100 Selected Rumi Poems (English)

 

The vast majority of Rumi's poems below are translated by the great American scholar of Rumi, Coleman Barks who has single-handedly introduced and popularized Maulana Jalaluddin Balkhi 'Rumi' here in our beloved America. You can also enjoy Professor Coleman Barks' truly heartwarming Rumi recitations- with his charming Southern drawl & over two hours long - embedded below...it's a joy to watch and A MUST SEE, if you are a Rumi aficionado. My all time favorite Rumi translation by Coleman Barks is this one:

In your light, I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest

where no one sees you,

but sometimes I do,

and that sight becomes this art.

Click Play, Sit Back & Enjoy

All listed Rumi poems below in a single PDF-File

         

Friends,
look at love how it tangles
with the one fallen in love
look at spirit how it fuses with earth
giving it a new life.
Why are you so busy
with this or that, or good or bad?
Pay attention to how things blend
be like sugarcane, sweet yet silent
don't get entangled with bitter words.

Remember friends,
if you are seeking closeness to Beloved,
then love everyone.
Whether in their presence or absence,
see only their good.
If you want to be as clear and refreshing
as the breath of the morning breeze
or like the sun having nothing but warmth and light,
then love everyone.

Friends,
there is a candle in your heart
ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul
ready to be filled.

How long can you beg and bargain
for material things of this world
while Love is waiting?
How long before
you can rise beyond
how I am and what I am?

Are you fleeing from love
because of a single setback?
Except knowing how to spell the word,
what else do you really know about love?
How can you talk about love
if you haven't really heard about love
even from the lovers?

Love is neither a tale nor a game.
Love is such a powerful torrent
that no one can stand in front of it.
Kings would give away 
their thrones
for just the smell of
that special wine of love 
which lovers drink
at the assembly of heart.

Love is a shining light, exalted;
a secret river, purified and ever flowing.
Love is a burning fire 
that never gets extinguished.
Love goes together with suffering,
but being in love
is the greatest of all feelings.

Love is the whole thing,
we are only pieces.
Love is the sea of no end,
we are just a drop of it.
Without love, even the stars
get eclipsed and extinguished.

Love boils the oceans like boiling pots.
Love pulverizes the mountains like grinding sands.
Love drills a hundred holes through the sky.
Love trembles the earth like a devastating quake.

From love, bitter becomes sweet.
From love, thorns become flowers.
From love, vinegar becomes wine.
From love, fire becomes light.
From love, devil becomes angel.
From love, sorrow becomes joy.
From love, sickness becomes health.
From love, fury becomes mercy.
From love, dead becomes alive.
From love, king becomes servant.

Love knows a hundred different ways of showing off. 
Love flirts with a lover all the time,
knowing how to flirt back with love,
that's how you get your hands on love!
Love is always loyal.
Love demands your absolute loyalty.
Love won't even look at a disloyal lover.
Love is the only food for a starving lover.
Without love, you're just a meaningless facade.
If you're not still in love,
hurry and find the love of your life.
Quench your thirst for love,
Beloved is also always thirsty for a lover.

Any lover who's truly in love
cannot be bound to a loveless way of life.
Put your full trust only in love
because love conquers all things.

Friends, don't just look for love,
look for the one who is also looking for love.
But why do you even have to look?
Love is not lost, love is right here,
closer than your own arteries and veins,
It's you who always sets up barriers
between yourself and love.

Friends,
if you could get rid
of yourself just once,
the secret of secrets
would open to you.
The face of the unknown,
hidden beyond the universe
would appear on the
mirror of your perception.

If you could distance yourself
from your selfish self,
all heavenly spirits
would stand ready to serve you.

If you could finally hunt down
your own beastly self,
you have the right
to claim Solomon's kingdom.

You are that blessed soul who
belongs to the garden of paradise,
is it fair to let yourself
fall apart in a shattered house?

You are the bird of happiness
in the magic of existence,
what a pity! why you let
yourself be chained and caged?

Break free!
Break free from this dark prison
called material world,
soon you will see
you are the sage and the fountain of life.

Friends,
don’t be discouraged
compassion always comes after trouble.
Don’t put on any dress but love
don’t cover yourself with any garment but love.
Love will open your heart,
start walking towards love.
Your legs will get heavy and tired
then comes a moment of feeling
the wings you've grown,
lifting.

Love rests on no foundation.
Love is an endless ocean,
with no beginning or end.
Imagine,
a suspended ocean
riding on a cushion of ancient secrets.

When in love,
body, mind, heart, and soul don't even exist.
Become this: fall in love,
and you will not be separated again.

If love slips out of your hand
don’t fall into despair,
keep on searching
keep on fighting until you find love again.

Knock,

and love will open the door.
Vanish,
and love will make you shine like the sun.
Fall,
and love will raise you to the heavens.
Become nothing,
and love will turn you into everything. 

Be drunk with love,
for love is all that exists.
Where is intimacy found
if not in the give and take of love.

If they ask you what love is,
say: the sacrifice of will.
If you haven't already left your will behind,
you have no love at all.

The lover is a king of kings
with both worlds beneath him;
and a king does not regard
what lies at his feet.

Only love and the lover
can resurrect beyond time.
Give your heart to love;
the rest is second-hand.

Reason is powerless
in the expression of love.
Love alone is capable of revealing
the truth of love and being a lover.
If you want to live, die in love;
die in love if you want to remain alive.

The agony of lovers
burns with the fire of passion.
Lovers leave traces of where they've been.
The wailing of a lover's broken heart
is the doorway to love.

Lovers weave baskets of love
with their hands cut off.
It is in the non-existence
where lovers pitch their tents of love.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere
They're in each other all along.
Let your song of love be always heard
This is the message of Sufi mystics.

To love is to reach God.

Never will a lover's chest
feel any sorrow.
Never will a lover's robe
be touched by mortals.
Never will a lover's body
be found buried in the earth.
To love is to reach God.

My crippled poetry began to dance
with the light of God’s Name.
His Name brought the angel of words
into the house of my mind.
In every verse a thousand maidens give birth,
yet like Mary,
each remains a virgin.



God was jealous of His own Face
and so He created the splendor of morning.
When the spirit awoke in that light, it said,
To grasp God’s Beauty, you must become God.



In love, aside from sipping the wine of timelessness,
nothing else exists.
There is no reason for living except for giving one's life.
I said, "First I know You, then I die."
God said, "For the one who knows Me, there is no dying."



I saw that good and beautiful King,
That Witness of the heart’s light,
That Comforter and Friend of the soul,
That Spirit of all the world.
I saw the One who gives
wisdom to the wise,
purity to the pure;
The One adorned by the moon and stars,
The One toward whom all saints bow.
Every cell of my body called out,
Praise God! Glory to God!



O God,
You are the graceful and the beautiful,
You are the highest love,
You are the giver of life.
What misery and hardship comes
To those who turn away from You!

The soul that hasn't received
peace and love from God,
what a helpless and
lost soul that is!

With whom are you
going to be in love?
Be thankful to God 
that your punishment
came from temporary 
side of love.
but leave the temporary love,
because real love is God's Love.




When you begin to love God, God
is loving you. A clapping sound
does not come from one hand.
Lightning from here strikes there.
No lover wants union with the Beloved
without the Beloved also wanting the lover.
Love makes the lover weak,
while the Beloved gets strong.

A thirsty man calls out, 'Delicious water,
where are you?' while the water moans,
'Where is the water drinker?'

The thirst in our souls is the attraction
put out by the Water itself.
We belong to Him,
and He to us.

God's wisdom made us lovers of one another.
In fact, all the particles of the world
are in love and looking for lovers.

And the Holy Spirit helps with everything,
like a young man trying to support a family.
We, like the man's young wife, stay home,
taking care of the house, nursing the children.

Spirit and matter work together like this,
in a division of labor.
Remember what the soul wants,
because in that, eternity
is wanting our souls!

God fixes a passionate desire in you,
and then disappoints you.
God does that a hundred times!

God breaks the wings of one intention
and then gives you another,
cuts the rope of contriving,
so you'll remember your dependence.

Don't be presumptuous and say one or the other.
Close your lips. The mystery of loving
is God's sweetest secret.

Your prayer should be,
Break the legs of what I want to happen.
Humiliate my desire. Eat me like candy.
It's spring and finally I have no will.



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.



God said to the mind, “Return from where you came.”
He said to the hand of Death,
“Grab hold of worldly men.”
He said to the soul, “Fly to the Unseen.
Take all the treasure you can carry
and cry no more.”

My soul wants to fly away
When Your Presence calls it so sweetly.
My soul wants to take flight
When You whisper, “Arise.”

A fish wants to dive from dry land
into the ocean
when it hears the roaring waves.
A falcon wants to return from the forest 
to the King’s wrist
when it hears the drum beating “Return.”

A Sufi, shimmering with light,
wants to dance like a sunbeam
when darkness surrounds him.

O bird, fly back to your native land.
You have broken free from your cage;
Your wings are eager for flight.

Fly from the brackish puddle
toward the flowing waters of life!
Leave the room where they put the dirty sandals
and return to the royal seat of the soul!

O soul, leave behind this world of separation
and come with us to the world of union.
How long will you play in this dusty world
like a child filling his skirt with worthless stones?

Cast away the burdens of the earth
and fly upward toward heaven!
Put away your childish care
and join the royal banquet.

Behold the countless ways this body has entrapped you!
Break its deadly hold.
Rise up, lift your head clear of this delusion.

Reach for the Holy Book with your right hand
You are not like a child
who doesn't know right from left.

You ask, “Who is the King?”
Tell the world that you are the King!
Your knowledge has brought the question,
And your grace has given the answer.





You are the comfort of my soul
in the season of sorrow.
You are the wealth of my spirit
in the heartbreak of loss.

The unimaginable,
The unknowable
That is what You give my soul
when it moves in Your direction.

By Your grace
my eyes have looked upon eternity.
O King, how could this crumbling empire
ever take me from you?

The voice that sings Your name
is sweeter than midnight sleep
more graceful than the song of a royal poet.

When deep in prayer
my faith is bound by the thought of You,
not the seven verses of faith.

You greet sinners with mercy,
You melt stone hearts with love.
If I were offered a kingdom,
And the world’s riches were placed at my feet,
I would bow with my face low and say,
This does not compare to His love!




Do not despair
if the Beloved pushes you away.
If He pushes you away today
it’s only so He can draw you back tomorrow.

If He closes the door on your face,
don’t leave, wait
you’ll soon be by His side.
If He bars every passage,
don’t lose hope
He’s about to show you
a secret way that nobody knows.

A butcher cuts off a sheep’s head for food, 
not just to throw away.
When the sheep no longer has breath
the butcher fills it
with his own breath.
O what life
God’s breath will bring to you!

But the likeness ends here
For God’s bounty is much greater than the butcher’s.
God’s blows don’t bring death but eternal life.
He gives the wealth of Solomon to a single ant.
He gives the treasure of both worlds to all who ask.

He gives and gives
yet does not startle a single heart.
I've traveled to all ends of the earth
and have not found anyone like Him.

Who can match Him?
Who can hold a candle to His glory?
Silence already!
He gives us the wine to taste,
not to talk about. . . .

He gives to taste. 
He gives to taste. 
He gives to taste.




I merged so completely
with my Beloved,
and was so fused with Him
that I became Love
and Beloved became me.
That way, I was saved
from instigation, trials and tribulations.
Yes, with complete mystical union,
Man becomes strange to his or her self.



Last night I learned how to be a lover of God:
To live in this world and call nothing my own.
I looked inward
and the beauty of my own emptiness
filled me till dawn.
It enveloped me like a mine of rubies.
Its hue clothed me in red silk.
Within the cavern of my soul
I heard the voice of a lover crying,
“Drink now! Drink now!”
I took a sip and saw the vast ocean
wave upon wave caressed my soul.
The lovers of God dance around
And the circle of their steps
becomes a ring of fire round my neck.
Heaven calls me with its rain and thunder
a hundred thousand cries
yet I cannot hear....
All I hear is the call of my Beloved.



For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Although you appear in earthly form
Your essence is pure consciousness.
You are the fearless guardian
of Divine Light.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

When you lose all sense of self
the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.
Lose yourself completely,
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You descended from Adam,
by the pure Word of God,
but you turned your sight
to the empty show of this world.
Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Why are you so enchanted by this world
when a mine of gold lies within you?
Open your eyes and come
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You were born from the rays of God’s Majesty
when the stars were in their perfect place.
How long will you suffer from the blows
of a nonexistent hand?
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

You are a ruby encased in granite.
How long will you deceive us with this outer show?
O friend, we can see the truth in your eyes!
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

After one moment with that glorious Friend
you became loving, radiant, and ecstatic.
Your eyes were sweet and full of fire.
Come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.

Shams-e Tabriz, the King of the Tavern,
has handed you an eternal cup,
And God in all His glory is pouring the wine.
So come! Drink!
Return to the root of the root
of your own soul.



Lord of Beauty, Lord of Grace,
Enter my soul
like one who enters a garden in bloom.
One glance from you and stones turn to rubies.
One hint from you
and every goal is within reach.

Come, come, you are the life and salvation of man.
Come, come, you are the eye and light of Joseph.
Touch my head
for your touch removes
the darkness of the body.

Come, come, for you bestow beauty and grace.
Come, come, for you are the cure of a thousand ills.
Come, come, even though you have never left—
come and hear some poetry.

Sit in the place of my soul,
for you are a thousand souls of mine.
Begone with your cares and your ancient longings—
you are the Beloved!

If the King did not sit
on the throne of this world
There would be darkness and confusion.
You are joyous and alive by His breath.
You move by the power of His love.
Now, like an artist, you create.
Now, like a servant, you sweep the floor.

Everything you touch
will reach its goal
and fly with the wings of an angel. . . .

But wings cannot carry you to God.
Like the mule that carried the Prophet,
Only love can carry you there.



Be a glass for the Wine of His Love,
in order to deserve the Beloved.
Be pure soul,
give up life for the sake of Beloved's Love.
The knots of your life
can never be untied
without a touch of His Love.

Lovers share a sacred decree -
to seek the Beloved.
They roll head over heels,
rushing toward the Beautiful One
like a torrent of water.

In truth, everyone is a shadow of the Beloved -
Our seeking is His seeking,
Our words are His words.

At times we flow toward the Beloved
like a dancing stream.
At times we are still water
held in His pitcher.
At times we boil in a pot
turning to vapor -
that is the job of the Beloved.

He breathes into my ear
until my soul
takes on His fragrance.
He is the soul of my soul -
How can I escape?
But why would any soul in this world
want to escape from the Beloved?

He will melt your pride
making you thin as a strand of hair,
Yet do not trade, even for both worlds,
One strand of His hair.

We search for Him here and there
while looking right at Him.
Sitting by His side we ask,
"O Beloved, where is the Beloved?"

Enough with such questions! -
Let silence take you to the core of life.

All your talk is worthless
When compared to one whisper
of the Beloved.

 

The Man of God is drunken without wine,
The Man of God is full without meat.
The Man of God is distraught and bewildered,
The Man of God has no food or sleep.
The Man of God is a king beneath a dervish-cloak,
The Man of God is a treasure in a ruin.
The Man of God is not of air and earth,
The Man of God is not of fire and water.
The Man of God is a boundless sea,
The Man of God rains pearls without a cloud.
The Man of God has hundred moons and skies,
The Man of God has hundred suns.
The Man of God is made wise by the Truth,
The Man of God is not learned from book.
The Man of God is beyond infidelity and religion,
To the Man of God, right and wrong are alike.
The Man of God has ridden away from Not-being,
The Man of God is gloriously attended.
The Man of God is concealed, Shamsi Din;
The Man of God do you seek and find!

The center leads to love.

Soul opens the creation core.

Hold on to your particular pain.

That too can take you to God.

If the face of your religion
covers the face of His Love.
You are like a donkey
that carries sugar candy on its back
but cannot taste it.
If the mirror shows you your own ugliness
what is the use
of breaking the mirror with your fist?

For lovers, the only lecturer is the beauty of the Beloved;

their only book and lecture and lesson is the Face.

They are silent outwardly,

but their penetrating remembrance rises

to the high throne of their Friend.

Their only lesson is enthusiasm, whirling, and trembling,

not the fine points of jurisprudence!

If the Beloved is everywhere,

the lover is a veil,

but when living itself

becomes the Friend,

lovers disappear.

On Resurrection Day
God will say,
"What did you do 
with the strength and the energy
that your food gave you
on Earth?
How did you use your eyes?
What did you make with your five senses
while they were dimming and playing out?
I gave you hands and feet as tools
for preparing the ground for planting.
Did you, in the health I gave,
do the plowing?"
You will not be able to stand
when you hear those questions.
You will bend double with shame,
and finally acknowledge the glory.

Then you will turn to the right looking to the prophets
for help, as though to say,
I am stuck in the mud of my life.
Help me out of this!

And they will answer,
those kings,
"The time for helping is past.
The plow stands there in the field.
You should have used it."
Then you will turn to the left, 
where your family is,
and they will say, 
"Don't look at us!
This conversation is between you
and your Creator!"

One dervish to another,
 'What was your vision of God's presence?'

I haven't seen anything.

But for the sake of conversation, I'll tell you a story.

God's presence is there in front of me, a fire on the left,

a lovely stream on the right.

One group walks toward the fire, into the fire, another

toward the sweet flowing water.

No one knows which are blessed and which not.

Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream.

A head goes under on the water surface, that head

pokes out of the fire.

Most people guard against going into the fire,

and so end up in it.

Those who love the water of pleasure and make it their devotion

are cheated with this reversal.

The trickery goes further.

The voice of the fire tells the truth, saying I am not fire.

I am fountainhead. Come into me and don't mind the sparks.

If you are a friend of God, fire is your water.

You should wish to have a hundred thousand sets of mothwings,

so you could burn them away, one set a night.

The moth sees light and goes into fire.
You should see fire and go toward light.
Fire is what of God is world-consuming.

Water, world-protecting.

Somehow each gives the appearance of the other.
To these eyes you have now

what looks like water burns.
What looks like fire is a great relief to be inside.

You've seen a magician make a bowl of rice

seem a dish full of tiny, live worms.

Before an assembly with one breath he made the floor swarm

with scorpions that weren't there.

How much more amazing God's tricks.

Generation after generation lies down, defeated, they think,

but they're like a woman underneath a man, circling him.

One molecule-mate-second thinking of God's reversal
of comfort and pain

is better than any attending ritual.
That splinter of intelligence is substance.

The fire and water themselves:

Accidental, done with mirrors.

Sometimes a lover of God may faint

in the presence. Then the Beloved bends

and whispers in his ear, “Beggar,

spread out your robe. I’ll fill it with gold.

I've come to protect your consciousness.

Where has it gone? Come back!”

This fainting is because lovers want so much.

A chicken invites a camel into her hen-house,

and the whole structure is demolished.

A rabbit nestles down with its eyes closed

in the arms of a lion. There is an excess in

spiritual searching that is profound ignorance.

Let that ignorance be our teacher!

The Friend breathes into one who has no breath

A deep silence revives the listening 

of those two who meet on the riverbank. 

Like the ground turning green in a spring wind, 

like birdsong beginning inside the egg, 

like this universe coming into existence, 

the lover wakes and whirls in a dancing joy, 

then kneels down in praise. 

God has given us a dark wine so potent that,

drinking it, we leave the two worlds.
God has put into the form of hashish a power

to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

God has made sleep

so that it erases every thought.

God made Majnun love Layla so much

that just her dog would cause confusion in him.

There are thousands of wines

that can take over our minds.

Don’t think all ecstasies

are the same!

Jesus was lost in his love for God.

His donkey was drunk on barley.

Drink from the presence of saints,

not from those other jars.

Every object, every being,

is a jar full of delight.

Be a connoisseur,

and taste with caution.

Any wine will get you high.

Judge like a king, and choose the purest,

the ones unadulterated with fear,

or some urgency about “what’s needed.”

Drink the wine that moves you

as a camel moves when it’s been untied,

and is just ambling about.

Everyone is a child

except the one who’s intoxicated with God.

God has said, Knowledge that isn't from Him is a burden.

like a woman’s makeup, it doesn't last.

Be cleansed of the (false) self’s features, and see your pure Self:

Know the mirror of the heart is infinite.

Either the understanding falls silent, or it leads you astray,

because the heart is God,

or indeed the heart is He.

Everything, except love of the Most Beautiful,

is really agony. It’s agony

to move towards death and not drink the water of life.

Fiery lust is not diminished by indulging it,

but inevitably by leaving it ungratified.

Anger is a king over kings,

but anger once bridled may serve.

No joy have I found in the two worlds apart from You,
 Beloved.
Many wonders I have seen:
 I have not seen a wonder like You.
They say that blazing fire is the infidel's portion:
I have seen none, 
save Abu Lahab, excluded from Your fire.
Often have I laid the spiritual ear at the window of the heart:
I heard much discourse, but the lips I did not see.
Of a sudden You did lavish grace upon Your servant:
I saw no cause for it but Your infinite kindness.
O chosen Cup-bearer, O apple of mine eyes,
the like of You
Never appeared in Persia, nor in Arabia have I found it.
Pour out wine till I become a wanderer from myself;
For in self-hood and existence I have felt only fatigue.
O You who are milk and sugar, 
O You who are sun and moon,
O You who are mother and father,
I have known no kin but You.
O indestructible Love, O divine Minstrel,
You are both stay and refuge:
a name equal to You I have not found.
We are pieces of steel, and Your love is the magnet:
You are the source of all aspiration,
in myself I have seen none.
Silence, O brother! put learning and culture away:
  'Till you named culture, I knew no culture but You.

Who is at my door?

He [God] said, "Who is at my door?"
I said, "Your humble servant."
He said, "What business do you have?"
I said, "To greet you, O 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 love I 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, O King."
He said,
"What called you here?"
I said,
"The fragrance of your wine."
He said,
"What brings you the most fulfillment?"
I 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 more about His true essence
You would fly from your self and be gone,
and neither door nor roof could hold you back!

Lord, said David, since you do not need us,

why did you create these two worlds?

Lord replied: O prisoner of time,

I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,

and I wished this treasure to be known,

so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;

its darkened back, the world;

The back would please you if you've never seen the face.

Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?

Yet clean away the mud and straw, 

and a mirror might be revealed.

Until the juice ferments a while in the cask,

it isn't wine. If you wish your heart to be bright,

you must do a little work.

My King addressed the soul of my flesh:

You return just as you left.

Where are the traces of my gifts?

We know that alchemy transforms copper into gold.

This Sun doesn't want a crown or robe from God's grace.

He is a hat to a hundred bald men,

a covering for ten who were naked.

Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!

How could a zephyr ride an ass?

Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.

Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.

Remember God so much that you are forgotten.

Let the caller and the called disappear;

be lost in the Call.

Moses heard a shepherd on the road, praying,
"God,
where are you? I want to help you, to fix your shoes
and comb your hair. I want to wash your clothes
and pick the lice off. I want to bring you milk
to kiss your little hands and feet when it's time
for you to go to bed. I want to sweep your room
and keep it neat. God, my sheep and goats
are yours. All I can say, remembering you,
is ayyyy and ahhhhhhhhh."
Moses could stand it no longer.
"Who are you talking to?"
"The one who made us,
and made the earth and made the sky."
"Don't talk about shoes
and socks with God! And what's this with your little hands 
and feet? Such blasphemous familiarity sounds like
you're chatting with your uncles.
Only something that grows
needs milk. Only someone with feet needs shoes. Not God!
Even if you meant God's human representatives,
as when God said, `I was sick, and you did not visit me,'
even then this tone would be foolish and irreverent.
Use appropriate terms. Fatima is a fine name
for a woman, but if you call a man Fatima,
it's an insult. Body-and-birth language
are right for us on this side of the river,
but not for addressing the origin,
not for Allah."
The shepherd repented and tore his clothes and sighed
and wandered out into the desert.
A sudden revelation
then came to Moses. God's voice:
You have separated me
from one of my own. Did you come as a Prophet to unite,
or to sever?
I have given each being a separate and unique way
of seeing and knowing that knowledge.
What seems wrong to you is right for him.
What is poison to one is honey to someone else.
Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,
these mean nothing to me.
I am apart from all that.
Ways of worshiping are not to be ranked as better
or worse than one another.
Hindus do Hindu things.
The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.
It's all praise, and it's all right. 
It's not me that's glorified in acts of worship.
It's the worshipers! I don't hear the words
they say. I look inside at the humility.
That broken-open lowliness is the reality,
not the language! Forget phraseology.
I want burning, 'burning'.
Be friends 
with your burning. Burn up your thinking 
and your forms of expression!
Moses,
those who pay attention to ways of behaving
and speaking are one sort.
Lovers who burn 
are another.
Don't impose a property tax
on a burned-out village. Don't scold the Lover.
The "wrong" way he talks is better than a hundred
"right" ways of others.
Inside the Kaaba
it doesn't matter which direction you point
your prayer rug!
The ocean diver doesn't need snowshoes!
The love-religion has no code or doctrine.
Only God.
So the ruby has nothing engraved on it!
It doesn't need markings.
God began speaking
deeper mysteries to Moses. Vision and words,
which cannot be recorded here, poured into
and through him. He left himself and came back.
He went to eternity and came back here.
Many times this happened.
It's foolish of me
to try and say this. If I did say it,
it would uproot our human intelligence.
It would shatter all writing pens.
Moses ran after the shepherd.
He followed the bewildered footprints,
in one place moving straight like a castle
across a chessboard. In another, sideways,
like a bishop.
Now surging like a wave cresting,
now sliding down like a fish,
with always his feet
making geomancy symbols in the sand,
recording 
his wandering state.
Moses finally caught up
with him.
"I was wrong. God has revealed to me
that there are no rules for worship.
Say whatever
and however your loving tells you to. Your sweet blasphemy
is the truest devotion. Through you a whole world
is freed.
Loosen your tongue and don't worry what comes out.
It's all the light of the spirit."
The shepherd replied,
"Moses, Moses,
I've gone beyond even that.
You applied the whip and my horse shied and jumped
out of itself. The divine nature and my human nature
came together.
Bless your scolding hand and your arm.
I can't say what's happened.
What I'm saying now
is not my real condition. It can't be said."
The shepherd grew quiet.
When you look in a mirror,
you see yourself, not the state of the mirror.
The flute player puts breath into a flute,
and who makes the music? Not the flute.
The flute player!
Whenever you speak praise
or thanksgiving to God, it's always like
this dear shepherd's simplicity.
When you eventually see
through the veils to how things really are,
you will keep saying again
and again,
"This is certainly not like
we thought it was!"

He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward;
I know none other except "Ya Hu" [Yahweh]
and "Ya man Hu" ["O He who is"].
I am intoxicated with Love's cup,
the two worlds have passed out of my ken;
I have no business save carouse and revelry.
If once in my life I spent a moment without You,
From that time and from that hour I repent of my life.
If once in this world I win a moment with You,
I will trample on both worlds, I will dance in triumph for ever.
O Shamsi Tabriz, I am so drunken in this world,
That except of drunkenness and revelry I have no tale to tell.





Who is in the house of my heart,
I cried in the middle of the night.
Love [God] said,
"It is I, but what are all these images that fill your
house?"
I said, they are the reflection of Your beautiful Face.
Love asked,
"But what is this image full of pain?"
I said, it is me lost in the sorrows of life
and showed Love my soul full of wounds.
Love offered me one end of a thread and said:
"Take it so I can pull you back,
but do not break the delicate string."
I reached towards it but Love struck my hand.
I asked, why the harshness?
Love said,
"To remind you that whoever comes to Love's holy space
proud and full of himself,
will be sent away.
Look at Love with the eyes of your heart."

We are all powerless by Love's game.
How can you expect us
to behave and act modest?
How can you expect us
to stay at home, like good little boys?
How can you expect us
to enjoy being chained like mad men?
Oh, my Beloved, you will find us every night,
on Your street,
with our eyes glued to Your window,
waiting for a glimpse of Your radiant Face.

My head is bursting
with the joy of the unknown.
My heart is expanding a thousand fold.
Every cell, taking wings,
flies about the world.
All seek separately
the many faces of my Beloved.

By day I praised you
and never knew it.
By night I stayed with you
and never knew it.
I always thought that
I was me--but no,
I was You
and never knew it.

You wreck my shop and my house and now my heart,

but how can I run from what gives me life?

I’m weary of personal worrying, in love

with the art 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’ll be loosened, the binding threads torn out.
The Beloved is a lion.

We’re the lame deer in His paws.

Consider what choices we have!

Forget your life. Say God is Great. Get up.

You think you know what time it is. It’s time to pray.

You've carved so many little figurines, too many.

Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar.

Reach your long hands out to another door,
beyond where you go on the street,
the street where everyone says, “How are you?”

and no one says How aren't you?

Tomorrow you’ll see what you've broken and torn tonight,

thrashing in the dark.
Inside you

there’s an artist you don’t know about.

He’s not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

If you are here unfaithfully with us,

you’re causing terrible damage.

If you've opened your loving to God’s love,

you’re helping people you don’t know

and have never seen.

Is what I say true? Say yes quickly,

if you know, if you've known it

from before the beginning of the universe.

Move beyond any attachment to names.
Every war and every conflict between human beings 

has happened because of some disagreement about names.

It is such an unnecessary foolishness, 

because just beyond the arguing 

there is a long table of companionship 

set and waiting for us to sit down.

What is praised is one, so the praise is one too, 

many jugs being poured into a huge basin. 

All religions, all this singing, one song.

The differences are just illusion and vanity. 

Sunlight looks a little different on this wall 

than it does on that wall 

and a lot different on this other one, 

but it is still one light.

We have borrowed these clothes, 

these time-and-space personalities, 

from a light, and when we praise, 

we are pouring them back in.

Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it.

It will turn to gold.
Resurrection will be now.
Every moment, a new beauty.

Human beings are mines.

World-power means nothing.
Only the unsayable,

jeweled inner life matters.

Don’t ask what love can make, or can do.

Look at the colors of the world!

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 of what we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, 
not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen.

Not any religion
or cultural system. I am
not from the east
or the west, not
out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not
natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all.
I do not exist,
 am not an entity in this
world or the next,
did not descend from
Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is
the place-less, a trace
of the trace-less.
Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved,
have seen the two
worlds as one and 
that one
call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath breathing
human being.

I tried to find God on the Christian Cross, 

but He was not there;
I went to Muslims' Kaaba in Mecca,
but God was not there either.
I went to to the old Jewish Synagogue
and the Temple of Hindus,
but I couldn't find a trace of God anywhere.
I questioned the scholars and philosophers,
but He was way beyond their understanding!
I then looked deep into my heart and
it was there where He dwelled that I saw Him;
God was nowhere else to be found.

This is me:
Sometimes hidden and sometimes revealed,
Sometimes a devoted Muslim,
sometimes a Jew or a Christian.
For me to fit inside everyone's heart,
I put on a new face everyday.

“I” and “You” are the veil
between heaven and earth;
lift this veil and you will see
no longer the bonds of sects and creeds.
When “I” and “You” no longer exist,
What is a Mosque? What is a Synagogue?
What is the Temple of Hindus? What's the Church of Christ?

  

The following six short poems by Rumi on religious tolerance, coexistence, and oneness of humanity, are my Translations

In the path of seeking,

the wise and fools are the same.

In the faith of love,

the known and unknown are the same.

For the lover intoxicated

by the wine of mystical union with Beloved,

in his or her faith,

Muslims' Kaaba and Hindus' Temple of Idols
are the same.

Close your fault seeking eyes

and open the spiritual eye

so you won't differentiate

between a Mosques or a Temple of Idols

so you won't draw a distinction

between this believer or that believer.

There is a whole other world out there

beyond just Islam and Infidels.

I'm very interested

to get to know that world.

When Sufi mystics reach that realm,

they simply lay their heads down

because in that inclusive world

there is no room for Islam or Infidels.

Out beyond the worlds of Islam and Infidels,

there lies an egalitarian world

where no one is better, worse, or

more significant than the other.

If you're interested in moving

to that unique world,

you need to first leave you heart and soul

as deposit with the Soul Master!

He (God) lives deep inside

the inner and outer parts of my heart,

every single part of my heart belongs to Him.

He (God) dwells deep inside
my body, my veins, and my blood,

every single part of my body belongs to Him.

How could there still be a place

for Islam or Infidels inside my heart,

if my entire being belongs to Him?

If the presence of my Beloved

is felt in the Temple of Idols,

then it's a sin for me to go

to Kaaba and circle around it.

If the fragrance of my Beloved

cannot be traced in Kaaba,

then I'd rather look around

for a Jewish Synagogue.

For the sake of tracing

the scent of my Beloved's union,

the Synagogue will be

my Kaaba from now on.

Love comes with a knife,
not some shy question,
and not with fears for its reputation!

I say these things disinterestedly.
Accept them in kind.
Love is a madman,

working his wild schemes, tearing off his clothes,

running through the mountains, drinking poison,

and now quietly choosing annihilation.

A tiny spider tries to wrap an enormous wasp.

Think of the spiderweb woven across the cave

where Muhammad slept.
There are love stories,

and there is obliteration into love.

You've 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?

Don’t put blankets over the drum!

Open completely.
Let your spirit-ear

listen to the green dome’s passionate murmur.

Let the cords of your robe be untied.

Shiver in this new love beyond all

above and below.
The sun rises, but which way does night go? 

I have no more words.

Let soul speak with the silent

articulation of a face.

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,

Love 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.

 


The way of love is not a subtle argument.

The door there is devastation.

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.

How do they learn it?

They fall, and falling, they're given wings.





 

  

 Let yourself be silently drawn
by the stronger pull of what you really love.
Let the lover be disgraceful,
crazy, absentminded.
Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be. 

  

Gamble everything for love,

if you're a true human being.

If not, leave this gathering.

Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty.

You set out to find love,
but then you keep

stopping for long periods

at mean-spirited roadhouses!

When love comes suddenly and taps 

on your window, run and let it in but first, 

shut the door of your reason. 

Even the smallest hint chases love away 

like smoke that drowns the freshness 

of the morning breeze. 

To reason love can only say, 

the way is barred, you can't pass through 

but to the lover it offers a hundred blessings. 

Before the mind decides to take a step 

love has reached the seventh heaven. 

Before the mind can figure how 

love has climbed the holy mountain. 

I must stop this talk now and let 

love speak from its nest of silence.

If I told you about a land of love,

friends, would you follow me and come?

In that land are vineyards

that yield a deadly wine-

no glass can hold it. 

Would you swallow it as a remedy?

The people there must suffer.

Would you serve the sweetest drink to others

and take the bitter drink yourself?

There are no moons or suns there.

Nothing waxes or wanes.

Would you surrender your plans

and forget about your materials?

Awaken!

don't become unconscious

in words and treasures

in ceremonies and materials.

Awaken!

don't become a collector

of signposts and maps

of pointers and rules.

When the door is opened

walk through,

don't just stand there

staring at the open doorway!

There comes a time

when nothing is meaningful

except surrendering to love.

DO IT.

I open and fill with love 

and what is not love evaporates. 

All the learning in books stays put 

on the shelf. Poetry, the dear 

words and images of song, comes down 

over me like mountain water. 



Love has taken away my practices

and filled me with poetry.

I tried to keep quietly repeating,

“No strength but yours,”

but I couldn't.

I had to clap and sing.

I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,

but who can stand in this strong wind

and remember those things?

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.

That's how I hold your voice.

I am scrap wood thrown in your fire,

and quickly reduced to smoke.

I saw you and became empty.

This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,

it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,

existence thrives and creates more existence!

The sky is blue. The world is a blind man

squatting on the road.

But whoever sees your emptiness

sees beyond blue and beyond the blind man.

A great soul hides like Muhammad, or Jesus,

moving through a crowd in a city

where no one knows him.

To praise is to praise

how one surrenders

to the emptiness.

To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.

Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.

So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where!

Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck

we could have. It's a total waking up!

Why should we grieve that we've been sleeping?

It doesn't matter how long we've been unconscious.

We're groggy, but let the guilt go.

Feel the motions of tenderness

around you, the buoyancy.

Dear soul, when the condition comes

that we call being a lover,

there's no patience, and no repenting.

Both become huge absurdities.
See regret as a worm and love as a dragon.

Shame, changeable weather.
Love, a quality which wants nothing.

For this kind of lover,
love of anything or anyone is unreal.

Here, the source

and object are one.

There’s a strange frenzy in my head,

of birds flying,

each particle circulating on its own.

Is the one I love everywhere?

There’s no love in me without your being,

no breath without that. I once thought

I could give up this longing, then though again,

But I couldn't continue being human.

I am in love!
I am in love with him.
All this advise--
what's the use?
I have drunk poison.
All this sugar--
what's the use?
You say hurry, tie up his feet.
But its my heart that's gone crazy,
all this rope
around my feet--
what's the use?


 

Yesterday the beauty of early dawn came over me, 

and I wondered who

my heart would reach towards. 

Then this morning again, and you. 

Who am I?

Wind and fire and watery ground

move me mightily because 

they're pregnant with love,
love pregnant with GOD.
These are 

the early morning generations I praise.

Love is the way messengers 

from the mystery tell us things. 

Love is the mother. We are her children. 

She shines inside us, visible-invisible, 

as we lose trust or feel it start to grow again. 

If everyone could see what love is, 

each would set up a tent-pole in the ocean. 

The world’s population pitched and living 

easily within the sea!
What if inside 

every lover’s tear you saw the face 

of the Friend: Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha, 

the impossible-possible philosopher, 

the glass diamond one, Shams Tabriz? 

Reason has no way to say its love.
Only love opens that secret. 

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

Love is not condescension,
never that, nor books, nor any marking on paper,
nor what people say of each other.
Love is a tree with 

branches reaching into eternity 

and roots set deep in eternity, 

and no trunk!
Have you seen it? 

The mind cannot. Your desiring cannot.
The longing you feel for 

this love comes from inside you. 

When you become the Friend,
your longing will be as the man in 

the ocean who holds to a piece of  wood.
Eventually, wood, man, and 

ocean become one swaying being, 

Shams Tabriz, the secret of God. 

Why should we tell you our love stories

when 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 that

push us through the top of the head into

the light above the head?

Love is not an iron pot,
so this boiling energy won’t help.

Soul, heart, self.

Beyond and within those

is one saying,

How long before

I’m free of this torture!

In the early morning hour,

just before dawn, lover and beloved wake

to take a drink of water.

She asks, “Do you love me or yourself more?

Really, tell the absolute truth.”

He says, “There’s nothing left of me.

I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise.

Is it still a stone, or a world

made of redness? It has no

resistance to sunlight.”

The ruby and the sunrise are one.

Be courageous and discipline yourself.

Completely become hearing and ear,

and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.

Work. Keep digging your well.

Don’t think about getting off from work.

Water is there somewhere.

Submit to a daily practice.

Your loyalty to that

is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside

will eventually open a window

and look out to see who’s there.

You play with the great globe of union,

you that see everyone so clearly

and cannot be seen. Even universal

intelligence gets blurry when it thinks

you may leave. You came here alone,

but you create hundreds of new worlds.

Spring is a peacock flirting with

revelation. The rose gardens flame.

Ocean enters the boat. I throw

it all away, except this love for Shams.

You may be planning departure, as a human soul

leaves the world taking almost all its sweetness

with it. You saddle your horse.

You must be going. Remember you have friends

here as faithful as grass and sky.

Have I failed you? Possibly you’re

angry. But remember our nights of conversation,

the well work, yellow roses by ocean,

the longing, the archangel Gabriel

saying So be it. Shamsi Tabriz, your face,

is what every religion tries to remember.

You bind me, and I tear away in a rage

to open out into air, a round

brightness, a candle-point,

all reason, all love.

This confusing joy, your doing,

this hangover, your tender thorn.

You turn to look, I turn.

I’m not saying this right.

I am a jailed crazy who ties up spirit-women.

I am Solomon.

What goes comes back. Come back.

We never left each other.

A disbeliever hides disbelief,

but I will say his secret.

More and more awake, getting up at night,

spinning and falling in love with Shams.

There is a passion in me that doesn't

long for anything from another human being.

I was given something else, a cap to wear

in both worlds. It fell off. No matter.

One morning I went to a place beyond dawn.

A source of sweetness that flows

and is never less. I have been shown

a beauty that would confuse both worlds,

but I won’t cause that uproar. I am

nothing but a head set on the ground

as a gift for Shams.

Inside a lover’s heart there’s another world,

and yet another.

Inside the Friend of this community

of lovers, an ear that interprets mystery,

a vein of silver in the ground, and another sky!

Intellect and compassion are ladders we climb,

and there are other ladders as we walk

the night hearing a voice that talks of forgiveness.

Inside Shams’s universe candlelight itself

becomes a moth to die in his candle.

No one knows what makes the soul wake up
so happy! Maybe a dawn breeze
has blown the veil from the face of God.
A thousand new moons appear. Roses
open laughing. Hearts become perfect
rubies like those from Badakshan.
The body turns entirely spirit.
Leaves become branches in this wind.
Why is it now so easy to surrender,
even for those already surrendered?
There’s no answer to any of this.
No one knows the source of joy.
A poet breathes into a reed flute,
and the tip of every hair makes music.
Shams sails down clods of dirt
from the roof, and we take jobs
as doorkeepers for him

There is some kiss we want

with our whole lives, the touch

of spirit on the body. Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately

it needs some wild darling!

At night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its

face against mine.

Breathe into me. Close

the language-door and open the love-window.

The moon won’t use the door,

only the window.

Love comes sailing through and I scream.

Love sits beside me like a private supply of itself.

Love puts away the instruments

and takes off the silk robes. Our nakedness

together changes me completely.

Someone who does not run

toward the allure of love walks

a road where nothing lives.

But this dove here senses

the love-hawk floating above

and waits and will not be driven

or scared to safety.

I am a glass of wine with dark sediment.

I pour it all in the river.

Love says to me, “Good, but you don’t see

your own beauty. I am the wind

that mixes in your fire, who stirs

and brightens, then makes you gutter out.”

Reason is powerless in the expression of love.

Love alone is capable of revealing
the truth of love and being a lover.
If you want to live, die in love;
die in love if you want to remain alive.

 Love's way is humility and intoxication,

The torrent floods down. How can it run up?
You'll be a cabuchon in the ring of lovers,
If you're a red ruby's slave, dear friend ;
Even as Earth is a serf of the sapphire sky
And your monkey body's a slave to your spirit.

What did Earth ever lose by this relationship ?
What mercy has the Self showed to weary limbs ?
One shouldn't beat the snare drum of awakening
Beneath a cosy sofa's, comfy counterpane.

Hoist, like a hero, your flag in the desert.
Listen with your soul's ear to the song,
In that hollow of the vast turquoise dome,
Rising from the lover's passionate moan .

When your tight gown-strings are loosened
By the tipsy inebriation of perfect love,
The victorious heavens shout, triumphantly !
And the constellations gaze down ashamed.
This world is in deep trouble, from top to bottom,
But it can be swiftly healed by the balm of love.



 

    My love, you are closer to me than myself,
you shine through my eyes.
Your light is brighter than the Moon.
Step into the garden
so all the flowers, even the tall poplar
can kneel before your beauty.
Let your voice silence the lily
famous for its hundred tongues.
When you want to be kind you are
softer than the soul but when you withdraw
you can be so cold and harsh.

Dear one, you can be wild and rebellious but
when you meet him face to face
his charm will make you docile like the earth.
Throw away your shield and bare your chest
there is no stronger protection than him.

That's why when the dervish withdraws
from the world he covers all the cracks in the wall,
so the outside light cannot come though.
He knows that only the inner light
illuminates his world.







I hear nothing in my ear but your voice.

Heart has plundered mind of its eloquence.

Love writes a transparent calligraphy, so on

the empty page my soul can read and recollect.

Behind a blood-stained curtain,
 love has spread its gardens.

Lovers are busy with the beauty of the love that is
beyond explanation.
Intellect says: The six directions are the limit,
there is nothing beyond them.
Love says: There is a road, and I have journeyed on it
many times.'
Love detected markets beyond that market.
Intellect says: Do not set foot on the land of
annihilation;
There is nothing there but thorns.
Love says: Those thorns you feel are only inside you!
Be silent!
remove the thorn of existence
from the foot of the heart;
So that you may see the gardens within.

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 with people;

like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble

of giving advice to a lover

gets nothing. He’s mocked by passion.

Love is like musk. It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and lovers are its shade.

Lovers think they’re looking for each other,

but there’s only one search: wandering

this world is wandering that,

both inside one

transparent sky. In here there is

no dogma and no heresy.

The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said

or did about the future. Forget the future.

I’d worship someone who could do that.

On the way you may want to look back, or not.

But if you can say, There’s nothing ahead,

there will be nothing there.

Stretch your arms

and take hold the cloth of your clothes

with both hands. The cure for pain is in the pain.

Good and bad are mixed. If you don’t have both,

you don’t belong with us.

When one of us gets lost,

is not here, he must be inside us. There’s no

place like that anywhere in the world.

Love came,
and became like blood in my body.
It rushed through my veins and
encircled my heart.
Everywhere I looked,
I saw one thing.
The Beloved's name written
on my limbs,
on my left palm,
on my forehead,
on the back of my neck,
on my right big toe…
Oh, my friend,
all that you see of me
is just a shell,
and the rest belongs to the Beloved.

 

There is a certain love
that is formed out of the
elixir of the East.
There is a certain cloud,
impregnated with a
thousand lightnings.
There is my body,
in it an ocean formed of his glory,
all the creation,
all the universes,
all the galaxies,
are lost in it.

I wish I could give you a taste of
the burning fire of Love.
There is a fire
blazing inside of me.
If I cry about it, or if I don't,
the fire is at work,
night and day.
People make clothing to cover their intellect,
but the heart of Lovers
is a shroud,
inflamed in golden hues of his love.

When love itself comes to kiss you,

don’t hold back! When the king goes hunting,

the forest smiles. Now the king has become

the place and all the players, prey,

bystander, bow, arrow, hand and release.

How does that feel? Last night’s dream

enters these open eyes. We sometimes make

spiderwebs of smoke and saliva, fragile

thought-packets. Leave thinking to the one

who gave intelligence. Stop weaving,

and watch how the pattern improves.

  

.

This is a gathering of lovers.
In this gathering
there is no high, no low,
no smart, no ignorant,
no special assembly,
no grand discourse,
no proper schooling required.
There is no master,
no disciple.
This gathering is more like a drunken party,
full of tricksters, fools,
mad men and mad women.
This is a gathering of Lovers.

This world is no match for your love.
Being away from you
is death aiming to take my soul away.
My heart, so precious,
I won't trade for a hundred thousand souls.
Your one smile takes it for free.

Go and die, go and die,
for this love go and die,
When you die in this love,
you will let spirits fly.
Go and die, go and die,
fear no death, don't be shy
When in this dust you will lie,
your spirit will soar up high.

A lover looks at creek-water and wants to be 

that quick to fall, to kneel, then all 

the way down in full prostration. 

A lover wants to die of his love 

like a man with dropsy 

who knows that water will kill him, 

but he can’t deny his thirst. 

A lover loves death.
Spill your jug in the river!
Your shame and fear 

are like felt layers covering coldness. 

Throw them off, and rush naked 

into the joy of death. 

Seek the wisdom that will untie your knowledge
See the path that demands your whole being.
Leave that which is not, but appears to be
Seek that which is, but is not apparent.

Inside this great mystery
that is we don't own
anything. What is this
competition we feel then,
if we all exit one at a time
through the same gate?

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're a crowd of sorrows, 
who violently sweep your house 
empty of its furniture, 
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be cleaning 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 for whoever comes,
because each has been sent 
as a guide from the beyond.

 

This we have now

is not imagination.

This is not grief,

or joy, not a judging state,

or an elation, or a sadness.

Those come and go.

This is the presence

that doesn't.

It’s dawn, Husam,

here in the splendor of coral,

inside the Friend, in the simple truth

of what Hallaj said.

What else could human beings want?

When grapes turn to wine,

they’re wanting this.

When the night sky pours by,

it’s really a crowd of beggars,

and they all want some of this.

This we are now

created the body, cell by cell,

like bees building a honeycomb.

The human body and the universe

grew from this, not this
from the universe and the human body.

 It is your turn now,

you waited, you were patient.
The time has come,
for us to polish you.
We will transform your inner pearl
into a house of fire.
You're a gold mine.
Did you know that,
hidden in the dirt of the earth?
It is your turn now,
to be placed in fire.
Let us cremate your impurities.

What the material world values does not shine
the same in the truth of the soul.
You have been interested in your shadow.
Look instead directly at the sun.
What can we know by just watching
the time-and-space shapes of each other?
Someone half awake in the night sees imaginary dangers;
the morning star rises; the horizon grows defined;
people become friends in a moving caravan.
Night birds may think daybreak a kind of darkness,
 because that’s all they know.
It’s a fortunate bird who’s not intrigued with evening,
who flies in the sun we call Shams.

When light returns to its Source,
it takes nothing
of what it has illuminated.
It may have shone on a garbage dump, or a garden,
or in the center of a human eye. No matter.
It goes, and when it does,
the open plain becomes passionately desolate,
wanting it back.



There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street
and being the noise.
Drink all your passion
and be a disgrace.
Close both eyes
to see with the other eye.
Open your hands,
if you want to be held.
Sit down in this circle.
Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd’s love filling you.
At night, your beloved wanders.
Don’t accept consolations.
Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover’s mouth in yours.
You moan, “She left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying.
Think who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

These spiritual window-shoppers,

who idly ask, ‘How much is that?’
Oh, I’m just looking.

They handle a hundred items and put them down,

shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.

But these walk into a shop,

and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,

in that shop.

Where did you go?
“Nowhere.”

What did you have to eat?
“Nothing much.”

Even if you don’t know what you want,

buy – something – to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,

it easily forgets her

and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,

then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light

and work your way toward wisdom

with no personal covering.

That’s how you came here,
like a star without a name.
Move across the night sky

with those anonymous lights.

When you do things from your soul,

you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

When actions come from another section,

the feeling disappears.

Don't let others lead you.
They may be blind, or worse, vultures.
Reach for the rope of God.
And what is that?

Putting aside self-will.

Because of willfulness people sit in jail.

From willfulness, the trapped birds' wings are tied.

From willfulness, the fish sizzles in the skillet.

The anger of police is willfulness.
You've seen

a magistrate inflict visible punishment.

Now see the invisible.

If you could leave selfishness, you would see

how your soul has been tortured.

We are born and live inside black water in a well.

How could we know what an open field of sunlight is?

Don't insist on going where you think you want to go.

Ask the way to the Spring.

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.
This singing-art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.
Poems reach up like the edge of driftwood
along the beach, wanting and wanting!
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

Don’t go away, come near.

Don’t be faithless, be faithful.

Find the antidote in the venom.

Come to the root of the root of yourself.

Molded of clay, yet kneaded

from the substance of certainty,

a guard at the Treasury of Holy Light –

come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

Once you get hold of selflessness,

You’ll be dragged from your ego

and freed from many traps.

Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

You are born from the children of God’s creation,

but you have fixed your sight too low.

How can you be happy?

Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

You were born from a ray of God’s majesty

and have the blessings of a good star.

Why suffer at the hands of things that don’t exist?

Come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

You are a ruby embedded in granite.

How long will you pretend it’s not true?

We can see it in your eyes.

Come to the root of the root of your Self.

You came here from the presence of that fine Friend,

a little drunk, but gentle, stealing our hearts

with that look so full of fire; so,

come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

Our master and host, Shamsi Tabrizi,

has put the eternal cup before you.

Glory be to God, what a rare wine!

So come, return to the root of the root of your Self.

My heart, sit only with those 

who know and understand you. 

Sit only under a tree 

that is full of blossoms. 

In the bazaar of herbs and potions 

don't wander aimlessly 

find the shop with a potion that is sweet. 

If you don't have a measure 

people will rob you in no time. 

You will take counterfeit coins 

thinking they are real. 

Don't fill your bowl with food from 

every boiling pot you see. 

Not every joke is humorous,
so don't search 

for meaning where there isn't one.

Not every eye can see, 

not every sea is full of pearls. 

My heart, sing the song of longing 

like a nightingale. 

The sound of your voice casts a spell 

on every stone, on every thorn. 

First, lay down your head 

then one by one 

let go of all distractions. 

Embrace the light and let it guide you 

beyond the winds of desire. 

There you will find a spring and 

nourished by its sweet waters 

like a tree you will bear fruit forever.

Little by little, wean yourself.

This is the gist of what I have to say.

From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,

move to an infant drinking milk,

to a child on solid food,

to a searcher after wisdom,

to a hunter of more invisible game.

Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.

You might say, ‘The world outside is vast and intricate.

There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom.

At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight

the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding.’

You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up

in the dark with eyes closed.

A friend remarks to the Prophet,
‘Why is it I get screwed in business deals?

It's like a spell. I become distracted

by business talk and make wrong decisions.’

Muhammad replies,
Stipulate with every transaction

that you need three days to make sure.’

Deliberation is one of the qualities of God.

Throw a dog a bit of something.

He sniffs to see if he wants it.

Be that careful.

Sniff with your wisdom-nose.

Get clear. Then decide.

The universe came into being gradually

over six days.
God could have just commanded,

Be!

Little by little a person reaches forty and fifty and sixty,

and feels more complete.
God could have thrown

full-blown prophets

flying through the cosmos in an instant.

Jesus said one word, and a dead man sat up,

but Creation usually unfolds,

like calm breakers.

Constant, slow movement teaches us to keep working

like a small creek that stays clear,

that doesn't stagnate, but finds a way

through numerous details, deliberately.

Deliberation is born of joy,

like a bird from an egg.

Birds don't resemble eggs!

Think how different the hatching out is.

A white-leathery snake egg, a sparrow's egg;

a quince seed, an apple seed: Very different things

look similar at one stage.

These leaves, our bodily personalities, seem identical,

but the globe of soul-fruit we make,

each is elaborately unique.

Let’s ask God to help us to self-control:

for one who lacks it, lacks His Grace.

The undisciplined person doesn't wrong himself alone—

but sets fire to the whole world.

Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light;

discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy.

The peacock’s plumage is his enemy.

The world is the mountain,

and each action, the shout that echoes back.

This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace

to extract the silver from the dross

The spiritual path wrecks the body

and afterwards restores it to health.

Anger and lust make a man squint;

When self-interest appears, virtue hides:

Fortunate is he who does not carry envy as a companion.

If ten lamps are present in one place,

each differs in form from another;

yet you can’t distinguish whose radiance is whose

when you focus on the light.

In the field of spirit there is no division;

no individuals exist.

The idol of your self is the mother of all idols.

To regard the self as easy to subdue is a mistake.

If you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.

The stoppered jar, though in rough water,

floated because of its empty heart.

When the wind of poverty is in anyone,

she floats in peace on the waters of this world.

As long as desires are fresh, faith is not;

for it is these desires that lock that gate.

The tongue of mutual understanding is quite special:

to be one of heart is better than to have a common tongue.

If you dig a pit for others to fall into,

you will fall into it yourself.

Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,

are your own nature reflected in them.

With will, fire becomes sweet water.

The lion who breaks the enemy’s ranks

is a minor hero

compared to the lion who overcomes himself.

O son, only those whose spiritual eye has been opened

know how compulsive we are.

Whoever gives reverence receives reverence.

The intellectual quest,

though fine as pearl or coral,

is not the spiritual search.

The intelligent desire self-control;

children want candy.

Since in order to speak, one must first listen,

learn to speak by listening.

When, with just a taste, envy and deceit arise,

and ignorance and forgetfulness are born,

know you have tasted the unlawful.

Know that a word suddenly shot from the tongue

is like an arrow shot from the bow.

O tongue, you are an endless treasure.

O tongue, you are also an endless disease.

I am burning.

If any one lacks tinder,

let him set his rubbish ablaze with my fire.

Although your desire tastes sweet,

doesn't the Beloved desire you

to be desireless?

The world’s flattery and hypocrisy is a sweet morsel:

eat less of it, for it is full of fire.

Forgetfulness of God, beloved,

is the support of this world;

spiritual intelligence its ruin.

For Intelligence belongs to that other world,

and when it prevails, this material world is overthrown.

Were there no men of vision,

all who are blind would be dead.

All these griefs within our hearts

arise from the smoke and dust

of our existence and vain desires.

Whoever lives sweetly dies painfully:

whoever serves his body doesn't nourish his soul.

Your thinking is like a camel driver,

and you are the camel:

it drives you in every direction under its bitter control.

If you are wholly perplexed and in straits,

have patience, for patience is the key to joy.

Fast from thoughts, fast:

thoughts are like the lion and the wild ass;

men’s hearts are the thickets they haunt.

If you are irritated by every rub,

how will your mirror be polished?

Anyone in whom the troublemaking self has died,

sun and cloud obey.

If you wish to shine like day,

burn up the night of self-existence.

Dissolve in the Being who is everything.

There is no worse sickness for the soul,

O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.

The heart and eyes must bleed a lot

before self-complacency falls away.

Can the water of a polluted stream

clear out the dung?

Can human knowledge sweep away

the ignorance of the sensual self?

How does a sword fashion its own hilt?

Go, entrust the cure of this wound to a surgeon,

Many are the unbelievers who long for submission,

but their stumbling block

is reputation and pride and continual desires.

I’m the devoted slave

of anyone who doesn't claim

to have attained dining with God

at every way station.

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.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep.

Don’t let your throat tighten

with fear. Take sips of breath

all day and night. Before death

closes your mouth.

You are the only faithful student you have.

All the others leave eventually.

Have you been making yourself shallow

with making other eminent?

Just remember, when you’re in union,

you don’t have to fear

that you’ll be drained.

The command comes to speak,

and you feel the ocean

moving through you.

Then comes, Be silent,

as when the rain stops,

and the trees in the orchard

begin to draw moisture

up into themselves.

Who makes these changes?

I shoot an arrow right.

It lands left.

I ride after a deer and find myself

chased by a hog.

I plot to get what I want

and end up in prison.

I dig pits to trap others

and fall in.

I should be suspicious

of what I want.



Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence: 
This place made from our love for that emptiness!
Yet somehow comes emptiness, 
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over! 
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm, 
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, 
free of mountainous wanting.
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw 
blown off into emptiness.
These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning: 
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
Words and what they try to say swept 
out the window, down the slant of the roof.



An empty mirror and your worst destructive habits,

when they are held up to each other,

that’s when the real making begins.

That’s what art and crafting are.

A tailor needs a torn garment to practice his expertise.

The trunks of trees must be cut and cut again

so they can be used for fine carpentry.

Your doctor must have a broken leg to doctor.

Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested.

There are two kinds of intelligence: One acquired,

as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts

from books and from what the teacher says,

collecting information from the traditional sciences

as well as from the new sciences.

With such intelligence you rise in the world.

You get ranked ahead or behind others

in regard to your competence in retaining

information. You stroll with this intelligence

in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more

marks on your preserving tablets.

There is another kind of tablet, one

already completed and preserved inside you.

A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness

in the center of the chest. This other intelligence

does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,

and it doesn't move from outside to inside

through the conduits of plumbing-learning.

This second knowing is a fountainhead

from within you, moving out.

If you want to learn theory,

talk with theoreticians. That way is oral.

When you learn a craft, practice it.

That learning comes through the hands.

If you want dervishhood, spiritual poverty

and emptiness, you must be friends with a teacher.

Talking about it, reading books, and doing practices

don’t help.
Soul receives from soul that knowing.

The mystery of absence

may be living in your pilgrim heart,

and yet the knowing of it may not yet be yours.

Wait for the illuminated openness,

as though your chest were filling with light,

as when God said,

Did we not expand you? (Qur’an 57:4)

Don’t look for it outside yourself.

You are the source of milk. Don’t milk others!

There is a fountain inside you.

Don’t walk around with an empty bucket.

You have a channel into the ocean,

yet you ask for water from a little pool.

Beg for the love expansion. Meditate only

on THAT. The Qur’an says,

And he is with you. (57:4)

There is a basket of fresh bread on your head,

yet you go door to door asking for crusts.

Knock on the inner door, no other.

Sloshing knee-deep in fresh river-water,

yet you keep asking for other people’s water-bags.

Water is everywhere around you, but you see

only barriers that keep you from water.

The horse is beneath the rider’s thighs,

and still you ask, “Where’s my horse?”

under you!

Can’t you see?

“Yes I can see, but whoever saw such a horse?”

Mad with thirst, you can’t drink from the stream

running close by your face.
You are like a pearl

on the deep bottom wondering inside the shell,

Where’s the ocean?

Those mental questionings

form the barrier.

Stay bewildered inside God,

and only that.

Sufi masters are those whose spirits existed 

before the world. Before the body, 

they lived many lifetimes.
Before seeds went into the ground,
they harvested wheat. 

Before there was an ocean, they strung pearls. 

While the great meeting was going on 

about bringing human beings into existence, 

they stood up to their chins in wisdom-water.
 

When some of the angels opposed creation, 

the Sufi masters laughed and clapped 

among themselves.
Before materiality, 

they knew what it was like to be trapped 

inside matter.
Before there was a night sky, 

they saw Saturn.
Before wheat grains, they tasted bread.
With no mind, they thought. 

Immediate intuition to them is the simplest act, 

what to others would be epiphany.

Much of our thought is of the past or the future. 

They’re free of those.
Before a mine is dug, they judge coins.
Before vineyards, they know the excitements to come.
In July they feel December.
In unbroken sunlight, they find shade.
In fana, the state where objects dissolve,
they recognize things and comment rationally.

The open sky drinks from their circling cup.
The sun wears the gold of their generosity.
When two of them meet, they are no longer two.
They are one and six hundred thousand.
The ocean waves are their closest likeness,
when wind makes from unity 

the numerous.

 This happened to the sun and it 

broke into rays through the window, into bodies. 

The disc of the sun does exist, but if you see 

only the ray-bodies, you may have doubts. 

The human-divine combinations are a oneness. 

Plurality, the apparent separation into rays.

Friend, we’re traveling together.
Throw off  your tiredness.
Let me show you one tiny spot 

of the beauty that can’t be spoken.
I’m like an ant that’s gotten into the granary, 

ludicrously happy, and trying to lug out 

a grain that’s way too big.

A Sufi was wandering the world.

One night he came as a guest to a community of Sufis.

He tied up his donkey in the stable

and then was welcomed to the head of the dais.

They went into deep meditation and mystical communion,

he and these friends. For such people

a person's presence is more to learn from

than a book. A Sufi's book is not composed

with ink and alphabet. A scholar loves, and lives on,

the marks of a pen. A Sufi loves footprints!

He sees those and stalks his game. At first, he sees

the clues. After a time he can follow the scent.

To go guided by fragrance is a hundred times better

than following tracks. A person who is opening

to the divine is like a door to a Sufi.

What might appear a worthless stone

to others, to him's a pearl. You see your image

clearly in a mirror. A sheikh sees more than that

in a discarded brick. Sufi masters are those

whose spirits existed before the world.

Before the body, they lived many lifetimes.

Before seeds went into the ground, they harvested wheat.

Before there was an ocean, they strung pearls.

While the great meeting was going on about bringing

human beings into existence, they stood up to their chins

in wisdom water. When some of the angels opposed

creation, the Sufi sheikhs laughed and clapped

among themselves. Before materiality, they knew

what it was like to be trapped inside matter.

Before there was a nightsky, they saw Saturn.

Before wheat grains, they tasted bread.

With no mind, they thought.

Immediate intuition to them is the simplest act

of consciousness, what to others would be epiphany.

Much of our thought is of the past, or the future.

They're free of those. Before a mine is dug,

they judge coins. Before vineyards,

they know the excitements to come.

In July, they feel December.

In unbroken sunlight, they find shade. In fana,

the state where all objects dissolve,

they recognize objects. The open sky drinks

from their circling cup. The sun wears

the gold of their generosity.

When two of them meet, they are no longer two.

They are one and six hundred thousand.

The ocean waves are their closest likeness,

when wind makes, from unity, the numerous.

This happened to the sun, and it broke into rays

through the window, into bodies.

The disc of the sun does exist, but if you see

only the ray-bodies, you may have doubts.

The human-divine combination is a oneness.

Plurality, the apparent separation into rays.

Friend, we're traveling together.

Throw off your tiredness. Let me show you

one tiny spot of the beauty that cannot be spoken.

I'm like an ant that's gotten into the granary,

ludicrously happy, and trying to lug out

a grain that's way too big.

We tremble, thinking we’re about to dissolve 

into nonexistence, but nonexistence 

fears even more that it might be given human form! 

Loving God is the only pleasure. Other delights 

turn bitter. What hurts the soul? 

To live without tasting the water of its own essence. 

People focus on death and this material earth. 

They have doubts about soul water. 

Those doubts can be reduced! Use night 

to wake your clarity. Darkness and the living water 

are lovers. Let them stay up together. 

When merchants eat their big meals 

and sleep their dead sleep, 

we night-thieves go to work

Keep walking,
though there's no place to get to.
Don't try to see through the distances.
That's not for human beings.
Move within,
But don't move the way fear makes you move.
We are the mirror as well as the face of it.
We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.
We are pain and what cures pain, both.
We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
I want to hold you close like a lute,
so that we can cry out with loving.
Would you rather throw stones at a mirror?
I am your mirror and here are the stones.

Hiding is the hidden purpose 

of creation. Bury your seed 

and wait. After you die, all 

the thoughts you had will 

throng around like children. 

The heart is the secret inside 

the secret. Call the secret 

language and never be sure 

what you conceal. It’s unsure 

people who get the blessing. 

Climbing jasmine, opening rose, 

nightingale song, these are 

inside the chill November 

wind. They are its secret. 

How did you discover mine? 

Your laugh. Only the soul 

knows what love is. This 

moment in time and space is 

an eggshell with an embryo 

crumpled inside, soaked in 

spirit-yolk, under the wing 

of grace, until it breaks free 

of mind to become the song 

of birds and their breathing. 

Spiritual experience is a modest woman

who looks lovingly at one man.

It’s a great river where ducks live

happily, and crows drown. The visible

bowl of form contains food that is both

nourishing and a source of heartburn.

There is an unseen presence we honor

that gives the gifts.

You’re water. We’re the millstone.

You’re wind. We’re dust blown up into shapes.

You’re spirit. We’re the opening and closing

of our hands. You’re the clarity.

We’re this language that tries to say it.

You’re joy. We’re all the different kinds

of laughing. Any movement or sound

is a profession of faith, as the millstone

grinding is explaining how it believes

in the river! No metaphor can say this,

but I can’t stop pointing to the beauty.

Every moment and place says,

“Put this design in your carpet!”

Imagine the phenomenal world as a furnace

heating water for the public bath.

Some people carry baskets of dung

to keep the furnace going.
Call them

materialists, energetic, fire-stoking citizens.

One of those brags how he’s collected

and carried twenty dung baskets today,

while his friend has brought six!

They think the counting up at nightfall

is where truth lies.
They love the smoke smell

of dried dung, and how it blazes up like gold!

If you give them musk or any fragrance

of soul intelligence, they find it unpleasant

and turn away.

Others sit in the hot bathwater and get clean.

 They use the world differently.

They love the feel of purity, and they have

dust marks on their foreheads from bowing down.

They are separated by a wall from those

who feed the fires, busy in the boiler room

belittling each other.
Sometimes, though,

one of those leaves the furnace,

takes off the burnt smelling rags,

and sits in the cleansing water.

The mystery is how the obsessions

of furnace stokers keep the bathwater

of the others simmering perfectly.

They seem opposed, but they’re necessary

to each other’s work: the proud piling up

of fire worship, the humble disrobing

and emptying out of purification.

As the sun dries wet dung to make it

ready to heat water, so dazzling

sparks fly from the burning filth.

Is there anything better than selling figs

to the fig seller?

That’s how this is.

Making a profit is not why we’re here,

nor pleasure, nor even joy.

When someone is a goldsmith,
wherever he goes, he asks

for the goldsmith.

The clouds build with what we share.

Wheat stays wheat right through the threshing.

How just do you

feel when you load a lame donkey?

The world has some share in this cup.

That’s how it turns green.

Let the lean and wounded be revived in your garden.

How would the soul feel in the beloved’s river?

Fish washed free and clean of fear.

You drive us away, but we return like pet pigeons.

Ten nights becoming dawn flow

in us as a new kind of waking.

Shahabuddin Osmond joins the circle!
 We will say the poem again so he can play.

There is

no end to anything round.

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 that you've died.

Your old life was a frantic running

from silence.

The essence of darkness is light,

as oil is the essence of this light.

You are the origin of all jasmine, Narcissus,

and irises to come.

You are sunlight moving

through the houses, David’s hand

molding smooth chain mail,

September moon

over the unharvested crop. You set

the grain in the husk.

A rose torn open, my head

not worrying about debt, you,

soul and body

mortared together in bed,

you saying,

you are, you are,

then stopping to twist the strings

to sweeten the voice.

When I give this body

to the ground, you will find

another way.

These words are an alternate

existence. Hear the passage into

silence and be that.

Some souls have gotten free of their bodies.

Do you see them? Open your eyes for those

who escape to meet with other escapees,

whose hearts associate in a way they have

of leaving their false selves

to live in a truer self.

I don’t mind if my companions

wander away for a while.

They will come back like a smiling drunk.

The thirsty ones die of their thirst.

The nightingale sometimes flies from a garden

to sing in the forest.

Stay together, friends.

Don’t scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made

of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water

and turns and gives it away,

weeping.

That way it stays in the garden,

whereas another roundness rolls

through a dry riverbed looking

for what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment

like a drop of mercury.

Which is worth more, a crowd of thousands,

or your own genuine solitude?

Freedom, or power over an entire nation?

A little while alone in your room

will prove more valuable than anything else

that could ever be given you.

I have five things to say,

five fingers to give into your grace.

First, when I was apart from you,

this world did not exist, nor any other.

Second, whatever I was looking for

was always you.

Third, why did I ever learn to count to three?

Fourth, my cornfield is burning!

Fifth, this finger stands for Rabia,

and this is for someone else.

Is there a difference?

Are these words or tears?

Is weeping speech?

What shall I do, my love?

So the lover speaks, and everyone around

begins to cry with him, laughing crazily,

moaning in the spreading union

of lover and beloved.

This is the true religion. All others

are thrown-away bandages beside it.

This is the sema of slavery and mastery

dancing together. This is not-being.

I know these dancers.

Day and night I sing their songs

in this phenomenal cage.

Look inside and find where a person

loves from.
 That’s the reality,

not what they say.Hypocrites give attention to form,
the right and wrong ways of professing belief.

Grow instead in universal light.

When that revealed itself,
God gave it

a thousand different names, the least

of those sweet-breathing names being,

the one who is not in need of anyone.

Notice how each particle moves.

Notice how everyone has just arrived here

from a journey. Notice how each wants

a different food. Notice how

the stars vanish as the sun comes up,

and how all streams stream toward the ocean.

Look at the chefs preparing special plates

for everyone according to what they need.

Look at this cup that can hold the ocean.

Look at those who see the face. Look

through Shams’s eyes into water

that is entirely jewels.

If you want what visible reality can give,

you’re an employee.

If you want the unseen world,

you’re not living your truth.

Both wishes are foolish,

but you’ll be forgiven for forgetting

that what you really want is

love’s confusing joy.

Those who have reached their arms

into emptiness are no longer concerned

with lies and truth, with mind and soul,

or which side of the bed they rose from.

If you are still struggling to understand,

you are not there.
You offer your soul

to one who says, “Take it to the other side.”
You’re on neither side, yet

those who love you see you on one side

or the other.
You say Illa, “only God,”

then your hungry eyes see you’re in “nothing,” La.

 You’re an artist

who paints both with existence and non.

Shams could help you see who you are,

but remember, You are not your eyes.

What was said to the rose that made it open was said
to me here in my chest. 
What was told the cypress that made it strong
and straight, what was
whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made
sugarcane sweet, whatever
was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in
Turkestan that makes them
so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush
like a human face, that is
being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in
language, that's happening here.
The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude,
chewing a piece of sugarcane, 
in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

Aphrodite singing ghazals. A sky with
Gold streaks across. A stick that finds
water in a stone.
Jesus sitting quietly
near the animals. Night so peaceful.
This is enough was always true. We
just haven’t seen it: the hoopoe already
wears a tufted crown. Each ant is given
its elegant belt at birth.
This love we feel pours through us
like giveaway song.
The source of now is here!

The soul: a wide listening sky

with thousands of candles.

When anything is sold, soul gets given

in the cash: people waiting at a door,

a ladder leaning on a roof, someone

climbing down.
The market square bright

with understanding. Listening

opens its amazed mouth.

When the ocean comes to you as a lover,

marry, at once, quickly,

for God’s sake!

Don’t postpone it!

Existence has no better gift.

No amount of searching

will find this.

A perfect falcon, for no reason,

has landed on your shoulder,

and become yours.

What can I say to someone so curled up 

with wanting, so constricted 

in his love? Break your pitcher 

against a rock. We don’t need any longer 

to haul pieces of the ocean around. 

We must drown, away from heroism, 

and descriptions of heroism. 

Like a pure spirit lying down, pulling 

its body over it, like a bride her husband 

for a cover to keep her warm

Can you find another market like this?

Where, with your one rose

you can buy hundreds of rose gardens?

Where, for one seed you get

a whole wilderness? For one weak

breath, the divine wind?

For sixty years I have been forgetful,

every moment, but not for a second

has this flowing toward me slowed or stopped.

I deserve nothing. Today I recognize

that I am the guest the mystics talk about.

I play this living music for my host.

Everything today is for the host.

This is now. Now is. Don’t postpone
till then. Spend the spark of iron
on stone. Sit at the head of the table.
Dip your spoon in the bowl. Seat yourself
next to your joy and have your awakened soul
pour wine. Branches in the spring wind,
easy dance of jasmine and cypress. Cloth
for green robes has been cut from pure absence.
You’re the tailor, settled among his shop goods,
quietly sewing.

Did you hear that winter’s over?

The basil and the carnations

cannot control their laughter.

The nightingale, back from his wandering,

has been made singing master over

all the birds. The trees reach out

their congratulations. The soul

goes dancing through the king’s doorway.

Anemones blush because they have seen

the rose naked. Spring, the only fair

judge, walks in the courtroom, and

several December thieves steal away.

Last year’s miracles will soon be

forgotten. New creatures whirl in

from nonexistence, galaxies scattered

around their feet. Have you met them?

Do you hear the bud of Jesus crooning

in the cradle? A single narcissus

flower has been appointed Inspector

of Kingdoms. A feast is set. Listen.

The wind is pouring wine! Love

used to hide inside images. No more!

The orchard hangs out its lanterns.

The dead come stumbling by in shrouds.

Nothing can stay bound or be imprisoned.

You say, “End this poem here and

wait for what’s next.” I will. Poems

are rough notations for the music we are.

Philosophers have said that we love music
because it resembles the sphere-sounds of union.
We have been part of a harmony before,
so these moments of treble and bass
keep our remembering fresh.
Hearing the sound, we gather strength.
Love kindles with melody. Music feeds a lover
composure, and provides form for the imagination.
Music breathes on personal fire and makes it keener.
The waterhole is deep. A thirsty man climbs
a walnut tree growing next to the pool
and drops walnuts in one by one.
He listens carefully to the sound
as they hit and watches the bubbles.
A more rational man gives advice, You will regret
doing this. You are so far from the water
that by the time you get down to gather walnuts,
the water will have carried them away.
He replies, I am not here for walnuts.
I want the music they make when they hit.

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 me the taste of language,

so that I can’t say the flavor

of my being apart. The roof

of the kingdom within has collapsed!

When I say the word you, I mean

a hundred universes.

Pouring grief of water, or secret dripping

in the heart, eyes in the head or eyes

of the soul, I saw yesterday

that all these flow out to find you

when you’re not here.

That bright fire bird Saladin

went like an arrow, and now the bow

trembles and sobs.

If you know how to weep for human beings,

weep for Saladin.

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror

up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,

here’s the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

If it were always a fist or always stretched open,

you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small

contracting and expanding,

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as bird-wings.

Don’t listen to anything I say.

I must enter the center of the fire.

Fire is my child, but I must

be consumed and become fire.

Why is there crackling and smoke?

Because the firewood and the flames

are still talking about each other.

“You are too dense. Go away!”

“You are too wavering.

I have solid form.”

In the blackness those friends keep arguing.

Like a wanderer with no face.

Like the most powerful bird in existence

sitting on its perch, refusing to move.

I swallowed
some of the Beloved's sweet wine,
and now I am ill.
My body aches,
my fever is high.
They called in the Doctor and he said,
drink this tea!
Ok, time to drink this tea.
Take these pills!
Ok, time to take these pills.
The Doctor said,
get rid of the sweet wine of his lips!
Ok, time to get rid of the doctor.

 

Tonight is the night.
It's the creation of that land of eternity.
It's not an ordinary night,
it's a wedding of those who seek Love.
Tonight, the bride and groom
speak in one tongue.
Tonight, the bridal chamber
is looking particularly bright.

To heal the burning of your sorrow,
I seek a flame.
To gather the dust of your door,
I seek the palms of my hands.
To deal with you hiding behind your holiness,
I seek a good time instead.

 

When we talk about the witness in our verse,
we talk about you.
A pure heart and a noble demeanor
cannot compete with your radiant face.
They will ask you
what you have produced.
Say to them,
except for love,
what else can a lover produce?

 

An ant hurries along a threshing floor

with its wheat grain, moving between huge stacks

of wheat, not knowing the abundance

all around. It thinks its one grain

is all there is to love.

So we choose a tiny seed to be devoted to.

This body, one path or one teacher.

Look wider and farther.

The essence of every human being can see,

and what that essence-eye takes in,

the being becomes. Saturn. Solomon!

The ocean pours through a jar,

and you might say it swims inside

the fish! This mystery gives peace to

your longing and makes the road home home.

Travelers, it is late.
Life's sun is going to set.
During these brief days that you have strength,
Be quick and spare no effort of your wings.
Outside ideas of right doing And wrong doing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.

 

If you pass your night and
merge it with dawn for the sake of heart
what do you think will happen

if the entire world
is covered with the blossoms.you have labored to plant

what do you think will happen

if the elixir of life that has
been hidden in the dark
fills the desert and towns
what do you think will happen

if because of your generosity and love
a few humans find their lives
what do you think will happen

if you pour an entire jar filled
with joyous wine
on the head of those already drunk
what do you think will happen

go my friend bestow your love
even on your enemies
if you touch their hearts
what do you think will happen.

Don't laugh like children!
You do not understand my state.
Read a chapter from me,
unfold a secret from her
I am drunk of that wine forbidden by the lawgivers;
I am drunk of the wine of oneness;
I am free of color and smell.
I am oblivious to this place;
my mind is elsewhere.

 

You I choose, of all the world, alone; 
Will you suffer me to sit in grief? 
My heart is as a pen in your hand, 
You are the cause if I am glad or melancholy. 
Save what you will, what will have I? 
Save what you show, what do I see? 
You make grow out of me now a thorn and now a rose; 
Now I smell roses and now pull thorns. 
If you keep me that, that I am; 
If you would have me this, I am this. 
In the vessel where you give color to the soul 
Who am I, what is my love and hate? 
You were first, and last you shall be; 
Make my last better than my first. 
When you are hidden, I am of the infidels; 
When you are manifest, I am of the faithful. 
I have nothing, except you have bestowed it; 
What do you seek from my bosom and sleeve?

Grasp the skirt of his favor, for on a sudden he will flee;

But draw him not, as an arrow, for he will flee from the bow.
What delusive forms does he take, what tricks does he invent!
If he is present in form, he will flee by the way of spirit.
Seek him in the sky, he shines in water, like the moon;
When you come into the water, he will flee to the sky.
Seek him in the placeless, he will sign you to place;
When you seek him in place, he will flee to the placeless.
As the arrow speeds from the bow,
like the bird of your imagination,
Know that the Absolute will certainly flee from the Imaginary.
I will flee from this and that,
not for weariness, but for fear
That my gracious Beauty will flee from this and that.
As the wind I am fleet of foot,
from love of the rose I am like the zephyr;
The rose in dread of autumn will flee from the garden.
His name will flee, when it sees an attempt at speech,
So that you cannot even say, "Such an one will flee."
He will flee from you, so that if you limn his picture,
The picture will fly from the tablet,
 the impression will flee from the soul.

Late, by myself,
in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloud cover thick.
I try to stay
just above the surface,
yet I’m already under 
and living within the ocean. 

Someday our souls will be one 
And our union will be forever.
I know that everything I give you
Comes back to me.
So I give you my life,
Hoping that You
Will come back to me.

Come to the orchid in Spring.
There is light and wine,
and sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come,
these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

When  soul lies down
in that grass,
the world's fool to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

Deafened by the voice of desire

you are unaware
the Beloved lives in the core of your heart.
Stop the noise
and you will hear His voice in the silence.

The wine we really drink is our own blood.
Our bodies ferment in these barrels.
We give everything for a glass of this.
We give our minds for a sip.

Only  sweet-voiced birds

are imprisoned.
Have you ever seen
Owls being kept in cages?

 A night full of talking that hurts,

my worst held-back secrets.

Everything has to do with loving and not loving.

This night will pass.

Then we have work to do.

  

Where is  that Moon that never
rises or sets?
Where is that soul
that is neither with nor without us?
Don't say it is here
or there. All creation is Him but
for the eyes that can see.

Just because you can’t drink all that falls

doesn't mean you give up
taking sips of rainwater.
If the nut of the mystery can’t be held,
at least let me touch the shell.

  

Soul is  like a clear mirror;  

the body is dust on it.
Beauty in us is not perceived,
for we are under the dust.

 Do you pay regular visits to yourself?

Don’t argue or answer rationally.
Let us die, and dying, reply. 

  

The Science of Truth 

disappears in the Sufi's
knowledge. When will
mankind understand this saying?

When the ocean surges,

don’t let me just hear it.
Let it splash inside my chest! 

  

The tale  of love must be 

heard from love itself.
For like a mirror
it is both mute and expressive.

 A secret turning in us

makes the universe turn.

Head unaware of feet,

and feet head.

Neither cares.

They keep turning.

I saw you and became empty.

This emptiness,
more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence,
and yet when it comes,
existence thrives and creates more existence!
 

 Birdsong brings relief to my longing.

I am just as ecstatic as they are,
but with nothing to say!
Please, universal soul,
practice some song, or something, through me!

 

You suppose you are the trouble

But you are the cure
You suppose that you are the lock on the door
But you are the key that opens it
It’s too bad that you want to be someone else
You don’t see your own face, your own beauty
Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours.

 

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?
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
And I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place
I'll be completely sober.
Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent,
sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
But who is it now in my ear, who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes?
What is 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!

Look how desire has changed in you,
how light and colorless it is,
with the world growing new marvels
because of your changing.
Your soul has become an invisible bee.
We don't see it working,
but there's the full honeycomb!
Your body's height,
six feet or so,
but your soul rises through nine levels of sky.
A barrel corked with earth
and a raw wooden spile
keeps the oldest vineyard's wine inside.
When I see you,
it is not so much your physical form,
but the company of two riders,
your pure-fire devotion
and your love for the one who teaches you;
then the sun and moon on foot behind those.

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.
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 Love.

 

Don't go to sleep

this night
one night is worth
a hundred thousand souls

the night is generous
it can give you
a gift of the full moon
it can bless your soul
with endless treasure

every night when you feel
the world is unjust
never ending grace
descends from the sky
to soothe your souls

the night is not crowded like the day
the night is filled with eternal love
take this night
tight in your arms
as you hold a sweetheart

remember the water of life
is in the dark caverns
don't be like a big fish
stopping the life's flow
by standing in the mouth of a creek

even Mecca is adorned with black clothes
showing that the heavens
are ready to grace
the human soul

even one prayer
in the Mecca of a night
is like a hundred
no one can claim
sleep can build
a temple like this

during a night
the blessed prophet
broke all the idols and
God remained alone
to give equally to all
an endless love.

I swear my dear son
no one in the entire world
is as precious as you are

look at that mirror
take a good look at yourself
who else is there above and beyond you

now give yourself a kiss
and with sweet whispers
fill your ears to the brim

watch for all that beauty
reflecting from you
and sing a love song to your existence

you can never overdo
praising your own soul
you can never over-pamper your heart

you are both
the father and the son
the sugar and the sugar cane

who else but you
please tell me who else
can ever take your place

now give yourself a smile
what is the worth of a diamond
if it doesn't shine

how can i ever put a price
on the diamond that you are
you are the entire treasure of the house

you and your shadow
are forever present in this world
you're that glorious bird of paradise.

  

I am the round sun.
To the bits of  dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.

I am the morning mist,
and  the breath of evening.
I am the wind at the top of a grove,
and the surf on  the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral  reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of stone, a flickering in metal.
Both candle and the moths crazy  around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.

I am  all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the  lift,
and the falling away.
What is, and what isn't.
You who  know, Jelaluddin,
You the one in all, say who I am.
Say I am you.

  

I regard not the outside and the words,
I regard the inside and the state of the heart.
I look at the heart if it be humble,
Though the words may be the reverse of humble.
Because the heart is substance, and words accidents,
Accidents are only a means, substance is the final cause.
How long will thou dwell on words and superficiality?
A burning heart is what I want; consort with burning!
Kindle in the heart the flame of love,
And burn up utterly thoughts and fine expressions.

  

If a blow comes to you from Heaven,
be alert to a gift of honor after it;
for He is not the King to slap you
without giving you a crown
and a throne on which to rest.
The whole world is
worth only a gnat's wing,
but a single slap
may bring an infinite reward.
Slip your neck nimbly
out of this golden collar
that is the world,
and take the slaps that come from God.
The prophets suffered
those blows on the neck,
and from that affliction
they lifted their heads high.
But always be present,
attentive, and ready in yourself,
youthful one, in order that
He may find you at home.
Otherwise
He will take back His gift of honor,
saying "I found no one there."

  

This place is a dream
only a sleeper considers it real
then death comes like dawn
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought
was your grief

A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived
and he dreams
he's living in another town
in the dream he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in
he believes the reality
of the dream town
the world is that kind of sleep

Humankind is being led
along an evolving course,
through this migration
of intelligence
and though we seem
to be sleeping
there is an inner wakefulness,
that directs the dream
and that will eventually
startle us back
to the truth of
who we are.

  

No end, no end to the journey
no end, no end never
how can the heart in love
ever stop opening
if you love me,
you won't just die once
in every moment
you will die into me
to be reborn

Into 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.

a voice out of this world
calls on our souls
not to wait any more
get ready to move
to the original home
your real home
your real birth place
is up here with the heavens
let your soul take a flight
like a happy phoenix
you've been tied up
your feet in the mud
your body roped to a log
break loose your ties
get ready for the final flight
make your last journey
from this strange world
soar for the heights
where there is no more
separation of you and your home
God has created
your wings not to be dormant
as long as you are alive
you must try more and more
to use your wings to show you're alive
these wings of yours
are filled with quests and hopes
if they are not used
they will wither away
they will soon decay
you may not like
what i'm going to tell you
you are stuck
now you must seek
nothing but the source.

  

Seizing my life in your hands,
you thrashed me clean
On savage rocks of eternal mind.
How its colors bled, until they grew white!
You smile and sit back: I dry in your sun.
The Sea boils with passion for you,
The clouds pour pearls at your feet
A lightning from your love has pierced the earth
This smoke curling to heaven is its child.
We were green: we ripened and grew golden.
The Sea terrified us: we learned how to drown.
Squat and earthbound, we unfolded huge wings.
We started sober: are love's startled drunkards.
You hide me in your cloak of nothingness
Reflect my ghost in your glass of being
I am nothing, yet appear: transparent dream
Where your eternity briefly trembles.
This love sacrifices all souls,
however wise, however "awakened"
Cuts off their heads without a sword,
hangs them without a scaffold.
We are the guests of the one who devours his guests
The friends of the one who slaughters his friends....

Although by his gaze he brings death to so many lovers
Let yourself be killed by him:
is he not the water of life?
Never, ever, grow bitter:
he is the friend and kills gently.
Keep your heart noble, for this most noble love
Kills only kings near God and men free from passion.
We are like the night, earth's shadow.
He is the Sun: He splits open
the night with a sword soaked in dawn....

The man to whom is unveiled the mystery of Love
Exists no longer, but vanishes into love.
Place before the Sun a burning candle
And watch its brilliance disappear before that blaze,
The candle exists no longer,
it is transformed into Light,
There are no more signs of it,
it itself becomes sign....

You are my soul, my universe:
what do I have to do with
the soul and the universe?
For me you are ever-flowing treasure:
what do I have to do with profit and loss?
One minute, I am the friend of the wine,
another the friend of him who burns me.
I have come to this age of ruins,
so what do I have to do
with time's melodrama?
I am terrified by the whole world,
I am sprung free of the whole world,
I am neither "hidden" no "apparent."
What do I have to do with existence or space?
I am drunk on union with you,
I need and want and care about no one else.
Since I am your prey,
what do I care about fate's bow and its arrows?
I live at the bottom of the stream,
why would I go looking for water?
What could or would
I say about this stream that flows and flows?
I have given up existence,
why go on staggering under
the burden of this mountain?
Since the wolf is my shepherd,
why put up with the pretensions of the shepherd?

What abandon!  What drunkenness!
You hold the cup in you hand
Blessed is the place you are,
and glorious to the eye of the heart.
Each atom, by your grace,
is a universe, each drop of water a soul.
No one who has ever had a sign from you
need worry again about "name" or "sign."
To find the place of splendor,
at the bottom of the Sea of truths
You have to dive, dive head first:
what do I have to do with feet that scurry?
With the sword of the One God
you have hacked a Path for us:
You have stolen all my clothes:
What will I give to the toll-man?
From your beauty ablaze like the sun,
from the curls of your hair,
My heart has become ecstatic:
O my soul, hand me this brimming cup,
Do not weigh pain and misery,
contemplate love, contemplate friendship:
Do not mull over tyranny and neglect:
think of all those who have their eyes fixed on you.
Surname all grief 'grace':
transmute pain and anguish into joy
And ask from joy all happiness, all security, all peace.
Demand that security, that peace, demand them,
Choose the company of those withdrawn in love
Listen to those who open a path to you:
listen, and don't say a word.

  

Glorious is the moment we sit in the palace, you and I
Two forms, two faces, but a single soul, you and I
The flowers will blaze
and bird cries shower us with immortality
The moment we enter the garden, you and I
All the stars of heaven will run out to gaze at us
As we burn as the full moon itself, you and I
The fire winged birds of heaven will rage with envy
In that place we laugh ecstatically, you and I
What a miracle, you and I, entwined in the same nest
While I am here in Konya, and you are in Khorassan
What a miracle, you and I, one love, one lover, one Fire
In this world and the next, in an ecstasy without end.

  

Suddenly, in the sky at dawn, a moon appeared,
Descended from the sky
Turned its burning gaze on me,
Like a hawk during the hunt seizing a bird,
Grabbed me and flew with me high into heaven.
When I looked at myself, I could not see myself
For in this moon, my body, by grace, had become soul.
And when I traveled in this soul, I saw nothing but moon,
Until the mystery of eternal theophany lay open to me.
All the nine heavenly spheres were drowned in this moon.
The skiff of my being drowned, dissolved,
entirely, in that Sea.
Then, that Sea broke up into waves,
Intelligence danced back,
And launched its song,
And the Sea covered over with foam,
And from each bubble of foam something sprang,
clothed in form,
Something sprang from each light-bubble,
clothed in a body.
Then each bubble of body-foam received a sign from the Sea,
Melted immediately and followed the flow of its waves.
Without the saving, redeeming help of my Lord,
Shams-ul-Haqq of Tabriz,
No one can contemplate the moon,
no one can become the Sea.

  

The beauty of the heart
is the lasting beauty:
its lips give to drink
of the water of life.
Truly it is the water,
that which pours,
and the one who drinks.
All three become one when
your talisman is shattered.
That oneness you can't know
by reasoning.

  

The grapes of my body can only become wine
After the winemaker tramples me.
I surrender my spirit like
grapes to his trampling
So my inmost heart can blaze
and dance with joy.
Although the grapes go on weeping
blood and sobbing
"I cannot bear any more anguish,
any more cruelty"
The trampler stuffs cotton in his ears:
"I am not working in ignorance
You can deny me if you want,
you have every excuse,
But it is I who am the
Master of this Work.
And when through my
Passion you reach Perfection,
You will never be done praising my name.

  

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.
So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

With every breath the sound
of love surrounds us,
and we are bound for the depths
of space, without distraction.
We've been in orbit before
and know the angels there.
Let's go there again, Master,
for that is our land.
Yet we are beyond all of that
and more than angels.
Out beyond duality,
we have a home, and it is Majesty.
That pure substance is
different from this dusty world.
What kind of place is this?
We once came down; soon we'll return.
A new happiness befriends us
as we work at offering our lives.

The sweetness we breathe on the wind
is from the scent of his hair,
and the radiance of our thought
is from the light of his day.
His face once caused
the moon to split in two.
She couldn't endure the sight of him.
Yet how lucky she was,
she who humbly received him.
Look into your heart and see
the splitting moon within each breath.
Having seen that vision,
how can you still dream?
When the wave of "Am I not?" struck,
it wrecked the body's ship;
when the ship wrecks again,
it will be the time of union.

The Human Being, like a bird of the sea,
emerged from the ocean of the soul.
Earth is not the final place of rest
for a bird born from the sea.
No, we are pearls of that ocean;
all of us live in it;
and if it weren't so, why would
wave upon wave arrive?
This is the time of union,
the time of eternal beauty.
It is the time of luck and kindness;
it is the ocean of purity.
The wave of bestowal has come.
The roar of the sea is here.
The morning of happiness has dawned.
No, it is the light of God.
Whose face is pictured here?
Who is this shah or prince?
Who is this ancient intelligence?
They are all masks . . .
and the only remedy is
this boiling ecstasy of the soul.
A fountain of refreshment
is in the head and the eyes -
not this bodily head
but another pure spiritual one.
Many a pure head has been spilled
in the dust. Know the one from the other!

Our original head is hidden,
while this other is visible.
Beyond this world is a world
that has no boundaries.
Put your water skin away, brother,
and draw some wine from our cask!
The clay jug of perception
has such a narrow spout.
The sun appeared from the direction of Tabriz,
and I said, "This light is at once joined
with all things, and yet apart from everything.

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