Never lose hope

My dear friend never lose hope
when the Beloved sends you away.

If you're abandoned if you're left hopeless
tomorrow for sure you'll be called again.

If the door is shut right in your face
keep waiting with patience don't leave right away.

Seeing your patience your love will soon
summon you with grace raise you like a champion.

And if all the roads end up in dead ends
you'll be shown the secret paths no one will comprehend. { Jelaluddin Rumi}

Ve Sooratein ilahi.. in the mesmerizing voice of Abida Parveen

On the Day of Death (Rumi)

On the day of death when my coffin is on the move

Don't suppose I have any pain at leaving this world

When you see my hearse say not

"Leaving! He's Leaving!"

That time will be for my reunion and encounter.

When you commit me to the grave

Say not "Farewell! Farewell!"

For the grave is veil over the reunion of paradise!

Intellectual vs Love!

The intellectual is always showing off,

The lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away.

Afraid of drowning;

The whole business of love,

Is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose;

Lovers are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone.

Even surrounded by people;

Like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble

Of giving advice to a lover

Get nothing. He's mocked by passion.

Love is like musk. It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

(Jelaluddin Rumi Kulliyat-e Shams,

Enter this house, My Love, or let me leave!

Enter this house, my Love or let me leave
I am a sculptor, a molder of form.
In every moment I shape an idol.
But then, in front of you, I melt them down
I can rouse a hundred forms
And fill them with spirit,
But when I look into your face,
I want to throw them in the fire.
My souls spills into yours and is blended.
Because my soul has absorbed your fragrance,
I cherish it.
Every drop of blood I spill
Informs the earth,
I merge with my Beloved
When I participate in love,
In this house of mud and water,
My heart has fallen to ruins.
Enter this house, my Love, or let me leave.
(Jelaluddin Rumi the Divani Shamsi Tabriz, XXXIV)

I have been Tricked!

I have been tricked by flying too close

to what I thought I loved.
Now the candle flame is out, the wine spilled,

and the lovers have withdrawn

somewhere beyond my squinting.
The amount I thought I'd won, I've lost.

My prayer becomes bitter and all about blindness.
How wonderful it was to be for a while

with those who surrender.
Others only turn their faces on way,

then another, like pigeon in flight.
I have known pigeons who fly in a nowhere,

and birds that eat grainlessness,
And tailor who sew beautiful clothes

by tearing them to pieces.
(Mathnawi, V. 346-353) Like This, Rumi, Coleman Barks, Maypop Books

Love is Reckless!

Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong,
Consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone,
Hard surfaced and straightforward.

Having died of self-interest,
She risks everything and asks for nothing.
Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause God gave us being;
Without cause, give it back again.
(Jelaluddin Rumi Mathnawi VI, 1967-1974)

This is LOVE!

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
To cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
To regard this world as invisible,
And to disregard what appears to be the self.
Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
To enter this circle of lovers,
To see beyond seeing itself,
To reach and feel within the breast.
(Jelaluddin Rumi the Divani Shamsi Tabriz, XIII)

Who is at the Door?

Who is at my door?
He said, "Who is at my door?"

I said, "Your humble servant.

"He said, "What business do you have?"

I said, "To greet you, 0 Lord."
He said, "How long will you journey on?"

I said, "Until you stop me."

He said, "How long will you boil in the fire?"

I said, "Until I am pure."

"This is my oath of love.

For the sake of loveI gave up wealth and position."
He said, "You have pleaded your case but you have no witness."

I said, "My tears are my witness;

the pallor of my face is my proof.'

He said, "Your witness has no credibility;

your eyes are too wet to see."

I said, "By the splendor of your justice my eyes are clear and faultless."

He said, "What do you seek?"

I said, "To have you as my constant friend."

He said, "What do you want from me?"

I said, "Your abundant grace."

He said, "Who was your companion on the 'journey?

I said, "The thought of you, 0 King."He said,

"What called you here?"I said,

"The fragrance of your wine."

He said, "What brings you the most fulfillments?"

said, "The Company of the Emperor."

He said, "What do you find there?"

I said, "A hundred miracles."

He said, "Why is the palace deserted?"

I said, "They all fear the thief."He said, "Who is the thief?"

I said, "The one who keeps me from -you.

He said, "Where is there safety?"

I said, "In service and renunciation."

He said, "What is there to renounce?"

I said, "The hope of salvation."

He said, "Where is there calamity?"

I said, "In the presence of your love."

He said, "How do you benefit from this life?"

I said, "By keeping true to myself

Now it is time for silence.

If I told you about His true essence

You would fly from your self and be gone,

and neither door nor roof could hold you back!
(Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved, Jonathan StarJeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997)

When the rose is gone!

When the rose is gone and the garden faded

you will no longer hear the nightingale's song.

The Beloved is all; the lover just a veil.

The Beloved is living; the lover a dead thing.

If love withholds its strengthening care,

the lover is left like a bird without care,

the lover is left like a bird without wings.

How will I be awake and aware

if the light of the Beloved is absent?

Love wills that this Word be brought forth.
(Jelaluddin Rumi Mathnawi I, 23-31)

At the Twilight... (Jelaluddin Rumi)

At the twilight a moon appeared in the sky,
Then it landed on the Earth to look at me!
Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey,
That moon stole me and rushed back to the sky.
I looked at myself, I didn’t see “ME” anymore!
for in that moon my body turned as fine as soul.
The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;
The ship of my existence, drowned in that see.

Fringe (Jelaluddin Rumi)

You wreck my shop and my house and now my heart,
But how can I run from what gives me life?
I am weary of personal worrying, in love with the cut of madness!
Tear open my shame and show the mystery.
How much longer do I have to fret with self-restraint and fear?
Friends, this is how it is: we are fringe sewn inside the lining of a robe.
Soon we will be loosened, the binding thread torn out.
The Beloved is a lion.
We are the lame deer in his paws. Consider
what choices we have! (Rumi)

Sky Circles (Jelaluddin Rumi)

The way of love isn’t a subtle argument.
The door there is devastation!
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom-
How do they learn that?
They fall, and falling they are given wings!

Quietness (Rumi)

Inside this new love, Die!

Your way begins on the other side!

Become the sky.

Take an ax to the prison wall,

Escape. Walk out.

Like someone suddenly born into color,

Do it now!

You're covered with thick cloud

Slide out the side. Die!

And be quiet.

Quietness is the surest sign you've died!

Your old life was a frantic running

from silence!

The speechless full moon comes out now!

(Jelaluddin Rumi)

Master doesn’t utter a word… (Discourse of Rumi)

Someone said: “Our Master doesn’t utter a word.”

Rumi answered: Well, it was the thought of me that brought you to my presence. This thought of me did not speak with you saying, “How are things with you?” The thought without words drew you here. If the reality of me draws you without words and transports you to another place, what is so wonderful with words? Words are the shadow of reality, a mere branch of reality. Since the shadow draws, how much more the reality!

Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words. If someone should see a hundred thousand miracles and divine blessings, still, without an inner connection to that saint or prophet who was the source of those miracles, all these phenomena would come to nothing. It is this inward element that draws and moves us. If there was no element of amber in straw, the straw would never be attracted to the amber[Rumi is referring to static electricity here]. They would not cling to each other, even if you rub the amber with fur. This exchange between them is hidden, not a visible thing.

It is the thought that brings us. The thought of a garden brings us to the garden. The thought of a shop brings us to the shop. However, within these thoughts is a secret deception. Have you never gone to a certain place thinking it would be good, only to find disappointment. Then you will see reality as it is, and nothing more.

“Upon that day when the secrets are tried.”

So, what reason is there for me to speak? In reality that which draws is a single thing, but it appears to be many. We are possessed by a hundred different desires. “I want vermicelli!” we say. “I want ravioli. I want Halvah. I want fruits. I want fritter. I want dates.” We name these one by one, but the root of the matter is a single thing: The root is hunger. Don’t you see how, once we have our fill of but one thing, we say, “Nothing else is necessary?” Therefore, it was not ten or a hundred things, but one thing that drew us.

“And their number, we have only appointed as a trial.”

The many things in the world are a trial appointed by God, for they hide the single reality. There is a saying that the saint is one, humankind is a hundred, meaning the saint’s whole attention remains upon the one truth, while people are scattered over a hundred appearances. But which hundred? Which fifty? Which sixty? Lost in this world of mirrored reflections, they are a faceless people without hands and feet, without mind and soul, quivering like a magic Talisman, like quicksilver or mercury. They do not know who they are. Call them sixty or a hundred or a thousand, and the saint is one, but is not this view a trial itself? For the truth is that hundreds are nothing, while the saint is a thousand, and a hundred thousand, and thousands of thousands.

A king once gave a single soldier the rations for a hundred men. The army protested, but the king said nothing. When the day of battle arrived, all the men fled the field, except that one soldier who fought alone. “There you are.” the king said. “It was for this that I fed one man as a hundred.”

It behooves us to strip away all our prejudices and seek out a friend of God. However, when we’ve spent our whole life in the company of people who lack discrimination, then our own discriminative faculty becomes weak, and that true friend may pass us by unrecognized.

Discrimination is a quality that is always hidden in a person. Don’t you see that an insane person possesses hand and feet but lacks discrimination? Discrimination is a subtle essence within you. Yet, day and night you have been occupied with nurturing the physical form that doesn’t know right from wrong. Why have you devoted all your energies to looking after the physical, entirely neglecting that subtle essence? The physical exists through that essence, but that essence no way depends upon the physical.

The light that shines through the windows of the eyes and ears, if those windows did not exist, the light would not stop. it would find other windows to shine through. If you bring a lamp before the sun, do you say, “I see the sun by means of this lamp?” God forbid! If you did not bring the lamp, the sun would still shine. What need is there for a lamp?

This is the danger in associating with kings. It is not that you may lose your life__ we must lose our life in the end anyway, whether today or tomorrow does not matter. The danger arises from the fact that when kings enter upon the scene, and the spell of their influence gains strength, becoming like a great lamp, the person who keeps company with them, claims their friendship, and accepts money from them, will inevitably speak in accordance with their desires. That person will listen to the king’s mundane views with the utmost attention, and will not be able to deny them.

That is where the danger lies, it leads to fading respect for the true source. When you cultivate the interests of kings, that other interest that is fundamental to the spiritual life becomes a stranger to you. The more you proceed down the path of kings, the more that direction where the Beloved dwells becomes lost. The more you make your peace with worldly people, the more Beloved turns away from you. Going in their direction renders you subject to their rule. Once you have turned down their path, in the end God gives them power over you.

It is a pity to reach the ocean, and to be satisfied with the little pitcherful from the sea. After all, there are pearls in the sea, and from the sea come a myriad precious things. What is the value in just taking water? What pride can intelligent people have in that? This world is a mere foam fleck of the True Sea. That Ocean is the science of the saints, and within that Water, is the Pearl Itself.

This world is but foam full of floating jetsam. Yet, through the turning of the waves, and the rhythmic surging of the sea in constant motion, this foam takes on a certain beauty. But this beauty is a borrowed thing coming from elsewhere. It is a false coin that sparkles to the eye.

People are the astrolabe of GOD, but it requires an astronomer to use the astrolabe. If a vegetable seller or a greengrocer should find the astrolabe, what good would it be to them? From that astrolabe, what could they know of the movements of the circling stars and the positions of the planets, their influences and so forth? But in the hands of an astronomer, the astrolabe becomes truly valuable.

Just as this copper astrolabe reflects the movements of the heavens like a mirror, so the human being is the astrolabe of God.

“We have honored the children of Adam.”

Those who have been moved by God to see the one reality and learn It’s ways through the astrolabe of their own being, behold moment by moment, flash by flash, the testament of God.

Indeed, it is an infinite beauty that never leaves their mirror.

God has servants who cloak themselves in a wisdom, knowingness and grace invisible to others. Out of their excessive jealousy and love for God these servants cloak themselves, just like Mutanabbi says of beautiful women:

“Figured silks they wore, not to beautify but to guard their beauty from lustful eyes.”

The Guest House (Rumi)

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression , a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they are crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it's furniture,
Still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight!
The dark thought, the shame, the malice
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful to whosoever comes,
because each has been sent,
As a guide from beyond!

(Jelaluddin Rumi)

HEARKEN to the FluTe! (The tale of Love of GOD)(Rumi)

Hearken to the reed-flute how it complains

lamenting it's banishment from its home.
"Ever since they tore me from my osier bed,
my plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.
I burst my breast striving to give vent to sighs,
And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.
He who abides far away from his home
Is ever longing for the day he shall return.
My wailing is heard in every throng,
in concert with them that rejoice and them that weep,
each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings,
but no one fathoms the secrets of my heart.
My secrets are not alien from my plaintive notes,
yet they are not manifest to the sensual eye and ear
Body is not veiled from soul, neither soul from body.
Yet no man has ever seen a soul!"
This plaint of the flute is fire, not mere air
let him who lacks this fire be accounted dead!
'Tis the fire of Love that inspires the flute
"Tis the ferment of love that possesses the wine!
The flute is the confidant of all unhappy lovers
Yea, it's strains lay bare my inmost secrets.
Who has seen a poison and an antidote like a flute?
Who has seen a sympathetic consoler like the flute?
The flute tells the tale of the lovers bloodstained path,
It recounts the story of Majnun's love toils.
None is privy to these feelings save one distracted,
As ear inclines to the whisper of the tongue.
Through grief my days are as labor and sorrow,
My days move on hand in hand with anguish.
Yet though my days vanish thus 'tis no matter,
Do thou abide Oh Incomparable Pure One!
But All who are not fishes are soon tired of water;
And they who lack daily bread find the day very long!
So the "RAW" comprehend not the state of the "RIPE"
therefore it behoves me to shorten my discourse.
Arise O son! Burst your bonds and be free!
How long wilt thou be captive to silver and Gold?
Though Thy pour the ocean into thy pitcher
it can hold no more than one day's store.
The pitcher of the desire of the covetous never fills,
The oyster shell fills not with the pearls till it is content;
Only he whose garment is rent with the violence of love
is wholly pure from covetousness and sin.
Hail to thee, then, OH LOVE, Sweet madness!
Thou who healest all our infirmities
Who art the healer of our pride and self-conceit
Who art our Plato and Galen!
Love exalts our earthly bodies to heaven

And makes the very hills to dance with joy!

Oh Lover! 'twas love that gave life to Mount Sinai!
When "it quaked and Moses fell down in a swoon"
He who is parted from them who speak their tongue
Though he possess a voice is perforce dumb
When the rose has faded and the garden has withered
The song of the nightingale is no longer to be heard
The BELOVED is all in all, the Lover only veils Him
The Beloved is all that lives, The lover a dead thing.
When the lover feels no longer the LOVE's quickening
He becomes like a bird that has lost it's wings. Alas!
How can I retain my senses about me?
When the BELOVED shows not the Light of His Countenance?
Love desires that this secret should be revealed,
For if a mirror reflects not, of what use is it?
Khowest thou why thy mirror reflects not?
Because the rust has not been scoured from it's face
If it was purified from all rust and defilement,
It would reflect the shining of GOD's light!
Oh Friends you have now heard this tale!
Which sets forth the very essence of my case!

(Jelaluddin Rumi)

No Flag! (Rumi)

I used to want buyers for my words,
Now I wish someone would buy me away from words.

I've made a lot of charmingly profound images,
Scenes with Abraham and his Uncle Azar,
Who was famous for icons.

I am so tired of what I've been doing,
Then one image form came and I quit.

Look for someone else to tend the shop,
I am out of the image making business.
Finally I know the freedom of madness.

A random image arrives. I scream,
"Get out" it disintegrates!
Only love
Only the holder flag fits into
No Flag!

(Jelaluddin Rumi)

The Source of joy! (RUMI)

No one knows what makes the soul wake up so happy!

May be a dawn breeze has blown the veil from face of GOD!

A thousand new moons appear. Roses open laughing. Hearts become perfect rubies like those from badakhshan

The body turns entirely spirit

Leaves become branches in the wind

Why is it now so easy to surrender?

even for those already surrendered?

"The parable of those who take protectors other than GOD is that of the spider, who makes for itself a house, but truly the flimsiest house is that of the spider, if they but knew" (29:41 QURAN)


"Weave no more with soot and shine of your thought
like the spider, the web of rotten warp
While you are silent His speech is your speech
While you weave not, He is the weaver" (jelaluddin Rumi)