagei vor Jahrenbesaß, in Sang und Rede wohl erfahren.Der saß als Wächter an des Ladens Pforteund sprach zu jedem Kunden kluge Worte.Denn wohl der Menschenkinder Sprache kannt er,doch seinesgleichen Weisen auch verstand er.Vom Laden ging nach Haus einst sein Gebieterund ließ den Papagei zurück als Hüter.Ein Kätzlein plötzlich in den Laden sprang,um eine Maus zu fangen; todesbang,flatterte hin und her der Papageiund stieß ein Glas mit Rosenöl entzwei.von seinem Hause kam der Kaufmann wiederund setzte sorglos sich im Laden niederund stieß das Rosenöl allüberall,im Zorn schlug er das Haupt des Vogels kahl.Die Zeit verstrich, der Vogel sprach nicht mehr.Da kam die Reu´, der Kaufmann seufzte schwer.Raufte sich den Bart und rief: "Weh mir umsponnenist mit Gewölk die Sonne meiner Wonnenn!Wär mir, da auf den Redner ich den bösenSchlag ausgeführt, doch lahm die Hand gewesen!"Wohl gab er frommen Bettlern reiche Spende,auf daß sein Tier die Sprache wiederfände;umsonst! Als er am vierten Morgen klagend,in tausend Sorgen, was zu machen sei,daß wieder reden mög´sein Papagei,ließ sich mit bloßem Haupt ein Büßer blicken,den Schädel glatt wie eines Beckens Rücken.Da hub der Vogel gleich zu reden anund rief dem Derwisch zu: "Sag lieber Mann,wie wurdest Kahlkopf du zum Kahlen? sprich!Vergossest du vielleicht auch Öl wie ich?"Man lachte des Vergleichs, daß seine Lageder Vogel auf den Derwisch übertrage.”

“No one can tell if I’m laughing or weeping.I wonder myself.”

“Without the frown of clouds and lightning, the vines would be burned by the smiling sun.”

“There’s a morning when presence comes over your soul. You sing like a rooster in your earth-colored shape. Your heart hears and, no longer frantic, begins to dance.”

“Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you.”

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”

“Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.”

“I searched for God and found only myself. I searched for myself and found only God.”

“Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you... This turning toward what you deeply love saves you.”

“Be motivated like the falcon,hunt gloriously.Be magnificent as the leopard,fight to win.Spend less time withnightingales and peacocks.One is all talk,the other only color.”

“My heart is so smallit's almost invisible.How can You place such big sorrows in it?"Look," He answered,"your eyes are even smaller,yet they behold the world.”

“Peaceful is the one who's not concerned with having more or less.Unbound by name and fame, he is free from sorrow from the world and mostly from himself.”

“There is a community of the spirit.Join it, and feel the delightof walking in the noisy streetand being the noise.Drink all your passion, and be a disgrace.Close both eyes to see with the other eye”

“Now be silent.Let the One who creates the words speak.He made the door.He made the lock.He also made the key.”

“Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls.”

“Love is the bridge between you and everything.”

“If you are seeking, seek us with joyFor we live in the kingdom of joy.Do not give your heart to anything elseBut to the love of those who are clear joy,Do not stray into the neighborhood of despair.For there are hopes: they are real, they exist –Do not go in the direction of darkness –I tell you: suns exist.”

“I am smiling at myself todayThere's no wish left in this heartOr perhaps there is no heart left Free from all desireI sit quietly like EarthMy silent cry echoes like thunder Throughout the universe I am not worried about itI know it will be heard by no oneExcept me.”

“What matters is how quickly you do what your soul directs.”

“I am so close, I may look distant.So completely mixed with you, I may look separate.So out in the open, I appear hidden.So silent, because I am constantly talking with you.”

“IGNORANCEI didn’t know love would make me thiscrazy, with my eyeslike the river Ceyhuncarrying me in its rapidsout to sea,where every bitof shattered boatsinks to the bottom.An alligator lifts its head and swallowsthe ocean, then the oceanfloor becomesa desert coveringthe alligator insand drifts.Changes dohappen. I do not know how,or what remains of whathas disappearedinto the absolute.I hear so many storiesand explanations, but I keep quiet,because I don’t know anything,and because something I swallowedin the oceanhas made me completely contentwith ignorance.”

“If you want to be more alive, love is the truest health.”

“A pen went scribbling along. When it tried to write love, it broke.”

“The feelings trembled and flapped in his chest like a bird newly put in a cage.”

“Love is an open secret, the most obvious thing in the world and the most hidden, with no why to how it keeps its mystery.”

“Lovers move like lightning and wind.No contest.Theologians mumble, rumble-dumble, necessity and free will, while lover and belovedpull themselves into each other.”

“They fell to, on the ground. You’ve seen a bakerrolling dough. He kneads it gently at first,then more roughly. He pounds it on the board.It softly groans under his palms.Now he spreadsit out and rolls it flat. Then he bunches it,and rolls it all the way out again,thin.Now he adds water and mixes it well.Now salt,and a little more salt. Now he shapes itdelicately to its final shape and slides itinto the oven, which is already hot.You remember breadmaking!This is how your desiretangles with a desired one.And it’s not justa metaphor for a man and a woman making love.Warriors in battle do this too.A great mutual embraceis always happening between the eternaland what dies, between essence and accident.”

“Let go of your mind and then be mindful.Close your ears and listen!”

“THIS TORTUREWhy should we tell you our love storieswhen you spill them together like blood in the dirt?Love is a pearl lost on the ocean floor,or a fire we can’t see,but how does saying thatpush us through the top of the head intothe light above the head?Love is notan iron pot, so this boiling energywon’t help.Soul, heart, self.Beyond and within thoseis one saying,How long before I’m free of this torture!”

“WONDER WITHOUT WILLPOWER Love’s way becomes a pen sometimes writing g-sounds like gold or r-soundslike tomorrow in different calligraphystyles sliding by, darkening the paperNow it’s held upside down, now besidethe head, now down and on to somethingelse, figuring. One sentence savesan illustrious man from disaster, butfame does not matter to the split tongueof a pen. Hippocrates knows how the curemust go. His pen does not. This oneI am calling pen, or sometimes flag,has no mind. You, the pen, are most sanelyinsane. You cannot be spoken of rationally.Opposites are drawn into your presence butnot to be resolved. You are not wholeor ever complete. You are the wonderwithout willpower going where you want.”

“Someone who does not run toward the allure of love walks a road where nothing lives.”

“She loved him so much she concealed his name in many phrases, the inner meanings known only to her.”

“This is what love does and continues to do. It tastes like honey to adults and milk to children.”

“There is little one can say about love. It has to be lived, and it's always in motion.”

“Love is an emerald.Its brilliant light wards off dragonsOn this treacherous path.”

“You left ground and sky weeping,mind and soul full of grief.No one can take your place in existence,or in absence. Both mourn, the angels, the prophets,and this sadness I feel has taken from methe taste of language, so that I cannot saythe flavor of my being apart.”

“Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven.”

“The gates made of lightswing open. You see in.”