-
I didn't trust it for a moment,
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.
It gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.
~~~~Lalla~~~~
-
Holy Sixth Day
Holy sixth day
in the woods they worship the
trees then
then my heart beats hard
at how far I was going into
the woods
a snake appeared in front of me
and I fell down
I started writhing and rolling
this way and that way
my dress fell off
my hair burned along
my back
thorns scratched me
everywhere
suddenly who am I
who was I
how I
love those celebrations
Govindasvamin
-
Slowly, slowly, I tended
the bellows of my throat,
and the light inside grew
and filtered out through
the dark, so that within
even it, I saw the truth.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop, 1992
-
I shall grasp the soul's skirt with my hand
and stamp on the world's head with my foot.
I shall trample Matter and Space with my horse,
beyond all Being I shall utter a great shout,
and in that moment when I shall be alone with Him,
I shall whisper secrets to all mankind.
Since I shall have neither sign nor name
I shall speak only of things unnamed and without sign.
Do not delude yourself that from a burned heart
I will discourse with palatte and tongue.
The body is impure, I shall cast it away
and utter these pure words with soul alone.
~Farid ud-Din Attar~
-
Looking For Your Own Face
Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.
So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.
It's better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.
Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.
~Attar~
(http://www.bestirantravel.com/images/culture/art/miniature/deer.jpg)
-
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.
Rumi
-
Andal
The lotus is greeting the rising sun and the lily has closed its petals;
Wearing their saffron robes and ashes, the ascetics are on their way to
the holy temple to sound the auspicious conch;
O talkative girl, you, who boasted that you would be the first
to wake us up, why don't you get up!
We will sing the praises of the brave and the beautiful Lord bearing
the conch and the wheel.
from Tiruppavai
Andal
http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/alvars/andal/
-
((((((((((((((((((((((((((Vicky)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
You wanna hear something super cool... :)!
Just before logging in just now I found 2 conch shells that I brought back from aruba while cleaning up from an old work circle out in the woods! :o
ok ok now I have to reread the poem thats all I saw the first time... lol
The lotus is greeting the rising sun and the lily has closed its petals;
The rising and setting of the sun was the hand movement she showed me, like part of a prayer/dance.
How wonderful.. :) Thank you so much for being with me Vicky!
-
(http://www.tibetanpainting.com/images/dharmasymbols/Conch.jpg)
The Conch shell that spirals to the right is blown to announce a Buddha's
enlightenment to the entire world. The Conch symbolizes the ability of all
beings to awaken from the sleep of ignorance in response to the call of the
Dharma.
-
(http://www.tibetanpainting.com/images/dharmasymbols/Wheel.jpg)
The eight spoked golden wheel, is known as the Wheel of Dharma and its
spokes symbolize the Buddhist Eightfold Path consisting of right view, right
thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right
mindfulness and right concentration. The wheel represents the movement of
the Dharma from one land to another as it awakens the Buddha-potential
present within all beings.
-
Beautiful pics!
The Poetry Chaikhana site has only a few of her poems--- from looking at their references, it looks like you could dig and find many more online!
Very cool about finding the conchs -- I love the synchronicity! :-* :-*
I've always felt an affinity to Lalla -- as if her stuff came out of my solar plexus, somehow. It would be interesting to hear how you experience Andal's work!
love,
V
-
Oops here's the link.
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/A/Andal/index.htm
(not too many here -- it would be quite a find to get the whole Tiruppavai and Nacciyar Tirumoli!)
Andal
http://www.ramanuja.org/sv/alvars/andal/
Extensive biography and articles, word-for-word translations of Andal's poetry, audio of poetry, and several links.
FreeIndia.org - Andal
http://www.freeindia.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=92&page=1&
An detailed article on the life and influence of Andal.
Margazhi Sadashem - December 16 to January 14
http://www.ambahouse.org/margazhi.html
Each of the 30 verses of Andal's Tiruppavai, one for each day along with reflections. Audio files of each verse sung.
The Hindu - Celebrating Andal
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mag/2001/12/23/stories/2001122300050400.htm
An article on the month-long celebration of Andal's Tiruppavai.
Saathvic and Swasthya - Andal
http://www.homepagez.com/sudarshana/Andal.html
A short article on Andal and her poetry.
Antal
http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/antal.html
A brief article with an excellent list of links, bibliography, and resources on Andal.
Andal
http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/teachers/andal_marvelly.htm
An article excerpted from the book Women of Wisdom, with several of verses by Andal.
Kamat Research Database - Tiruppavai Illustrations
http://www.kamat.com/database/content/tiruppavai/
Several beautiful illustrations of the Tiruppavai from the 1800s.
-
Thank you!!!!!! I look forward to digging treasures in all these sites this evening :-*
I'll make a folder for Andal in my blog space and share some of what I find!!
Thanks again, Blessings, Jennifer
-
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.
- Rumi
-
You were once a swan singing
melodies, Lalla. Now you're quiet.
Someone, I don't know who, has run off
with what belonged to you.
The millstone stops, and the hole
where the grain is fed fills in
with grain. The channel leading
to the grinding work is covered over
and hidden, and the miller
himself has disappeared.
~ Lalla~
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
-
Just as if you lit a flame from a flame,
it is the whole flame you receive.
Beauitful!
-
A Cloth of Delicate Gold
You may think
that first lit flame
was the ultimate blaze,
the holy fire
entered at last.
What do you know of furnaces?
This is a sun that returns
again and again, refining, igniting,
pouring your spirit
through a cloth of delicate gold
until all dross is taken
and you are sweet as
clarified butter
in god’s mouth.
Dorothy Walters
(1928 - )
-
One in whom the syllable OM
rises steadily upward
from the sex through the navel,
and only OM, forms a bridge to God.
That one has no interest
in different kinds of magic.
That one is a spell.
- Lalla
-
Eating Poetry
~Rumi~
My poems resemble the bread of Egypt - one night
passes over it, and you can't eat it anymore.
So gobble them down now, while they're still fresh,
before the dust of the world settles on them.
Where a poem belongs is here, in the warmth of the chest;
out in the world it dies of cold.
You've seen a fish - put him on dry land,
he quivers for a few minutes, and then is still.
And even if you eat my poems while they're still fresh,
you still have to bring forward many images yourself.
Actually, friend, what you're eating is your own imagination.
These are not just a bunch of old proverbs.
(translated by Robert Bly)
'The Rumi Collection'
Edited by Kabir Helminski
-
Whispering, then listening close
from the vision of one
casting away his all, instantly,
out of an omnipotent hand.
Thus I read the knowledge of the scholars
in a single word,
and I reveal all the worlds to me
with a simple glance.
I hear the many voices
of those who pray in every tongue
in a space of time
shorter than a flash.
And I bring before me
what before had been
too far away to bear,
in a blink of my eye.
I inhale the bouquet of gardens
and the sweet scents clinging to the skirts
of the four winds,
in a simple breath.
I survey the far horizons round me
in a momentary thought,
and cross the seven heavens
with a single step.
~Umar Ibn al-Farid
Sufi Verses, Saintly Life
Translated by Th. Emil Homerin
-
I sought her from myself,
she was there all along;
how strange that I
had concealed her from me.
I kept going back and forth
with her, within myself --
my senses drunk,
her beauties, my wine --
Setting out
from certain knowledge
to its source and truth,
reality my quest,
Calling to myself from me
to guide me by my voice
to that part of me
lost in my search.
Me begging me
to raise the screen
by lifting up the veil,
for I was my only means to me.
I was gazing
into the mirror of my beauty
to see the perfection of my being
in my contemplation of my face,
And mouthing my name, I listened
and leaned toward me,
looking to one who could make me hear
mention of me in my voice,
Placing my hands
upon my heart,
hoping to hold me
there in my embrace,
Rising toward my breaths
pleading they would pass by me
that I might find
me there.
Until a flash appeared
from me to my eye;
the break of my dawn shone clear,
my dark sky disappeared.
There, where reason recoils,
I arrived,
and my bond and union
reached to me from myself.
Then I glowed in joy,
as I attained to me
with a certainty that spared me
from my journey's hard ride.
I led myself to me
after I called me back;
my soul my means,
my guide to me.
When I pulled away
the curtains of sensuous disguise
brought down
by the mysteries of wisdom,
I raised the screen from my soul
by lifting up the veil,
and so it answered
my question.
I had rubbed the rust of my attributes
from the mirror of my being,
and it was encircled
with my beaming rays,
And I summoned me to witness me
since no other existed
in my witness
to rival me.
My mentioning my name
made me hear it in my recollection
as my soul, negating sense,
said my name and listened.
I hugged myself --
but not by wrapping arms around my ribs --
that I might embrace
my identity.
I inhaled my spirit,
while the air of my breath
perfumed scattered ambergris
with fragrance,
All of me free
from the dual quality of sensation,
my freedom within,
I, one with my essence.
Umar Ibn al-Farid
Sufi Verses, Saintly Life
Translated by Th. Emil Homerin
-
The Creek and the Stars
Spirit is so mixed with the visible world that giver,
gift, and beneficiary are
one thing. You are the grace raining down; the grace
is you. Creation is
a clear, flat, fast-moving creek, where qualities reflect.
Generations rush by, while
the stars stay still, without a splash. When you lose your
appetite for food, you'll
be given other nourishment. There's well-being that is not
bodily and beings
that live on fragrance. Don't worry about losing animal
energy. Go the way of love
and ask provisions. Love more the star region reflected,
less the moving medium.
Rumi
Mathnawi VI: 3136-83;2816-25;2833-59;2867-70
Version by Coleman Barks
The Soul of Rumi
-
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a 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 speechless full moon
comes out now.
Rumi
The Essential Rumi
Coleman Barks
-
Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with a 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 speechless full moon
comes out now.
Rumi
The Essential Rumi
Coleman Barks
Love this one!
-
At the end of a crazy-moon night
the love of God rose.
I said, “It's me, Lalla.”
The Beloved woke. We became That,
and the lake is crystal-clear.
~Lalla~
-
One, One, One
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
So many garish lamps in the dying brain's lamp shop,
Forget about them.
Concentrate on essence,
concentrate on Light.
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire,
The Light streams toward you from all things,
All people, all possible permutations of good, evil, thought, passion.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind,
Endlessly emanating all things.
One turning and burning diamond,
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down,
To blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
You are gazing at the Light
With its own ageless eyes.
~Rumi~
(translated by Andrew Harvey)
-
Meditation and self-discipline
are not all that's needed, nor even
a deep longing to go through
the door of freedom.
You may dissolve in contemplation,
as salt does in water,
but there's something more
that must happen.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
-
I'm neither beautiful nor ugly
neither this nor that
I'm neither the peddler in the market
nor the nightingale
in the rose garden
Teacher give me a name so that I'll know
what to call myself
I'm neither slave nor free neither candle
nor iron
I've not fallen in love with anyone
nor is anyone in love with me
Whether I'm sinful or good
sin and goodness come from another
not from me
Wherever He drags me I go
with no say in the matter
~Rumi~
-
The Buddha’s Last Instruction
“Make of yourself a light,”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal – a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire –
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
~ Mary Oliver ~
House of Light
-
Story goes that his last words to his disciples were: "Behold, O monks, this is my last advice to you. All component things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting. Work hard to gain your own salvation. Do your best."
-
Say I Am You
”I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.
To the bits of dust I say, *Stay*.
To the sun, *Keep moving*.
I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
and 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 moth 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.”
'The Essential Rumi'
Coleman Barks / John Moyne
-
A Great Yogi
In my travels I spent time with a great yogi.
Once he said to me,
“Become so still you hear the blood flowing
through your veins.”
One night as I sat in quiet,
I seemed on the verge of entering a world inside so vast
I know it is the source of
all of
us.
~Mirabai~
-
I've been reading some of these out to julie, it is a wonderful thread of pearls vicky - the sort of place one would love to wander into when tripping.
-
Oh good, M!
I've been concerned at times that there are too many, but glad you all are enjoying. There were so many wonderful things written -- so much more to unearth and share!
-
When the Day came --
The Day I had lived and died for --
The Day that is not in any calendar --
Clouds heavy with love
Showered me with wild abundance.
Inside me, my soul was drenched.
Around me, even the desert grew green.
~Kabir
Perfume of the Desert: Inspirations from the Sufi Wisdom
Andrew Harvey / Eryk Hanut
-
I do not know myself,
nor you, my Lord.
I mistook the body
for my identity.
I didn't know
that you are
me, and I you,
yet still I keep wondering
who you and I are.
- Lalla -
-
What makes God laugh?
When a doctor tells his patient: "I cured you."
How do you make God laugh?
Tell him your plans.
How do you make God laugh?
Say: "This is mine."
~Unknown
-
Let them throw their curses.
If inside, I am connected
to what's true, my soul
stays quiet and clear.
Do you think Shiva worries
what people say!
If a few ashes fall on a mirror,
use them to polish it.
- Lalla -
-
Ram Tzu knows this…
You are caught
In a web of beliefs
You spin them from
Your own abdomen.
They are made from
The substance of your self.
You believe in
Your own power.
You consider yourself
The Source.
Even though
When under duress
You pay lip service
To an all powerful God.
You believe in
The supremacy of techinque.
You are convinced that if
You can but manage...
Your mind
Your money
Your time
Your breath
Your energy
Your body
Your faith
Your relationships
Your prayers
You will unlock the door
To happiness, peace and contentment.
Guess again.
- Ram Tzu
-
Ram Tzu knows this…
You are caught
In a web of beliefs
You spin them from
Your own abdomen.
They are made from
The substance of your self.
You believe in
Your own power.
You consider yourself
The Source.
Even though
When under duress
You pay lip service
To an all powerful God.
You believe in
The supremacy of techinque.
You are convinced that if
You can but manage...
Your mind
Your money
Your time
Your breath
Your energy
Your body
Your faith
Your relationships
Your prayers
You will unlock the door
To happiness, peace and contentment.
Guess again.
- Ram Tzu
heh.. I like this one!! :D
-
heheh ... I like reading all the brutalities from Ram Tzu!
here's one of his gentler ones..
First
You use your mind as
The ultimate jigsaw.
You take Totality
And cut it up
Into a million tiny pieces.
Then
Having tired of that game,
You sit down and try to
Reassemble this jumble of pieces
Into something comprehensible.
Ram Tzu knows
God invented time
Just so you could do this.
- Ram Tzu
-
Ram Tzu knows this...
Every time
You find an answer,
The question
No longer seems important.
~Ram Tzu
:D
-
Good one!!
-
Aye Ram Tzu!!! How true it is!
-
The Heat of Midnight Tears
Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
Kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.
If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts,
Then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves,
Then the goats would surely go to the Holy One before us!
If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.
Mirabai says: The heat of midnight tears will bring you to God.
~Mirabai~
-
Dark Night of the Soul.
-
Yes! I think so!
-
Ram Tzu knows this
You may obliterate your own body
But you will never kill your self.
When egos destroy their habitat
It is a monumental display of conceit,
An infant throwing all its toys
Out of its playpen,
Pitiful as the chest pounding
Of a gorilla in a zoo.
Who is fooled by your posturing?
You are powerless
Devoid of substance
As free to choose as
Characters in a play.
What makes you believe
In your own reality?
Find the answer to this
And meet God.
- Ram Tzu
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
-
What makes you believe
In your own reality?
Find the answer to this
And meet God.
- Ram Tzu
:-* :)
-
I am afraid for myself
Ever since your visit or was it a visitation
your light has been lodged in me,
now I drift somnolent, heady and
the light doesn't stop seeping from my eyes,
people are transfixed by this light,
I ask God-What is this madness?
This madness of carrying another person within me,
God replies-How can you know me if you don't know this madness?
Usha Akella
A face that does not bear the footprints of the world
-
Calligraphy
How easily you have untied my tongue
and handcuffed my heart!
Poetry was a dead thing, a forgotten thing.
The icy caverns of my heart have thawed,
churning waters of words wind through its chambers,
cascading fires of my soul coming to life,
all senses open to the world's music now,
a calligraphy of fire!water!earth!air!
ears!eyes!mouth!skin! opening their doors to the world,
the world comes pouring in,
light and color and sound and sense and beauty and life again.
A tree has grandeur and soft beauty, the green
spilling a hushed message from God,
the sky somersaulting in color,
a clown of orange and red stripes.
Yes! You have untied nature and my heart,
Poetry has burst through her cage to sing again,
You have come, and I spin madly around your presence
spinning...spinning ...around your presence.
Usha Akella
"A face that does not bear the footprints of the world"
-
Ram Tzu knows this…
There is a hole
Inside you that
You try desperately
To fill up.
You pour in
Various satisfactions
To make yourself
Feel alright.
Sometimes,
If you can get enough,
The hole fills to the brim
And there is a
Blissful moment of evenness.
But your hole is open
At the bottom.
Its contents always leak through
Leaving you empty
Again
And desperate
For more.
Ram Tzu know what must be done…
You must be thrown in the hole.
- Ram Tzu
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
-
I left the world.
I do not wish the two-fold deeds.
I do not mix with idle, useless men.
I do not listen to their speech.
I touched the state
when only Truth
remains.
I swept away
pleasures and pains.
The Highest
which is beyond the reach
of the four ancient Vedas
came
here
to me!
~Pattinattar~
14th century
Shavaite
English version by
Kamil V. Zvelebil
-
There is no "You" or "I," no object
to contemplate, no contemplation!
Everything is That lost in That.
The blind theologians didn't understand.
Then they saw, and their seven levels
of attainment dissolved to nothing.
- Lalla-
-
LANDLOCKED IN FUR
I was meditating with my cat the other day
and all of a sudden she shouted,
"What happened?"
I knew exactly what she meant, but encouraged
her to say more--feeling that if she got it all out on the table
she would sleep better that night.
so I responded, "Tell me more, dear,"
and she soulfully meowed,
"Well, I was mingled with the sky. I was comets
whizzing here and there. I was suns in heat, hell--I was
galaxies. But now look--I am
landlocked in fur."
To this I said, "I know exactly what
you mean."
What to say about conversation
between
mystics?
Tukaram
Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Poems From the East and West
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
-
First He Looked Confused
I could not lie anymore so I started to call my dog "God."
First he looked
confused,
then he started smiling, then he even
danced.
I kept at it: now he doesn't even
bite.
I am wondering if this
might work on
people?
Tukaram
From “Love Poems From God” by Daniel Ladinsky
-
I went into the woods with Govinda,
All alone.
This experience was mine, solely mine.
Do not call me a wayward woman.
I did not bond with a bad man.
No other path did I see.
I solicited him boldly therefore.
Reverently I embraced him and lay by his bed.
With familiarity he held me and I endured.
A child did I conceive as a lawful, married wife.
Why do I need to speak of that to you?
Tuka says -She ended her speech thus,
Protecting herself and Govinda.
For long she had desired this.
The Vow of Vows was thus fulfilled.
Tukaram
-
Out of the Mouths of a Thousand Birds
Listen -
Listen more carefully to what is around you
Right now.
In my world
There are the bells from the clanks
Of the morning milk drums,
And a wagon wheel outside my window
Just hit a bump
Which turned into an ecstatic chorus
Of the Beloved's Name.
There is the Prayer Call
Rising up like the sun
Out of the mouths of a thousand birds.
There is an astonishing vastness
Of movement and Life
Emanating sound and light
From my folded hands
And my even quieter simple being and heart.
My dear,
Is it true that your mind
Is sometimes like a battering
Ram
Running all through the city,
Shouting so madly inside and out
About the ten thousand things
That do not matter?
Hafiz, too,
For many years beat his head in youth
And thought himself at a great distance,
Far from an armistice
With God.
But that is why this scarred old pilgrim
Has now become such a sweet rare vintage
Who weeps and sings for you.
O listen -
Listen more carefully
To what is inside of you right now.
In my world
All that remains is the wondrous call to
Dance and prayer
Rising up like a thousand suns
Out of the mouth of a
Single bird.
~ Hafiz ~
-
Certainty
Certainty undermines one's power, and turns happiness
into a long shot. Certainty confines.
Dears, there is nothing in your life that will not
change--especially all your ideas of God.
Look what the insanity of righteous knowledge can do:
crusade and maim thousands
in wanting to convert that which
is already gold
into gold.
Certainty can become an illness
that creates hate and
greed.
God once said to Tuka,
"Even I am ever changing--
I am ever beyond
Myself,
what I may have once put my seal upon,
may no longer be
the greatest
Truth."
Tukaram
Love Poems From God,
Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
Daniel Ladinsky
-
I exhausted myself, looking.
No one ever finds this by trying.
I melted in it and came home,
where every jar is full,
but no one drinks.
- Lalla
-
I exhausted myself, looking.
No one ever finds this by trying.
I melted in it and came home,
where every jar is full,
but no one drinks.
- Lalla
no one drinks...
-
Indeed, there is nothing certain, nothing predictable on it!
-
Before there was a hint of civilization
I carried a memory of your loose strand of hair,
Oblivious, I carried inside me your pointed tip of hair.
In its invisible realm,
Your face of sun yearned for epiphany,
Until each distinct thing was thrown into sight.
From the first instant time took a breath,
Your love lay in the soul,
A treasure in the secret chest in the heart.
Before the first seed shot up out of the rose bed of the possible,
The soul's lark took wing high above your meadow,
Flying home to you.
I thank you one hundred times! In the altar
Of Hayati's eyes, your face shines
Forever present and beautiful.
~Bibi Hayati~
19th Century
Persia
The Shambhala Anthology of Women's Spiritual Poetry Edited by Aliki Barnstone
-
I love this last one!! :-*
-
:) :) :)
-
Lal Ded
a.k.a. Lalla, Lalleshwari, Granny Lalla
“Passionate, with longing in mine eyes,
Searching wide, and seeking nights and days,
Lo' I beheld the Truthful One, the Wise,
Here in mine own House to fill my gaze.”
Lal Ded (1355 - ?) is revered variously as a poet-mystic, a saint, a Sufi master, or a yogini. Around two hundred of her sayings have been preserved, many of which are familiar to all Kashmiris today. Lal Ded, also affectionately called Lalla, Lal Diddi, or Lalleshwari, was born in Kashmir in northern India. As was the custom, she was a child bride, married at the age of twelve. After moving into her husband's family home, she was abused by her mother-in-law and ignored by her husband. After enduring this mistreatment for several years, she eventually escaped to take sanyas (initiation into the world of renunciates) in the Shaivite tradition. Lal Ded became a sadvi, a wandering ascetic, singing of her bliss and love for the Divine.
The name Lalla means, appropriately enough, 'seeker.'
"If you're wise, be foolish.
If you can see, squint.
Though you can hear, sit
dumb as an old rock.
Whatever anyone says,
listen and agree.
This is a friendly practice,
and it leads to some truth."
"Her sayings echo and re-echo to this day"
by P.N. Kaul Bamzai
As in the rest of India, the middle of the 14th century was a period of religious and moral fermentation in Kashmir. Buddhism had practically disappeared from the Valley, though we find mention of Buddhist priests and viharas in the later Rajataranginis. Tilakacharya, described as a Buddhist, was a minister of Zain-ul-Abidin. Most of the Buddhist theologians and saints finding the Valley uncongenial, had left for Ladakh and Tibet. The long period of political instability which followed the peaceful and enlightened reign of Avantivarman (855-83 A.D.) was responsible for the ossification of the predominant religion, Shaivism, into elaborate and complicated rituals which dominated all social and cultural activities. Shaktism, born of the love for Durga worship, had degenerated into grotesque forms of rites and ceremonies. Vaishnavism was not a strong element in the religious fabric of the Valley, but in the 11th century it received further nourishment from the teachings of Ramanuja who travelled all the way from Madras to Kashmir to fight Shaivism at its fountain-head. And with the destruction of temples and images by several Hindu kings like Harsha, as well as by Muslim zealots, Hindu worship was driven to the seclusion of the home or of 'natural' (Svayambhu) images - rocks, or ice formations, or springs. Sanskrit became the domain of the learned few, the common man having taken to a form of Prakrit which though retaining its essentials, was yet wholly different from the 'Language of the Gods'.
(http://www.ikashmir.net/lalded/images/lalleshwari2.jpg)
A rare sketch of Lalleshwari
Impact of Islam
In this troubled period of political uncertainty and changing social values, the people of the Valley were subjected to the impact of Islam. From a close contact between the two religions and their deep influence on each other, there resulted the evolution of what may be called Medieval Reformers or Mystics.
For more than two hundred years Islam had, in central Asia and Persia, been similarly influenced by the teachings and dogmas of Mahayana Buddhism and Upanishadic philosophy, resulting in the emergence of a cult of Islamic mystics. Fortunately, the new religion entered the Valley in this form, being carried there by enlightened Sufis like Bulbul Shah. With their humanistic approach to religion, they found a ready and sympathetic response from the Kashmiris, already permeated with the teachings of mystic saints and "seers".
For, it was during this period of religious fermentation that a need had been felt for a new approach to religion embracing all creeds and castes appealing to the 'heart' rather than the 'head'. Thanks to its rich religious and philosophic traditions, Kashmir rose to the occasion and produced a number of mystics and saints who by their teachings and their lives of complete self- abnegation were the living embodiments of true religion and morality.
Mother Lalla Appears
Foremost among them was the great mystic "seer", Lalleshwari, popularly known as Lal Ded (Mother Lalla), who profoundly influenced the thought and life of her contemporaries and whose sayings still touch the Kashmiri's ear, as well as the chords of his heart, and are freely quoted by him as maxims on appropriate occasions. She was born in about the middle of the 14th century of the Christian Era in the time of Sultan Ala-ud-din. Lall's parents lived at Pandrenthan (ancient Puranadhisthana) some four and a half miles to the south-east of Srinagar. She was married at an early age, but was cruelly treated by her mother-in-law who nearly starved her. This story is preserved in a Kashmiri proverb: Whether they killed a big sheep or a small one, Lalla had always a stone for her dinner - an allusion to her mother-in-law's practice of putting a lumpy stone on her platter and covering it thinly with rice, to make it look quite a big heap to others. And yet she never murmured.
Her father-in-law accidentally found out the truth. He got annoyed with his wife and scolded her. This incident invited more curses on Lalla. Her mother- in-law poisoned the ears of her son with all sorts of stories. Ultimately, the anomalies and cruelties of wordly life led her to renunciation and she discovered liberty in the life of the spirit.
She found her guru in Sidh Srikanth, whom she ultimately excelled in spiritual attainments:
The disciple surpassed the Guru:
God grant me a similar boon
She pursued Yoga under Sidh Srikanth, until she succeeded in reaching the 'abode of nectar'. But she did not stop there. All around her was conflict and chaos. Her countrymen and women needed her guidance. She had a mission to perform, and well and effectively she did it. Her life and sayings were mainly responsible in moulding the character of her people and setting up tradition of love and tolerance which characterises them even today.
As Wandering Preacher
Eventually she gave up her secluded life and became a wandering preacher. She led a severely ascetic life, clad in the bareness of one who had forsaken comforts, and by example and precept conveyed her teachings to the masses. Like Mira she sang of Siva, the great beloved, and thousands of her followers, Hindus as well as Muslims, committed to memory her famous Vakyas.
There is a high moral teaching which Lalla demonstrated when during her nude state a gang of youthful rowdies were mocking her. A sober-minded cloth vendor intervened and chastised them. On this she asked the vendor for two pieces of ordinary cloth, equal in weight. She put them on either shoulder and continued her wandering. On the way some had salutations for her and some had gibes. For every such greeting she had a knot in the cloth, for the salutations in the piece on the right, and for the gibes in the piece on the left. In the evening after her round, she returned the pieces to the vendor and had them weighed. Neither had, of course, gained or lost by the knots. She thus brought home to the vendor, and her disciples, that mental equipoise should not be shaken by the manner people greeted or treated a person.
So that her teachings and spiritual experiences might reach the masses, she propagated them in their own language. She thus laid the foundations of the rich Kashmiri literature and folklore. More than thirty per cent of the Kashmiri idioms and proverbs derive their origin from her Vakyas.
Spiritual and Philosophical Vakyas
These Vakyas or sayings are an aggregate of Yoga philosophy and Saivism, expressive of high thought and spiritual truth, precise, apt and sweet. Her quatrains are now rather difficult to understand as the language has undergone so many changes, and references to special Yogic and philosophic terms are numerous therein.
Some of these sayings have been collected and published by Dr. Grierson, Dr. Barnett, Sir Richard Temple and Pandit Anand Koul and apart from the consideration that they explain the Saiva philosophy of Kashmir through the Kashmiri language, they exemplify the synthesis of cultures for which Kashmir has always been noted.
Lalla fills her teachings with many truths that are common to all religious philosophy. There are in it many touches of Vaishnavism, the great rival of Saivism, much that is strongly reminiscent of the doctrines and methods of the Muhammadan Sufis who were in India and Kashmir well before her day, and teachings that might be Christian with Biblical analogies, though Indian's knowledge of Christianity must have been very remote and indirect at her date.
Lalla is no believer in good work in this or in former lives, in pilgrimages or austerities. In one of her sayings she criticises the cold and meaningless way in which religious rituals are performed:
God does not want meditations and austerities
Through love alone canst though reach the Abode of Bliss.
Thou mayst be lost like salt in water
Still it is difficult for thee to know God.
All labour, to be effective, must be undertaken without thought of profit and dedicated to Him. Exhorting her followers to stick fast to ideals of love and service to humanity, paying no thought to the praise or condemnation that might follow from their observance, she says:
Let them jeer or cheer me;
Let anybody say what he likes;
Let good persons worship me with flowers;
What can any one of them gain I being pure?
If the world talks ill of me
My heart shall harbour no ill-will:
If am a true worshipper of God
Can ashes leave a stain on a mirror?
She is a strong critic of idolatory as a useless and even silly "work" and adjures the worshippers of stocks and stones to turn to Yogic doctrines and exercises for salvation:
Idol is of stone temple is of stone;
Above (temple) and below (idol) are one;
Which of them wilt thou worship O foolish Pandit?
Cause thou the union of mind with Soul.
She further castigates the fanatical followers of the so-called "religions" in the following apt saying:
O Mind why hast thou become intoxicated at another's expense?
Why hast thou mistaken true for untrue?
Thy little understanding hath made thee attached to other's religion;
Subdued to coming and going; to birth and death.
But Lalla is not a bigot; she constantly preaches wide and even eclectic doctrines; witness the following and many other instances: "it matters nothing by what name the Supreme is called. He is still the Supreme;'' ''Be all Lhings to all men;" ''the true saint is the servant of all mankind through his humility and loving kindness," "It matters nothing what a man is or what his work of gaining his livelihood may be, so long as he sees the Supreme properly."
She puts no value on anything done without the saving belief in Yogic doctrine and practice, one of the results of which is the destruction of the fruits of all work, good or bad. The aspirant should try to auain perfection in this life. He only requires faith and perseverance:
Siva is with a fine net spread out
He permeath the mortal coils
If thou whilst living canst not see
Him, how canst thou when dead
Take out Self from Self after pondering over it
She is a firm believer in herself. She has become famous and talks of the "wine of her sayings" as something obviously precious, and alludes often to her own mode of life, fully believing she has obtained Release:
I saw and found I am in everything
I saw God effulgent in everything.
After hearing and pausing see Siva
The House is His alone; Who am I, Lalla.
The removal of confusion caused among the masses by the preachings of zealots was the most important object of her mission. Having realised the Absolute Truth, all religions were to her merely paths leading to the same goal:
Siva pervades every place and thing;
Do not differentiate between Hindu and Musalman.
you art intelligent recognise thine own self;
That is the true acquaintance with God.
The Great Mystic
The greatness of Lalla lies in giving the essence of her experiences in the course of her Yoga practices through the language of the common man. She has shown very clearly the evolution of the human being, theory of nada, the worries and miseries of a jiva and the way to keep them off. The different stages of Yoga with the awakening of the Kundalini and the experiences at the six plexi have been elucidated by her.
Much can, indeed, be said on her work as a poet and more, perhaps, on her work in the spiritual realm. But at a time when the world was suffering from conflict - social, political and economic - her efforts in removing the differences between man and man need to be emphasised.
The composite culture and thought she preached and the Orders she founded was an admixture of the non-dualistic philosophy of Saivism and Islamic Sufism. As long back as the 13th century she preached non-violence, simple living and high thinking and became thus Lalla Arifa for Muhammadans and Lalleshwari for Hindus.
She was thus the first among the long list of saints who preached medieval mysticism which later enwrapped the whole of India. It must be remembered that Ramananda's teaching and that of those that came after him could not have affected Lalla, because Ramananda flourished between 1400 and 1470, while Kabir sang his famous Dohas between 1440 and 1518, and Guru Nanak between 1469 and 1538. Tulsidasa did not come on the scene till 1532 whereas Mira flourished much later.
Source: Koshur Samachar
(http://www.storytellingmonk.org/images/holy_people/Lalleshwari.jpg)
(http://www.storytellingmonk.org/images/holy_people/Lalleshwari2.jpg)
-
WHAT SHOULD WE DO ABOUT THAT MOON?
A wine bottle fell from a wagon and
broke open in a field.
That night one hundred beetles and all their cousins
Gathered
and did some serious binge drinking.
They even found some seed husks nearby
and began to play them like drums and whirl.
This made God very happy.
Then the "night candle" rose into the sky
and one drunk creature, laying down his instrument,
said to his friend ~ for no apparent
Reason,
"What should we do about that moon?"
Seems to Hafiz
Most everyone has laid aside the music
Tackling such profoundly useless
Questions.
~ Hafiz ~
("The Gift" -- versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
-
An Astronomical Question
What
Would
Happen if God leaned down
And gave you a full wet
Kiss?
Hafiz
Doesn't mind answering astronomical questions
Like that:
You would surely start
Reciting all day, inebriated,
Rogue-poems
Like
This.
The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master
Daniel Ladinsky
**I learned something interesting today. Daniel Ladinsky is not a "translator" of Hafiz! He has had visions of Hafiz, and sees himself as a channelor of Hafiz! This is inspiring to me, somehow, though it surely would rub purists wrong.
-
What has happened to me?
All these songs tell one story:
that of Lalla on a lake, not knowing
what sandbar I'll run aground on.
What kind of luck have I had?
I made harmony out of a man's clumsy
plastering job on the ceiling.
Still I wonder which
sandbank will strand me.
And how is it now with me?
Magnificent, this becoming
more and more awake.
- Lalla
-
The Seed Market
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?
You've been fearful
of being absorbed in the ground,
or drawn up by the air.
Now your waterbead lets go
and drops into the ocean,
where it came from.
It no longer has the form it had,
but it's still water.
The essence is the same.
This giving up is not a repenting.
It's a deep honoring of yourself.
When the ocean comes to you as a lover,
marry, at once, quickly,
for Allah'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.
Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks
(http://www.peregrine-foundation.ca/Photos/niagara/2005/niagarafallsJuly2005a.jpg)
-
Who is this Beautiful One,
This One who stays up all night
teaching love tricks to Venus and the Moon?
This One
whose enchanting gaze
seals up the two eyes of heaven?
O seekers, it is your own heart!
Day and night,
I am so taken by Him
that no one can be taken by me.
At the beginning I was born of his love,
In the end I gave Him my heart.
A fruit which falls from a branch
must first cling to that same branch.
A man may run from his own shadow,
searching for light,
but will he ever find a place to rest?
The tip of His curl is saying,
"Walk this tightrope."
The fire of His candle is saying,
"O Moth, come here."
O heart, be steady,
dance gently upon that rope.
But the moment you hear His call
fly into the candle's flame.
When you knew the rapture of this burning
you would not go on for another moment
without its heat.
Even if the water of life
were pouring all around
it would not lure you from the flames.
~~Rumi~~
-
Playfully, you hid from me.
All day I looked.
Then I discovered
I was you,
and the celebration
of That began.
- Lalla
My body caught fire like an ember,
as I brought the syllable OM,
the one that says "You are That,"
into me. I moved through
the six chakra centers
that urge human beings to action
and out into the lightedness
where Lalla lives now.
- Lalla
-
I saw a wise man dying of starvation.
Leaves fall in the slightest
wind in December.
And I saw a wealthy man beating his cook
for some mistake with the spices.
Since then, I Lalla, have been waiting
for my love of this place to leave me.
- Lalla
-
Outside, the freezing desert night.
This other night inside grows warm, kindling.
Let the landscape be covered with thorny crust.
We have a soft garden in here.
The continents blasted, cities, towns, everything
becomes a scorched, blackened ball.
The news we hear is full of grief
for that future,
but the real news inside here
is that there's no news at all.
- Rumi
-
I, Lalla, entered the jasmine garden,
where Shiva and Shakti were making love.
I dissolved into them,
and what is this
to me, now?
I seem to be here,
but really I'm walking
in the jasmine garden.
- Lalla
(http://www.smugmug.com/photos/95429651-S.jpg)
-
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 God, but then you keep
stopping for long periods
at meanspirited roadhouses.
- Rumi
-
There are those sleeping who are awake,
and others awake who are sound asleep.
Some of those bathing in sacred pools
will never get clean.
And there are others
doing household chores
who are free of any action.
- Lalla
-
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 axe to the prison wall,
escape
walk out like someone
suddenly born into color
do it now
Rumi
-
When the path ignites a soul,
there's no remaining in place.
The foot touches ground,
but not for long.
The way where love tells its secret
stays always in motion,
and there is no you there, and no reason.
The rider urges his horse to gallop,
and so doing, throws himself
under the flying hooves.
In love-unity there's no old or new.
Everything is nothing.
God alone is.
For lovers the phenomena-veil is very transparent,
and the delicate tracings on it cannot
be explained with language.
Clouds burn off as the sun rises,
and the love-world floods with light.
But cloud-water can be obscuring,
as well as useful.
There is an affection that covers the glory,
rather than dissolving into it.
It's a subtle difference,
like the change in Persian
from the word "friendship"
to the word "work."
That happens with just a dot
above or below the third letter.
There is a seeing of the beauty
of union that doesn't actively work
for the inner conversation.
Your hand and feet must move,
as a stream streams, working
as its Self, to get to the ocean.
Then there's no more mention
of the search.
Being famous, or being a disgrace,
who's ahead or behind, these considerations
are rocks and clogged places
that slow you. Be as naked as a wheat grain
out of its husk and sleek as Adam.
Don't ask for anything other
than the presence.
Don't speak of a "you"
apart from That.
A full container cannot be more full.
Be whole, and nothing.
Hakim Sanai
11th Century
The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan
Translated by Coleman Barks
-
Thanks for this beautiful collection Nichi!
-
:) :-*
-
TIRED OF SPEAKING SWEETLY
Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.
If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.
Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth
That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.
God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.
The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.
But when we hear
He is in such a “playful drunken mood”
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.
~ Hafiz ~
(The Gift – versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
:D
-
God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.
:D :D :D :D :D
-
:D :D :D :D :D
I know --- I love that! :D
Also this:
But when we hear
He is in such a “playful drunken mood”
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.
-
but of course!
ye shall make witness of what thou hath seen, and unto it shall ye suffer; for ye shall be mocked, and reviled, and stoned; and yet ye shall find thy tongue alive with the spirit as unto a serpent, and of these things ye shall speak though they be unspeakable.
http://restlesssoma.com.au/soma/index.php?topic=1483.msg12336#msg12336
-
There is a lake so tiny
that a mustard seed would cover it
easily, yet everyone drinks from this lake.
Deer, jackals, rhinoceroses, and sea elephants
keep falling into it, falling and dissolving
almost before they have time to be born.
- Lalla
-
At Last, I Shall Listen
My past is heavy with
The lifeless
Meaning.
A frightened thought
My fast-approaching future
Is.
I have the body and soul
Of hope completely in my
Thoughts.
I shout at the top of my lungs.
My soul embodies the weight of
Despair.
At last I am now learning the art of listening
to God's
Voice.
"Son, in your soulful silence is
My fruitful message."
~Sri Chinmoy
-
Why Are We Not All Screaming Drunks?
The sun once glimpsed God's true nature
And has never been the same.
Thus that radiant sphere
Constantly pours its energy
Upon this earth
As does He from behind
The veil.
With a wonderful God like that
Why isn't everyone a screaming drunk?
Hafiz's guess is this:
Any thought that you are better or less
Than another man
Quickly
Breaks the wine
Glass.
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
Cast Off All Shame
Cast off all shame,
and sell yourself
in the marketplace;
then alone
can you hope
to reach the Lord.
Cymbals in hand,
a veena upon my shoulder,
I go about;
who dares to stop me?
The pallav of my sari
falls away (A scandal!);
yet will I enter
the crowded marketplace
without a thought.
Jani says, My Lord,
I have become a slut
to reach Your home.
~Janabai~
14th Century India
-
As the Mirror to My Hand
As the mirror to my hand,
the flowers to my hair,
kohl to my eyes,
tambul to my mouth,
musk to my breast,
necklace to my throat,
ecstasy to my flesh,
heart to my home --
as wing to bird,
water to fish,
life to the living --
so you to me.
But tell me,
Madhava, beloved,
who are you?
Who are you really?
Vidyapati says, they are one another.
~Vidyapati~
-
All My Inhibition Left Me In A Flash
All my inhibition left me in a flash,
When he robbed me of my clothes,
But his body became my new dress.
Like a bee hovering on a lotus leaf
He was there in my night, on me!
True, the god of love never hesitates!
He is free and determined like a bird
Winging toward the clouds it loves.
Yet I remember the mad tricks he played,
My heart restlessly burning with desire
Was yet filled with fear!
~Vidyapati
(spoken in the voice of the beautiful Radha)
-
Then Winks
Everything is clapping today.
Light,
Sound,
Motion,
All movement.
A rabbit I pass pulls a cymbal
From a hidden pocket
Then winks.
This causes a few planets and I
To go nuts
And start grabbing each other.
Someone sees this,
Calls a
Shrink,
Tries to get me
Committed
For
Being too
Happy.
Listen: this world is the lunatic's sphere,
Don't always agree it's real,
Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door
My address is somewhere else.
~Hafiz by Ladinsky~
-
The Hatcheck Girl
Why
Are there
So few in the court
Of a perfect
Saint?
Because
Every time you are near Him
You have to leave pieces
Of your
Ego
With
The hatcheck
Girl
Who won't give them
Back--
O
O
O
U
C
H
.
~Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
God in the Stew
Is there a human mouth that doesn't
give out love-sound? Is there love,
a drawing-together of any kind, that
isn't sacred? Every natural dog
sniffs God in the stew. The lion's
paw trembles like a rose petal.
He senses the ultimate spear coming.
In the shepherd's majesty wolves
and lambs tease each other. Look
inside your mind. Do you hear
the crowd gathering? Help coming,
every second. Still you cover
your eyes with mud. Watch the horned
owl. Wash your face. Anyone who
steps into an orchard walks inside
the orchard keeper. Millions of
love-tents bloom on the plain. A
star in your chest says, None
of this is outside you. Close your
lips and let the maker of mouths
talk, the one who says things.
Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 958
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance", Viking-Penguin, 1999
-
I want
a howling hurt.
-
The sun can only be seen by the light
of the sun. The more a man or woman knows,
the greater the bewilderment, the closer
to the sun the more dazzled, until a point
is reached where one no longer is.
A mystic knows without knowledge, without
intuition or information, without contemplation
or description or revelation. Mystics
are not themselves. They do not exist
in selves. They move as they are moved,
talk as words come, see with sight
that enters their eyes. I met a woman
once and asked her where love had led her.
"Fool, there's no destination to arrive at.
Loved one and lover and love are infinite."
~Farid ud-Din Attar~
-
A Salve Made with Dirt
I was a thorn rushing to be
with a rose, vinegar blending
with honey, a pot of poison turning
to healing salve, the pasty
wine-dregs thrown into whitewater.
I was a diseased eye reaching
for Jesus' robe, raw meat
cooking in the flame.
Then I found some dust
to make an ointment of
that would honor my soul,
and in mixing that,
I found poetry.
Love says, "You are right,
but don't claim those changes.
Remember, I am the wind.
You are an ember
I ignite."
Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 1586
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"
-
I WRITE OF THAT JOURNEY
I remember how my mother would hold me.
I would look up at her sometimes and see her weep.
I understand now what was happening.
Love so strong a force
it broke the cage,
and she disappeared from everything
for a blessed
moment.
All actions have evolved
from the taste of flight;
the hope of freedom
moves our cells
and limbs.
Unable to live on the earth, Mira ventured out alone in the sky,
I write of that journey
of becoming as
free as
God.
Don't forget love;
it will bring all the madness you need
to unfurl yourself across
the universe.
~ Mirabai ~
-
Can love be latched and hidden? A trickling tear
Will proclaim it loud.
The loveless grasp all; while the loving
With their very bones help others.
The soul, it is said, is enclosed in bones
That human love may be.
From love, devotion comes; and from that unsought
Priceless enlightenment.
Bliss hereafter is the fruit, they say,
Of a loving life here.
"Love helps only virtue," say the fools:
But it also cures vice.
As boneless worms wither in the sun, so too
The loveless in a just world.
A loveless life is a withered tree that would fain
Sprout in a desert.
What good are outward features if they lack
Love, the inward sense?
Love's way is life; without it humans are
But bones skin-clad.
~Tiruvalluvar
7th Century India
-
Love is This, Love is also That
Love is the road that leads
Our souls to union vast.
Love is the passion-storm
That sports with our vital dust.
Love's child is emotion-flame.
Love's eyes are freedom, fear.
Love's heart is breath or death.
And love is cheap, love dear.
Sri Chimnoy
-
I practiced what I read,
And learnt what was not taught.
From its jungle abode
I brought the lion down
as I a jackal would;
(From pleasures of the world
I pulled my mind away).
I practiced what I preached,
and scored the goal.
~Lalla~
-
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.
Rumi
-
And then You are like this:
A small bird decorated
With orange patches of light
Waving your wings near my window,
Encouraging me with all of existence's love-To dance.
And then You are like this:
A cruel word that stabs me
From the mouth of a strange costume You wear;
A guise You had too long tricked me into thinking
Could be other-than You.
And then You are ...
The firmament
That spins at the end of a string in Your hand
That You offer to mine saying,
"Did you drop this-surely
This is yours."
And then You are, 0 then You are:
The Beloved of every creature
Revealed with such grandeur-bursting
From each cell in my body,
I kneel, I laugh,
I weep, I sing,
I sing.
Hafiz by Ladinsky
The Gift - Poems by Hafiz The Great Sufi Master
-
O lord white as jasmine
she is one of my favourites
-
While unperishing love melted my bones,
I cried
I shouted again and again,
louder than the waves of the
billowing sea,
I became confused,
I fell,
I rolled,
I wailed,
Bewildered like a madman,
Intoxicated like a crazy drunk,
so that people were puzzled
and those who heard wondered.
Wild as a rutting elephant which cannot
be mounted,
I could not contain myself.
Manikkavacakar
9th Century India
-
And For No Reason
And
For no reason
I start skipping like a child.
And
For no reason
I turn into a leaf
That is carried so high
I kiss the sun's mouth
And dissolve.
And
For no reason
A thousand birds
Choose my head for a conference table,
Start passing their
Cups of wine
And their wild songbooks all around.
And
For every reason in existence
I begin to eternally,
To eternally laugh and love!
When I turn into a leaf
And start dancing,
I run to kiss our beautiful Friend
And I dissolve in the Truth
That I Am.
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
While unperishing love melted my bones,
I cried
I shouted again and again,
louder than the waves of the
billowing sea,
I became confused,
I fell,
I rolled,
I wailed,
Bewildered like a madman,
Intoxicated like a crazy drunk,
so that people were puzzled
and those who heard wondered.
Wild as a rutting elephant which cannot
be mounted,
I could not contain myself.
Manikkavacakar
9th Century India
:-*
These are all so beautiful V !
-
:-*, J!
I do not say it is the Linga,
I do not say it is oneness with the Linga,
I do not say it is union,
I do not say it is harmony,
I do not say it has occurred,
I do not say it has not occurred,
I do not say it is You,
I do not say it is I
After becoming one with the Linga
in Chenna Mallikarjuna*,
I say nothing whatever.
~Akka Mahadevi~
12th Century India
*translates as " The Beautiful Lord, white as jasmine."
-
O God, Another Night is passing away,
Another Day is rising --
Tell me that I have spent the Night well so I can be at peace,
Or that I have wasted it, so I can mourn for what is lost.
I swear that ever since the first day You brought me back to life,
The day You became my Friend,
I have not slept --
And even if You drive me from your door,
I swear again that we will never be separated.
Because You are alive in my heart.
~Rabia~
Rabi'a Al-'Adawiyya
8th Century Iraq
-
When Jani sweeps the floor
When Jani sweeps the floor
her Lord gathers up the dirt.
When she lifts the wooden pestle
he cleans the mortar stone.
He doesn't stand on dignity
he collects cow-pats by her side.
When she goes to fetch the water
her Lord follows after.
~Janabai~
13th Century Bhakti* Poet: India
*devotional
-
The Rains
The rain advances like a king
In artful majesty;
Hear, dearest, how his thunder rings
Like royal drums and see
His lightning-banners wave; a cloud
For elephant he rides,
And finds his welcome from the crowd
Of lovers and of brides.
The clouds, a mighty stormy march
With drum-like thundering
And stretch upon the rainbow’s arch
The lightning’s flashing string;
The cruel arrows of the rain
Smite them who love, apart
From whom they love, with stinging pain,
And pierce them to the heart.
Their blossom-burden weighs the trees;
The winds in fragrance move;
The lakes are bright with lotuses,
The women bright with love;
The days are soft, the evening clear
And charming; everything
That moves and lives and blossoms, dear,
Is sweeter in the spring.
The groves are beautifully bright
For many and many a mile
With jasmine-flowers that are as white
As loving woman’s smile:
The resolution of a saint
Might well be tried by this;
Far more, young heart that fancies paint
With dreams of loving bliss.
~Kalidasa~
5th Century India
-
The Rains
The rain advances like a king
In artful majesty;
Hear, dearest, how his thunder rings
Like royal drums and see
His lightning-banners wave; a cloud
For elephant he rides,
And finds his welcome from the crowd
Of lovers and of brides.
The clouds, a mighty stormy march
With drum-like thundering
And stretch upon the rainbow’s arch
The lightning’s flashing string;
The cruel arrows of the rain
Smite them who love, apart
From whom they love, with stinging pain,
And pierce them to the heart.
Their blossom-burden weighs the trees;
The winds in fragrance move;
The lakes are bright with lotuses,
The women bright with love;
The days are soft, the evening clear
And charming; everything
That moves and lives and blossoms, dear,
Is sweeter in the spring.
The groves are beautifully bright
For many and many a mile
With jasmine-flowers that are as white
As loving woman’s smile:
The resolution of a saint
Might well be tried by this;
Far more, young heart that fancies paint
With dreams of loving bliss.
~Kalidasa~
5th Century India
Beautiful!!! :-*
-
UNMARKED BOXES
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. The child weaned from mother's milk
now drinks wine and honey mixed.
God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As rose, up from the ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.
Part of the self leaves the body when we sleep
and changes shape. You might say, "Last night
I was a cypress tree, a small bed of tulips,
a field of grapevines." Then the phantasm goes away.
You're back in the room.
I don't want to make any one fearful.
Hear what's behind what I say.
Tatatumtum tatum tatadum.
There's the light gold of wheat in the sun
and the gold of bread made from that wheat.
I have neither. I'm only talking about them,
as a town in the desert looks up
at stars on a clear night.
Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
"Open Secret"
-
The flute weeps
to the pacing drum
the drunken camel
rises from its knees
and tugs at the rope of reason
the bird flutters
in the heart's cage
putting out his head
on this side and that
the flood fills
the ancient riverbed
and once again
the riverbanks are green
the falcon hears
the royal drum
and circles seeking
the wrist of the king
the musk deer
smells the lion
and her haunches
are trembling
the madmen have seen
the moon in the window;
they are running to the roof
with ladders
somewhere tonight
a dervish cries
"it was my soul
in the wine!
it was my soul!"
-- from: "Rumi - Fragments, Ecstasies"
A version by Daniel Liebert
-
The Dome of the Inner Sky
The Great King is within me.
He is my dearest friend.
Don't look at my sallow face,
Look at how I stand with legs of iron!
Always turning toward that One
who gave me life.
I am the glorious Sun,
the ocean laden with pearls.
Within my heart is the grandeur of heaven,
Outside, the lowly earth.
I travel in this world like a bee in a jar.
But don't listen to my woeful buzzing -
My house is filled with honey!
O heart, if you want to join us,
raise yourself
to the dome of the inner sky.
Enter the fortress that no one can break.
The vast and mighty waters
move the grinding stones of heaven.
I am that great wheel,
crying so sweetly,
turning with the flow of rushing water.
Men, demons, and spirits all follow my command.
Can't you see that I am Solomon,
with a shimmering seal on my ring?
Why should I be weary
when every cell of my body is bursting with life?
Why should I be a donkey's slave
when I ride upon a magical horse?
Why should I be less than the Moon
when there are no scorpions at my feet?
Why should I stay at the bottom of a well
when a strong rope is in my hand?
I've built a place for the falcons of my soul -
Fly this way, O birds of spirit,
for I am surrounded by a hundred mighty towers!
I am the rays of the Sun
dancing through the windows of every house.
I am carnelian, gold, and rubies,
even though this body is made of water and clay.
Whatever pearl you seek,
look for the pearl within the pearl!
The surface of the earth says,
"The treasure is within."
The glowing jewel says,
"Don't be fooled by my beauty -
the light of my face
comes from the candle of my spirit."
What else can I say?
You will only hear
what you are ready to hear.
Don't nod your head,
Don't try to fool me -
the truth of what you see
is written all over your face!
~Rumi~
Per Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved "
-
Poem, song, and story,
the stream sweeps by, moving along
what was never mine anyway.
What I've done through an act of will,
well-meaning or mean, these are brought in
briefly by moonlight and carried obscurely off.
~Rumi~
From BIRDSONG
Translated by Coleman Barks
-
No tongue can tell Your secret
for the measure of the word obscures Your nature.
But the gift of the ear
is that it hears
what the tongue cannot tell.
~Hakim Sanai
11th Century Afghanistan
-
:-*
-
The Song of the Reed
Listen to the story told by the reed,
of being separated.
"Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.
At any gathering I am there,
mingling in the laughing and grieving,
a friend to each, but few
will hear the secrets hidden
within the notes. No ears for that.
Body flowing out of spirit,
spirit up from body: no concealing
that mixing. But it's not given us
to see the soul. The reed flute
is fire, not wind. Be that empty."
Hear the love-fire tangled
in the reed notes, as bewilderment
melts into wine. The reed is a friend
to all who want the fabric torn
and drawn away. The reed is hurt
and salve combining. Intimacy
and longing for intimacy, one
song. A disastrous surrender
and a fine love, together. The one
who secretly hears this is senseless.
A tongue has one customer, the ear.
A sugarcane flute has such effect
because it was able to make sugar
in the reedbed. The sound it makes
is for everyone. Days full of wanting,
let them go by without worrying
that they do. Stay where you are
inside sure a pure, hollow note.
Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,
who swim a vast ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it!
No one lives in that without
being nourished every day.
But if someone doesn't want to hear
the song of the reed flute,
it's best to cut conversation
short, say good-bye, and leave.
~Rumi~
-
And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
Kahlil Gibran
The Prophet
-
Sunlight made visible
the whole length of sky,
movement of wind,
leaf, flower, all six colours
on tree, bush and creeper:
all this
is the day's worship.
The light of moon, star and fire,
lightnings and all things
that go by the name of light
are the night's worship.
Night and day
in your worship
I forget myself
O lord white as jasmine.
~Akka Mahadevi~
12th Century India
-
I am even smaller than the atom,
but I've expanded to the limits of space.
I have swallowed my ego,
and I am freed from the bonds of body.
I have discarded the three coverings [physical, astral, and causal],
and the flame of truth shines within me.
What's left of Tuka is only for the benefit of others.
~Tukaram
-
Don't Die Again
I am a man
Who knows the ten thousand positions of
Divine love.
I can tell by the light in your eyes
That you are still most familiar
With the few earthly ones,
But would not a good father
Instruct all his heirs
Toward that path that will someday
Deeply satisfy?
This world is a treacherous place
And will surely slay and drown the lazy.
The only life raft here is love
And the Name.
Say it brother,
O, say the Divine Name, dear sister,
Silently as you walk.
Don't die again
With that holy ruby mine inside
Still unclaimed
When you could be swinging
A golden pick with
Each
Step.
-- Hafiz, by Daniel Ladinsky
-
If thou art a lover Thou wilt encounter thy Beloved
Do not see Him only in thy narrow heart;
See Him in every garden, in the desert, in stone and in brick.
Know Him in colour and in colourlessness,
As the Goal, the Intellect and the Way.
Discern Him in every prospect and country, in Rome and in India;
Recognize Him in each companion, in conquest and in battle;
In all conduct, speech and in every appearance, see Him.
Know that He abides in the fruit, the leaf, the branch and the tree,
In the cypress, the jasmine and narcissus.
If thou art a lover,
Thou wilt encounter thy Beloved
In each and every object.
Some love the company of their fellows,
Others smear their faces with ashes and live in solitude;
Some men are tyrants, some endure their lot with patience;
One man carries a sword, another groans under fetters;
One man moves in high places, another is poor and despised;
One tree flourishes and grows tall, another withers and dies.
I have fathomed the secret: He Himself is playing these many parts.
If thou art a lover,
Thou wilt detect the Beloved
Whatever His disguise.
-- Nazir
"Indian Mystic Verse"
-
The world is a mountain
Whatever you say, good or bad, it will echo it back to you
Don't say I sang nicely and mountain echoed an ugly voice…
That is not possible
The human intellect is a place where hesitation and uncertainty take root
There is no way to overcome this hesitation…except by falling in love
To reach the sea and be happy with a jug water is a waste
The sea that has pearls…
And a hundred thousand other precious things.
Rumi
tr Fatemeh Keshavarz
-
Like This!
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.
If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is,
or what "God’s fragrance" means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to "die for love," point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us
Like this.
Rumi
Tr. Coleman Barks
-
The world is a mountain
Whatever you say, good or bad, it will echo it back to you
Don't say I sang nicely and mountain echoed an ugly voice…
That is not possible
The human intellect is a place where hesitation and uncertainty take root
There is no way to overcome this hesitation…except by falling in love
To reach the sea and be happy with a jug water is a waste
The sea that has pearls…
And a hundred thousand other precious things.
Rumi
tr Fatemeh Keshavarz
:-*
-
The Good Darkness
There is great joy in darkness.
Deepen it.
Blushing embarrassments
in the half-light
confuse,
but a scorched, blackened, face
can laugh like an Ethiopian,
or a candled moth,
coming closer to God.
Brighter than any moon, Bilal,
Muhammed's Black Friend,
shadowed him on the night journey.
Keep your deepest secret hidden
in the dark beneath daylight's
uncovering and night's spreading veil.
Whatever's given you by those two
is for your desires. They poison,
eventually. Deeper down, where your face
gets erased, where life-water runs silently,
there's a prison with no food and drink,
and no moral instruction, that opens on a garden
where there's only God. No self,
only the creation-word, BE.
You, listening to me, roll up the carpet
of time and space, Step beyond,
into the one word.
In blindness, receive what I say.
Take "There is no good..."
for your wealth and your strength.
Let "There is nothing..." be
a love-wisdom in your wine.
~Hakim Sanai
11th Century Afghanistan
Tr. Coleman Barks
-
The Dagger
The Dark One threw me a glance like a dagger today.
Since that moment, I am insane; I can't find my body.
The pain has gone through my arms and legs, and I can't find my mind.
At least three of my friends are completely mad.
I know the thrower of daggers well; he enjoys roving the woods.
The partridge loves the moon; and the lamplight pulls in the moth.
You know, for the fish, water is precious; without it, the fish dies.
If he is gone, how shall I live? I can't live without him.
Go and speak to the dagger-thrower: Say, Mira belongs to you.
~Mirabai~
-
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.
~ Rumi ~
-
I Might Act Serious
If God would stop telling jokes
I might act
serious.
~ Tukaram ~
Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
Daniel Ladinsky
-
hiding in this cage
of visible matter
is the invisible
lifebird
pay attention
to her
she is singing
your song
~Kabir~
Beloved May I Enter: Kabir Dohas and Other Poems
translations by Sushil Rao
-
A Light Within His Light
I circled awhile with each of the intelligences,
the nine fathers that control the levels
of spirit-growth. I revolved
for years with the stars through
each astrological sign.
I disappeared into the kingdom of nearness.
I saw what I have seen, receiving nourishment
as a child lives in the womb.
Personalities are born once,
a mystic many times.
Wearing the body-robe, I've been busy
in the market, weighing and arguing prices.
Sometimes I have torn the robe off
with my own hands and thrown it away.
I've spent long nights in monasteries,
and I have slept with those who claim to believe
nothing on the porches of pagodas,
just traveling through.
When someone feels jealous, I am inside
the hurt and the need to possess.
When anyone is sick, I feel
feverish and dizzy.
I am cloud and rain being released,
and then the meadow as it soaks it in.
I wash the rains of mortality
from the cloth around a dervish.
I am the rose of eternity, not made of
water or fire or the wandering wind,
or even earth. I pay with those.
I am not Shams of Tabriz,
but a light withint his light.
If you see me, be careful.
Tell no one what you've seen.
Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 331
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"
-
Ghazal 1335:
3 translations from Sunlight@yahoogroups.com
Who is in the house of my heart,
I cried in the middle of the night.
Love said,
"It is I, but what are all these images that fill your house?"
I said, they are the reflection of your beautiful face.
She asked,
"But what is this image full of pain?"
I said, it is me lost in the sorrows of life
and showed her my soul full of wounds.
She 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 her but she struck my hand.
I asked, why the harshness?
She 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."
-- Translation by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
"Rumi: Hidden Music"
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
"I Cried Out at Midnight"
I cried out at midnight,
"Who lives in the house of my heart?"
An answer came back,
"It is I, whose radiance
puts the Sun and Moon to shame."
He then asked,
"Why is this house of the heart
so full of images?"
I said, "They are the reflections of you,
whose face is the envy of Chigil."
He asked, "What is this other image
all soaked in blood?"
I said, "It is me
with my heart torn open
and my feet caught in the mud."
I tied a noose round the neck of my soul
and brought it to Him:
"Here is the one who turned his back on love -
Do no let him escape this time."
He gave me one end of a thread
which was twisted with guile and deceit.
He said, "Pull on this end,
I will pull on the other,
And let's hope the thread doesn't break
in the pulling."
From the chamber of my soul
the form of my Beloved
shone more radiant than ever.
I reached out and grabbed Him with my hand -
He knocked it away and said,
"Don't cling to me!"
I said, "You've become harsh like all the rest."
He said, "Don't insult me - I am harsher than all the rest!
But what I do is born of love, not malice or spite.
I am here to make your heart a shrine of love,
not a pen for holding sheep. . . ."
The Beautiful One has made this world out of gold.
Rub your eyes and see
that He is the keeper of your heart.
-- Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~
"Talking in the Night"
In the middle of the night,
I cried out,
"Who lives in this love
I have?
You said, "I do, but I'm not here
alone. Why are these other images
with me?"
I said, "They are reflections of you,
just as the beautiful inhabitants of Chigil
in Turkestan resemble each other."
You said, "But who is this other living
being?"
"That is my wounded soul."
Then I brought that soul
to you as a prisoner.
"This one is dangerous,"
I said. "Don't let him off easy."
You winked and gave me one end
of a delicate thread.
"Pull it tight,
but don't break it."
I reached my hand
to touch you. You struck it down.
"Why are you so harsh with me?"
"For good reason. But certainly not
to keep you away! Whoever enters this place
saying "Here I am" must be slapped.
This is not a pen for sheep.
There are no separating distances here.
This is love's sanctuary.
Saladin is how the soul looks. Rub your eyes,
and look again with love at love.
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"
Maypop, 1994
-
Each Note
Advice doesn't help lovers!
They're not the kind of mountain stream
you can build a dam across.
An intellectual doesn't know
what the drunk is feeling!
Don't try to figure
what those lost inside love
will do next!
Someone in charge would give up all his power,
if he caught one whiff of the wine-musk
from the room where the lovers
are doing who-knows-what!
One of them tries to dig a hole through a mountain.
One flees from academic honors.
One laughs at famous mustaches!
Life freezes if it doesn't get a taste
of this almond cake.
The stars come up spinning
every night, bewildered in love.
They'd grow tired
with that revolving, if they weren't.
They'd say,
"How long do we have to do this!"
God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing-pain.
Remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it.
Be your note.
I'll show you how it's enough.
Go up on the roof at night
in this city of the soul.
Let everyone climb on their roofs
and sing their notes!
Sing loud!
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
-
I came to this birth and rebirth universe
and found the self-lighting light.
If someone dies, it's nothing to me,
and if I die, it's nothing to anyone.
It's good to die,
and good to live long.
- Lalla
-
Love is a stranger to the two worlds:
in it are seventy-two madnesses.
It is hidden; only its bewilderment is manifest:
the soul of the spiritual sultan longs for it.
Love's religion is other than the seventy-two sects:
beside it the throne of kings is just a floorboard.
In the moments of sema* Love's bard strikes up the melody:
"Servitude is bondage and power is a headache."
Then what is Love? The Sea of Not-Being:
there the foot of the intellect is shattered and can no longer swim.
Servitude and sovereignty are known:
the way of the lover is hidden by these two veils.
~Rumi~
Mathnawi III: 4719-4724
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance
*The occasion of listening to spiritual music.
-
Tiny Gods
Some gods say, the tiny ones
"I am not here in your vibrant, moist lips
That need to beach themselves upon
the golden shore of a
Naked body."
Some gods say, "I am not
the sacred yearning in the unrequited soul;
I am not the blushing cheek
Of every star and Planet--
I am not the applauding Chef
Of those precious sections that can distill
The whole mind into a perfect wincing jewel, if only
For a moment
Nor do I reside in every pile of sweet warm dung
Born of earth's
Gratuity."
Some gods say, the ones we need to hang,
"your mouth is not designed to know His,
Love was not born to consume
the luminous
realms."
Dear ones,
Beware of the tiny gods frightened men
Create
To bring an anesthetic relief
To their sad
Days.
~ Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky~
-
Dear ones,
Beware of the tiny gods frightened men
Create
To bring an anesthetic relief
To their sad
Days.
:)
-
True speech is the fruit of not speaking.
Too much talking clouds the heart.
If you want to clear the heart,
say this much, the essence of all talking:
Speak truly. God speaks through words truly spoken.
Falsity ends in pain.
Unless you witness all of creation in a single glance,
you're in sin even with all your religion.
The explanation of the Law is this:
The Law is a ship. Truth is her ocean.
No matter how strong the wood,
the sea can smash the ship.
The secret is this:
A "saint" of religion may in reality be an unbeliever.
We will master this science and read this book of love.
God instructs. Love is His school.
Since the glance of the saints fell on poor Yunus
nothing has been a misfortune.
~Yunus Emre
13th Century Anatolia
The Drop That Became the Sea: Lyric Poems of Yunus Emre
Translated by Kabir Helminski / Translated by Refik Algan
Poetry Chaikhana (http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/E/EmreYunus/index.htm)
-
Those who became complete...
Those who became complete
didn't live this life in hypocrisy,
didn't learn the meaning of things
by reading commentaries.
Reality is an ocean; the Law is a ship.
Many have never left the ship,
never jumped into the sea.
They might have come to Worship
but they stopped at rituals.
They never knew or entered the Inside.
Those who think the Four Books
were meant to be talked about,
who have only read explanations
and never entered meaning,
are really in sin.
Yunus means "true friend"
for one whose journey has begun.
Until we transform our Names,
we haven't found the Way.
~Yunus Emre
-
Dissolver of Sugar
Dissolver of sugar, dissolve me,
if this is the time.
Do it gently with a touch of a hand, or a look.
Every morning I wait at dawn. That's when
it's happened before. Or do it suddenly
like an execution. How else
can I get ready for death?
You breathe without a body like a spark.
You grieve, and I begin to feel lighter.
You keep me away with your arm,
but the keeping away is pulling me in.
Rumi
Tr Coleman Barks
-
A considerable article with excerpts of this Urdu poet of the 19th century.
It's in PDF format...
(Click the "poetry" link in the left column)
The Love Sonnets of Ghalib (http://www.ghalib.org/)
The hidden heat of love burned my heart unkindly;
Like a smouldering fire, it withered away to ashes.
Neither longings for bliss of union nor the memory of my beloved remain.
A fire raged such that whatever was in this house was burnt down.
/...../
~Ghalib
-
Muse
These divine verses,
As I write
Are
The hallowed revelations
Descending
From on high
The sound of the scribe's pen
In the stillness of the night is indeed
The heavenly muse
Uttering her immortal words.
~Ghalib
(http://www.lib.virginia.edu/area-studies/SouthAsia/Img/gmuse.jpg)
-
You say,
"How can I find God?"
I say,
"The Friend is the lining in your pocket -
The curved pink wall in your belly -
Sober up,
Steady your aim,
Reach in,
Turn the Universe and
The Beautiful Rascal
Inside out."
You say,
"That sounds preposterous -
I really don't believe God is in there."
I say,
"Well then,
Why not try the Himalayas -
You could get naked
And pretend to be an exalted yogi
And eat bark and snow for forty years."
And you might think,
"Hey, Old Man,
Why don't you - go shovel
Snowflakes!"
~Hafiz
The Subject Tonight is Love
Daniel Ladinsky
-
Love for Certain Work
Traveling is as refreshing for some
as staying at home is for others.
Solitude in a mountain place
fills with companionship for this one,
and dead-weariness for that one.
This person loves being in charge
of the workings of a community.
This one loves the ways that heated iron
can be shaped with a hammer.
Each has been given a strong desire
for certain work. A love for those motions,
and all motion is love.
The way sticks and pieces of dead grass
and leaves shift about in the wind
and with the direction of rain and
puddle-water on the ground,
those motions are all a following
of the love they've been given.
(Mathnawi III, 1616-1619)
Rumi
One-Handed Basket Weaving
Trans. Coleman Barks
-
And some folks spend lifetimes searching for the "meaning of life"!!
That's just Marvelous, thank you!
Luv, K
-
WISE MEN KEEP TALKING ABOUT
Time is the shop
Where everyone works hard
To build enough love
To break the
Shackle.
Wise men keep talking about
Wanting to meet Her.
Women sometimes pronounce the word God
A little differently:
They can use more feeling and skill
With the heart-lute.
All the world's movements,
Apparent chaos, and suffering I now know happen
In the Splendid Unison:
Our tambourines are striking
The same thigh.
Hafiz stands
At a juncture in this poem.
There are a thousand new wheels I could craft
On a wagon
And place you in -
Lead you to a glimpse of the culture
And seasons in another dimension.
Yet again God
Will have to drop you back at the shop
Where you still have work
With
Love.
~ Hafiz ~
The Gift
Daniel Ladinsky)
-
;D ;D ;D AHHH!!!
-
;D ;D ;D AHHH!!!
;D
-
I was sleeping when Namdeo and Vitthal Stepped into my dream.
"Your job is to make poems. Stop wasting time," Namdeo said.
Vitthal gave me the measure and gently aroused me from a dream inside a dream.
Namdeo vowed to write one billion poems.
"Tuka, all the unwritten ones are your responsibility."
~Tukaram
17th Century India
A Good Poem
A good poem is like finding a hole
in the palace
wall--
You never know what you
might
see.
-- Tukaram
-
The sufi who thought he had left the world
A sufi once, with nothing on his mind,
Was - without warning - struck at from behind.
He turned and murmured, choking back the tears:
"The man you hit's been dead for thirty years
He's left this world!" The man who'd struck him said:
"You talk a lot for someone who is dead!
But talk's not action - while you boast, you stray
Further and further from the secret Way,
And while a hair of you remains, your heart
And Truth are still a hundred worlds apart."
Burn all you have, all that you thought and knew
(Even your shroud must go; let that burn too);
Then leap into the flames, and as you burn
Your pride will falter, you'll begin to learn.
But keep one needle back and you will meet
A hundred thieves who force you to retreat
(Think of that tiny needle which became
The negligible cause of Jesus' shame).
As you approach this stage's final veil,
Kingdoms and wealth, substance and water fail;
Withdraw into yourself, and one by one
Give up the things you own - when this is done,
Be still in selflessness and pass beyond
All thoughts of good and evil; break this bond,
And as it shatters you are worthy of
Oblivion, the Nothingness of Love.
From 'The Conference of the Birds'
by Farid Ud-Din Attar
Trans. Dick Davis/Afkham Darbandi
-
One-Handed Basket Weaving
I've said before that every craftsman
searches for what's not there
to practice his craft.
A builder looks for the rotten hole
where the roof caved in. A water-carrier
picks the empty pot. A carpenter
stops at the house with no door.
Workers rush toward some hint
of emptiness, which they then
start to fill. Their hope, though,
is for emptiness, so don't think
you must avoid it. It contains
what you need!
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting you net
into it, and waiting so patiently?
This invisible ocean has given you such abundance,
but still you call it "death",
that which provides you sustenance and work.
God has allowed some magical reversal to occur,
so that you see the scorpion pit
as an object of desire,
and all the beautiful expanse around it,
as dangerous and swarming with snakes.
This is how strange your fear of death
and emptiness is, and how perverse
the attachment to what you want.
Now that you've heard me
on your misapprehensions, dear friend,
listen to Attar's story on the same subject.
He strung the pearls of this
about King Mahmud, how among the spoils
of his Indian campaign there was a Hindu boy,
whom he adopted as a son. He educated
and provided royally for the boy
and later made him vice-regent, seated
on a gold throne beside himself.
One day he found the young man weeping..
"Why are you crying? You're the companion
of an emperor! The entire nation is ranged out
before you like stars that you can command!"
The young man replied, "I am remembering
my mother and father, and how they
scared me as a child with threats of you!
'Uh-oh, he's headed for King Mahmud's court!
Nothing could be more hellish!' Where are they now
when they should see me sitting here?"
This incident is about your fear of changing.
You are the Hindu boy. Mahmud, which means
Praise to the End, is the spirit's
poverty or emptiness.
The mother and father are your attachment
to beliefs and blood ties
and desires and comforting habits.
Don't listen to them!
They seem to protect
but they imprison.
They are your worst enemies.
They make you afraid
of living in emptiness.
Some day you'll weep tears of delight in that court,
remembering your mistaken parents!
Know that your body nurtures the spirit,
helps it grow, and gives it wrong advise.
The body becomes, eventually, like a vest
of chain mail in peaceful years,
too hot in summer and too cold in winter.
But the body's desires, in another way, are like
an unpredictable associate, whom you must be
patient with. And that companion is helpful,
because patience expands your capacity
to love and feel peace.
The patience of a rose close to a thorn
keeps it fragrant. It's patience that gives milk
to the male camel still nursing in its third year,
and patience is what the prophets show to us.
The beauty of careful sewing on a shirt
is the patience it contains.
Friendship and loyalty have patience
as the strength of their connection.
Feeling lonely and ignoble indicates
that you haven't been patient.
Be with those who mix with God
as honey blends with milk, and say,
"Anything that comes and goes,
rises and sets, is not
what I love." else you'll be like a caravan fire left
to flare itself out alone beside the road.
~Rumi
Tr. Coleman Barks
-
Never Say It Is Not God
I taste what you taste. I know the kind of lyrics
your Soul most likes. I know which sounds will become
Resplendent in your mind and bring such pleasure
Your feet will jump and whirl.
When anything touches or enters your body
Never say it is not God, for He is
Just trying to get close.
I have no use for divine patience -- my lips are always
Burning and everywhere. I am running from every corner
Of this world and sky wanting to kiss you;
I am every particle of dust and wheat -- you and I
Are ground from His Own Body. I am rioting at your door;
I am spinning in midair like golden falling leaves
Trying to win your glance.
I am sweetly rolling against your walls and your shores
All night, even though you are asleep. I am singing from
The mouths of animals and birds honoring our
Beloved's promise and need: to let
you know the Truth.
My dear, when anything touches or enters your body
Never say it is not God, for He and I are
Just trying to get close to you.
God and I are rushing
From every corner of existence, needing to say,
"We are yours."
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
From his light, (from The Poem of the Sufi Way)
From his light,
the niche of my essence enlightened me;
by means of me,
my nights blazed morning bright.
I made me witness my being there
for I was he;
I witnessed him as me,
the light, my splendor.
By me the valley was made holy,
and I flung my robe of honor --
my "taking off of sandals" --
on those summoned there.
I embraced my lights
and so was their guide;
how wondrous a soul
illuminating lights!
I set firm my many Sinais
and there prayed to myself;
I attained every goal,
as my being spoke with me.
My full moon never waned;
my sun, it never set,
and all the blazing stars
followed my lead.
Umar Ibn al-Farid
(1181 - 1235)
Tr. Th. Emil Homerin
-
I Know the Way You Can Get
I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love:
Your face hardens,
Your sweet muscles cramp.
Children become concerned
About a strange look that appears in your eyes
Which even begins to worry your own mirror
And nose.
Squirrels and birds sense your sadness
And call an important conference in a tall tree.
They decide which secret code to chant
To help your mind and soul.
Even angels fear that brand of madness
That arrays itself against the world
And throws sharp stones and spears into
The innocent
And into one's self.
O I know the way you can get
If you have not been drinking Love:
You might rip apart
Every sentence your friends and teachers say,
Looking for hidden clauses.
You might weigh every word on a scale
Like a dead fish.
You might pull out a ruler to measure
From every angle in your darkness
The beautiful dimensions of a heart you once
Trusted.
I know the way you can get
If you have not had a drink from Love's
Hands.
That is why all the Great Ones speak of
The vital need
To keep remembering God,
So you will come to know and see Him
As being so Playful
And Wanting,
Just Wanting to help.
That is why Hafiz says:
Bring your cup near me.
For all I care about
Is quenching your thirst for freedom!
All a Sane man can ever care about
Is giving Love!
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
DIE BEFORE YOU DIE
Ironic, but one of the most intimate acts
of our body is
death.
So beautiful appeared my death – knowing who then I would kiss,
I died a thousand times before I died.
“Die before you die,” said the Prophet
Muhammad.
Have wings that feared ever
touched the Sun?
I was born when all I once
feared – I could
love.
Rabia
by Ladinsky
-
Someone Should Start Laughing
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing –Now!
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
Today would be a good day to die.
The flower seeds wait their turn for brilliance in my gardens deep.
Right now they'll have to wait
beneath the snow as they rest in sleep.
I woke up this morning knowing I was in love
with someone more precious than my heart.
And the birds flutter at their feeders
until the next winter wind scatters them apart.
The sun shines always somewhere in this world of gold
as all mysteries of life surely like a leaf unfold.
I feel so good today just being alive again.
Yes, today is surely a wonderful day to be alive.
It is a good day to die, it's so beautiful everywhere.
Yes, a very good day to love and live.
t2f
-
Yes, a very good day to love and live.
Beautiful, T2!
-
Today would be a good day to die.
The flower seeds wait their turn for brilliance in my gardens deep.
Right now they'll have to wait
beneath the snow as they rest in sleep.
Beautiful Tommy!
-
I feel so good today just being alive again.
Yes, today is surely a wonderful day to be alive.
It is a good day to die, it's so beautiful everywhere.
Yes, a very good day to love and live.
t2f
Heyyaahh!!
-
Today would be a good day to die.
The flower seeds wait their turn for brilliance in my gardens deep.
Right now they'll have to wait
beneath the snow as they rest in sleep.
I woke up this morning knowing I was in love
with someone more precious than my heart.
And the birds flutter at their feeders
until the next winter wind scatters them apart.
The sun shines always somewhere in this world of gold
as all mysteries of life surely like a leaf unfold.
I feel so good today just being alive again.
Yes, today is surely a wonderful day to be alive.
It is a good day to die, it's so beautiful everywhere.
Yes, a very good day to love and live.
t2f
Love you!
-
SOMEONE UNTIED YOUR CAMEL
I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains.
I cannot act mute
Hearing the world's loneliness
Crying near the Beloved's heart.
My love for God is such
That I could dance with Him tonight without you,
But I would rather have you there.
Is your caravan lost?
It is,
If you no longer weep from gratitude or happiness,
Or weep
From being cut deep with the awareness
Of the extraordinary beauty
That emanates from the most simple act
And common object.
My dear, is your caravan lost?
It is if you can no longer be kind to yourself
And loving to those who must live
With the sometimes difficult task of loving you.
At least come to know
That someone untied your camel last night
For I hear its gentle voice
Calling for God in the desert.
At least come to know
That Hafiz will always hold a lantern
With the galaxies blooming inside
And that
I will always guide your soul to
The divine warmth and exhilaration
Of our Beloved's
Tent.
~ Hafiz by Ladinsky~
(http://portraet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/camels-wadi-rum-january-20030001-custom.JPG)
-
I will always guide your soul to
The divine warmth and exhilaration
Of our Beloved's
Tent.
He is right. There I am, there is my tent. And intent.
-
STOP BEING SO RELIGIOUS
What
Do sad people have in
Common?
It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past
And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.
What is the beginning of
Happiness?
It is to stop being
So religious
Like
That.
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
Now is the Time
Now is the time to know
That all that you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.
Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child's training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally live
With veracity
And love.
Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon.
My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?
What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?
Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
This is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.
Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.
~Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
A Golden Compass
Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any classroom ever taught you
Because
An empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear
Are always the testimony
You have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those
Who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company
Of the King's beggars -
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous
Who have no choice
But to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.
I will lead you into the Circle
Of the Beloved's cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues -
The ones you can trust for true guidance -
Who can aid you
In this Blessed Calamity of life.
Hafiz,
Look at the Perfect One
At the Circle's Center:
He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,
Beyond all that is Rational,
To show this dear world
That Everything,
Everything in Existence
Does point to God.
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
IN MY SOUL
In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church
where I kneel.
Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.
Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is
illumined nothing,
where ecstasy gets poured into itself
and becomes
lost,
where the wing is fully alive
but has no mind or
body?
In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque,
a church
that dissolve, that
dissolve in
God.
Rabia
by Ladinsky
-
WITH THAT MOON LANGUAGE
Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise
someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a
full moon in each eye that is
always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in
this world is
dying to
hear?
Hafiz
-
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.
~Rumi
Open Secret
Coleman Barks
-
done with the world
done with the world
and pure
as darkness
nothing to hold me
nothing restrain
the old guy here
within the grove
before blue cliffs the
moon's companion
mad and singing
drunk and dancing
smashed, polluted with the wine
of endless life
Yun-k'an Tzu
13th Century China
-
A dervish in ecstasy
A frenzied dervish, mad with love for God,
Sought out bare hills where none had ever trod.
Wild leopards kept this madman company --
His heart was plunged in restless ecstasy;
He lived within this state for twenty days,
Dancing and singing in exultant praise:
"There's no division; we two are alone --
The world is happiness and grief has flown."
Die to yourself -- no longer stay apart,
But give to Him who asks for it your heart;
The man whose happiness derives from Him
Escapes existence, and the world grows dim;
Rejoice for ever in the Friend, rejoice
Till you are nothing, but a praising voice.
~Farid ud-Din Attar
12th Century Iran
The Conference of the Birds
-
OUT OF GOD'S HAT
The stars poured into the sky
Out of a Magician's hat last night,
And all of them have fallen into my hair.
Some have even tangled my eyelashes
Into luminous, playful knots.
Wayfarer,
You are welcome to cut a radiant tress
That lays upon my shoulders.
Wrap it around your trembling heart and body
That craves divine comfort and warmth.
I am like a pitcher of milk
In the hands of a mother who loves you.
All of my contents now
Have been churned into dancing suns and moons.
Lean your sweet neck and mouth
Out of that dark nest where you hide,
I will pour effulgence into your mind.
Come spring
You can find me rolling in the fields
They are exploding in
Holy battles
Of scents, of sounds - everything is
A brilliant colored nova on a stem.
Forest animals hear me laughing
And surrender their deepest instincts and fears,
They come charging into meadows
To lick my hands and face,
This makes me so happy,
I become so happy
That my rising wink turns into a magic baton.
When my soft-eyed creatures see that wonderful signal
We all burst into singing
And make strange and primal beautiful sounds!
My only regret in this world then becomes:
That your shyness keeps you from placing
Your starving body against God
And seeing the Beloved become so pleased
With your courage
That his belly begins to rock and rock,
Then more planets get to leap
Onto the welcome mat of existence
All because
Of your previous love.
The friend has turned my verse into sacred pollen.
When a breeze comes by
Falcons and butterflies
And playful gangs of young angels
Mounted on emerald spears
Take flight from me like a great sandstorm
That can blind you to all but the Truth!
Dear one
Even if you have no net to catch Venus
My music will circle this earth for hundreds of years
And fall like resplendent debris,
Holy seed, onto a fertile woman.
For Hafiz
Wants to help you laugh at your every
Desire.
Hafiz
Wants you to know
Your life within God's arms,
Your dance within God's
Arms
Is already
Perfect!
~ Hafiz by Ladinsky ~
(http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0801/16500feetmilkywaykc2_brunier800.jpg)
-
This one's beautiful Vicky. And I especially love the title "Out of God's Hat".
There is something so magickal in that.
-
When I was with my teacher, I heard a truth
that hurt my heart like a blister,
the tender pain of seeing
something I loved as an illusion.
The flocks I tended are gone.
I am a shepherd without even a memory
of what that means, climbing this mountain.
I feel so lost.
This was my inward way, until I came
into the presence of a Moon, this new knowledge
of how likenesses unite. Good Friend,
everything is You. I see only God.
Now the delightful forms and motions
are transparent. I look through them
and see myself as the Absolute. And here's
the answer to the riddle of this dream:
You leave, so that we two
can do One Dance.
~ Lalla
-
Reality
In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?
~Rabia
-
The life brought me so I came; the death takes me away so I go
Neither I came on my own nor I go with my will
There may be a few gamblers as bad as I am
Whatever move I made it proved to be very bad
It’s better that one should not get hooked to the charms of the world
However, what one can do when nothing can be accomplished without getting involved
Who’s come to the rescue of someone who’s about to leave this world!
You too keep moving till you can move on
O Zauq! I’m leaving this garden with a pinning for fresh air
Why should I care now whether zephyr blows or not!
~Ibrahim Zauq
18th Century Urdu
-
Entering the Shell
Love is alive, and someone borne
along by it is more alive than lions
roaring or men in their fierce courage.
Bandits ambush others on the road.
They get wealth but they stay in one
place. Lovers keep moving, never
the same, not for a second! What
makes others grieve, they enjoy!
When they look angry, don't believe
their faces. It's spring lightning,
a joke before the rain. They chew
thorns thoughtfully along with pasture
grass. Gazelle and lioness, having
dinner. Love is invisible except
here, in us. Sometimes I praise love;
sometimes love praises me. Love,
a little shell somewhere on the ocean
floor, opens its mouth. You and I
and we, those imaginary beings, enter
that shell as a single sip of seawater.
Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 843
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999
-
"The Whole Place Goes Up"
Today with Spring here finally we ought to be living
outdoors with our friends.
Let's go to those strangers in the field
and dance around them like bees from flower to flower,
building in the beehive air
our true hexagonal homes.
Someone comes in from outside saying,
"Don't play music just for yourselves."
Now we're tearing up the house like a drum,
collapsing walls with our pounding.
We hear a voice from the sky calling the lovers
and the odd, lost people. We scatter lives.
We break what holds us, each one a blacksmith
heating iron and walking to the anvil.
We blow on the inner fire.
With each striking we change.
The whole place goes up, all stability gone in smoke.
Sometimes high, sometimes low, we begin anywhere,
we have no method.
We're the bat swung by powerful arms.
Balls keep rolling from us, thousands of them underfoot.
Now we're still. Silence also is wisdom, a flame
hiding in cotton wool.
-Rumi-
Version by Coleman Barks
-
No matter what plans you make,
no matter what you acquire,
the thief will enter from the unguarded side.
Be occupied, then, with what you really value
and let the thief take something less.
~Rumi
Mathnawi II:1505-1507
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
-
My dear!
You haven't the feet
for this path --
why struggle?
You've no idea where
the idol's to be found --
what's all this
mystic chat?
What can be done
with quarrelsome
fellow travelers,
boastful
marketplace
morons?
If you were really a lover
you'd see that faith and infidelity
are one...
Oh, what's the use?
nit-picking
about such things
is a hobby for
numb brains.
You are pure spirit
but imagine yourself a corpse!
pure water which thinks
it's the pot!
Everything you want
must be searched for --
except the Friend.
If you don't find Him
you'll never
be able
to start
to even
look.
Yes,
you can be sure:
You are not Him --
unless
you can remove yourself
from between
yourself
and Him --
in which case
you
are
Him.
~Hakim Sanai
11th Century Afghanistan
Not much is known about Hakim Sanai, often just called Sanai or Sanai of Ghazna. Sanai is one of the earlier Sufi poets. He was born in the province of Ghazna in southern Afghanistan in the middle of the 11th century and probably died around 1150.
Rumi acknowledged Sanai and Attar as his two primary inspirations, saying, "Attar is the soul and Sanai its two eyes, I came after Sanai and Attar."
Sanai was originally a court poet who was engaged in writing praises for the Sultan of Ghazna.
The story is told of how the Sultan decided to lead a military attack against neighboring India and Sanai, as a court poet, was summoned to join the expedition to record the Sultan's exploits. As Sanai was making his way to the court, he passed an enclosed garden frequented by a notorious drunk named Lai Khur.
As Sanai was passing by, he heard Lai Khur loudly proclaim a toast to the blindness of the Sultan for greedily choosing to attack India, when there was so much beauty in Ghazna. Sanai was shocked and stopped. Lai Khur then proposed a toast to the blindness of the famous young poet Sanai who, with his gifts of insight and expression, couldn't see the pointlessness of his existence as a poet praising such a foolish Sultan.
These words were like an earthquake to Hakim Sanai, because he knew they were true. He abandoned his life as a pampered court poet, even declining marriage to the Sultan's own sister, and began to study with a Sufi master named Yusef Hamdani.
Sanai soon went on pilgrimage to Mecca. When he returned, he composed his Hadiqatu'l Haqiqat or The Walled Garden of Truth. There was a double meaning in this title for, in Persian, the word for a walled garden is the same word for paradise, but it was also from within a walled garden that Lai Khur uttered the harsh truths that set Hakim Sanai on the path of wisdom. ~Ivan Granger
-
Grief settles thick in the throat
and lungs: thousands of sorrows
being suffered, clouds of cruelty,
all somehow from love. Wail and be
thirsty for your own blood. Climb
to the execution place. It is time.
The Nile flows red: the Nile flows
pure. Dry thorns and aloe wood are
the same until fire touches. A
warrior and a mean coward stand here
similar until arrows rain. Warriors
love battle. A subtle lion with
strategy gets the prey to run toward
him, saying Kill me again. Dead
eyes look into living eyes. Don't
try to figure this out. Love's work
looks absurd, but trying to find a
meaning will hide it more. Silence.
-- Ghazal (Ode) 1138
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
-
All day I think about it.
Where did I come from, and what am I
supposed to be be doing? I have no idea...
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that...
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some 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 the soul? I can't 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.
This poetry... I never know what I am going to say.
I don't plan it. When I am outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all...
Rumi
version Coleman Barks
-
To be real on this path you must be humble--
If you look down at others you'll get pushed down the stairs.
If your heart goes around on high, you fly far from this path.
There's no use hiding it--
What's inside always leaks outside.
Even the one with the long white beard, the one who looks so wise--
If he breaks a single heart, why bother going to Mecca?
If he has no compassion, what's the point?
My heart is the throne of the Beloved,
the Beloved the heart's destiny:
Whoever breaks another's heart will find no homecoming
in this world or any other.
The ones who know say very little
while the beasts are always speaking volumes;
One word is enough for one who knows.
If there is any meaning in the holy books, it is this:
Whatever is good for you, grant it to others too--
Whoever comes to this earth migrates back;
Whoever drinks the wine of love
understands what I say--
Yunus, don't look down at the world in scorn--
Keep your eyes fixed on your Beloved's face,
then you will not see the bridge
on Judgment Day.
~Yunus Emre
13th Century Turkey
-
To be real on this path you must be humble--
If you look down at others you'll get pushed down the stairs.
If your heart goes around on high, you fly far from this path.
There's no use hiding it--
What's inside always leaks outside.
Even the one with the long white beard, the one who looks so wise--
If he breaks a single heart, why bother going to Mecca?
If he has no compassion, what's the point?
My heart is the throne of the Beloved,
the Beloved the heart's destiny:
Whoever breaks another's heart will find no homecoming
in this world or any other.
The ones who know say very little
while the beasts are always speaking volumes;
One word is enough for one who knows.
If there is any meaning in the holy books, it is this:
Whatever is good for you, grant it to others too--
Whoever comes to this earth migrates back;
Whoever drinks the wine of love
understands what I say--
Yunus, don't look down at the world in scorn--
Keep your eyes fixed on your Beloved's face,
then you will not see the bridge
on Judgment Day.
~Yunus Emre
13th Century Turkey
:-*
-
More Range
We're friends with one who kills us,
who gives us to the ocean waves. We
love this death. Only ignorance says,
Put it off a while, day after tomorrow.
Don't avoid the knife. This friend
only seems fierce, bringing your soul
more range, perching your falcon on a
cliff of the wind. Jesus on his cross,
Hallaj on his - those absurd killings
hold a secret. Cautious cynics know
what they're doing with every moment and why.
Submit to love without thinking, as
the sun this morning rose recklessly
extinguishing our star-candle minds.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 2001
-
You must accept those who surrender to you
If the Ganga flows to the ocean
and the ocean turns her away,
tell me, O Vitthal,
who would hear her complaint?
Can the river reject its fish?
Can the mother spurn her child?
Jan says,
Lord,
you must accept those
who surrender to you.
~Janabai~
13th Century India
-
That Angel Talked Like A Sailor
What part of heaven did she come from?
That angel talked like a sailor
and she was dressed
enchantingly
scant.
I can't even repeat the things she said
or picture once more the shape of her breasts.
Though I know one thing:
My fear of dying has
vanished.
~Tukaram per Daniel Ladinsky~
-
NO ONE WAS CRACKING THE KOANS
No one was cracking the koans
He had tattooed
everywhere.
So God changed His tactics---He developed a sweet tooth
and started chatting
about love.
He knew that really would not work and sure enough things got
worse---for a fine rebellious bunch we are.
This time people started stockpiling nukes,
and lawsuits plagued the land, and smog put a full nelson
on our lungs,
and T.V. hijacked brains, which caused millions to
vote Republican---
wow---
and all because we couldn't
bust a couple
koans.
~Daniel Ladinsky~
Still lurking about
-
nice one
-
"Everyone Outdoors Talking"
First day of spring,
beginning a whole year of spring!
Everyone outdoors talking.
Rose to narcissus:
"Have you seen that ugly raven's face?"
"No, he has no interest in us."
"That's good news!"
Pomegranate asks the apple tree for a peach.
"All you loafers down at that end of the orchard, you're
always wanting peaches."
"You got to have a soul like Jesus
to be handed a peach!"
Inside this ordinary banter
come messages from the source,
from absolute absence.
The plants stretch new wings
in the sun. Cloud and fog burn off.
"Bless your heart."
"That's enough."
Sun moves into Aries, permanently!
"Come see me."
"I will. I'd like that. But I can't leave this."
Ground soaked, sky full of candles.
Visions of fire and water alternating.
Drag your feet off the boat.
Look at him standing there.
I used to have mountain
ranges inside my chest. Now it's smooth plain.
Grief lives between the cat paws.
You can say eek-eek or gehk-gohk,
but there's no way to escape.
Throw this cloth-making equipment into the fire,
the alphabet spindle that's stuck in your throat,
the cleft stick of your neck wrapped with thread.
Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 1298
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999
-
The Candle Flame
He gave me heaven and earth, and assumed I'd be satisfied,
Actually I was too embarrassed to argue.
The spiritual seekers are tired, two or three at each stage of the path.
The rest who have given up never knew your address at all.
There are so many in this gathering who wish the candle well.
But if the being of the candle is melting, what can the sorrow-sharers do?
Mirza Ghalib
19th Century India
Sufi
Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib, by Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib / Translated by Robert Bly
-
Now No Trace Remains
I thought that in this whole world
no beloved for me remained.
Then I left myself.
Now no stranger in the world remains.
I used to see in every object a thorn
but never a rose--
the universe became a rose garden.
Not a single thorn remains.
Day and night my heart
was moaning "Ahhh!"
I don't know how it happened--
now no "Ahhh" remains.
Duality went, Unity came.
I met with the Friend in private;
The multitude left, the One came.
Only the One remains.
Religion, piety, custom, reputation--
these used to matter greatly to me.
O Niyazi -- what has happened to you?
No trace of religion now remains.
Niyazi Misri
17th Century Turkey
-
Raga Dhanashri
The body is God,
the body is the temple,
the body is the worshiper,
the body is the sacred shrine.
The body is the incense,
the lamp, the sacred offerings;
it is the body I worship
with broken petals.
After searching
all the world,
it was in the body
I found all the treasure
of the world.
Nothing is born,
nothing dies --
such is Ram's light.
What is contained
in the universe
is also contained
in the body:
whatever you seek,
you shall find.
Pipa says, He is Primal Matter;
the true guru will show this.
Pipa
15th Century India
-
In Silence
Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try
to speak your
name.
Listen
to the living walls.
Who are you?
Who
are you? Whose
silence are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you (as these stones
are quiet). Do not
think of what you are
still less of
what you may one day be.
Rather
be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one
you do not know.
O be still, while
you are still alive,
and all things live around you
speaking (I do not hear)
to your own being,
speaking by the unknown
that is in you and in themselves.
“I will try, like them
to be my own silence:
and this is difficult. The whole
world is secretly on fire. The stones
burn, even the stones they burn me.
How can a man be still or
listen to all things burning?
How can he dare to sit with them
when all their silence is on fire?”
~Thomas Merton
-
Rough Metaphors
Someone said, "there is no dervish, or if there is a dervish,
that dervish is not there."
Look at a candle flame in bright noon sunlight.
If you put cotton next to it, the cotton will burn,
but its light has become completely mixed
with the sun.
That candlelight you can't find is what's left of a dervish...
If you sprinkle one ounce of vinegar over
two hundred tons of sugar,
no one will ever taste the vinegar.
A deer faints in the paws of a lion. The deer becomes
another glazed expression on the face of the lion.
These are rough metaphors for what happens to the lover.
There's no one more openly irreverent than a lover. He, or she,
jumps up on the scale opposite eternity
and claims to balance it.
And no one more secretly reverent.
A grammar lesson: "The lover died."
"Lover" is subject and agent, but that can't be!
The "lover" is defunct.
Only grammatically is the dervish-lover a doer.
In reality, with he or she so overcome,
so dissolved into love,
all qualities of doingness
disappear.
'The Essential Rumi'
Barks/Moyne
-
Traveling Companions
The one who cheerfully goes alone on a journey -
if he travels with companions
his progress is increased a hundredfold.
Notwithstanding the insensitivity of a donkey,
even the donkey is exhilarated, O dervish,
by comrades of its own kind
and so becomes capable of exerting strength.
To a donkey who goes alone and away from the caravan,
the road is made longer a hundredfold by fatigue.
How much more it suffers the crop and the whip
that it might cross the desert by itself!
That ass is implicitly telling you, Pay attention!
Don't travel alone like this, unless you are an ass!"
Beyond a doubt the one
who cheerfully goes alone into the toll house
proceeds more cheerfully with companions.
Every prophet on this straight path
produced the testimony of miracles and sought fellow travelers.
Mathnawi V1, 512-518
'The Rumi Collection'
(Translated by Kabir Helminski and Camille Helminski)
-
Green Ears
Rumi
There was a long drought. Crops dried up.
The vineyard leaves turned black.
People were gasping and dying like fish
thrown up on the shore and left there.
But one man was always laughing and smiling.
A group came and asked,
'Have you no compassion for the suffering?'
He answered, 'To your eyes this is a drought.
To me, it is a form of God's joy.
Everywhere in this desert I see green corn
growing waist high, a sea-wilderness
of young ears greener than leeks.
I reach to touch them.
How could I not?
You and your friends are like the Pharaoh
drowning in the Red Sea of your bodies blood.
Become friends with Moses, and see this other riverwater.'
When you think your father is guilty of an injustice,
his face looks cruel. Joseph, to his envious brothers,
seemed dangerous. When you make peace with your father,
he will look peaceful and friendly. The whole world
is a form for truth.
When someone does not feel grateful
to that, the forms appear to be *as he feels*.
They mirror his anger, his greed, and his fear.
Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it.
It will turn to gold. Resurrection
will be now. Every moment,
a new beauty.
And never any boredom!
Instead this abundant, pouring
noise of many springs in your ears.
The tree limbs will move like people dancing,
who suddenly know what the mystical life is.
The leaves snap their fingers like they're hearing music.
They are! A sliver of mirror shines out
from under a felt covering. Think how it will be
when the whole thing is open to the air and the sunlight!
There are some mysteries that I'm not telling you.
There's so much doubt everywhere, so many opinions
that say, 'What you announce may be true
in the future, but not now.'
But this form of universal truth that I see
says,
*This is not a prediction. This is here
in this instant, cash in the hand!*
This reminds me of the sons of Uzayr,
who were out on the road looking for their father.
They had grown old, and their father had miraculously
grown young! They met him and asked, 'Pardon us, sir,
but have you seen Uzayr? We heard that he's supposed
to be coming along this road today.'
'Yes,' said Uzayr, 'he's right behind me.'
One of the sons replied, 'That's good news!'
The other fell on the ground.
He had recognized his father.
'What do you mean *news!* We're already inside
the sweetness of his presence.'
To your minds there is such a thing as *news*,
whereas to the inner knowing, it's all
in the middle of its happening.
To doubters, this is a pain.
To believers, it's a gospel.
To the lover and the visionary,
it's life as it's being lived!
The rules of faithfulness
are just the door and the doorkeeper.
They keep the presence from being interrupted.
Being unfaithful is like the outside of a fruit peeling.
It's dry and bitter because it's facing away from the center.
Being faithful is like the inside of the peeling,
wet and sweet. But the place for peelings
is the fire. The real inside is beyond 'sweet'
and 'bitter.' It's the source of deliciousness.
This can't be said. I'm drowning in it!
Turn back! And let me cleave a road through water
like Moses. This much I will say,
and leave the rest hidden:
Your intellect is in fragments, like bits of gold
scattered over many matters. You must scrape them
together, so the royal stamp can be pressed into you.
Cohere, and you'll be as lovely as Samarcand
with its central market, or Damascus. Grain by grain,
collect the parts. You'll be more magnificent
than a flat coin. You'll be a cup
with carvings of the king
around the outside.
The Friend will become bread and springwater for you,
a lamp and a helper, your favorite dessert
and a glass of wine.
Union with that one
is grace. Gather the pieces,
so I can show you what is.
That's what talking is for,
to help us to be One. Manyness
is having sixty different emotions.
Unity is peace, and silence.
I know I ought to be silent,
but the excitement of this keeps opening
my mouth as a sneeze or a yawn does.
Muhammed says, *I ask forgiveness seventy times a day*,
and I do the same. Forgive me, forgive my talking
so much. But the way God makes mysteries *manifest*
quickens and keeps the flow of words in me continual.
A sleeper sleeps while his bedclothes drink in
the riverwater. The sleeper dreams of running around
looking for water and pointing in the dream to mirages,
'Water! There! There!' It's that *There!*
that keeps him asleep. *In the future, in the distance*,
those are illusions. Taste the *here* and the *now* of God.
The present thirst is your real intelligence,
not the back-and-forth, mercurial brightness.
Discursiveness dies and gets put in the grave.
This contemplative joy does not.
Scholarly knowledge is a vertigo,
an exhausted famousness.
Listening is better.
Being a teacher is a form of desire,
a lightning flash. Can you ride to Wahksh,
far up the Oxus River, on a streak of lightning?
Lightning is not guidance.
Lightning simply tells the clouds to weep.
Cry a little. The streak-lightning of our minds
comes so that we'll weep and long for our real lives.
A child's intellect says, 'I should go to school.'
But that intellect cannot teach itself.
A sick person's mind says, 'Go to the doctor,'
but that doesn't cure the patient.
Some devils were sneaking up close to heaven
trying to hear the secrets, when a voice came,
'Get out of here. Go to the world. Listen
to the prophets!' Enter the house through the door.
It's not a long way. You are empty reeds,
but you can become sugarcane again,
if you'll listen to the guide.
When a handful of dirt was taken from the hoofprint
of Gabriel's horse and thrown inside the golden calf,
the calf lowed! That's what the guide can do
for you. The guide can make you *live*.
The guide will take your falcon's hood off.
Love is the falconer, your king.
Be trained by that. Never say, or think,
'I am better than...whoever. '
That's what Satan thought.
Sleep in the spirit tree's peaceful shade,
and never stick your head out from that green.
'Essential Rumi'
Coleman Barks/John Moyne
-
Fasting is a way to save on food.
Vigil and prayer is a labor for old folks.
Pilgrimage is an occasion for tourism.
To distribute bread in alms is something for philanthropists.
Fall in love:
That is doing something!
Ansari
as collected by James Fadiman & Robert Frager
-
The Moths and the Flame
Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle light,
And they decided one of them should go
To gather news of the elusive glow.
One flew till in the distance he discerned
A palace window where a candle burned --
And went no nearer: back again he flew
To tell the others what he thought he knew.
The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,
Remarking: "He knows nothing of the flame."
A moth more eager than the one before
Set out and passed beyond the palace door.
He hovered in the aura of the fire,
A trembling blur of timorous desire,
Then headed back to say how far he'd been,
And how much he had undergone and seen.
The mentor said: "You do not bear the signs
Of one who's fathomed how the candle shines."
Another moth flew out -- his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both self and fire were mingled by his dance --
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head,
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,
The moth's form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: "He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak."
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
Will drag you back and plunge you in despair --
No creature's self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.
from The Conference of the Birds
Farid ud-Din Attar
-
Choose A Suffering
Yesterday in the assembly I saw my
soul inside the jar of the one who
pours. "Don't forget your job," I
said. He came with his lighted
face, kissed the full glass, and as
he handed it to me, it became a
red-gold oven taking me in, a ruby
mine, a greening garden. Everyone
chooses a suffering that will change
him or her to a well-baked loaf.
Abu Lahab, biting his hand, chose
doubt. Abu Huraya, his love for
cats! One searches a confused mind
for evidence. The other has a
leather sack full of what he needs.
If we could be silent now, the
master would tell us some stories
they hear in the high council.
-- Ghazal (Ode) 1246
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
-
Cry Out Your Grief
Cry out all your grief, your
disappointments! Say them in
Farsi, then Greek. It doesn't
matter whether you're from Rum
or Arabia. Praise the beauty
and kindness praised by every
living being. You hurt and have
sharp desire, yet your presence
is a healing calm. Sun, moon,
bonfire, candle, which? Someone
says your flame is about to be
dowsed, bu you're not smoke or
fire. You're infinitely more
alive. Say how that is! This
fluttering love will not stay
much longer in my chest. Soon it
will fly like a falcon to its
master, like an owl saying HU.
-- Ghazal 2208
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
(http://fireflyforest.net/images/firefly/2005/December/Great-Horned-Owl-tree.jpg)
-
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 one belongs!
Rumi
Coleman Barks
http://www.youtube.com/v/sa07vKCwWPA&hl=en&fs=1
-
The minute I'm disappointed, I feel encouraged.
When I'm ruined, I'm healed.
When I'm quiet and solid as the ground, then I talk
the low tones of thunder for everyone.
~Rumi
-
Encore post...
Waking
Even the man who is happy
glimpses something
or a hair of sound touches him
and his heart overflows with a longing
he does not recognize
then it must be that he is remembering
in a place out of reach
shapes he has loved
in a life before this
the print of them still there in him waiting
~Kalidasa
4th Century India
-
I say that no one in this caravan is awake
and that while you sleep, a thief is stealing
the signs and symbols of what you thought
was your life. Now you’re angry with me for
telling you this! Pay attention to those who
hurt your feelings telling you the truth.
Giving and absorbing compliments is like
trying to paint on water, that insubstantial.
Here is how a man once talked with his house.
“Please, if you’re ever about to collapse,
let me know. “ One night without a word the
house fell. “What happened to our agreement?”
The house answered, “Day and night I’ve been
telling you with cracks and broken boards and
holes appearing like mouths opening. But you
kept patching and filling those with mud, so
proud of your stopgap masonry. You didn’t
listen.” This house is your body always
saying, I’m leaving; I’m going soon. Don’t
hide from the one who knows the secret. Drink
the wine of turning toward God. Don’t examine
your urine. Examine instead how you praise,
what you wish for, this longing we’ve been
given. Fall turns pale light yellow wanting
spring, and spring arrives! Seeds blossom.
Come to the orchard and see what comes
to you, a silent conversation with your soul.
-- Rumi, Ghazal (Ode) 1134
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999
-
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.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Like This"
-
Beautiful!
-
I Am So Glad
Start seeing everything as God,
But keep it a secret.
Become like a man who is awestruck
And Nourished
Listening to a Golden Nightingale sing in a beautiful foreign language
While God invisibly nests
Upon its tongue.
Hafiz,
Who can you tell in this world that when a dog runs up to you
Wagging its ecstatic tail,
You lean down and whisper in its ear,
"Beloved,
I am so glad YOU are happy to see me.
Beloved,
I am so glad,
So very glad You have come."
~Hafiz by Ladinsky
(http://images-cdn01.associatedcontent.com/image/A4643/464364/300_464364.jpg)
(http://image.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/labrador-retriever-0335.jpg)
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1090/1221361547_bbf13ce675.jpg?v=0)
-
If you want a kingdom and get it,
you'll have no peace.
If you give it away,
still you won't be content.
Only a soul free of desire
can taste eternity.
Be living, yet dead!
Then knowing comes
to live in you.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
-
To learn the scriptures is easy,
to live them, hard.
The search for the Real
is no simple matter.
Deep in my looking,
the last words vanished.
Joyous and silent,
the waking that met me there.
~Lalla
-
the last words vanished.
-
You Are the Only Student You Have
You are the only faithful student you have.
All the others leave eventually.
Have you been making yourself shallow
with making others 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.
Rumi
-- Mathnawi, V, 3195-3219)
Version by Coleman Barks
"Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion,"
Threshold Books, 1991
-
This sounds a bit like what della was talking about after one conjoins with the double and becomes a singularity of consciousness. Thanks V.
-
This sounds a bit like what della was talking about after one conjoins with the double and becomes a singularity of consciousness. Thanks V.
Chaikhana's poem of the day -- serendipity/synchronicity.
-
Knowledge should mean a full grasp of knowledge:
Knowledge means to know yourself, heart and soul.
If you have failed to understand yourself,
Then all of your reading has missed its call.
What is the purpose of reading those books?
So that Man can know the All-Powerful.
If you have read, but failed to understand,
Then your efforts are just a barren toil.
Don't boast of reading, mastering science
Or of all your prayers and obeisance.
If you don't identify Man as God,
All your learning is of no use at all.
The true meaning of the four holy books
Is found in the alphabet's first letter.
You talk about that first letter, preacher;
What is the meaning of that-could you tell?
Yunus Emre says to you, Pharisee,
Make the holy pilgrimage if need be
A hundred times -- but if you ask me,
A visit to the heart is best of all.
~Yunus Emre
13th Century Turkey
-
Above all, don't wish to become a future Buddha;
Your only concern should be,
As thought follows thought,
To avoid clinging to any of them.
Dogen
13th Century Japan
-
And if, my friend, you ask me the way,
I'll tell you plainly, it is this:
to turn your face toward the world of life,
and turn your back on rank and reputation;
and, spurning outward prosperity, to bend
your back double in his service;
to part company with those who deal in words,
and take your pace in the presence of the wordless.
Hakim Sanai
11th Century Sufi
Afghanistan
-
The soul, like the moon,
is now, and always new again.
And I have seen the ocean
continuously creating.
Since I scoured my mind
and my body, I too, Lalla,
am new, each moment new.
My teacher told me one thing,
live in the soul.
When that was so,
I began to go naked,
and dance.
Lalla
14th Century Shaivite - India
-
Let the ascetics sing of the garden of Paradise --
We who dwell in the true ecstasy can forget their vase-tamed bouquet.
In our hall of mirrors, the map of the one Face appears
As the sun's splendor would spangle a world made of dew.
Hidden in this image is also its end,
As peasants' lives harbor revolt and unthreshed corn sparks with fire.
Hidden in my silence are a thousand abandoned longings:
My words the darkened oil lamp on a stranger's unspeaking grave.
Ghalib, the road of change is before you always:
The only line stitching this world's scattered parts.
~Mirza Ghalib
Sufi
19th Century India
(http://www.areavoices.com/astrobob/images/Sparks_1.jpg)
-
I carry a torch in one hand
And a bucket of water in the other:
With these things I am going to set fire to Heaven
And put out the flames of Hell
So that voyagers to God can rip the veils
And see the real goal.
~Rabia
(http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t227/firecrackling/bonfire.jpg?t=1247679804)
-
I like that!
-
Saints Bowing in the Mountains
Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear,
For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colored bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.
I see saints bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.
Speak to me of your mother,
Your cousins and friends.
Tell me of birds and squirrels you know.
Awaken your legion of nightingales --
Let them soar wild and free in the sky.
And begin to sing to God.
Let's all begin to sing to God!
Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear,
Yet Hafiz
Could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!
~Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
I Heard God Laughing
-
Beautiful Empty Pages
What kind of work
Can I do in this world?
Who would be kind enough
To hire an old holy Bum,
One with a great reputation
For loving the charms
Of the lawless
And the wild artists and the lewd?
Maybe I could become a poet.
Maybe the Beloved
Will make my love so pure
That He will come to sit upon
All my Beautiful empty pages.
And when you come to look at them,
He might kick you
With His Beautiful Divine Foot.
~Hafiz by Ladinsky
I Heard God Laughing
-
I am afraid for myself
Ever since your visit or was it a visitation
your light has been lodged in me,
now I drift somnolent, heady and
the light doesn't stop seeping from my eyes,
people are transfixed by this light,
I ask God-What is this madness?
This madness of carrying another person within me,
God replies-How can you know me if you don't know this madness?
Usha Akella
A face that does not bear the footprints of the world
-
Ram Tzu knows this…
There is a hole
Inside you that
You try desperately
To fill up.
You pour in
Various satisfactions
To make yourself
Feel alright.
Sometimes,
If you can get enough,
The hole fills to the brim
And there is a
Blissful moment of evenness.
But your hole is open
At the bottom.
Its contents always leak through
Leaving you empty
Again
And desperate
For more.
Ram Tzu know what must be done…
You must be thrown in the hole.
- Ram Tzu
No Way for the Spiritually "Advanced"
Ram Tzu
Advaita Press, 1990
-
Encore!
LANDLOCKED IN FUR
I was meditating with my cat the other day
and all of a sudden she shouted,
"What happened?"
I knew exactly what she meant, but encouraged
her to say more--feeling that if she got it all out on the table
she would sleep better that night.
so I responded, "Tell me more, dear,"
and she soulfully meowed,
"Well, I was mingled with the sky. I was comets
whizzing here and there. I was suns in heat, hell--I was
galaxies. But now look--I am
landlocked in fur."
To this I said, "I know exactly what
you mean."
What to say about conversation
between
mystics?
Tukaram
Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Poems From the East and West
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
-
"The Fragile Vial"
I need a mouth as wide as the sky
to say the nature of a True Person, language
as large as longing.
The fragile vial inside me often breaks.
No wonder I go mad and disappear for three days
every month with the moon.
For anyone in love with you,
it's always these invisible days.
I've lost the thread of the story I was telling.
My elephant roams his dream of Hindustan again.
Narrative, poetics, destroyed, my body,
a dissolving, a return.
Friend, I've shrunk to a hair trying to say your story.
Would you tell mine?
I've made up so many love stories.
Now I feel fictional.
Tell me!
The truth is, you are speaking, not me.
I am Sinai, and you are Moses walking there.
This poetry is an echo of what you say.
A piece of land can't speak, or know anything!
Or if it can, only within limits.
The body is a device to calculate
the astronomy of the spirit.
Look through that astrolabe
and become oceanic.
Why this distracted talk?
It's not my fault I rave.
You did this.
Do you approve of my love-madness?
Say yes.
What language will you say it in, Arabic or Persian,
or what? Once again, I must be tied up.
Bring the curly ropes of your hair.
Now I remember the story.
A True Man stares at his old shoes
and sheepskin jacket. Every day he goes up
to his attic to look at his work-shoes and worn-out coat.
This is his wisdom, to remember the original clay
and not get drunk with ego and arrogance.
To visit those shoes and jacket
is praise.
The Absolute works with nothing.
The workshop, the materials
are what does not exist.
Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it.
Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing,
where something might be planted,
a seed, possibly, from the Absolute.
-- Mathnawi V; 1884-1920; 1959-64
Poetic version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
-
If They Only Knew
By Hallaj (Mansur al-Hallaj)
(9th Century)
English version by Michael A. Sells
What earth is this
so in want of you
they rise up on high
to seek you in heaven?
Look at them staring
at you
right before their eyes,
unseeing, unseeing, blind.
. . .
I was patient,
but can the heart
be patient of
its heart?
My spirit and yours
blend together
whether we are near one another
or far away.
I am you,
you,
my being,
end of my desire.
The most intimate of secret thoughts
enveloped
and fixed along the horizon
in folds of light.
How? The "how" is known
along the outside,
while the interior of beyond
to and for the heart of being.
Creatures perish
in the darkened
blind of quest,
knowing intimations.
Guessing and dreaming
they pursue the real,
faces turned toward the sky
whispering secrets to the heavens.
While the lord remains among them
in every turn of time
abiding in their every condition
every instant.
Never without him, they,
not for the blink of an eye --
if only they knew!
nor he for a moment without them.
Ivan Granger:
Mansur al-Hallaj is one of the more controversial figures of Sufism. Considered by many to be a great poet-saint, he was executed for blasphemy and sorcery.
The name al-Hallaj means "wool carder," probably a reference to his family's
traditional occupation. Al-Hallaj was born in the province of Fars, Persia
(Iran). He later moved to what is now Iraq, where he took up religious studies, particularly the Sufi way.
Orthodox religious authorities took offense at his poetry and teachings,
particularly the line in one of his great poems "Ana 'l-Haqq," which translates as "I am the Real," but can also be translated as "I am the Truth" or "I am God" -- acknowledging the mystical realization of unity with the Eternal. He was condemned by a council of theologians, imprisoned for nine years, and eventually put to death. He is revered today as a martyr for truth by many Sufis and mystics.
-
You Leave Your Greatness Behind You
Jani has had enough of samsara,
but how will I repay my debt?
You leave your greatness behind you
to grind and pound with me.
O Lord you become a woman
washing me and my soiled clothes,
proudly you carry the water
and gather dung with your own two hands.
O Lord, I want
a place at your feet,
says Jani, Namdev's dasi.
~Janabai
13th Century India
Ivan Granger:
Janabai was born in the Maharashtra region of India to a low-caste family. It was not uncommon for poor families to hire their children out as domestic servants, and this is what happened to Janabai at age 7. But the household she was sent to was unusual, for it belonged to the much-revered poet Namdev. It was in this household that Janabai spent the rest of her life.
Janabai's poetry suggests a life of difficult labor in the household, but one that was constantly revived and supported by her intimacy with the Divine.
--
Janabai starts off this poem by proclaiming that she "has had enough of samsara," the world of suffering and illusion. But how can she purify herself of karma -- "but how will I repay my debt?" She begins with a daunting image of God and karma, God as a sort of king who mercilessly collects karmic debts.
But then the vision shifts to something more intimate. God leaves his "greatness" behind and, like Janabai herself, takes on the humble role of a servant "to grind and pound" and wash. These are traditionally a woman's duties so God has "become a woman," a loving mother rather than a stern father.
But what is being washed here is Janabai herself and her "soiled clothes," her awareness. She implies that God's grinding and pounding is being done with her, but also upon her -- the purifying work of karma finally being paid. In the divine process of spiritual purification, God takes on the humble role of washerwoman, content to "carry the water" of divine energy that purifies, and not above gathering the dung of the material world which is burned for purifying fires.
This is not a vision of God in might and majesty, not a God kept hidden in temples and obscure rituals, and not an aloof debt-collector. Janabai's God is, like herself, a servant-woman, a God who works side-by-side with her in the daily chores, a God who serves even the lowest servant. Janabai identifies herself as Namdev's dasi or servant, and she is made holy by worshipping a servant God. By recognizing the Divine as being similar to herself, she also recognizes that she, even in her humble state, is similar to the Divine.
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/J/Janabai/index.htm
-
In Qazwin, they have a custom of tattooing themselves
for good luck, with a blue ink, on the back
of the hand, the shoulder, wherever.
A certain man goes to his barber
and asks to be given a powerful, heroic, blue lion
on his shoulder blade. "And do it with flair!
I've got Leo ascending. I want plenty of blue!"
But as soon as the needle starts pricking,
he howls,
"What are you doing?"
"The lion."
"Which limb did you start with?"
"I began with the tail."
"Well, leave out the tail. That lion's rump
is in a bad place for me. It cuts off my wind."
The barber continues, and immediately
the man yells out,
"Ooooooooo! Which part now?"
"The ear."
"Doc, let's do a lion with no ears this time."
The barber shakes his head, and once more the needle,
and once more the wailing,
"Where are you now?"
"The belly."
"I like a lion without a belly."
The master lion-maker
stands for a long time with his fingers in his teeth.
Finally he throws the needle down.
"No one has ever
been asked to do such a thing! To create a lion
without a tail or a head or a stomach.
God himself could not do it!"
Brother, stand the pain.
Escape the poison of your impulses.
The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do.
Learn to light the candle. Rise with the sun.
Turn away from the cave of your sleeping.
That way a thorn expands to a rose.
A particular glows with the universal.
What is it to praise?
Make yourself particles.
What is it to know something of God?
Burn inside that presence. Burn up.
Copper melts in the healing elixir.
So melt yourself in the mixture
that sustains existence.
You tighten your two hands together,
determined not to give up saying "I" and "we."
This tightening blocks you.
Rumi
-- Mathnawi I: 2981-3021
Poetic version by Coleman Barks
(Derived from Nicholson's translation)
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
-
What I want is to see your face
in a tree, in the sun coming out, in the air.
What I want is to hear the falcon-drum,
and light again on your forearm.
You say, "Tell him I'm not here." The
sound of that brusque dismissal becomes
what I want.
To see in every palm your elegant silver coin-shavings,
to turn with the wheel of the rain,
to fall with the falling bread of every experience,
to swim like a huge fish in ocean water,
to be Jacob recognizing Joseph.
To be a desert mountain instead of a city.
I'm tired of cowards.
I want to live with lions.
With Moses.
Not whining, teary people.
I want the ranting of drunkards.
I want to sing like birds sing, not worrying
who hears, or what they think.
Last night, a great teacher went
from door to door with a lamp.
"He who is not to be found is the one
I'm looking for."
Beyond wanting, beyond place, inside form,
That One. A flute says, I have no hope
for finding that.
But Love plays and is the music played.
Let that musician finish this poem.
Shams, I am a waterbird flying into the sun.
Rumi
-
You Don't Have to Act Crazy Anymore
You Don't Have to Act Crazy Anymore -
We all know you were good at that.
Now retire, my dear,
From all that hard work you do
Of bringing pain to your sweet eyes and heart.
Look in a clear mountain mirror -
See the Beautiful Ancient Warrior
And the Divine elements
You always carry inside
That infused this Universe with sacred Life
So long ago
And join you Eternally
With all Existence - with God!
From: 'I heard God Laughing -
Renderings of Hafiz' by Daniel Ladinsky
-
I sipped some of love'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.
He said,
Take these pills!
Ok, time to take these pills.
The doctor said,
And get rid of the sweet wine of love's lips!
Ok, time to get rid of the doctor.
Rumi
Tr. Shahram Shiva
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shahram-Shiva/74312308688?ref=nf
-
A Holy Tabernacle in the Heart (from Life of the Future World)
However,
the breath
which is
from the second one
is a
holy
tabernacle
in the heart.
One ascends
with the Unique Name
to the sky
to depict with Unifications
the relationship
between everything that
is difficult
in this
science of pronunciation.
It alone is
life in the Name.
It is remembered and sealed
in the Book of Life
to make the individual live
with passion
which enlightens
constantly, when
every thought,
every soul
is concentrated on it.
Rabbi Abraham Abulafia
13th Century Spain
English version by Jewish Theological Seminary
www.poetrychaikhana.com
-
For a moment I saw a beautiful moving river.
Then a vast water with no means of crossing it.
For a moment, I saw a bush full of opening buds.
Then no roses, no thorns, nothing.
For a moment I saw a busy cooking fire.
Then no hearth, no smoke, no flame.
I saw the great mother of kings, Kunti.
Then, the next moment, sitting here, is
the helpless old aunt of the potter's wife.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
-
STAY CLOSE TO THOSE SOUNDS
The sun turns a key in a lock each day
As soon as it crawls out of bed.
Light swings open a door
And the many kinds of love rush out
Onto the infinite green field.
Your soul sometimes plays a note
Against the Sky's ear that excites
The birds and planets.
Stay close to any sounds
That make you glad you are alive.
Everything in this world is
Helplessly reeling.
An invisible wake was created
When God said to His beautiful dead lover,
"Be."
Hafiz, who will understand you
If you do not explain that last line?
Well then,
I will sing it this way,
When God said to illusion,
"Be."
("The Gift" -- versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
-
The Guest House
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 clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~ Rumi ~
(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)
-
This is one of my favorites by him.
-
THE ARROWS OF LARGER BOWS
I am a lover,
and from His love
I did not escape.
I am a warrior,
and from the field of battle
I did not escape.
Like a lion, I attacked lions,
but in the middle, like a fox,
I did not escape.
Though my aim was the cupola of heaven,
from the snares of this world,
I did not escape.
I was the medicine for every illness,
but from the pain of others
I did not escape.
I revered the prophets with all my soul,
but from evil company
I did not escape.
I am alive in this little box called life;
I am alive because my soul
did not escape.
The only reason I get hit
by the arrows of his eyes
is because from the arrows of larger bows
I did not escape.
The wounds of battle have turned to victory
because of the pain
I did not escape.
I am floating in a sea of nectar,
filled with every delight,
because of the hardships
I did not escape.
When my Master showed himself to me
I was stunned, I could not move –
From the onrush of both worlds
I could not escape!
Rumi -- Ode 1658
Poetic translation by Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi
Bantam Books, 1992
-
"Story-Water"
A story is like the water
you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!
Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.
A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.
Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.
The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing
inside your presence.
Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.
Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.
-- Poetic version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
-
Refuge
I see the lamp, the face, the eye,
an altar where the soul bows, a
gladness and refuge. My loving says,
"Here. I can leave my personality
here." My reason agrees! "How can
I object when a rose makes the bent
backs stand up like cypresses?" Such
surrender changes everything. Turks
understand Armenian! Body abandons
bodiness. Soul goes to the center.
Rubies appear in the begging bowl.
But don't brag when this happens.
Be secluded and silent. Stay in
the delight, and be brought the
cup that will come. No artfulness.
Practice quiet and this new joy.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
HarperCollins, 2001
-
gorgeous - love Rumi
-
In bricks and in granite,
in the red-rubbed lingam,
in copper and brass
is Siva's abode --
that's what you tell us,
and you're wrong.
Stay where you are
and study your own selves.
Then you will BECOME
the Temple of God,
full of His dance and spell
and song.
Civivakkiyar
9th Century Southern Tamil poet
-
It was like a stream
running into the dry bed
of a lake,
like rain
pouring on plants
parched to sticks.
It was like this world's pleasure
and the way to the other,
both
walking towards me.
Seeing the feet of the master
O lord white as jasmine,
I was made
worthwhile.
Akka Mahadevi
12th Century Shaivite
India
-
Year after year
I dug in the earth
looking for the blue of heaven
only to feel
the pile of dirt
choking me
until once in the dead of night
I tripped on a broken brick
and kicked it into the air
and saw that without a thought
I had smashed the bones
of the empty sky
Muso Soseki
(1275 - 1351)
-
"Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions." -Hafiz
-
Little Tiger
The honey bee, a little tiger,
is not addicted to the taste of sugar;
his nature is to extract the juice
from the sweet lotus flower!
Dakinis, above, below, and on earth,
unimpeded by closeness and distance,
will surely extract the blissful essence
when the yogins bound by pledges gather.
The sun, the king of illumination,
is not inflated by self-importance;
by the karma of sentient beings,
it shines resplendent in the sky.
When the sun perfect in skill and wisdom
dawns in the sky of the illuminated mind,
without conceit, you beautify
and crown the beings of all three realms.
The smiling faces of the radiant moon
are not addicted to hide and seek;
by its relations with the sun,
the moon takes waning and waxing forms.
Though my gurus, embodiment of all refuge,
are free of all fluctuation and of faults,
through their flux-ridden karma the disciples perceive
that the guru's three secrets display all kinds of effulgence.
Constellations of stars adorning the sky
are not competing in a race of speed;
due to the force of energy's pull,
the twelve planets move clockwise with ease.
Guru, deity, and dakini -- my refuge --
though not partial toward the faithful,
unfailingly you appear to guard
those with fortunate karma blessed.
The white clouds hovering above on high
are not so light that they arise from nowhere;
it is the meeting of moisture and heat
that makes the patches of mist in the sky.
Those striving for good karma
are not greedy in self-interest;
by the meeting of good conditions
they become unrivaled as they rise higher.
The clear expanse of the autumn sky
is not engaged in the act of cleansing;
yet being devoid of all obscuration,
its pure vision bejewels the eyes.
The groundless sphere of all phenomena
is not created fresh by a discursive mind;
yet when the face of ever-presence is known,
all concreteness spontaneously fades away.
Rainbows radiating colors freely
are not obsessed by attractive costumes;
by the force of dependent conditions,
they appear distinct and clearly.
This vivid appearance of the external world,
though not a self-projected image,
through the play of fluctuating thought and mind,
appears as paintings of real things.
Kelsang Gyatso
The 7th Dalai Lama
18th Century Tibet
Kelsang Gyatso was the seventh Dalai Lama.
He was born in Eastern Tibet and immediately showed himself to be a prodigy of deep wisdom and poetic gifts. While still a young boy, he became famous for his ability to spontaneously compose poetic verse. Inspired by a vision of the poet-monk Tsongkhapa, he traveled to central Tibet. He was immediately recognized for his profound spirit, and gave a sermon before thousands -- still as a boy.
In 1751 he became the seventh Dalai Lama.
~Poetry Chaikhana
(http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/G/GyatsoKelsan/index.htm)
-
The Dullard Sage
Lost in myself
I reappeared
I know not where
a drop that rose
from the sea and fell
and dissolved again;
a shadow
that stretched itself out
at dawn,
when the sun
reached noon
I disappeared.
I have no news
of my coming
or passing away--
the whole thing
happened quicker
than a breath;
ask no questions
of the moth.
In the candle flame
of his face
I have forgotten
all the answers.
In the way of love
there must be knowledge
and ignorance
so I have become
both a dullard
and a sage;
one must be
an eye and yet
not see
so I am blind
and yet I still
perceive,
Dust
be on my head
if I can say
where I
in bewilderment
have wandered:
Attar
watched his heart
transcend both worlds
and under its shadow
now is gone mad
with love.
Farid ud-Din Attar
12th Century Iran
'Bio' by Ivan Granger
Farid ud-Din Attar was born in Nishapur, in north-east Iran. There is disagreement over the exact dates of his birth and death but several sources confirm that he lived about 100 years. He is traditionally said to have been killed by Mongol invaders. His tomb can be seen today in Nishapur.
As a younger man, Attar went on pilgrimage to Mecca and traveled extensively throughout the region, seeking wisdom in Egypt, Damascus, India, and other areas, before finally returning to his home city of Nishapur.
The name Attar means herbalist or druggist, which was his profession. It is said that he saw as many as 500 patients a day in his shop, prescribing herbal remedies which he prepared himself, and he wrote his poetry while attending to his patients.
Attar's poetry inspired Rumi and many other Sufi poets. It is said that Rumi actually met Attar when Attar was an old man and Rumi was a boy, though some scholars dispute this possibility.
Farid ud-Din Attar was apparently tried at one point for heresy and exiled from Nishapur, but he eventually returned to his home city and that is where he died.
A traditional story is told about Attar's death. He was taken prisoner by a Mongol during the invasion of Nishapur. Someone soon came and tried to ransom Attar with a thousand pieces of silver. Attar advised the Mongol not to sell him for that price. The Mongol, thinking to gain an even greater sum of money, refused the silver. Later, another person came, this time offering only a sack of straw to free Attar. Attar then told the Mongol to sell him for that was all he was worth. Outraged at being made a fool, the Mongol cut off Attar's head.
Whether or not this is literally true isn't the point. This story is used to teach the mystical insight that the personal self isn't of much real worth. What is valuable is the Beloved's presence within us -- and that presence isn't threatened by the death of the body.
www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com
-
You Are As You Are
Yesterday, you made a promise.
Today, you broke it. Yesterday,
Bistami's dance. Today, dregs
thrown out. In pieces, and at
the same time, a perfect glass
filled with sunlight. Give up
on figuring the appearances, the
dressing in green like a Sufi.
You don't resemble anyone. You're
not the bride or the groom. You
don't fit in a house with a family.
You've left the closed-in corner
where you lived. Domestic animals
get ridden to work. Not you. You
are as you are, an indescribable
message coming on the air. Every
word you say, medicine. But
not yet: stay quiet and still.
-- Rumi, Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
A verse commemorating Rumi's death, written by Rumi's son:
From this foul, fulsome world, Rumi moved on
After ten sweet years with Hosam al-Din*
On a December's day, the seventeenth*
came to pass that proud monarch's moving on
Of years six hundred seventy and two
since the Hijra of the Prophet* had gone by
The eye of mankind wept so sore that day
its lightning struck and burned away the souls
A quaking overtook the earth that moment
in the heavens rose a wail of mourning
The people of the town, both young and old
wailed and wept and sighed in lamentation
The villagers nearby, both Greeks and Turks
in pain upon his loss rent wide their collars
all paid the corpse their last loving respects
Folks from every faith proved faithful to him --
in love with him the people of all nations
-- SVE 121
From Sultan Valad's "Valad nameh" (Persian, "The
Book of Valad), also known as "Ebteda nameh"
Translation by Professor Franklin D. Lewis
"Rumi, Past and Present, East and West"
Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2000
Sunlight notes:
* Hosam al-Din -- a sufi shaykh in his own right, Hosam al-Din
acted as Rumi's scribe, editor, and inspiration during the writing
of the Mathnawi. It's interesting to learn that the composition of
the Mathnawi was suspended when Hosam al-Din's wife died
and he was withdrawn in mourning. He also acted as an
administrator of Rumi's school in Konya.
* "December 17th" -- the Christian calendar equivalent of the fifth
day of Jumadi II. "Jumadi II" is the sixth month of the Arabic lunar
calendar.
* Seventy two and six hundred years since the Hijra of the Prophet --
"Hijra" (Arabic), the flight of the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca
(in Sept., 622 A.D. per the Christian calendar) to Medina.
The Muslim calendar dates from the first day of the hijra.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sunlight/messages
-
I Saw Goodness Getting Drunk
I am gone,
lost any sense of wanting the wine
of the nowhereness ask me,
I don't know where I am.
At times I plunge
to the bottom of the sea,
at times, rise up
like the Sun.
At times, the universe is pregnant by me,
at times I give birth to it.
The milestone in my life
is the nowhereness,
I don't fit anywhere else.
This is me:
a rogue and a drunkard,
easy to spot
in the tavern of Lovers.
I am the one shouting hey ha.
They ask me why I don't
behave myself.
I say, when you
reveal your true nature,
then I will act my age.
Last night, I saw Goodness getting drunk.
He growled and said,
I am a nuisance, a nuisance.
A hundred souls cried out, but
we are yours, we are yours, we are yours.
You are the light
that spoke to Moses and said
I am God, I am God, I am God.
I said Shams-e Tabrizi, who are you?
He said, I am you, I am you, I am you.
Rumi by Shahram Shiva
-
Whispering, then listening close
from the vision of one
casting away his all, instantly,
out of an omnipotent hand.
Thus I read the knowledge of the scholars
in a single word,
and I reveal all the worlds to me
with a simple glance.
I hear the many voices
of those who pray in every tongue
in a space of time
shorter than a flash.
And I bring before me
what before had been
too far away to bear,
in a blink of my eye.
I inhale the bouquet of gardens
and the sweet scents clinging to the skirts
of the four winds,
in a simple breath.
I survey the far horizons round me
in a momentary thought,
and cross the seven heavens
with a single step.
Umar Ibn al-Farid
from Poem of the Sufi Way
13th Century Arabic (Egypt)
Although hailed throughout the Muslim world as one of the great spiritual classics, Ibn al-Farid's Poem of the Sufi Way has also been controversial because in it he refers to the Beloved -- God -- as "her," rather than in the more traditional masculine gender. ~Ivan Granger
-
A true Lover doesn't follow any one religion,
be sure of that.
Since in the religion of Love,
there is no irreverence or faith.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.
Become this,
fall in Love,
and you will not be separated again.
Rumi by Shahram Shiva
-
Whoever leaves our circle for another place
might as well relinquish sense of sight and sound
A lover licks his liver's blood, lion-like;
what lion-heart would shrink from love and guts?
Hearts suck up cruelty from heart-throbs like cubes of sugar;
did you ever see a parrot turn from sugar?
It's a small gnat that turns at every headwind
Only stealthy thieves scatter in moonlight.
Any head that the Lord strikes dumb or scrambles
drops its place in heaven and heads for hellfire.
And he who fathoms death leaps to welcome death
rushes for the robe, crown and realm eternal.
Fate decrees that so-and-so will die abroad
and fear of the reaper spurs him from his home
Enough of stalking such unbecoming prey!
for the night and its phantoms flee from the dawn.
Notes:
The beloved is frequently compared to moonlight, so it is only thieves who would run from the present of the beloved. "Fear of the reaper spurs him" alludes to a famous hadith: When God wants to seize one of His servants from a certain place on earth, He makes it necessary for that servant to go there. Rumi tells a tale about this in the Masnavi.
-- Ghazal (Ode) 794
Translation by Franklin D. Lewis
"Rumi -- Past and Present, East and West"
Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2000
-
TENDING TWO SHOPS
Don't run around this world
looking for a hole to hide in.
There are wild beasts in every cave!
If you live with mice, the cat claws will find you.
The only real rest comes
when you're alone with God.
Live in the nowhere that you came from,
even though you have an address here.
That's why you see things in two ways.
Sometimes you look at a person
and see a cynical snake.
Someone else sees a joyful lover,
and you're both right!
Everyone is half and half,
like the black and white ox.
Joseph looked ugly to his brothers,
and most handsome to his father.
You have eyes that see from that nowhere,
and eyes that judge distances,
how high and how low.
You own two shops,
and you run back and forth.
Try to close the one that's a fearful trap,
getting always smaller. Checkmate,
this way. Checkmate that.
Keep open the shop
where you're not selling fishhooks anymore.
You are the free-swimming fish.
-- Mathnawi II: 590-93, 602-13
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
-
Blame
Keeps the sad game going.
It keeps stealing all your wealth
Giving it to an imbecile with
No financial skills.
Dear one,
Wise
Up.
- Hafiz
"The Gift"
Translations by Daniel Ladinsky
-
The Grandeur of God
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
19th Century England
-
Excerpt from The Secret Rose Garden
THE LIGHT MANIFEST
THE LIGHT
THE Light which is manifest
Leads all hearts captive,
Now as the minstrel, now as the cupbearer.
What a singer is He who, by one strain of sweet melody,
Burns the harvests of a hundred devotees!
What a cupbearer is He who, by a single goblet,
Inebriates two hundred threescore and ten!
Entering the Mosque at dawn,
He leaves there no wakeful man;
Entering the cloister at night,
He makes a fable of Sūfīs' tales;
Entering the college veiled as a drunkard,
The professor becomes hopelessly drunken.
Devotees go mad for love of Him
And become outcasts from house and home,
He makes one faithful, another an infidel,
Disturbing the world.
Taverns have been glorified by His lips,
Mosques have become shining by His cheek.
All I desire I have found in Him,
Gaining deliverance from self,
My heart was ignorant of itself,
Veiled from Him by a hundred veils
Of vanity, conceit, and illusion.
THE VISIT
ONE day at the dawn
The fair idol entered my door
And woke me from my sleep
Of slothful ignorance.
The secret chamber of my soul
Was illumined by His face,
And my being was revealed to me
In its true light.
I heaved a sigh of wonder
When I saw that fair face.
He spoke to me, saying,
"All thy life thou has sought
Name and fame;
This self-seeking of thine
Is an illusion, keeping thee back from Me.
To glance at My face for an instant
Is worth a thousand years of devotion."
Yes, the face of that world-adorner
Was shown unveiled before mine eyes;
My soul was darkened with shame
To remember my lost life,
My wasted days.
THE GIFT
THEN that moon
Whose face shone like the sun,
Seeing I had cast hope away,
Filled a goblet of Divine Knowledge
And, passing to me, bade me drink,
Saying, "With this wine,
Tasteless and odourless,
Wash away the writing
On thy being's tablet."
THE EFFECT OF THE DRAUGHT
INTOXICATED from the pure draught
Which I had drained to the dregs,
In the bare dust I fell.
Since then I know not if I exist or not,
But I am not sober, neither am I ill or drunken.
Sometimes, like His eye, I am full of joy,
Or, like His curl, I am waving;
Sometimes, alas! from habit or nature,
I am lying on a dust heap.
Sometimes, at a glance from Him,
I am back in the Rose Garden.
Sa'd ud Din Mahmud Shabistari
13th Century Persia
-
Tasting the Light
It will arrive suddenly,
when you are unaware.
It will come over you swiftly,
lightning flash
across a large surface of stone.
After everything has melted,
there will be the taste
of bronze and honeyed fruit,
burnt cinnamon,
something blue and electric in the air.
-Dorothy Walters
-
Knowledge should mean a full grasp of knowledge:
Knowledge means to know yourself, heart and soul.
If you have failed to understand yourself,
Then all of your reading has missed its call.
What is the purpose of reading those books?
So that Man can know the All-Powerful.
If you have read, but failed to understand,
Then your efforts are just a barren toil.
Don't boast of reading, mastering science
Or of all your prayers and obeisance.
If you don't identify Man as God,
All your learning is of no use at all.
The true meaning of the four holy books
Is found in the alphabet's first letter.
You talk about that first letter, preacher;
What is the meaning of that-could you tell?
Yunus Emre says to you, Pharisee,
Make the holy pilgrimage if need be
A hundred times -- but if you ask me,
A visit to the heart is best of all.
Yunus Emre
13th Century Turkey
-
From within the Heavens
From within the heavens they come,
the beautiful flowers, the beautiful songs,
but our yearning spoils them,
our inventiveness makes them lose their fragrance,
although not those of the Chichimec prince Tecayehuatzin.
With his, rejoice!
Friendship is a shower of precious flowers
White tufts of heron feathers
are woven with precious red flowers,
among the branches of the trees
under which stroll and sip
the lords and nobles
Your beautiful song
is a golden wood thrush
most beautiful, you raise it up.
You are in a field of flowers.
Among the flowery bushes you sing.
Are you perchance a precious bird of the Giver of Life?
Perchance you have spoken with God?
As soon as you saw the dawn,
you began to sing.
Would that I exert myself, that my heart desire,
the flowers of the shield,
the flowers of the Giver of Life.
What can my heart do?
In vain we have come,
we have blossomed forth on earth.
Will I have to go alone
like the flowers that perish?
Will nothing remain of my name?
Nothing of my fame here on earth?
At least my flowers, at least my songs!
What can my heart do?
In vain we have come,
we have blossomed forth on earth.
Let us enjoy, O friends,
here we can embrace.
We stroll over the flowery earth.
No one here can do away
with the flowers and the songs,
they will endure in the house of the Giver of Life
Earth is the region of the fleeting moment.
Is it also thus in the Place
Where in Some Way One Lives?
Is one happy there?
Is there friendship?
Or is it only here on earth
we come to know our faces?
Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin
(translated by Miguel León-Portilla)
16th Century NAHUATL Poem
Mexico
-
Sorrow looted this heart,
and Your Love threw it to the winds.
This is how the secret which saints and seers were denied
was whispered to me.
Abu-Said Abil-Kheir
11th Century Turkmenistan
Tr. Vraje Abramian
-
Stop Calling Me a Pregnant Woman
My Master once entered a phase
That whenever I would see him
He would say,
"Hafiz,
How did you ever become a pregnant woman?"
And I would reply,
"Dear Attar,
You must be speaking the truth,
But all of what you say is a mystery to me."
Many months passed by in his blessed company.
But one day I lost my patience
Upon hearing that odd refrain
And blurted out,
"Stop calling me a pregnant woman!"
And Attar replied,
"Someday, my sweet Hafiz,
All the nonsense in your brain will dry up
Like a stagnant pool of water
Beneath the sun,
Though if you want to know the Truth
I can so clearly see that God has made love with you
And the whole universe is germinating
Inside your belly
And wonderful words,
Such enlightening words
Will take birth from you
And be cradled against thousands
Of hearts."
Hafiz
-
:) ;)
-
There is
A madman inside of you
Who is always running for office.
Why vote him in,
For he never keeps the accounts straight.
He gets all kinds of crooked deals
Happening all over town
That will just give you a big headache
And glue to your kisser
A gigantic
Confused Frown.
~ Hafiz
"The Gift"
Translations by Daniel Ladinsky
Penguin/Arkana, 1999
-
Love it - another pearl.
But these words keep ringing for me:
Someday, my sweet Hafiz,
All the nonsense in your brain will dry up
Like a stagnant pool of water
Beneath the sun,
Though if you want to know the Truth
I can so clearly see that God has made love with you
And the whole universe is germinating
Inside your belly
-
:)
-
Waiting
I saw a wise man dying of starvation.
Leaves fall in the slightest
wind in December.
And I saw a wealthy man beating his cook
for some mistake with the spices.
Since then, I Lalla, have been waiting
for my love of this place to leave me.
- Lalla
-
Lovers in their brief delight
gamble both worlds away,
a century's worth of work
for one chance to surrender.
Many slow growth-stages build
to quick bursts of blossom.
A thousand half-loves
must be forsaken to take
one whole heart home.
- Rumi
-
Is it the night of power
Or only your hair?
Is it dawn
Or your face?
In the songbook of beauty
Is it a deathless first line
Or only a fragment
copied from your inky eyebrow?
Is it boxwood of the orchard
Or cypress of the rose garden?
The tuba tree of paradise, abundant with dates,
Or your standing beautifully straight?
Is it musk of a Chinese deer
Or scent of delicate rosewater?
The rose breathing in the wind
Or your perfume?
Is it scorching lightning
Or light from fire on Sana'i Mountain?
My hot sigh
Or your inner radiance?
Is it Mongolian musk
Or pure ambergris?
Is it your hyacinth curls
Or your braids?
Is it a glass of red wine at dawn
Or white magic?
Your drunken narcissus eye
Or your spell?
Is it the Garden of Eden
Or heaven on earth?
A mosque of the masters of the heart
Or a back alley?
Everyone faces a mosque of adobe and mud
When they pray.
The mosque of Hayati's soul
Turns to your face.
Bibi Hayati
19th Century Iran
-
There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.
In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.
Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.
There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.
~ Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
Your Mother and My Mother
Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living
In better conditions,
For your mother and my mother
Were friends.
I know the Innkeeper
In this part of the universe.
Get some rest tonight,
Come to my verse again tomorrow.
We'll go speak to the Friend together.
I should not make any promises right now,
But I know if you
Pray
Somewhere in this world --
Something good will happen.
God wants to see
More love and playfulness in your eyes
For that is your greatest gift to Him.
Your soul and my soul
Once sat together in the Beloved's womb
Playing footsie.
Your heart and my heart
Are very, very old
Friends.
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
Stillness, then silence, then random speech,
Then knowledge, intoxication, annihilation;
Earth, then fire, then light.
Coldness, then shade, then sunlight.
Thorny road, then a path, then the wilderness.
River, then ocean, then the shore;
Contentment, desire, then Love.
Closeness, union, intimacy;
Closing, then opening, then obliteration,
Separation, togetherness, then longing;
Signs for those of real understanding
Who find this world of little value.
Mansur al- Hallaj
9th Century Iran and Iraq
-
The universe
The universe
is a kaleidoscope:
now hopelessness, now hope
now spring, now fall.
Forget its ups and downs:
do not vex yourself:
The remedy for pain
is the pain.
Sarmad
17th Century Iran
Sarmad (sometimes called Sarmad the Cheerful or Sarmad the Martyr), is a fascinating and complex character who seems to have bridged several cultures in Persia and India. Apparently, Sarmad originally lived in the Kashan region in Iran, between Tehran and Isfahan. He was from a minority community; some biographies claim Sarmad was originally from a Jewish merchant family, though others say he was Armenian. Because of his possible Jewish heritage and his later migration to Delhi, he is sometimes called the Jewish Sufi Saint of India.
He had an excellent command of both Persian and Arabic, essential for his work as a merchant. Hearing that precious items and works of art were being purchased in India at high prices, Sarmad gathered together his wares and traveled to India where he intended to sell them.
Near the end of his journey, however, he met a beautiful Indian boy and was entranced. This ardent love ('ishq) created such a radical transformation in his awareness that Sarmad immediately dropped all desire for wealth and worldly comfort. In this ecstatic state, Sarmad abandoned his considerable wealth and, losing all concern for social convention, he began to wander about without clothes, becoming a naked faqir.
Some biographers assert that Sarmad formally converted to Islam, while others claim he had a universalist notion of God and religion, seeing no conflict between his Judaism, and the esoteric truth of the Sufi path he adopted. In his own poetry, Sarmad asserts that he is neither Jew, nor Muslim, nor Hindu.
He continued journeying through India, but now as a naked dervish rather than as a merchant. He ended up in Delhi where he found the favor of a prince in the region and gained a certain amount of influence at court. That prince, however, was soon overthrown by Aurengzeb. This new prince and many of the orthodox religious authorities were offended by Sarmad's open criticism of their social hypocrisy and mindless religious formalism.
Sarmad was greatly loved by the general population and Aurengzeb, in fear of the people, staged a show trial to make it appear as if the process of law was being followed. Sarmad was initially accused breaking an injunction against public nudity, but that was later dropped in favor of the charges of atheism and unorthodox religious practice, for which he was convicted. The army was called in to occupy Delhi and prevent a popular uprising, and the naked saint was publicly beheaded. The story is told that, after the beheading, Sarmad's body picked up its own head which recited the Muslim affirmation of faith the kalima-i taiyaba ("There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet") and then proclaimed to the crowd, "Ana al-Haq" ("I am Reality, I am one with God"), a statement famously made by another beloved Sufi martyr, Mansur al-Hallaj. Sarmad thus proclaims the continuing stream of truth despite violent repression, and also his unity with the Ultimate.
Sarmad's tomb in Delhi is today visited by pilgrims of all faiths: Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, and others.
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/Sarmad/index.htm
-
A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.
War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there's a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.
Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.
Know when to speak a word
and when not to speak at all.
A single word turns the universe of hell
into eight paradises.
Follow the Way. Don't be fooled
by what you already know. Be watchful.
Reflect before you speak.
A foolish mouth can brand your soul.
Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words --
Only the word "I"
divides me from God.
~Yunus Emre
13th Century Turkey
-
"If I really see you, I will laugh out loud, or fall silent, or explode into a thousand pieces. And if I don't, I will be caught in the cement and stone of my own prison."
~ Jalal al-Din Rumi
-
Cast All Your Votes for Dancing
I know the voice of depression
Still calls to you.
I know those habits that can ruin your life
Still send their invitations.
But you are with the Friend now
And look so much stronger.
You can stay that way
And even bloom!
Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions' beautiful laughter.
Keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved
And, my dear,
From the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins
That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,
But then drag you for days
Like a broken man
Behind a farting camel.
You are with the Friend now.
Learn what actions of yours delight Him,
What actions of yours bring freedom
And Love.
Whenever you say God's name, dear pilgrim,
My ears wish my head was missing
So they could finally kiss each other
And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!
O keep squeezing drops of the Sun
From your prayers and work and music
And from your companions' beautiful laughter
And from the most insignificant movements
Of your own holy body.
Now, sweet one,
Be wise.
Cast all your votes for Dancing!
Hafiz by Ladinsky
-
Exhortation to the Dawn
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence.
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!
~Kalidasa
4th Century India
-
There are those sleeping who are awake,
and others awake who are sound asleep.
Some of those bathing in sacred pools
will never get clean.
And there are others
doing household chores
who are free of any action.
~Lalla
-
In a boat down a fast-running creek,
it feels like trees on the bank
are rushing by. What seems
to be changing around us
is rather the speed of our craft
leaving this world.
~Rumi
-
The servant for whom the world lovingly wept
the world now rejects: what did he do wrong?
His crime was that he put on borrowed clothes
and pretended he owned them.
We take them back, in order that he may know for sure
that the stock is Ours and the well-dressed are only borrowers;
that he may know that those robes were a loan,
a ray from the Sun of Being.
All that beauty, power, virtue, and excellence
have arrived here from the Sun of Excellence.
They, the light of that Sun, turn back again,
like the stars, from these bodily walls.
When the Sunbeam has returned home,
every wall is left darkened and black.
That which amazed you in the faces of the fair
is the Light of the Sun reflected in the three-colored glass.
The glasses of diverse hue cause the Light to appear colored to us.
When the many-colored glasses are no more,
then the colorless Light amazes you.
Make it your habit to behold the Light without the glass,
so that when the glass is shattered you may not be left blind.
-- Mathnawi V: 981-991
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
-
Two Interpretations of The Song of the Reed
The Song of the Reed
Listen to the song of the reed,
How it wails with the pain of separation:
"Ever since I was taken from my reed bed
My woeful song has caused men and women to weep.
I seek out those whose hearts are torn by separation
For only they understand the pain of this longing.
Whoever is taken away from his homeland
Yearns for the day he will return.
In every gathering, among those who are happy or sad,
I cry with the same lament.
Everyone hears according to his own understanding,
None has searched for the secrets within me.
My secret is found in my lament
But an eye or ear without light cannot know it . . ."
The sound of the reed comes from fire, not wind
What use is one's life without this fire?
It is the fire of love that brings music to the reed.
It is the ferment of love that gives taste to the wine.
The song of the reed soothes the pain of lost love.
Its melody sweeps the veils from the heart.
Can there be a poison so bitter or a sugar so sweet
As the song of the reed?
To hear the song of the reed
everything you have ever known must be left behind.
-- Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Listen
as this reed
pipes its plaint
unfolds its tale
of separations:
Cut from my reedy bed
my crying
ever since
makes men and women
weep
I like to keep my breast
carved with loss
to convey
the pain of longing ---
Once severed
from the root
thirst for union
with the source
endures
I raise my plaint
in any kind of crowd
in front of both
the blessed and the bad
For what they think they hear me say, they love me --
None gaze in me my secrets to discern
My secret is not separate from my cry
But ears and eyes lack light to see it.
Not soul from flesh
nor flesh from soul are veiled
yet none is granted leave to see the soul.
Fire, not breath, makes music through that pipe --
Let all who lack that fire be blown away.
It is love's fire that inspires the reed
It's love's ferment that bubbles in the wine
The reed, soother to all sundered lovers --
its piercing modes reveal our hidden pain:
(What's like the reed, both poison and physic,
Soothing as it pines and yearns away?)
The reed tells the tale of a blood-stained quest
singing legends of love's mad obsessions
Only the swooning know such awareness
only the ear can comprehend the tongue
In our sadness time slides listlessly by
the days searing inside us as they pass.
But so what if the days may slip away?
so long as you, Uniquely Pure, abide.
Within this sea drown all who drink but fish
If lived by bread alone, the day seems long
No raw soul ever kens the cooked one's state
So let talk of it be brief; go in piece.
Break off your chains
My son, be free!
How long enslaved
by silver, gold?
Pour the ocean
in a pitcher,
can it hold more
than one day's store?
The jug, like a greedy eye,
never gets its fill
only the contented oyster holds the pearl
The one run ragged by love and haggard
gets purged of all his faults and greeds
Welcome, Love!
sweet salutary suffering
and healer of our maladies!
cure of our pride
of our conceits,
our Plato,
Our Galen!
By Love
our earthly flesh
borne to heaven
our mountains
made supple
moved to dance
Love moved Mount Sinai, my love,
and it made Moses swoon. [K7:143]
Let me touch those harmonious lips
and I, reed-like, will tell what may be told
A man may know a myriad of songs
but cut from those who know his tongue, he's dumb.
Once the rose wilts and the garden fades
the nightingale will no more sing his tune.
The Beloved is everything -- the lover, a veil
The Beloved's alive -- the lover carrion.
Unsuccored by love, the poor lover is
a plucked bird
Without the Beloved's
surrounding illumination
how perceive what's ahead
and what's gone by?
Love commands these words appear
if no mirror reflects them
in whom lies the fault?
The dross obscures your face
and makes your mirror
unable to reflect
-- Mathnawi I: 1 - 34
Translation by Professor Franklin D. Lewis
"Rumi -- Past and Present, East and West"
Oneworld, Oxford, 2000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Song of the Reed
Mathnawi I: 1-18
Listen* to the reed (flute),* how it is complaining!* It is
telling about separations,*
(Saying), "Ever since I was severed from the reed field,* men and
women have lamented in (the presence of) my shrill cries.*
"(But) I want a heart (which is) torn, torn from separation, so
that I may explain* the pain of yearning."*
"Anyone one who has remained far from his roots,* seeks a return
(to the) time of his union.*
"I lamented in every gathering; I associated with those in bad or
happy circumstances.
"(But) everyone became my friend from his (own) opinion; he did
not seek my secrets* from within me.
"My secret is not far from my lament, but eyes and ears do not
have the light* (to sense it).
"The body is not hidden from the soul, nor the soul from the body;
but seeing the soul is not permitted."*
The reed's cry is fire* -- it's not wind! Whoever doesn't have
this fire, may he be nothing!*
It is the fire of Love that fell into the reeds. (And) it is the
ferment of Love that fell into the wine.*
The reed (is) the companion of anyone who was severed from a
friend; its melodies tore our veils.*
Who has seen a poison and a remedy like the reed? Who has seen
a harmonious companion and a yearning friend like the reed?
The reed is telling the story of the path full of blood;* it is
telling stories of Majnoon's (crazed) love.*
There is no confidant (of) this understanding* except the senseless!
* There is no purchaser of that tongue* except the ear [of the
mystic.]
In our longing,* the days became (like) evenings;* the days
became fellow-travellers with burning fevers.
If the days have passed, tell (them to) go, (and) don't worry.
(But) You remain!* -- O You, whom no one resembles in Purity!
Everyone becomes satiated by water,* except the fish. (And)
everyone who is without daily food [finds that] his days become
long.*
None (who is) "raw" can understand the state of the "ripe."*
Therefore, (this) speech must be shortened. So farewell!*
-- From "The Mathnawî-yé Ma`nawî" [Rhymed
Couplets of Deep Spiritual Meaning] of
Jalaluddin Rumi.
Translated from the Persian by Ibrahim Gamard
(with grateful acknowledgement of R.A. Nicholson's
1926 translation)
(c) Ibrahim Gamard (translation, footnotes, and
transliteration)
*Listen: states of spiritual ecstasy were induced in sufi gatherings
by listening to mystical poetry and music. During such a "mystical
concert" [samâ`-- literally, "audition" or "hearing" session] some
dervishes would enter a spiritual state of consciousness and
spontaneously begin to move. Sometimes they would stand up and
dance or whirl. They would listen to the poetry or music as if they
were hearing the voice of God, the Beloved. Such gatherings were
controversial, were criticized by orthodox Muslim leaders, and were
practiced by very few sufi orders-- usually with restrictions and high
standards for participants.
*the reed [nay]: a flute made by cutting a length of a naturally
hollow reed cane and adding finger holes. "The nay or reed-flute as
the poet's favourite musical instrument and has always been associated
with the religious services of the Mawlawí ["Whirling Dervish"]
Order, in which music and dancing are prominent features."
(Nicholson, Commentary). The reed flute symbolizes the soul which
is emptied of ego-centered desires and preoccupations and is filled
with a spiritual passion to return to its original nearness to God.
Rumi said, "The world (is) like a reed pipe [sornây], and He blows
into every hole of it; every wail it has (is) certainly from those two
lips like sugar. See how He blows into every (piece of) clay (and)
into every heart; He gives a need and He gives a love which raises up
a lament about misfortune." (Ghazal 532, lines 5664-5665) Rumi
also said, "We have all been part of Adam (and ) we have heard those
melodies in Paradise. Although (bodily) water and clay have cast
skepticism upon us, something of those (melodies) comes (back) to
our memory.... Therefore, the mystical concert has become the food
of the lovers (of God) for in it is the image of (heavenly) reunion."
(Mathnawî IV: 736-737, 742)
*separations: "The point is that while self-conscious lovers complain
of separation from the beloved one, and reproach her for her cruelty,
the mystic's complaint (shikáyat) is really no more than the tale
(hikákat) of his infinite longing for God-- a tale which God
inspires him to tell." (Nicholson, Commentary). Rumi said: "I'm
complaining [shikâyat mê-kon-am] about the Soul of the soul;
but I am not a complainer [shâkê] -- I'm relating words
[rawâyat mê-kon-am]. (My) heart keeps saying, 'I'm afflicted by
Him!' And I have been laughing at (its) feeble pretense." (Mathnawî I:
1781-82). "Be empty of stomach and cry out, in neediness (neyâz),
like the reed flute! Be empty of stomach and tell secrets like the
reed pen!" (Divan: Ghazal 1739, line 18239). "Lovers (are) lamenting
like the reed flute [nây], and Love is like the Flutist. So, what
things will this Love breathe into the reed pipe [sôr-nây] of
the body?! The reed pipe is visible, but the pipe-player is hidden.
In short, my reed pipe became drunk from the wine of His lips.
Sometimes He caresses the reed pipe, sometimes he bites it. (Such) a
sigh, because of this sweet-songed reed-breaking Flutist!" (Divan:
Ghazal 1936, lines 20374-20376)
Nicholson later changed his translation, based on the earliest
manuscripts of the Mathnawi, to "Listen to this reed how it
complains: it is telling a tale of separations" (from, "Listen to the
reed how it tells a tale, complaining of separations." This is what
the earliest known manuscript has. (This is the "Konya Manuscript,"
completed five years after Rumi died, and written by Muhammad ibn
Abdullâh Qûnyawî, a disciple of Rumi's son, Sultân Walad,
under his supervision together with Husâmuddîn Chelabî --
who was present with Rumi during the dictation of every verse of the
Mathnawi.) All manuscripts and editions after the 13th century
adopted a changed (and "improved") version of this line: "Listen
from the nay, how it tells a story... [be-sh'naw az nay chûn
Hikâyat mê-kon-ad / az jodâ'îy-hâ shikâyat
mê-kon-ad].
*the reed field [nay-estân]: lit., "place of reeds." A symbol for
the original homeland of the soul, when it existed harmoniously in the
presence of God. "... referring to the descent of the soul from the
sphere of Pure Being and Absolute Unity, to which it belongs and
would fain return." (Nicholson, Commentary)
*in (the presence of) my shrill cries: Nicholson later changed his
translation, based on the earliest manuscript, to: "man and woman
have moaned in (unison) with my lament" [dar nafîr-am] (from, "my
lament hath caused [az nafîr-am] man and woman to moan").
*explain: a pun on the two meanings of the same word [sharH],
"explanation" and "torn."
*the pain of yearning: The longing of love is painful, because of
separation-- yet also sweet. This is because the longing brings
remembrance of the beloved's beauty. Longing for nearness to a
human beloved, such as a spiritual master, is a means for the
spiritual disciple to increase his longing for nearness to God, the
only Beloved. Rumi said: "If thought of (longing) sorrow is
highway-robbing (your) joy, (yet) it is working out a means to
provide joy.... It is scattering the yellow leaves from the branch of
the heart so that continual green leaves may grow.... Whatever
(longing) sorrow sheds or takes from the heart, truly it will bring
better in exchange." (Mathnawi V:3678, 3680, 3683)
*roots: also means foundation, source, origin.
*union: also means being joined.
*my secrets: "The Perfect Man (prophet or saint) is a stranger in the
world, unable to communicate his sorrows or share his mystic
knowledge except with one of his own kind; he converses with all
sorts of people, worldly and spiritual alike, but cannot win from
them the heartfelt sympathy and real understanding which he craves.
This is the obvious sense of the passage, and adequate so far as it
goes, but behind it lies a far-reaching doctrine concerning the
spiritual "Descent of Man.' .... The whole series of planes forms the
so-called 'Circle of Existence', which begins in God and ends in
God and is traversed by the soul in its downward journey through
the Intelligences, the Spheres, and the Elements and then upward
again, stage by stage-- mineral, vegetable, animal, and man-- till as
Perfect man it completes its evolution and is re-united with the
Divine Soul..." (Nicholson, Commentary)
*the light: refers to the ancient Greek theory of Galen, that vision
is caused by an "inner light" within the eye. Similarly, the faculty
of hearing was believed to be caused by an "inner air" within the ear.
*not permitted: "As the vital spirit, though united with the body, is
invisible, so the inmost ground of words issuing from an inspired
saint cannot be perceived by the physical senses." (Nicholson,
Commentary) The reed flute's speech ends here, and Rumi's
commentary begins next.
*The reed's cry is fire: Nicholson, in his Commentary, quotes
Rumi's verse (Divan, Ghazal 2994, line 31831): "The flute is all afire
and the world is wrapped in smoke; / For fiery is the call of Love
that issues from the flute."
*may he be nothing [nêst bâd]: a pun on another meaning of these
words -- "it's not wind." It means, "May he experience absence of
self so that he may burn with yearning love for the presence of the
Beloved." Nicholson interpreted that this means, "The Mathnawí is
not mere words; its inspiration comes from God, whose essence is
Love. May those yet untouched by the Divine flame be naughted, i.e.
die to self!" He said that the words here [nêst bâd] "should
not be taken as an imprecation [== a cursing]; the poet, I think,
prays that by Divine grace his hearers may be enraptured and lose
themselves in God." (Commentary)
*into the wine: "i.e. Love kindles rapture in the heart and makes it
like a cup of foaming wine." (Nicholson, Commentary)
*tore our veils [parda-hâ]: a pun on the two meanings of this word,
"veils" and "melodies." The meaning of this line is that the sounds of
pure yearning from the reed flute tore through the veils covering up
the inward spiritual yearning of listening mystics -- the sufis, who
have had the capacity to understand the meaning of the reed flute's
melodious wails. This is a reference to the "mystical concert"
[samâ`] of the Mevlevi ("Whirling") dervishes in which the reed
flute is prominent.
*the path full of blood: "the thorny path of Love, strewn with
(Díwán, SP, XLIV, 6) 'with thousands slain of desire who
manfully yielded up their lives'; for Love 'consumes everything else
but the Beloved' (Math. V 588)." (Nicholson, Commentary)
*Majnoon's crazed love: "Majnún: the mad lover of Laylà: in
Súfí literature, a type of mystical self-abandonment."
(Nicholson, Commentary). Majnoon (lit., "jinn-possessed") was a
legendary Arab lover whose love for the beautiful Laylà [lit., "of
the night"] made him crazy. Majnoon's love for Layla also symbolizes the
perception of spiritual realities seen only by mystics, as in Rumi's
lines: "The Caliph said to Layla, Are you the one by whom Majnoon
became disturbed and led astray? You are not more (beautiful) than
other fair ones. She said, Be silent, since you are not Majnoon!"
(Mathnawi I: 407-08; see also V:1999-2019, 3286-99) This
"craziness" of being an ecstatic mystic lover of God is quite
different from the craziness of being psychotic or mentally ill.
*this understanding: "the spiritual or universal reason (`aql-i
ma`ád) and transcendental consciousness of those who have escaped
from the bondage of the carnal or discursive reason (`aql-i
ma`ásh)." (Nicholson, Commentary)
*the senseless [bê-hôsh]: a play on "understanding" (hôsh),
and also means devoid of understanding lacking reason, swooned and
insensible. The meaning is that no one can understand mystical
understanding except one who is able to transcend the intellect.
*that tongue: an idiom for language. The meaning is that only a
mystic who is capable of passing beyond the senses and ordinary
mind has an "ear" which can understand the "tongue" or language of
the heart. Nicholson explained: "i.e. every one desires to hear what
is suitable to his understanding; hence the mysteries of Divine Love
cannot be communicated to the vulgar" [== ordinary people].
(Commentary)
*longing [gham]: lit., "grief." An idiom here, meaning the suffering
of longing love.
*evenings [bê-gâh]: An idiom meaning "evening." Means that the
days became quickly used-up. Nicholson (1926) erred in translating
this idiom too literally as "untimely." (I am indebted to Dr. Ravan
Farhadi, an Afghan scholar, for this understanding of the idiom.)
*but You remain: 26. God is addressed directly as "Thou," or
perhaps indirectly as "Love." "The meaning is: 'What matter though
our lives pass away in the tribulation of love, so long as the Beloved
remains?'" (Nicholson, Commentary)
*water (âbash): Nicholson later corrected his translation to,
"except the fish, every one becomes sated with water" (from, "Whoever
is not a fish becomes sated with His water"). As Nicholson pointed
out, the word for "water" here [âbash] is a noun (as in III: 1960--
Commentary). It therefore does not mean "his water" or "water for
him" [âb-ash]. Nicholson also explained: "The infinite Divine grace
is to the gnostic [== mystic knower] what water is to the fish, but his
thirst can never be quenched." (Commentary)
*become long: Nicholson mentions this as "alluding to the proverb,
harkih bí-sír-ast rúz-ash dír-ast" [The day are long for
whoever is without satisfaction] (Commentary)
*the state of the ripe [pokhta]: refers to the spiritual state of the
spiritually mature, experienced, refined. This contrasts to the state
of the raw [khâm]-- the unripe, immature, inexperienced, uncooked,
the one who bears no fruit. Rumi has been quoted as saying, "The
result of my life is no more than three words: I was raw [khâm], I
became cooked [pokhta], I was burnt [sokht]." However, this is not
supported by the earliest manuscripts (collected by Faruzanfar), only
one of which contains the following: "The result for me is no more
than these three words: I am burnt, I am burnt, I am burnt (or: I am
inflamed, burned, and consumed-- Divan, Ghazal 1768, line 18521).
In Rumi's famous story of the man who knocked on the door of a
friend, the visitor was asked who he was and he answered, "Me."
He was told to go, for he was too "raw" [khâm]. The man was then
"cooked" by the fire of separation and returned a year later. Asked
who he was, he answered, "Only you are at the door, O beloved."
His spiritual friend then said, "Now, since you are me, O me, come
in. There isn't any room for two me's in the house!" (Mathnawi I:
3056-63)
*farewell: Here, Rumi's famous first eighteen verses end. Rumi's
close disciple, Husamuddin Chelebi had asked him one night: "'The
collections of odes [ghazalîyât] have become plentiful....
(But) if there could be a book with the quality of (the sufi poet
Sana'i's) 'Book of the Divine,' yet in the (mathnawi) meter of (the
sufi poet Attar's) 'Speech of the Birds,' so that it might be
memorized among the knowers and be the intimate companion of the
souls of the lovers ... so that they would occupy themselves with
nothing else...' At that moment, from the top of his blessed turban,
he [Rumi] put into Chelebi Husamuddin's hand a portion (of verses),
which was the Explainer of the secrets of Universals and particulars.
And in there were the eighteen verses of the beginning of the
Mathnawi: 'Listen to this reed, how it tells a tale...." (Aflaki, pp.
739-741) After that, Husamuddin was present with Rumi for every verse
he composed of the Mathnawi during the next twelve years until Rumi's
death. The number eighteen has been considered sacred in the Mevlevi
tradition ever since.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sunlight
-
Dive into the Ocean. You're caught in your own
pretentious beard like something you didn't eat.
You're not garbage! Pearls want to be like you.
You should be with them where waves and fish
and pearls and seaweed and wind are all one.
No linking, no hierarchy, no distinctions,
no perplexed wondering, no speech.
Beyond describing.
Either stay here and talk
or go there and be silent.
Or do both by turns.
With those who see double, talk double talk.
Make noise, beat a drum, think of metaphors!
With Friends, say only mystery.
Near roses, sing.
With deceptive people, cover the jar and shield it.
But be calm with those in duality.
Speak sweetly and reasonably
Patience polishes and purifies.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
from "Sheikh Kharranqani and His Wretched Wife"
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
-
A Zero-Circle
Be helpless and 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 the beauty.
If we say "Yes we can," we'll be lying.
If we say "No, we don't see it,"
that "No" will behead us
and shut tight our window into spirit.
So let us 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 will be saying finally,
with tremendous eloquence, "Lead us."
When we've totally surrendered to that beauty,
we'll become a mighty kindness.
-- Mathnawi IV, 3748-3754
Coleman Barks
Say I am You
Maypop, 1994
-
I am amazed at the seeker of purity who when it's time to be polished
complains of rough handling.
Love is like a lawsuit: to suffer harsh treatment is the evidence;
when you have no evidence, the lawsuit is lost.
Don't grieve when the Judge demands your evidence;
kiss the snake so that you may gain the treasure.
That harshness isn't toward you, O son, but toward the harmful qualities within you.
When someone beats a rug, the blows are not against the rug, but against the dust in it.
Rumi
Mathnawi III: 4008-4012
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance" Threshold Books, 1996
"Kiss the snake so that you may gain the treasure..." :)
-
Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls,
something borrowed which we mistake as our own.
Ignorance is better than this; clutch at madness instead.
Always run from what seems to benefit your self:
sip the poison and spill the water of life.
Revile those who flatter you;
lend both interest and principle to the poor.
Let security go and be at home amidst dangers.
Leave your good name behind and accept disgrace.
I have lived with cautious thinking;
now I'll make myself mad.
-- Mathnawi II: 2327-2332
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
-
Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who knows only 4 words
And keeps repeating them, saying:
"Come Dance with Me."
Come Dance.
~Hafiz
by Ladinsky
-
Heartsick, heartborken -
To know love is to know pain.
What could be more common?
Even so, each broken heart
is so singular
That with it we probe the divine.
Rumi
-
Then Winks
Everything is clapping today.
Light,
Sound,
Motion,
All movement.
A rabbit I pass pulls a cymbal
From a hidden pocket
Then winks.
This causes a few planets and I
To go nuts
And start grabbing each other.
Someone sees this,
Calls a
Shrink,
Tries to get me
Committed
For
Being too
Happy.
Listen: this world is the lunatic's sphere,
Don't always agree it's real,
Even with my feet upon it
And the postman knowing my door
My address is somewhere else.
Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
-
4 Whimsical Rumi Poems
I saw sorrow holding a cup of pain.
I said, hey sorrow, sorry to see you this way,
what's troubling you,
what's with the cup?
Sorrow said, what else can I do,
all the joy that you have brought to the world
has killed my business completely.
**
Bring the pure wine oflove and freedom.
But sir, a tornado is coming.
More wine, we'll teach this storm
A thing or two about whirling.
**
I am so drunk
I have lost the way in
and the way out.
I have lost the earth, the moon, and the sky.
Don't put another cup of wine in my hand,
pour it in my mouth,
for I have lost the way to my mouth.
**
I sipped some of love'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.
He said,Take these pills!
Ok, time to take these pills.
The doctor said,
And get rid of the sweet wine of love's lips!
Ok, time to get rid of the doctor.
Rumi by Shahram Shiva
-
Rumi & Shams: A Love Story or Personal Necessity? The Untold Story
by: Shahram Shiva
To comprehend the often misunderstood and misquoted connection between Rumi and Shams we should start by reviewing the personality of these two historic figures.
Rumi, born into wealth, power and the world of politics, was a member of the high society. He was known to pull and offer favors. His mother was a relative of the king in the province of Khorasan in the Eastern Persian Empire, where he was born. His father was a respected court advisor on jurisprudence. Rumi indulged in personal contacts, favors and friendships. He was known to deepen his friendship to his favorite people by any means necessary. For example, he was close with a goldsmith in Konya. Since it was socially unacceptable for a member of the elite class to socialize with the merchant class, he arranged for his son to marry the daughter of the goldsmith to formalize his connection with him.
Shams, by the time he met Rumi was in his 60s. By then he was known mainly as a blunt, antisocial and powerful spiritual wanderer. His nickname was the Bird. The Bird, because he couldn't stay in one place for too long, and because he was known to be in two distant cities around the same time, as if he could fly or transport his essence at will. This wanderer is known to have been seeking a "grand master student"--a student, who would be greater than many masters at the time. He chooses Rumi as his "master-student." Apparently he initially notices Rumi when he was 21, but judging the time inappropriate and the student not ready, he waits 16 or so years to approach Rumi again.
They meet again when Rumi was in his late 30s and Shams in his early 60s. The initial spark of their connection inspires Rumi to take Shams into his home. Shams from then on becomes the new friend, the latest companion. As you can imagine problem is brewing from day one. Shams, same as the goldsmith wasn't from the elite class. He was a simple wanderer, a powerful spiritual figure yes, but still a poor, homeless wanderer. Also, Shams was terribly antisocial, had a bad temper and used to curse in front of the children. The problem initially was put aside by Rumi's magnetism; however, it gradually grew into a much bigger issue. After receiving repeated death threats Shams decides to leave town. Soon after, Rumi falls into a deep state of grief. A few months later, Shams is brought back into Konya. After all Rumi's health and well-being was worth more than social boundaries. This time, Rumi decides to legitimize Shams' presence in his home and uses the same tactic as with the goldsmith, he marries his very young stepdaughter Keemia (alchemy) to Shams. Keemia was under the age of 15 at the time. It is said that Shams for the first time falls in love. This must have been a truly memorable moment in his life--not only being with his chosen student, but also being married to his student's teenage daughter. The situation in the household quiets down during this time, after all Shams was now a relative. However, a few months later due to illness and most certainly deep grief Keemia dies, and with that comes the end of Shams and Rumi's companionship.
One story reveals that Shams leaves Rumi and becomes the wandering, wild bird that he was. Another places Shams in the hands of Rumi's youngest son and Keemia's stepbrother, to die for ruining Rumi's pristine reputation. Another attributes Shams' disappearance to a successful assassination attempt for religious blasphemy. Yet another story places Shams in India, as an inspiration for a few spiritual figures at the time.
I believe that Rumi's youngest son who had special closeness to Keemia, committed revenge killing (also known as honor killing) on Shams for causing the death of Keemia. Rumi should have expected this when he forced-marry his precious teenage daughter to someone of Shams' personality type and old age.
The core explanation of Shams and Rumi's relationship is that Rumi without Shams would not have been known to history. Rumi uses all his wit to keep this powerful, wandering, wild bird in a cage for as long as possible and becomes a major spiritual master and an artist of truly world-class stature. In the meantime, Shams achieves his dream of a "grand master student," and falls in love for the first and only time and pays dearly for it. A love story, a tragedy or a personal necessity?
(c) Shahram Shiva and Rumi.Net
-
I Asked
I asked, 'What's bright as the Moon?'
'My beautiful face,' was the answer.
I said, 'What's sweet as sugar?'
'My speech,' was the answer.
'What is the way of Lovers?' I asked
'The way of loyalty,' was the answer.
I said, 'Don't be so cruel to me.'
'It's my job to behave thus,' was the answer.
'What is death for Lovers?'
'Separation from me,' was the answer.
'What is the cure for life's ills?'
'To gaze upon my face,' was the answer.
'What is spring, what autumn?'
'Only my changing beauty,' was the answer.
'Who is the envy of the gazelle?'
'My swift gait,' was the answer.
'Are you a fairy or a houri?'
'I am the Lord of Beauty,' was the answer.
'Khusrow is helpless,' I said.
'He is my devotee,' was the answer.
Amir Khusrow Dehlawi
13th Century India/Pakistan
Ab'ul Hasan Yamin al-Din Khusrow, 1253-1325, usually known by his pen name as Amir Khusrow Dehlawi (or Amir Khusrau Dehlavi), is a greatly loved composer of poetry, song, and riddles from India.
He was born in northern India. His father was of Turkish descent but born in Balkh, Afghanistan, the same region that gave birth to Jelaluddin Rumi. Khusrow's mother was from Delhi.
Amir Khusrow was a Sufi and disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia.
Khusrow is often called the "father of qawwali music" -- the ecstatic devotional Sufi music of India and Pakistan. He is also credited with the invention of tabla drums, the two hand drums played throughout the Indian subcontinent.
Khusrow was a classical poet and composer who served as court poet to several Delhi sultans. His songs are still widely sung by Sufis and the devout, especially in Northern India and Pakistan.
~Ivan Granger
-
Ab'ul Hasan Yamin al-Din Khusrow, 1253-1325, usually known by his pen name as Amir Khusrow Dehlawi (or Amir Khusrau Dehlavi), is a greatly loved composer of poetry, song, and riddles from India.
He was born in northern India. His father was of Turkish descent but born in Balkh, Afghanistan, the same region that gave birth to Jelaluddin Rumi. Khusrow's mother was from Delhi.
Amir Khusrow was a Sufi and disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia.
Khusrow is often called the "father of qawwali music" -- the ecstatic devotional Sufi music of India and Pakistan. He is also credited with the invention of tabla drums, the two hand drums played throughout the Indian subcontinent.
Khusrow was a classical poet and composer who served as court poet to several Delhi sultans. His songs are still widely sung by Sufis and the devout, especially in Northern India and Pakistan.
~Ivan Granger
http://www.youtube.com/v/gQ1fj7Q1BhE?fs=1
You’ve taken away my looks, my identity, by just a glance.
By making me drink the wine of love-potion,
You’ve intoxicated me by just a glance;
My fair, delicate wrists with green bangles in them,
Have been held tightly by you with just a glance.
I give my life to you, Oh my cloth-dyer,
You’ve dyed me in yourself, by just a glance.
I give my whole life to you Oh, Nijam,
You’ve made me your bride, by just a glance.
http://www.youtube.com/v/PSUxjKHqLuI?fs=1
Arise and prepare to rejoice
Let the wine take root in our cups
As would a flower in the soil
Let us become intoxicated with bliss
For till when shall we dwell in sadness
Those drunk with love
Will break this unending wheel of sorrow
For the treasures of the beloved
belong to those celebrating with us.
-
To arrange words
In some order
Is not the same thing
As the inner poise
That's poetry.
The truth of poetry
Is the truth
Of being.
It's an experience
Of truth.
No ornaments
Survive
A crucible.
Fire reveals
Only molten
Gold.
Says Tuka
We are here
To reveal.
We do not waste
Words.
~Tukaram
17th Century India
Tukaram was born in the Indian region of Maharashtra to a lower caste Sudra family. Despite being of a lower caste, the family was wealthy by rural standards.
When Tukaram was thirteen, his father fell ill and the boy had to take on the responsibility of supporting his family. Soon after, both parents died.
Hardships continued to follow Tukaram. His first wife died during a famine, and his second wife had no respect for Tukaram's devotion to God.
Contrary to the traditional Hindu model of receiving spiritual initiation from a guru, Tukaram was initiated in a dream by Lord Hari (Krishna/Vishnu).
When Tukaram sensed his end was approaching, he stepped into a river, as other saints have done. It is said that his rug and instruments returned to shore, but his body was never found. Devotees believe he was taken bodily to heaven.
During Tukaram's relatively short life, he was constantly singing devotional hymns called abhangs, composing over 5,000. Many of his songs are autobiographical.
~Ivan Granger
-
We are, what are we?
We know not, what we are!
For a moment we are blessed
For a moment we are accursed
Some moment we pray and fast
Some moment we are free spirits
Now we declare, 'Only we exist'
Now we declare, 'We don't exist'
For a bit, our heart is calm
In a bit, we weep rivers
Now we say, 'We are self-realized'
Now we ask, 'Who are we?'
'Sachal' we are only That eternally
What other contracts can we make here?
Sachal Sarmast
Sufi
19th Century Pakistan
(http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/SarmastSacha/images/SarmastSacha.jpg)
The name Sachal Sarmast can be translated as Ecstatic Saint of Truth. He is sometimes called Sachoo, The Truthful.
Sachal Sarmast was born in the Sindh region of what is today Pakistan, and is considered one of the great poets and Sufi mystics to emerge from the region.
His teachings have often been compared with al-Hallaj, the Sufi martyr who ecstatically proclaimed, "I am the Truth." Rather than blindly following tradition, Sachal urged people to seek the truth directly. And like ibn Arabi and others, Sachal Sarmast taught a vision of Unity called Wahdat al-Wujud, which others have compared to the great nondualist teachings of Advaita Vedanta within Hinduism and Zen/Chan within Buddhism.
Sachal Sarmast once said, "He (God) is everywhere and in each and every phenomenon. He has come here just to witness His own manifestation."
Sachal Sarmast was born Abdul Wahab in the village of Daraza in the Sindh region. His father died when he was a young child, and Abdul Wahab was raised by his uncle, who also became his spiritual master.
His soul was deeply moved by music. Listening to music, he was often enraptured, tears pouring down his face.
Sachal Sarmast married, but the young woman died two years later. He never remarried.
He took the name Sachal, Truth. Later people added Sarmast, Leader of the Ecstatics, to his name in appreciation of his spiritual poetry.
Sachal Sarmast lived a humble, ascetic life, preferring solitude, simple meals of daal and yogurt. It is said that he never left Daraza, the village of his birth. Yet he composed sacred poetry in seven different languages, poetry that is loved and sung to this day.
==
Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a good single source of Sachal Sarmast's poetry in English. I've only discovered scattered verses translated on the Internet. We are waiting for a book of inspired translations of Sachoo.
~Ivan Granger
http://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/S/SarmastSacha/index.htm
-
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 the Beloved, but then you keep
stopping for long periods
at mean-spirited roadhouses.
Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
(encore posting)
-
The Pleiades
In absence, aloe wood burns fragrant.
The love we feel is smoke from that.
Existence gets painted with non-existence,
its source, the fire behind the screen.
Smoke born of this fire hides the fire!
Pass through the smoke. Soul, a moving
river; body, the riverbed. Soul can
break the circle of fate and habit.
Take hold the hand of absence and let
it draw you through the Pleiades,
giving up wet and dry, hot and cold.
You become a confidante of Shams Tabriz.
You see clearly the glory of nothing
and stand, inexplicably, there.
Ghazal (Ode) 2949
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
Many set out from the very spot
where the object of their quest is to be found.
The far sight and boasting of the sleeper is no use;
it is nothing but a fantasy—don't be caught by it.
You are sleepy, but at least sleep on the Way:
for God's sake, sleep on the Way of God,
that by chance a traveler on the Way may stumble upon you
and tear you from the fantasies of your slumber.
The sleeper dreams of the dire pangs of thirst,
while the water is nearer to him than the neck vein.
Mathnawi IV: 3234-3237; 3241
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
-
Thorn Witness
Apparent shapes and meanings change.
Creature hunts down creature. Bales
get unloaded and weighed to determine
price. None of any of this pertains
to the unseen fire we call the Beloved.
That presence has no form, and cannot
be understood or measured. Take
your hands away from your face. If
a wall of dust moves across the plain,
there's usually an army advancing
under it. When you look for the Friend,
the Friend is looking for you. Carried
by a strong current, you and the others
with you seem to be making decisions,
but you're not. I weave coarse wool.
I decide to talk less. By my actions
cause nothing. A thorn grows next to
the rose as its witness. I am that
thorn for whom simply to be is an act
of praise. Near the rose, no shame.
Rumi, Ghazal 445
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
A Great Rose Tree
This is the day and the year
of the rose. The whole garden
is opening with laughter. Iris
whispering to cypress. The rose
is the joy of meeting someone.
The rose is a world imagination
cannot imagine. A messenger from
the orchard where the soul lives.
A small seed that points to a great
rose tree! Hold its hand and walk
like a child. A rose is what grows
from the work the prophets do.
Full moon, new moon. Accept the
invitation spring extends, four
birds flying toward a master. A rose
is all these, and the silence that
closes and sits in the shade, a bud.
Rumi, Ghazal 1348
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
You are sleepy, but at least sleep on the Way:
for God's sake, sleep on the Way of God,
:)
-
A small seed that points to a great
rose tree! Hold its hand and walk
like a child.
I have to tell you, that while watching Irene weather clip recently, I was struck by how much the image of the cyclone resembled a rose.
-
The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody and gross.
Work on it with manual discipline,
and the bitter tanning acid of grief,
and you'll become lovely, and very strong.
If you can't do this work yourself, don't worry.
You don't even have to make a decision,
one way or another. The Friend, who knows
a lot more than you do, will bring difficulties,
and grief, and sickness,
as medicine, as happiness,
as the essence of the moment when you're beaten,
when you hear Checkmate, and can finally say,
with Hallaj's voice,
I trust you to kill me.
- Rumi
-
Listening
What is the deep listening? Sama is
a greeting from the secret ones inside
the heart, a letter. The branches of
your intelligence grow new leaves in
the wind of this listening. The body
reaches a peace. Rooster sound comes,
reminding you of your love for dawn.
The reed flute and the singer's lips:
the knack of how spirit breathes into
us becomes as simple and ordinary as
eating and drinking. The dead rise with
the pleasure of listening. If someone
can't hear a trumpet melody, sprinkle
dirt on his head and declare him dead.
Listen, and feel the beauty of your
separation, the unsayable absence.
There's a moon inside every human being.
Learn to be companions with it. Give
more of your life to this listening. As
brightness is to time, so you are to
the one who talks to the deep ear in
your chest. I should sell my tongue
and buy a thousand ears when that
one steps near and begins to speak.
Rumi-- Ghazal 1734
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
Out in a downpour
in a sopping wet
skirt.
And you have gone to a distant country.
Unbearable heart,
letter after letter
just asking when,
my lord, when
are you coming?
Mirabai
(1498 - 1565?)
English version by Andrew Schelling
-
"Sublime Generosity"
I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.
He said, "You're not mad enough.
You don't belong in this house."
I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, "Still not wild enough
to stay with us!"
I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.
He said, "It's not enough."
I died.
He said, "You're a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting."
I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, "Now you're the candle
for this assembly."
But I'm no candle. Look!
I'm scattered smoke.
He said, "You are the sheikh, the guide."
But I'm not a teacher, I have no power.
He said, "You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings."
But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.
Then new events said to me,
"Don't move. A sublime generosity is
coming toward you."
An old love said, "Stay with me."
I said, "I will."
You are the fountain of the sun's light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.
The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say "Thank you, thank you."
Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.
This comes of smiling back
at your smile.
The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.
That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.
-- Version by Colman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
-
Some people work and become wealthy.
Others do the same and remain poor.
Marriage fills one with energy.
Another it drains.
Don't trust ways. They change.
A means flails about like a donkey's tail.
Always add the gratitude clause
to any sentence, if God wills,
then go.
You may be leading a donkey, no,
a goat, no, who can tell?
We sit in a dark pit and think we're home.
We pass around delicacies.
Poisoned bait.
You think this is preachy doubletalk?
Those who do not breathe the God willing phrase
live in a collective blindness.
Rubbing their eyes, they ask the dark,
"Who's there?"
Rumi -- Mathnawi VI: 3685-3698
Version by Coleman Barks
"We Are Three,"
Maypop, 1987
-
Root, River, Fire, Sea
A man was wandering the marketplace at noon
with a candle in his hand, totally ecstatic.
"Hey," called a shopkeeper. "Is this a joke?
Who are you looking for?" "Someone breathing Huuuuuu,
the divine breath." "Well, there are plenty
to choose from." "But I want one who can be
in anger and desire and still a true human being
in the same moment." "A rare thing! But maybe
you're searching among the branches for what appears
only in the roots." There's a river that turns
these millstones. Human will is an illusion. Those
that are proud of deciding things and carrying out
decisions are the rawest of the raw! Watch the thought-
kettles boiling and then look down at the fire.
God said to Job, "You value your patience well.
Consider now that I gave you that patience."
Don't be absorbed with the waterwheel's motion.
Turn your head and gaze at the river. You say,
"But I'm looking there already." There are several signs
in eyes that see all the way to the ocean. Bewilderment
is one. Those who study foam and flotsam near the edge
have purposes, and they'll explain them at length!
Those who look out to sea become the sea,
and they can't speak about that. On the beach
there's desire-singing and rage-ranting,
the elaborate language-dance of personality,
but in the waves and underneath there's no volition,
no hypocrisy, just love forming and unfolding.
-- Mathnawi V, 2887-2911
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"
Maypop, 1994
-
There is a channel between voice and presence,
a way where information flows.
In disciplined silence the channel opens.
With wandering talk, it closes.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
Unseen Rain
Threshold Books, 1986
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a thread from the heart to the lips
where the secret of life is woven.
Words tear the thread
but in silence
the secrets
speak.
-- Translation by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Hidden Music
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
-
Ghazal (Ode) 2155, from Rumi's Diwan-e Shams, in a version by Coleman Barks
How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave water?
Don't try to put out a fire
by throwing on more fire!
Don't wash a wound with blood!
No matter how fast you run,
your shadow more than keeps up.
Sometimes, it's in front!
Only full, overhead sun
diminishes your shadow.
But that shadow has been serving you!
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.
I can explain this, but it would break
the glass cover on your heart,
and there's no fixing that.
You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.
When from that tree, feathers and wings sprout
on you, be quieter than a dove.
Don't open your mouth for even a cooooooo.
When a frog slips into the water, the snake
cannot get it. Then the frog climbs back out
and croaks, and the snake moves toward him again.
Even if the frog learned to hiss, still the snake
would hear through the hiss the information
he needed, the frog voice underneath.
But if the frog could be completely silent,
then the snake would go back to sleeping,
and the frog could reach the barley.
The soul lives there in the silent breath.
And that grain of barley is such that,
when you put it in the ground,
it grows.
Are these enough words,
or shall I squeeze more juice from this?
Who am I, my friend?
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
Castle Books, 1997
-
"The Still-Point of Ecstasy"
On the Night of Creation I was awake,
Busy at work while everyone slept.
I was there to see the first wink
and hear the first tale told.
I was the first one caught
in the hair of the Great Imposter.
Whirling around the still-point of esctasy
I spun like the wheel of heaven.
How can I describe this to you?
you were born later.
I was a companion of that Ancient Lover;
Like a bowl with a broken rim
I endured his tyranny.
Why shouldn't I be as lustrous as the King's cup?
I have lived in the room of treasures.
Why shouldn't this bubble become the sea?
I am the secret that lies at its bottom . . .
Sh . . . no more words
Hear only the voice within.
Remember, the first thing He said was:
"We are beyond words."
-- Ghazal (Ode) 1529
Interpretive version by Jonathan Star
(in cooperation with the translator Shahram Shiva)
"A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi"
Bantam Books, 1992
-
Ghazal (Ode) 2155, from Rumi's Diwan-e Shams, in a version by Coleman Barks
I can explain this, but it would break
the glass cover on your heart,
and there's no fixing that.
-
Busy at work while everyone slept.
One needs to know this by experience. To be awake after everyone else has gone to bed to sleep.
One powerful experience of this for me was catching the bus from Manali to Delhi with Julie. The bus left in the late afternoon, so as the hours drifted by, I remained upright and keenly awake. I don't know why, but I was eventually the last awake in the whole bus aside from the driver. I watched the shadows passing by, and knew something which has no words.
-
:)
-
One needs to know this by experience. To be awake after everyone else has gone to bed to sleep.
I'm an old haunter of the night from way back...
-
Somehow, by very nature, I feel we have to be haunters of the night - seekers of that which lies beyond the darkness.
-
"Word Fog"
Words, even if they come from
the soul, hide the soul, as fog
rising off the sea covers the sea,
the coast, the fish, the pearls.
It's noble work to build coherent
philosophical discourses, but
they block out the sun of truth.
See God's qualities as an ocean,
this world as foam on the purity
of that. Brush away and look
through the alphabet to essence,
as you do the hair covering your
beloved's eyes. Here's the mystery:
this intricate, astonishing world
is proof of God's presence even as
it covers the beauty. One flake
from the wall of a gold mine does
not give much idea what it's like
when the sun shines in and turns
the air and the workers golden.
-- Ghazal (Ode) 921
Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
Stillness, then silence, then random speech,
Then knowledge, intoxication, annihilation;
Earth, then fire, then light.
Coldness, then shade, then sunlight.
Thorny road, then a path, then the wilderness.
River, then ocean, then the shore;
Contentment, desire, then Love.
Closeness, union, intimacy;
Closing, then opening, then obliteration,
Separation, togetherness, then longing;
Signs for those of real understanding
Who find this world of little value.
~ Al Hallaj
-
I never get enough of laughing with you,
that wild humor.
Thirsty and dry, I complain, but everything is made of
water!
Lonely, yet my head leans against your shirt!
My wounded hands, your hands.
Do something drastic.
You say, "Come and sit in the innermost room,
where you'll be safe from the love-thief."
I reply, "But I've tried to be the ringknocker
on your door, so you won't have to
always be letting me in and out."
You say, "No. You stand on the threshold waiting,
and you're here in the inner chamber too.
You're at home in both places."
I love the quietness of such an answer.
Come to this table of quietness.
Rumi -- Version by Coleman Barks
"We Are Three,"
Maypop, 1987
-
Every Tree
Every tree, every growing thing as it
grows, says this truth: You harvest
what you sow. With life a short as a half-
taken breath, don't plant anything but
love. The value of a human being can
be measured by what he or she most deeply
wants. Be free of possessing things.
Sit at an empty table. Be pleased with
water, the taste of being home. People
travel the world looking for the Friend,
but that one is always at home! Jesus
moves quickly to Mary. A donkey stops
to smell the urine of another donkey.
There are simple reasons for what happens:
you won't stay clear for long if you sit
with the one who pours wine. Someone
with a cup of honey in hand rarely has
a sour face. If someone says a eulogy,
there must be a funeral nearby. A rose
opens because she is the fragrance she
loves. We speak poems, and lovers down
the centuries will keep saying them.
The cloth God weaves doesn't wear out.
-- Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999
-
Entering the Shell
Love is alive, and someone borne
along by it is more alive than lions
roaring or men in their fierce courage.
Bandits ambush others on the road.
They get wealth but they stay in one
place. Lovers keep moving, never
the same, not for a second! What
makes others grieve, they enjoy!
When they look angry, don't believe
their faces. It's spring lightning,
a joke before the rain. They chew
thorns thoughtfully along with pasture
grass. Gazelle and lioness, having
dinner. Love is invisible except
here, in us. Sometimes I praise love;
sometimes love praises me. Love,
a little shell somewhere on the ocean
floor, opens its mouth. You and I
and we, those imaginary beings, enter
that shell as a single sip of seawater.
Rumi-- Ghazal (Ode) 843
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
"Grainy Taste"
Without a net, I catch a falcon
and release it to the sky, hunting
God. This wine I drink today was
never held in a clay jar. I love
this world, even as I hear the great
wind of leaving it rising, for there
is a grainy taste I prefer to every
idea of heaven: human friendship.
Rumi -- Ghazal (Ode) 328
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999
The ending surprises me...
-
"Story-Water"
A story is like the water
you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!
Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.
A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.
Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.
The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing
inside your presence.
Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.
Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.
-- Poetic version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
-
"Desire and the Importance of Failing"
A window opens.
A curtain pulls back.
The lamps of lovers connect,
not at their ceramic bases,
but in their lightedness.
No lover wants union with the Beloved
without the Beloved also wanting the lover.
Love makes the lover weak,
while the Beloved gets strong.
Lightning from here strikes there.
When you begin to love God, God
is loving you. A clapping sound
does not come from one hand.
The 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 It,
and It 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.
Pieces of straw tremble
in the presence of amber.
We tremble like iron filings
welcoming the magnet.
Whatever that Presence gives us
we take in. Earth signs feed.
Water signs wash and freshen.
Air signs clear the atmosphere.
Fire signs jiggle the skillet,
so we cook without getting burnt.
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.
Sweethearts kiss and taste the delight
before they slip into bed and mate.
The desire of each lover is
that the work of the other be perfected.
By this man-and-woman cooperation,
the world gets preserved.
Generation occurs.
Roses and blue arghawan flowers flower.
Night and day meet in a mutual hug.
So different, but they do love each other,
the day and the night, like family.
And without their mutual alternation
we would have no energy.
Every part of the cosmos draws toward its mate.
The ground keeps talking to the body,
saying, "Come back! It¹s better for you
down here where you came from."
The streamwater calls to the moisture in the body.
The fiery ether whispers to the body¹s heat,
"I am your origin. Come with me."
Seventy-two diseases are caused
by the various elements pulling inside the body.
Disease comes, and the organs
fall out of harmony.
We're like the four different birds,
that each had one leg tied in
with the other birds.
A flopping bouquet of birds!
Death releases the binding, and they fly off,
but before that, their pulling is our pain.
Consider how the soul must be,
in the midst of these tensions,
feeling its own exalted pull.
My longing is more profound.
These birds want the sweet green herbs
and the water running by.
I want the infinite! I want wisdom.
These birds want orchards and meadows
and vines with fruit on them.
I want a vast expansion.
They want profit and the security
of having enough food.
Remember what the soul wants,
because in that, eternity
is wanting our souls!
Which is the meaning of the text,
They love That, and That loves them.
If I keep on explaining this,
the Mathnawi will run to eighty volumes!
The gist is: whatever anyone seeks,
that is seeking the seeker.
No matter if it's animal,
or vegetable, or mineral.
Every bit of the universe is filled with wanting,
and whatever any bits wants,
wants the wanter!
This subject must dissolve again.
Back to Sadri Jahan and the uneducated peasant
who loved him, so that gradually Sadri Jahan
loved the lowly man. But who really
attracted who, whom, Huuuu?
Don't be presumptuous and say one or the other.
Close your lips. The mystery of loving
is God's sweetest secret.
Keep it. Bury it. Leave it here
where I leave it, drawn as I am
by the pull of the Puller
to something else.
You know how it is. Sometimes
we plan a trip to one place,
but something takes us to another.
When a horse is being broken, the trainer
pulls it in many different directions,
so the horse will come to know
what it is to be ridden.
The most beautiful and alert horse is one
completely attuned to the rider.
God fixes a passionate desire in you,
and then disappoints you.
God does that a hundred times!
God breaks with wings of one intention
and then gives you another,
cuts the rope of contriving,
so you'll remember your dependence.
But sometimes, your plans work out!
You feel fulfilled and in control.
That's because, if you were always failing,
you might give up. But remember,
it is by failures that lovers
stay aware of how they're loved.
Failure is the key
to the kingdom within.
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."
-- Mathnawi III: 4391-4472
Version by Coleman Barks
"Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion"
(encore)
-
"Grainy Taste"
Without a net, I catch a falcon
and release it to the sky, hunting
God. This wine I drink today was
never held in a clay jar. I love
this world, even as I hear the great
wind of leaving it rising, for there
is a grainy taste I prefer to every
idea of heaven: human friendship.
Rumi -- Ghazal (Ode) 328
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999
The ending surprises me...
The firiendship you can live and experience; the idea of heaven remains just what it is - an idea. What is heaven and where is heaven for a living being who has killed a Buddha?
-
The firiendship you can live and experience; the idea of heaven remains just what it is - an idea. What is heaven and where is heaven for a living being who has killed a Buddha?
Ah, indeed...
-
I wearied myself searching for the Friend
with efforts beyond my strength.
I came to the door and saw how
powerfully the locks were bolted.
And the longing in me became that strong,
and then I saw that I was gazing
from within the presence.
With that waiting, and in giving up all trying,
only then did Lalla flow out
from where I knelt.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
-
Ghazal (Ode) 1393, in versions by Coleman Barks and Jonathan Star,
and in translations by Nader Khalili and A.J. Arberry:
"Sublime Generosity"
I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.
He said, "You're not mad enough.
You don't belong in this house."
I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, "Still not wild enough
to stay with us!"
I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.
He said, "It's not enough."
I died.
He said, "You're a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting."
I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, "Now you're the candle
for this assembly."
But I'm no candle. Look!
I'm scattered smoke.
He said, "You are the sheikh, the guide."
But I'm not a teacher, I have no power.
He said, "You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings."
But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.
Then new events said to me,
"Don't move. A sublime generosity is
coming toward you."
And old love said, "Stay with me."
I said, "I will."
You are the fountain of the sun's light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.
The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say "Thank you, thank you."
Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.
This comes of smiling back
at your smile.
The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.
That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
"My King"
I was dead and now I am alive.
I was in tears and now I am laughing.
The power of love swept over my soul
and now I am that eternal power.
My eyes are content.
My soul is fulfilled.
My heart is roaring.
My face glows like Venus.
He said, "But you are not mad with love.
You don't belong in this house."
I went and became mad.
I put chains round my neck.
He said, "But you are not drunk with love.
You don't belong at this party."
I went and became drunk.
I rolled on the floor with joy.
He said, "But you have not tasted the sweetness of death."
I sipped the wine of death
and fell before His life-giving face.
He said, "But you are a worldly man,
you have so many clever questions."
I went and became a fool,
babbling at every street-corner. . . .
He said, "Now you are a candle.
Everyone in the gathering has turned toward you."
"No, I don't belong here.
I am not a candle,
I am a wisp of smoke."
He said, "You are a Shaykh and a Master,
A guide of lost souls."
"No, I am not a Shaykh nor a guide,
I am slave to your every word."
He said, "You can fly.
Why should I give you feathers and wings?"
"For "your" feathers and wings
I would clip my own
and crawl upon the ground. . . ."
You are the majestic fountain of the Sun
that pours upon my head.
I am the shadow of a willow tree
bent over and melting.
When my heart was warmed by your radiant Sun
I took off my torn clothes
and put on fine silk.
My soul was once a slave and a donkey-driver,
Now it swaggers down the street
like a kingly lord.
The knowledge of you has lifted me up,
Now I am a star shining above the seventh heaven.
I was a glitter in the night sky,
Now I am the Moon and the two hundred folds of heaven.
I was Joseph at the bottom of a well,
Now I am Joseph the King!
O famous Moon, shine on me.
A ray of your light
would turn my world into a rosegarden.
Now I will move in silence,
Like a chess piece,
Watching as my whole life
revolves around
the position of my King.
-- Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
i was dead
i came alive
i was tears
i became laughter
all because of love
when it arrived
my temporal life
from then on
changed to eternal
love said to me
you are not
crazy enough
you don't
fit this house
i went and
became crazy
crazy enough
to be in chains
love said
you are not
intoxicated enough
you don't
fit the group
i went and
got drunk
drunk enough
to overflow
with light-headedness
love said
you are still
too clever
filled with
imagination and skepticism
i went and
became gullible
and in fright
pulled away
from it all
love said
you are a candle
attracting everyone
gathering every one
around you
i am no more
a candle spreading light
i gather no more crowds
and like smoke
i am all scattered now
love said
you are a teacher
you are a head
and for everyone
you are a leader
i am no more
not a teacher
not a leader
just a servant
to your wishes
love said
you already have
your own wings
i will not give you
more feathers
and then my heart
pulled itself apart
and filled to the brim
with a new light
overflowed with fresh life
now even the heavens
are thankful that
because of love
i have become
the giver of light
-- Translation by Nader Khalili,
"Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~
I was dead, I became alive; I was weeping, I became laughing;
the power of love came, and I became everlasting power.
My eye is satiated, my soul is bold, I have the heart of a lion, I
have become shining Venus.
He said, "You are not mad, you are not appropriate to this
house"; I went and became mad, I became bound in shackles.
He said, "You are not intoxicated; go, for you belong not to
this party"; I went and became intoxicated, I became overflowing
with joy.
He said, "You are not slain, you are not drenched in joy";
before his life-giving face I became slain and cast down.
He said, "You are a clever little man, drunk with fancy and
doubt"; I became a fool, I became straightened, I became
plucked up out of all.
He said, "You have become a candle, the qibla of this assem-
bly"; I am not of assembly, I am not candle, I have become
scattered smoke.
He said, "You are shaikh and headman, you are leader and
guide"; I am not shaikh, I am not leader, I have become slave
to your command.
He said, "You have pinions and wings, I will not give you
wings and pinions"; in desire for his pinions and wings I became
wingless and impotent*.
New fortune said to me, "Go not on the way, do not become
pained, for out of grace and generosity I am now coming to you."
Old love said to me, "Do not move from my breast"; I said,
"Yes, I will not, I am at rest and remain."
You are the fountain of the sun, I am the shadow of the
willow; when You strike my head, I become low and melting.
My heart felt the glow of the soul, my heart opened and split,
my heart wove a new satin, I became enemy of this ragged one.
The form of the soul at dawn swaggered insolently; I was a
slave and an ass-driver, I became king and lord.
Your paper gives thanks for your limitless sugar, for it came
into my embrace, and I dwelt in it.
My darkling earth gives thanks for my bent sky and sphere,
for through its gaze and circling I became light-receiving.
The sphere of heaven gives thanks for king and kingdom and
angel, for through his generosity and bounty I have become
bright and bountiful.
The gnostic of God gives thanks that we have outraced all;
above the seven layers* I have become a shining star.
I was Venus, I became the moon, I became the two hundred-
fold sky; I was Joseph, henceforth I have become the waxing
Joseph*.
Famous moon, I am yours, look upon me and yourself, for
from the trace of your smile I have become a smiling rosegarden.
Move silently like a chessman, yourself all tongue, for through
the face* of the king of the world I have become happy and
blissful.
-- Translation by A.J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 1"
University of Chicago Press, 1968, 1991
* "Impotent": i.e. "plucked clean of feathers."
* "The seven layers": the seven heavens.
* Joseph, after coming up from the well, waxed in beauty and
power.
* "The face": a pun on "rukh", which also means "rook".
-
What Hurts the Soul?
We tremble, thinking we're about to dissolve
into non-existence, but non-existence 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.
-- Mathnawi I: 3684-3692
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"
-
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.
Coleman Barks
Open Secret: Versions of Rumi
-
A Thief in The Night
Suddenly
(yet somehow expected)
he arrived, the guest....
the heart trembling "Who's there?"
and soul responding
"The Moon..."
came into the house, and we lunatics
ran into the street, stared up
looking
for the moon.
Then--inside the house--
he cried out "Here I am !"
and we, beyond earshot
running around, calling him...
crying for him
for the drunken nightingale
locked lamenting
in our garden
while we mourning ringdoves
murmured "Where Where?"
As if at midnight
the sleepers bolt upright
in their beds
hearing a thief
break into the house
they stumble about
crying "Help!
A thief! A thief!"
but the burglar himself
mingles in the confusion
echoing their cries:
"..... a thief!"
till one cry
melts with the others.
Rumi
Ghazal (Ode) 2172
"The Drunken Universe"
Translation by Peter Lamborn Wilson
with Nasrullah Pourjavadi
-
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.
Rumi -- Version by Coleman Barks
(from a translation by John Moyne)
"Like This"
Maypop, 1990
-
As Lakewater Rises in Mist
The singer sings about love, until
the Friend appears in the doorway.
Kitchen smoke drifts up into clouds
and becomes a thousand-year- old wine.
I am here, not reckoning the credit
accumulated or future speculation.
I am the vineyard and the barrel
where the grapes are crushed, the
entire operation, whose transaction
pours this glass of wine, this moment,
this poem. A man stumbles by with
baggage, papers from the house, regret
and wishing, not knowing which to
tend to. Neither. After you see
the face, concerns change, as
lakewater rises into mist.
-- Ghazal (Ode) 2394
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
Hours make the young old.
All changes have arisen from the hours:
the one who is freed from hours is freed from change.
When for an hour you escape from the hours,
"how" no longer remains:
you become familiar with that which is without "how."
Hours are not acquainted with timelessness.
For the one who is possessed by time,
there is no way there except bewilderment.
-- Mathnawi III:2073-2076
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
-
The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.
Coleman Barks
Open Secret: Versions of Rumi
:)
-
Isn't it the truth?
-
Love has nothing to do with the five senses and the six directions:
its goal is only to experience the attraction exerted by the Beloved.
Afterwards, perhaps, permission will come from God:
the secrets that ought to be told will be told
with an eloquence nearer to the understanding
than these subtle confusing allusions.
The secret is partner with none but the knower of the secret:
in the skeptic's ear the secret is no secret at all.
-- Mathnawi VI:5-8
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
-
Choose A Suffering
Yesterday in the assembly I saw my
soul inside the jar of the one who
pours. "Don't forget your job," I
said. He came with his lighted
face, kissed the full glass, and as
he handed it to me, it became a
red-gold oven taking me in, a ruby
mine, a greening garden. Everyone
chooses a suffering that will change
him or her to a well-baked loaf.
Abu Lahab*, biting his hand, chose
doubt. Abu Huraya*, his love for
cats! One searches a confused mind
for evidence. The other has a
leather sack full of what he needs.
If we could be silent now, the
master would tell us some stories
they hear in the high council.
-- Ghazal (Ode) 1246
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
*Don't know these references.
-
A wealth you cannot imagine
flows through you.
Do not consider what strangers say.
Be secluded in your secret heart-house,
that bowl of silence.
Talking, no matter how humble-seeming,
is really a kind of bragging.
Let silence be the art
you practice.
—Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks from Rumi: "Bridge to the Soul."
-
"An Invisible Bee"
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
spike 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.
-- Ghazal (Ode) 2390
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999
-
Clear Wine
A mystic is one
who passes away --
He abides in the essence
of that which is Real.
Such a person is pure,
clear wine without dregs.
Now whole, he displays
the Most Beautiful Names.
Binavi Badakhshani
13th Century Afghanistan
Love's Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition,
Translated by David Fideler and Sabrineh Fideler
-
In this state there is no Shiva,
nor any holy union.
Only a somewhat something moving
dreamlike on a fading road.
- Lalla -
(http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/527517_10151224620470860_50483910_n.jpg)
-
One who knows and knows that he knows... His horse of wisdom will reach the skies.
One who knows, but doesn't know that he knows... He is fast asleep, so you should wake him up!
One who doesn't know, but knows that he doesn't know... His limping mule will eventually get him home.
One who doesn't know and doesn't know that he doesn't know... He will be eternally lost in his hopeless oblivion!
--Ibn Yamin, thirteenth-century
-
A wealth you cannot imagine
flows through you.
Do not consider what strangers say.
Be secluded in your secret heart-house,
that bowl of silence.
Talking, no matter how humble-seeming,
is really a kind of bragging.
Let silence be the art
you practice.
the last refuge of a scoundrel
-
In this state there is no Shiva,
nor any holy union.
Only a somewhat something moving
dreamlike on a fading road.
Only a somewhat something moving
dreamlike on a fading road
-
Craftsmanship and Emptiness
I've said before that every craftsman
searches for what's not there
to practice his craft.
A builder looks for the rotten hole
where the roof caved in. A water-carrier
picks the empty pot. A carpenter
stops at the house with no door.
Workers rush toward some hint
of emptiness, which they then
start to fill. Their hope, though,
is for emptiness, so don't think
you must avoid it. It contains
what you need!
Dear soul, if you were not friends
with the vast nothing inside,
why would you always be casting your net
into it, and waiting so patiently?
This invisible ocean has given you such abundance,
but still you call it "death",
that which provides you sustenance and work.
God has allowed some magical reversal to occur,
so that you see the scorpion pit
as an object of desire,
and all the beautiful expanse around it,
as dangerous and swarming with snakes.
This is how strange your fear of death
and emptiness is, and how perverse
the attachment to what you want.
Now that you've heard me
on your misapprehensions, dear friend,
listen to Attar's story on the same subject.
He strung the pearls of this
about King Mahmud, how among the spoils
of his Indian campaign there was a Hindu boy,
whom he adopted as a son. He educated
and provided royally for the boy
and later made him vice-regent, seated
on a gold throne beside himself.
One day he found the young man weeping..
"Why are you crying? You're the companion
of an emperor! The entire nation is ranged out
before you like stars that you can command! "
The young man replied, "I am remembering
my mother and father, and how they
scared me as a child with threats of you!
'Uh-oh, he's headed for King Mahmud's court!
Nothing could be more hellish!' Where are they now
when they should see me sitting here?"
This incident is about your fear of changing.
You are the Hindu boy.
Mahmud, which means
Praise to the End, is the spirit's
poverty or emptiness.
The mother and father are your attachment
to beliefs and bloodties
and desires and comforting habits.
Don't listen to them!
They seem to protect
but they imprison.
They are your worst enemies.
They make you afraid
of living in emptiness.
Some day you'll weep tears of delight in that court,
remembering your mistaken parents!
Know that your body nurtures the spirit,
helps it grow, and gives it wrong advise.
The body becomes, eventually, like a vest
of chainmail in peaceful years,
too hot in summer and too cold in winter.
But the body's desires, in another way, are like
an unpredictable associate, whom you must be
patient with. And that companion is helpful,
because patience expands your capacity
to love and feel peace.
The patience of a rose close to a thorn
keeps it fragrant. It's patience that gives milk
to the male camel still nursing in its third year,
and patience is what the prophets show to us.
The beauty of careful sewing on a shirt
is the patience it contains.
Friendship and loyalty have patience
as the strength of their connection.
Feeling lonely and ignoble indicates
that you haven't been patient.
Be with those who mix with God
as honey blends with milk, and say,
"Anything that comes and goes,
rises and sets, is not
what I love," else you'll be like a caravan fire left
to flare itself out alone beside the road.
-- Mathnawi VI: 1369-1420
Poetic version by Coleman Barks
"One-Handed Basket Weaving"
Maypop, 1991
-
Naked in the Bee-House
By Hakim Sanai
(1044? - 1150?)
English version by Coleman Barks
Being humble is right for you now.
Don't thrash around showing your strength.
You're naked in the bee-house!
It doesn't matter how powerful
your arms and legs are.
To God, that is more of a lie
than your weakness is.
In his doorway your prestige
and your physical energy are just dust
on your face. Be helpless
and completely poor.
And don't try to meet his eye!
That's like signing a paper
that honors yourself.
If you can take care of things, do so!
But when you're living at home with God,
you neither sew the world together
with desires nor tear it apart
with disappointments.
In that place existence itself
is illusion. All that is, is one.
Lost in that, your personal form
becomes a vast, empty mosque.
When you hold on to yourself,
you're a fire-worshipping temple.
Dissolve, and let everything get done.
When you don't, you're an untrained colt,
full of erratic loving and biting.
Loyal sometimes, then treacherous.
Be more like the servant who owns nothing
and is neither hungry nor satisfied,
who has no hopes for anything,
and no fear of anyone.
An owl living near the king's palace
is considered a bird of misfortune,
ragged and ominous. But off in the woods,
sitting alone, its feathers grow splendid
and sleek like the Phoenix restored.
Musk should not be kept near water or heat.
The dampness and the dryness spoil
its fragrance. But when the musk is at home
in the musk bladder, fire and wetness
mean nothing. In God's doorway your guilt
and your virtue don't count.
Whether you're Muslim, or Christian, or
fire-worshipper, the categories disappear.
You're seeking, and God is what is
sought, the essence beyond any cause.
External theological learning moves like a moon
and fades when the sun of experience rises.
We are here for a week, or less.
We arrive and leave almost simultaneously.
To be is not to be.
The Qur'an says, "They go hastening,
with the Light running on before them."
Clear the way! Muhammed says, "How fine!"
A sigh goes out, and there is union.
Forget how you came to this gate, your history.
Let that be as if it had not been.
Do you think the day plans its course
by what the rooster says?
God does not depend on any of his creatures.
Your existence or non-existence is insignificant.
Many like you have come here before.
When the fountain of light is pouring,
there's no need to urge it on!
That's like a handful of straw
trying to help the sun. "This way!
Please, let this light through!"
The sun doesn't need an announcer.
The lamp you carry is your self-reliance.
The sun is something else!
Half a sneeze might extinguish your langern,
whereas all a winter's windiness
cannot put That out.
The road you must take has no particular name.
It's the one composed of your own sighing
and giving up. What you've been doing
is not devotion. Your hoping and worrying
are like donkeys wandering loose,
sometimes docile, or suddenly mean.
Your face looks wise at times,
and ashamed at others.
There is another way, a pure blankness
where those are one expression.
Omar once saw a group of boys on the road
challenging each other to wrestle.
They were all claiming to be champions,
but when Omar, the fierce and accomplished
warrior, came near, they scattered.
All but one, Abdullah Zubair.
Omar asked, "Why didn't you run?"
"Why should I? You are not a tyrant,
and I am not guilty."
When someone knows his own inner value,
he doesn't care about being accepted
or rejected by anyone else.
The prince here is strong and just.
Stand wondering in his presence.
There is nothing but That.
The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan,
Translated by Coleman Barks
-
"Story-Water"
A story is like the water
you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!
Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.
A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.
Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.
The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing
inside your presence.
Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.
Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.
-- Poetic version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
(encore)
-
Refuge
I see the lamp, the face, the eye,
an altar where the soul bows, a
gladness and refuge. My loving says,
"Here. I can leave my personality
here." My reason agrees! "How can
I object when a rose makes the bent
backs stand up like cypresses?" Such
surrender changes everything. Turks
understand Armenian! Body abandons
bodiness. Soul goes to the center.
Rubies appear in the begging bowl.
But don't brag when this happens.
Be secluded and silent. Stay in
the delight, and be brought the
cup that will come. No artfulness.
Practice quiet and this new joy.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
HarperCollins, 2001
-
Love for Certain Work
Traveling is as refreshing for some
as staying at home is for others.
Solitude in a mountain place
fills with companionship for this one,
and dead-weariness for that one.
This person loves being in charge
of the workings of a community.
This one loves the ways that heated iron
can be shaped with a hammer.
Each has been given a strong desire
for certain work. A love for those motions,
and all motion is love.
The way sticks and pieces of dead grass
and leaves shift about in the wind
and with the direction of rain and
puddle-water on the ground,
those motions are all a following
of the love they’ve been given.
-- Mathnawi III, 1616-1619
Version by Coleman Barks
Rumi: One-Handed Basket Weaving
Maypop, 1991
-
Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.
-
I exhausted myself, looking.
No one ever finds this by trying.
I melted in it and came home,
where every jar is full,
but no one drinks.
- Lalla
-
If you're wise, be foolish.
If you can see, squint.
Though you can hear, sit
dumb as an old rock.
Whatever anyone says,
listen and agree.
This is a friendly practice,
and it leads to some truth.
~Lalla
-
A sampling of various translations and interpretations from Sunlight (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sunlight).
Ghazal (Ode) 1145, from the Diwan-e Shams,
in poetic versions by Coleman Barks and Jonathan Star,
and in literal translation by William Chittick:
No Room for Form
On the night when you cross the street
from your shop and your house
to the cemetery,
you'll hear me hailing you from inside
the open grave, and you'll realize
how we've always been together.
I am the clear consciousness-core
of your being, the same in
ecstasy as in self-hating fatigue.
That night, when you escape the fear of snakebite
and all irritation with the ants, you'll hear
my familiar voice, see the candle being lit,
smell the incense, the surprise meal fixed
by the lover inside all your other lovers.
This heart-tumult is my signal
to you igniting in the tomb.
So don't fuss with the shroud
and the graveyard road dust.
Those get ripped open and washed away
in the music of our finally meeting.
And don't look for me in a human shape,
I am inside your looking. No room
for form with love this strong.
Beat the drum and let the poets speak.
This is a day of purification for those who
are already mature and initiated into what love is.
No need to wait until we die!
There's more to want here than money
and being famous and bites of roasted meat.
Now, what shall we call this new sort of gazing-house
that has opened in our town where people sit
quietly and pour out there glancing
like light, like answering?
-- Poetic version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Blast of the Trumpet
Remember me.
I will be with you in the grave
on the night you leave behind
your shop and your family.
When you hear my soft voice
echoing in your tomb,
you will realize
that you were never hidden from my eyes.
I am the pure awareness within your heart,
with you during joy and celebration,
suffering and despair.
On that strange and fateful night
you will hear a familiar voice --
you'll be rescued from the fangs of snakes
and the searing sting of scorpions.
The euphoria of love will sweep over your grave;
it will bring wine and friends, candles and food.
When the light of realization dawns,
shouting and upheaval
will rise up from the graves!
The dust of ages will be stirred
by the cities of ecstasy,
by the banging of drums,
by the clamor of revolt!
Dead bodies will tear off their shrouds
and stuff their ears in fright--
What use are the senses and the ears
before the blast of that Trumpet?
Look and you will see my form
whether you are looking at yourself
or toward that noise and confusion.
Don't be blurry-eyed,
See me clearly-
See my beauty without the old eyes of delusion.
Beware! Beware!
Don't mistake me for this human form.
The soul is not obscured by forms.
Even if it were wrapped in a hundred folds of felt
the rays of the soul's light
would still shine through.
Beat the drum,
Follow the minstrels of the city.
It's a day of renewal
when every young man
walks boldly on the path of love.
Had everyone sought God
Instead of crumbs and copper coins
T'hey would not be sitting on the edge of the moat
in darkness and regret.
What kind of gossip-house
have you opened in our city?
Close your lips
and shine on the world
like loving sunlight.
Shine like the Sun of Tabriz rising in the East.
Shine like the star of victory.
Shine like the whole universe is yours!
-- Poetic version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved"
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Look at me! I will be your intimate in the grave on
the night you pass from shop and home.
You will hear my salaams in the tomb and then
you will know that you were never hidden from my sight.
Behind your veil I am like your intellect and
awareness--at the time of joy and happiness, at the time of
suffering and infirmity.
When you hear the voice of a friend on that
lonely night, you will be delivered from the striking of the
serpents and the fear of the ants.
The winesickness of Love will bring you a gift
in the grave: wine, witnesses, candles, kabobs, sweetmeat, and
incense.
When we light intellect's lamp, what a shouting
and uproar will arise from the dead in their graves!
The dust of the graveyard will be bewildered by
the shouting and uproar, by the sound of the Resurrection's
drum, by the tremendous tumult of the Uprising.
He whose shroud is torn apart will cover his
ears in terror--but what are brain and ears next to the blast of
the Trumpet?
Wherever you look you will see my form
whether you look at yourself or at that noise and confusion.
Flee from cross-eyed vision and straighten out
your eyes for on that day, the evil eye will be far from my
beauty!
Beware! Beware! Gaze not at my human form!
Make no mistake, for the spirit is terribly subtle and Love
terribly jealous!
What place is this for form?! Were the felt
covering even a hundred fold, the radiance of the spirit's
mirror would show its banner.*
Strike the drums and wind your way to the
minstrels in the city! The young men of Love's way are
holding a day of purification.
If the blind men had sought out God instead of
morsels and money, not one of them would be left sitting on
the edge of the moat.
Why have you opened a tale bearer's house in
our city? Be a shut-mouth tale bearer, like light!** (D 1145)
-- Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love" (pp. 347-348, 374)
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983
Prof. Chittick's notes:
*348, 1. 23-25 (D 1145/12)
Both N (25/12) and A (147/12) make the first misra' a single
compound sentence. In fact, "form" refers to form in the previous
verse (which A translates as "shape," thus hiding the
connection).
The poet protests that here you cannot speak about form, as he
just has. Why not? Because the spirit mirroring the divine Light
will show itself through the felt covering, i.e., its outward
manifestation--a "felt pouch" being where iron mirrors were kept
for safekeeping. Closer attention to Rumi's teaching about the
opposition between form/body and meaning/spirit would have
prevented the mistranslation.
**348, 1. 32-33 (1145-15)
"Tale bearer's house." A 147/15: "Ogling-house." N 25/15:
"House . . . as a dealer in amorous glances"
(ghammaz-khanah). The word ghammaz can support all three
interpretations, but the first meaning is suggested by the second
misra', which states that "light" (nur) is ghammaz. Light does not
"ogle" or "deal in amorous glances," but it does give information
and tell tales, since it makes things manifest. N's rendering is
better than A's, since he maintains some connection between
the first and second misra's. But the insufficiency of his
interpretation is shown by the fact that in the first misra' he adds
"amorous" to explain the sense of ghamaz, while in the second
he had to drop it, since "amorousness" is hardly an attribute of
light, whether in Persian or English.
-
We have this way of talking,
and we have another.
Apart from what we wish
and what we fear may happen,
we are alive with other life,
as clear stones
take form in the mountains.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
Open Secret
Threshold Books, 1984
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~
I have a tongue
beside this tongue
I have a hell and paradise
beside the ones you know
free spirited humans are
alive in others’ souls
their pure diamond
is from another source
-- Translation by Nader Khalili
"Dancing the Flame"
Cal-Earth, 2001
-
An encore...
LANDLOCKED IN FUR
I was meditating with my cat the other day
and all of a sudden she shouted,
"What happened?"
I knew exactly what she meant, but encouraged
her to say more--feeling that if she got it all out on the table
she would sleep better that night.
so I responded, "Tell me more, dear,"
and she soulfully meowed,
"Well, I was mingled with the sky. I was comets
whizzing here and there. I was suns in heat, hell--I was
galaxies. But now look--I am
landlocked in fur."
To this I said, "I know exactly what
you mean."
What to say about conversation
between
mystics?
Tukaram
Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices From the East and West
Daniel Ladinsky
-
An encore...
LANDLOCKED IN FUR
I was meditating with my cat the other day
and all of a sudden she shouted,
"What happened?"
I knew exactly what she meant, but encouraged
her to say more--feeling that if she got it all out on the table
she would sleep better that night.
so I responded, "Tell me more, dear,"
and she soulfully meowed,
"Well, I was mingled with the sky. I was comets
whizzing here and there. I was suns in heat, hell--I was
galaxies. But now look--I am
landlocked in fur."
To this I said, "I know exactly what
you mean."
What to say about conversation
between
mystics?
Tukaram
Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices From the East and West
Daniel Ladinsky
Have come across this one before - it is a favourite.
-
The moths and the flame
By Farid ud-Din Attar
(1120? - 1220?)
English version by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis
Moths gathered in a fluttering throng one night
To learn the truth about the candle light,
And they decided one of them should go
To gather news of the elusive glow.
One flew till in the distance he discerned
A palace window where a candle burned --
And went no nearer: back again he flew
To tell the others what he thought he knew.
The mentor of the moths dismissed his claim,
Remarking: "He knows nothing of the flame."
A moth more eager than the one before
Set out and passed beyond the palace door.
He hovered in the aura of the fire,
A trembling blur of timorous desire,
Then headed back to say how far he'd been,
And how much he had undergone and seen.
The mentor said: "You do not bear the signs
Of one who's fathomed how the candle shines."
Another moth flew out -- his dizzy flight
Turned to an ardent wooing of the light;
He dipped and soared, and in his frenzied trance
Both self and fire were mingled by his dance --
The flame engulfed his wing-tips, body, head,
His being glowed a fierce translucent red;
And when the mentor saw that sudden blaze,
The moth's form lost within the glowing rays,
He said: "He knows, he knows the truth we seek,
That hidden truth of which we cannot speak."
To go beyond all knowledge is to find
That comprehension which eludes the mind,
And you can never gain the longed-for goal
Until you first outsoar both flesh and soul;
But should one part remain, a single hair
Will drag you back and plunge you in despair --
No creature's self can be admitted here,
Where all identity must disappear.
-- from The Conference of the Birds
-
"A Green-Winged Longing"
This world of two gardens, and both so beautiful.
This world, a street where a funeral is passing.
Let us rise together and leave "this world,"
as water goes bowing down itself to the ocean.
From gardens to the gardener, from grieving
to wedding feast. We tremble like leaves
about to let go. There's no avoiding pain,
or feeling exiled, or the taste of dust.
But also we have a green-winged longing
for the sweetness of the Friend.
These forms are evidence of what
cannot be shown. Here's how it is
to go into that: rain that's been leaking
into the house decides to use the downspout.
The bent bowstring straining at our throats
releases and becomes the arrow!
Mice quivering in fear of the housecat suddenly
change to half-grown lion cubs, afraid of nothing.
So let's begin the journey home,
with love and compassion for guides,
and grace protecting. Let your soul turn
into an empty mirror that passionately wants
to reflect Joseph. Hand him your present.
Now let silence speak, and as that
gift begins, we'll start out.
Version by Coleman Barks
(from a translation by John Moyne)
"Say I Am You"
Maypop, 1994
-
"The Image of Your Body"
You’ve made it out of the city,
that image of your body,
trembling with traffic and fear slips behind.
Your face arrives in the redbud trees,
and the tulips.
You’re still restless.
Climb up the ladder to the roof.
You’re by yourself a lot,
become the one that when you walk in,
luck shifts to the one who needs it.
If you’ve not been fed, be bread.
Version by Coleman Barks
"Open Secret"
-
To arrange words in some order
Is not the same thing
As the inner poise
That's poetry.
The truth of poetry is the truth of being.
It's an experience of truth
No ornaments survive a crucible
Fire reveals only molten gold.
We are here to reveal
We do not waste words.
― Tukaram
-
The Lover
Farid ud-Din Attar
(1120? - 1220?)
'A lover', said the hoopoe, now their guide,
'Is one in whom all thoughts of self have died;
Those who renounce the self deserve that name;
Righteous or sinful, they are all the same!
Your heart is thwarted by the self's control;
Destroy its hold on you and reach your goal.
Give up this hindrance, give up mortal sight,
For only then can you approach the light.
If you are told: "Renounce our Faith," obey!
The self and Faith must both be tossed away;
Blasphemers call such action blasphemy --
Tell them that love exceeds mere piety.
Love has no time for blasphemy or faith,
Nor lovers for the self, that feeble wraith.
The Conference of the Birds
-
"The Waterwheel"
In this river the soul is a waterwheel
that no matter how it's facing, water pours
through turning, re-turning to the river.
Even if you put your side
or your back to the river,
water still comes through.
A shadow can't ignore the sun
that all day creates and moves it!
The soul lives like a drop of mercury
in the palm of a palsied man.
Or say the soul is the moon,
that every thirty nights has two
so empty, in union, that it disappears.
The other twenty-eight nights it endures
different stages of separation,
wretched, but laughing.
Laughter is the way of lovers.
They live and die tickled,
and always fresh-faced, knowing
the return that's coming.
Don't question this! The answers
and your questions in response
will cause your eyes to see wrongly.
Live the laughing silence.
Rumi - Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I am You"
Maypop, 1994
-
I circle your nest tonight,
around and around until morning
when a breath of air says, Now,
and the Friend holds up like a goblet
some anonymous skull.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
Unseen Rain
-
To disregard what appears to be the self
This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
to regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to be the self.
Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
to enter this circle of lovers,
to see beyond seeing itself,
to reach and feel within the breast.
- Rumi,
The Divani Shamsi Tabriz, XIII
-
If my words are not saying what You would say,
slap my face. Discipline me as a loving mother does
a babbling child caught up in nonsense.
A thirsty man runs into the sea,
and the sea holds a sword to his throat.
A lily looks at a bank of roses
and wilts and says nothing.
I am a tambourine. Don't put me aside
till the fast dancing starts.
Play me some all along.
Help me with these little sounds.
Joseph is most beautiful when he's completely naked,
but his shirt gives you an idea,
as the body lets you glimpse the glitter
on the water of the soul.
Even if the corpse washer binds my jaw shut,
you'll still hear this song
coming out of my dead-silence.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Like This"
Maypop, 1990
-
On the other shore
On the other shore
Of the ocean
Of one's own self,
Quivers a drop of fluid--
As the origin of all.
But who can cross the seas
To reach it?
The root of all
Is based in you.
Explore the base
To reach the essence....
Haude Gosain
(1795 - ?)
India
English version by Deben Bhattacharya
The Mirror of the Sky: Songs of the Bauls of Bengal,
Translated by Deben Bhattacharya
-
The universe
is a kaleidoscope:
now hopelessness, now hope
now spring, now fall.
Forget its ups and downs:
do not vex yourself:
The remedy for pain
is the pain.
Sarmad
17th Century Persia/India
-
He bartered my heart
looted my flesh,
claimed as tribute
my pleasure,
took over
all of me.
I'm the woman of love
for my lord, white as jasmine.
Akka Mahadevi
-
Jani has had enough of samsara,
but how will I repay my debt?
You leave your greatness behind you
to grind and pound with me.
O Lord you become a woman
washing me and my soiled clothes,
proudly you carry the water
and gather dung with your own two hands.
O Lord, I want
a place at your feet,
says Jani, Namdev's dasi.
Janabai
-
Cry Out in Your Weakness
A dragon was pulling a bear into its horrible mouth
A courageous man went and rescued the bear.
There are such helpers in the world, who rush to save
anyone who cries out. Like Mercy itself,
they run toward the screaming.
And they can't be bought off.
If you were to ask one of those, "Why did you come
so quickly?" he or she would say, "Because I heard
your helplessness. "
Where lowland is,
that's where water goes. All medicine wants
is pain to cure.
And don't just ask for one mercy.
Let them flood in. Let the sky open under your feet.
Take the cotton out of your ears, the cotton
of consolations, so you can hear the sphere-music.
Push the hair out of your eyes.
Blow the phlegm from your nose,
and from your brain.
Let the wind breeze through.
Leave no residue in yourself from that bilious fever.
Take the cure for impotence,
that your manhood may shoot forth,
and a hundred new beings come of your coming.
Tear the bindings from around the foot
of your soul, and let it race around the track
in front of the crowd. Loosen the knot of greed
so tight on your neck. Accept your new good luck.
Give your weakness
to one who helps.
Crying out loud and weeping are great resources.
A nursing mother, all she does
is wait to hear her child.
Just a little beginning whimper
and she's there.
God created the child, that is, your wanting,
so that it might cry out, so that milk might come.
Cry out! Don't be stolid and silent
with your pain. Lament! And let the milk
of loving flow into you.
The hard rain and wind
are ways the cloud has
to take care of us.
Be patient.
Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.
Ignore those that make you fearful
and sad, that degrade you
back toward disease and death.
-- Mathnawi II: 1932-60
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995
-
No wonder the soul doesn't remember its ancient home,
its original dwelling and place of birth,
since the sleep of this world covers it as clouds hide the stars.
It has walked through so many cities,
and the dust hasn't yet been wiped from its perception.
It hasn't yet worked to purify its heart and behold the past,
that its heart might peek from the aperture of mystery
and see its beginning with open eyes.
-- Mathnawi IV: 3632-3636
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
-
The Circle Around the Zero
A lover doesn't figure the odds.
He figures he came clean from God
as a gift without a reason,
so he gives without cause
or calculation or limit.
A conventionally religious person
behaves a certain way
to achieve salvation.
A lover gambles everything, the self,
the circle around the zero! He or she
cuts and throws it all away.
This is beyond
any religion.
Lovers do not require from God any proof,
or any text, nor do they knock on a door
to make sure this is the right street.
They run,
and they run.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion"
Threshold Books, 1991
-
Forget the world, and so command the world.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.
Help someone' s soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
Stay in the spiritual fire. Let it cook you.
Be a well-baked loaf and lord of the table.
Come and be served to your brothers.
You have been a source of pain.
Now you'll be the delight.
You have been an unsafe house. Now you'll
be the One who sees into the Invisible.
I said this, and a Voice came to my ear,
"If you become this, you will be That! "
Then Silence,
and now more Silence.
A mouth is not for talking.
A mouth is for tasting this Sweetness.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
from a translation by A.J. Arberry
"Like This"
Maypop, 1990
-
Day will be erased in night.
The ground's surface will extend outward.
The new moon will be swallowed
in eclipse, and the mind in meditation
will be completely absorbed
by the Void inside it.
Lalleswari
-
Dance when you're broken open.
Dance when you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free.
Struck, the dancer hears a tambourine inside her,
like a wave that crests into foam at the very top,
Begins.
Maybe you don't hear that tambourine,
or the tree leaves clapping time.
Close the ears on your head,
that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes.
There are other things to see, and hear.
Music. Dance.
A brilliant city inside your soul!
- Rumi
-
Sir, have you forgotten the promise
you made in your mother's womb,
to die before you die?
When will you remember
what you intended?
Don't let your donkey wander loose!
It will stray into your neighbor' s
saffron garden. Think of the damage
it might do, and the punishment!
Who then will carry you naked
to your own death?
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
-
The path consists of neither words nor deeds
by Hakim Sanai
11th Century
English version by D.L. Pendlebury
Original Language Persian/Farsi
The path consists of neither words nor deeds:
only desolation can come from these,
and never any lasting edifice.
Sweetness and life are the words
of the man who treads this road in silence;
when he speaks it is not from ignorance,
and when he is silent it is not from sloth.
-
The Dream Boat
"Who was it that came to me in a boat made of dream-fire,
With his flame brow and his sun-gold body?
Melted was the silence into a sweet secret murmur,
“Do you come now? is the heart’s fire ready?”
Sri Aurobindo
-
"Rapture" Blondie .
Toe to toe
Dancing very close
Barely breathing
Almost comatose
Wall to wall
People hypnotised
And they're stepping lightly
Hang each night in Rapture
Back to back
Sacrailiac
Spineless movement
And a wild attack
Face to face
Sadly solitude
And it's finger popping
Twenty-four hour shopping in Rapture
Fab Five Freddie told me everybody's fly
DJ's spinning I said my, my
Flash is fast, Flash is cool
Francois sais pas, Flashe no deux
And you don't stop, sure shot
Go out to the parking lot
And you get in your car and you drive real far
And you drive all night and then you see a light
And it comes right down and lands on the ground
And out comes a man from Mars
And you try to run but he's got a gun
And he shoots you dead and he eats your head
And then you're in the man from Mars
You go out at night, eatin' cars
You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too
Mercuries and Subarus
And you don't stop, you keep on eatin' cars
Then, when there's no more cars
You go out at night and eat up bars where the people meet
Face to face, dance cheek to cheek
One to one, man to man
Dance toe to toe
Don't move too slow, 'cause the man from Mars
Is through with cars, he's eatin' bars
Yeah, wall to wall, door to door, hall to hall
He's gonna eat 'em all
Rapture, be pure
Take a tour, through the sewer
Don't strain your brain, paint a train
You'll be singin' in the rain
I said don't stop, do punk rock
Well now you see what you wanna be
Just have your party on TV
'Cause the man from Mars won't eat up bars when the TV's on
And now he's gone back up to space
Where he won't have a hassle with the human race
And you hip-hop, and you don't stop
Just blast off, sure shot
'Cause the man from Mars stopped eatin' cars and eatin' bars
And now he only eats guitars, get up!
-
You were once a swan singing
melodies, Lalla. Now you're quiet.
Someone, I don't know who, has run off
with what belonged to you.
The millstone stops, and the hole
where the grain is fed in fills
with grain. The channel leading
to the grinding work is covered over
and hidden, and the miller
himself has disappeared.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop, 1992
-
Becoming sky & earth
Becoming sky & earth
Wind & light
Becoming flesh & spirit
All that truly is
& all that which is not
Becoming the Lord,
He makes those who say,
"I" & "mine"
Dance in the show
Becoming sky
& standing there...
How can my words
praise Him?
Manikkavacakar
9th Century India
Shaivite
Original Language Tamil
-
While unperishing love melted my bones,
I cried
I shouted again and again,
louder than the waves of the
billowing sea,
I became confused,
I fell,
I rolled,
I wailed,
Bewildered like a madman,
Intoxicated like a crazy drunk,
so that people were puzzled
and those who heard wondered.
Wild as a rutting elephant which cannot
be mounted,
I could not contain myself.
Manikkavacakar
9th Century India
Shaivite
English version by G. E. Yocum
Original Language Tamil
-
People,
male and female,
blush when a cloth covering their shame
comes loose
When the lord of lives
lives drowned without a face
in the world, how can you be modest?
When all the world is the eye of the lord,
onlooking everywhere, what can you
cover and conceal?
Akka Mahadevi
12th Century India
Shaivite
English version by A. K. Ramanujan
Original Language Kannada
-
Fair mothers, my sweet ambrosia
Of Srirangam
With his lovely hair, his lovely mouth
His lovely eyes
And the lovely lotus from his belly button —
My husband —
Has my loose bangle
Made me loose indeed!
My Lord of Srirangam,
Rich and righteous,
Who owns this sea-swept earth entire
And the sky
Has made his possessions
Now complete
With the bangle which I wore
On my hand!
Andal
English version by Paula Marvelly
Original Language Tamil
India 9th Century
Hindu : Vaishnava
From Nacciyar Tirumoli
"The Tiruppavai and Nacciyar Tirumoli, composed by the ninth century Tamil mystic and poet Antal, were two of the most significant compositions by a female Hindu mystic, these works give expression to her powerful experiences through the use of vibrant and bold sensuality, in which Vishnu is her awesome, mesmerizing, and sometimes cruel lover. " https://www.aarweb.org/publications/secret-garland-antals-tiruppavai-and-nacciyar-tirumoli
-
Something has reached out and taken in the beams of my eyes.
There is a longing, it is for his body, for every hair of that dark body.
All I was doing was being, and the Dancing Energy came by my house.
His face looks curiously like the moon, I saw it from the side, smiling.
My family says: "Don't ever see him again!" And they imply things in a low voice.
But my eyes have their own life; they laugh at rules, and know whose they are.
I believe I can bear on my shoulders whatever you want to say of me.
Mira says: Without the energy that lifts mountains, how am I to live?
~Mirabai
16th Century India
Krishna
Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems
Translated by Robert Bly
-
I am that supreme and fiery force that sends forth all living sparks. Death hath no part in me, yet I bestow death, wherefore I am girt about with Wisdom as with wings. I am that living and fiery essence of the divine substance that glows in the beauty of the fields, and in the shining water, and in the burning sun and the moon and the stars, and in the force of the invisible wind, the breath of all living things, I breathe in the green grass and the flowers, and in the living waters...
~Hildegarde of Bingen
12th Century Germany
Catholic/Gnostic
(Book of Divine Works, circa 1167, in Partnow, The Quotable Woman, 48)
-
Wiki:
Aretalogy
Aretalogy is a form of sacred biography where a deity's attributes are listed, in the form of poem or text, in the first person.
Usage
Often each line starts with the standard "I am …". Usually, aretalogies are self praising. They are found in the sacred texts of later Egypt, Mesopotamia and in Greco-Roman times. Aretalogies of Isis would be recited everyday by an Aretologist who would have to memorise a huge list of attributes which he/she would have to recite.(Priests and priestesses of Isis had equal rank in the temple.) The aretalogies of ancient Egypt provide some the most complete information extant about their deities.[1] Aretalogies are found as early as the Coffin Texts. In a Ptolemeic aretalogy, Aset (Isis) says about herself:
I am Isis, ruler of every land.
I was taught by Hermes (Thoth) and with Hermes devised letters, both hieroglyphic and demotic, that all might not be written with the same.
I gave laws to mankind and ordained what no one can change.
-
the word "Ordained"
was a bit confronting in the last one hmm
perhaps it can mean something other than a priestly heirachial
version
-
or maybe thats why they call "hymm 's"
because its more like a hmmm 's lost in translation
-
the word "Ordained"
was a bit confronting in the last one hmm
perhaps it can mean something other than a priestly heirachial
version
I hear it as 'decreed'. Or, she made it so.
But that's an uppity goddess for you. ;) ;) ;)
-
Ok i had to look up Isis just now
looks like a female too
decree
we are speaking of commands it seems
which i attributed the connotation to a masculine line of order
by the languages common appeal
so I see and saw
female with male balance
and a law "decree"
of balance
got there in the end
laws made for all
risen
the eternal
cast upon
through decree
what no one can change
;)
-
`
I have not really known myself,
or anyone else.
I’ve tried to do good, and not
just what my appetites wanted,
But that was all infatuation
with this precious, isolated, body.
That you and I were constantly joining,
I didn’t know. I didn’t know
That even to ask “What are You?”
or “Who am I” breaks the harmony.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
-
Eating Poetry
~Rumi~
My poems resemble the bread of Egypt - one night
passes over it, and you can't eat it anymore.
So gobble them down now, while they're still fresh,
before the dust of the world settles on them.
Where a poem belongs is here, in the warmth of the chest;
out in the world it dies of cold.
You've seen a fish - put him on dry land,
he quivers for a few minutes, and then is still.
And even if you eat my poems while they're still fresh,
you still have to bring forward many images yourself.
Actually, friend, what you're eating is your own imagination.
These are not just a bunch of old proverbs.
(translated by Robert Bly)
'The Rumi Collection'
Edited by Kabir Helminski
-
I saw the Omnipotent's flaming pioneers
Over the heavenly verge which turns towards life
Come crowding down the amber stairs of birth;
Forerunners of a divine multitude,
Out of the paths of the morning star they came
Into the little room of mortal life.
I saw them cross the twilight of an age,
The sun-eyed children of a marvellous dawn,
The great creators with wide brows of calm,
The massive barrier-breakers of the world
And wrestlers with destiny in her lists of will,
The labourers in the quarries of the gods,
The messengers of the Incommunicable,
The architects of immortality.
(Sri Aurobindo --- Savitri book lll canto lV)
The Savitri is on my bucket list: has anyone here read it?
-
How I Became a Madman
You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus:
One day, long before many gods were born,
I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen—
the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives—
I ran maskless through the crowded streets
shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."
Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses
in fear of me. And when I reached the market place,
a youth standing on a house-top cried, "He is a madman."
I looked up to behold him;
the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time.
For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face
and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun,
and I wanted my masks no more.
And as if in a trance I cried,
"Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."
Thus I became a madman.
And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness;
the freedom of loneliness and the safety
from being understood,
for those who understand us enslave something in us.
But let me not be too proud of my safety.
Even a thief in a jail is safe from another thief.
~Kahil Gibran~
-
There is no "You" or "I," no object
to contemplate, no contemplation!
Everything is That lost in That.
The blind theologians didn't understand.
Then they saw, and their seven levels
of attainment dissolved to nothing.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
-
The preacher and the torch bearer
are one and the same
Both illuminate the path for others
Yet remain in the dark forever.
Bulleh Shah
17th Century Punjabi Sufi Poet
-
The moon is encircled by moons.
How can I hold it
In my hands?
The unseizable moon,
Glowing in the brilliance
Of a million moons,
Rocks my head
In a lunar carnival....
Moon fruits adorn
The tree of the moon,
Flashing,
Luminously flashing.
I try to see
But my eyes cannot bear;
The rays of beauty
Dazzle them.
Lalon
18th Century Bengali
-
With passionate practices
I held the reins secure on my mind
and made the breath one column.
Then the new moon's clear
nectar descended into me,
nothing pouring into Nothing.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
-
I exhausted myself, looking.
No one ever finds this by trying.
I melted in it and came home,
where every jar is full,
but no one drinks.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
Encore post.
-
There are those sleeping who are awake,
and others awake who are sound asleep.
Some of those bathing in sacred pools
will never get clean.
And there are others
doing household chores
who are free of any action.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
-
I have no name (from The Song of Life)
By Jiddu Krishnamurti
(1895 - 1986)
I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
I have no shelter;
I am as the wandering waters.
I have no sanctuary, like the dark gods;
Nor am I in the shadow of deep temples.
I have no sacred books;
Nor am I well-seasoned in tradition.
I am not in the incense
Mounting on the high altars,
Nor in the pomp of ceremonies.
I am neither in the graven image,
Nor in the rich chant of a melodious voice.
I am not bound by theories,
Nor corrupted by beliefs.
I am not held in the bondage of religions,
Nor in the pious agony of their priests.
I am not entrapped by philosophies,
Nor held in the power of their sects.
I am neither low nor high,
I am the worshipper and the worshipped.
I am free.
My song is the song of the river
Calling for the open seas,
Wandering, wandering,
I am Life.
I have no name,
I am as the fresh breeze of the mountains.
-
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.
I can explain this, but it would break
the glass cover on your heart,
and there’s no fixing that.
Rumi
-
Playfully, you hid from me.
All day I looked.
Then I discovered
I was you,
and the celebration
of That began.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
Maypop 1992
(encore)
-
Streaming
By Hakim Sanai
(1044? - 1150?)
English version by Coleman Barks
When the path ignites a soul,
there's no remaining in place.
The foot touches ground,
but not for long.
The way where love tells its secret
stays always in motion,
and there is no you there, and no reason.
The rider urges his horse to gallop,
and so doing, throws himself
under the flying hooves.
In love-unity there's no old or new.
Everything is nothing.
God alone is.
For lovers the phenomena-veil is very transparent,
and the delicate tracings on it cannot
be explained with language.
Clouds burn off as the sun rises,
and the love-world floods with light.
But cloud-water can be obscuring,
as well as useful.
There is an affection that covers the glory,
rather than dissolving into it.
It's a subtle difference,
like the change in Persian
from the word "friendship"
to the word "work."
That happens with just a dot
above or below the third letter.
There is a seeing of the beauty
of union that doesn't actively work
for the inner conversation.
Your hand and feet must move,
as a stream streams, working
as its Self, to get to the ocean.
Then there's no more mention
of the search.
Being famous, or being a disgrace,
who's ahead or behind, these considerations
are rocks and clogged places
that slow you. Be as naked as a wheat grain
out of its husk and sleek as Adam.
Don't ask for anything other
than the presence.
Don't speak of a "you"
apart from That.
A full container cannot be more full.
Be whole, and nothing.
The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan, Translated by Coleman Barks
-
Waking
By Kalidasa
(350? - 430?)
English version by W. S. Merwin & J. Moussaieff Masson
Even the man who is happy
glimpses something
or a hair of sound touches him
and his heart overflows with a longing
he does not recognize
then it must be that he is remembering
in a place out of reach
shapes he has loved
in a life before this
the print of them still there in him waiting
-- from East Window: Poems from Asia, Translated by W. S. Merwin
-
An Ottoman Ghazal by Na'ili (d. 1666)
Translated from Ottoman Turkish by Walter Feldman
Note: A strong ghazal creates challenges to interpretations, riddles, paradoxes, shifting perspectives, and a build up of poetic tension. An explanatory afterword follows this translation, discussing some of the questions raised and explaining the various allusions it employs.
We are the snake and in the staff in Moses' hand we're hidden
Say not snake, but rather ant and under foot we're hidden
He won't see us in the mirror, though we're also his reflection,
To the vision-of self-praising intellect we're hidden
Although we are contained in the eye of Majnun, yet
We are the charm of beauty and in Leyla's cheek we're hidden
Were it even powdered diamonds no salve would take effect
We are that scar of madness—in its black core we're hidden
In Sinai or the burning bush Moses cannot see us;
In the flaming face of Divine Epiphany we are hidden
We are the ailment for which our healthy madness is the cure;
We are love and in passion's secret chamber we are hidden
We are the false chessman in your hand, oh double-dealing Fortune
In the thousand glances of an instant we are hidden
Oh Na’ili it's we who form enchanting images from the word.
Though we appear in words in the heart of meaning we are hidden.
© Walter Feldman
Afterword:
Among the allusions employed in this poem are the following: The Qur’anic story of Moses and the Pharaoh includes the magic power placed by God in the staff of Moses; the intellect or heart as a polished mirror reflecting reality or the image of God; Majnun and Layla as archetypal lovers; the search by doctors, alchemists, and herbalists for a cure for love; God’s epiphany before in the burning bush, and later in more dramatic form when Moses asks to sees God’s face, God reveals it instead to a mountain near Moses and the mountain is obliterated; the role of the heavenly spheres and fate in determining destiny and the condition of lovers; interplay between artistic and verbal expression and the secret, interior meaning; and the power of the poet’s words to cast a spell.
The final verse includes the feature, common to Persian, Turkish, and Urdu ghazals, known as takallus, in which the pen-name of the poet, whose persona had been the speaker in the poem, is addressed in the third person, apparently by some other speaker. The takallus provides each ghazal with a twist, vital to the impact of the poem as a whole.
The poem presents a complex riddle: who are “we?” The answer shifts from verse to verse, and even from half-verse to half-verse. The “we” is powerful, then abject, at times human, at times perhaps divine (hidden in the burning bush in which God appeared to Moses). In Islamic tradition, “we” can be used as a royal or polite plural (similar to Victorian English, as exemplified by Queen Victoria’s famous response to a joke she did not appreciation, “We are not amused.” In the Qur’an, “we” commonly refers to Allah. The poet can refer to himself as “we,” or to the beloved through either the singular or plural forms of “you,” and the shift between singular and plural can create subtle registers of intimacy.
The Persian, Ottoman, and Urdu ghazal tradition employs a radif, a complex set of rhymes at the end of each verse difficult to reduplicate in English. Radif involves not only a rhyme at the end of each verse, but a scheme of rhymes extending often into the last syllable of a word before the major rhyme word. This translation, by Walter Feldman, provides an unusually effective reflection of the radif in the expression “we’re hidden” by fitting it into a complex chain of rhythm, sound effects, and changes in syntax through each of the verses.
http://teachmiddleeast.lib.uchicago.edu/historical-perspectives/writing-and-literature/islamic-period/learning-resources/primary-sources.html
-
"I shall grasp the soul's skirt with my hand
and stamp on the world's head with my foot.
I shall trample Matter and Space with my horse,
beyond all Being I shall utter a great shout,
and in that moment when I shall be alone with Him,
I shall whisper secrets to all mankind.
Since I shall have neither sign nor name
I shall speak only of things unnamed and without sign.
Do not delude yourself that from a burned heart
I will discourse with palette and tongue.
The body is impure, I shall cast it away
and utter these pure words with soul alone."
(Farid ud-Din Attar)
-
Somehow, by very nature, I feel we have to be haunters of the night - seekers of that which lies beyond the darkness.
There are many living things out there, frolicking in the night. And they are happy to be seen, though they aren't used to it.
-
"Word Fog"
Words, even if they come from
the soul, hide the soul, as fog
rising off the sea covers the sea,
the coast, the fish, the pearls.
It's noble work to build coherent
philosophical discourses, but
they block out the sun of truth.
See God's qualities as an ocean,
this world as foam on the purity
of that. Brush away and look
through the alphabet to essence,
as you do the hair covering your
beloved's eyes. Here's the mystery:
this intricate, astonishing world
is proof of God's presence even as
it covers the beauty. One flake
from the wall of a gold mine does
not give much idea what it's like
when the sun shines in and turns
the air and the workers golden.
-- Ghazal (Ode) 921
Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
-
"Story-Water"
A story is like the water
you heat for your bath.
It takes messages between the fire
and your skin. It lets them meet,
and it cleans you!
Very few can sit down
in the middle of the fire itself
like a salamander or Abraham.
We need intermediaries.
A feeling of fullness comes,
but usually it takes some bread
to bring it.
Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking
in a garden to know it.
The body itself is a screen
to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing
inside your presence.
Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.
Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.
-- Poetic version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
-
The Circle Around the Zero
A lover doesn't figure the odds.
He figures he came clean from God
as a gift without a reason,
so he gives without cause
or calculation or limit.
A conventionally religious person
behaves a certain way
to achieve salvation.
A lover gambles everything, the self,
the circle around the zero! He or she
cuts and throws it all away.
This is beyond
any religion.
Lovers do not require from God any proof,
or any text, nor do they knock on a door
to make sure this is the right street.
They run,
and they run.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion"
Threshold Books, 1991
-
For a moment I saw a beautiful moving river.
Then a vast water with no means of crossing it.
For a moment, I saw a bush full of opening buds.
Then no roses, no thorns, nothing.
For a moment I saw a busy cooking fire.
Then no hearth, no smoke, no flame.
I saw the great mother of kings, Kunti.
Then, the next moment, sitting here, is
the helpless old aunt of the potter's wife.
- Lalla
14th Century North Indian mystic
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
From "Naked Song"
Versions by Coleman Barks
~Encore.
-
Friend, this is the only way
By Sachal Sarmast
(1739 - 1829)
Sufi, Pakistan
English version by Ivan M. Granger
Friend, this is the only way
to learn the secret way:
Ignore the paths of others,
even the saints' steep trails.
Don't follow.
Don't journey at all.
Rip the veil from your face.
from The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology), Edited by Ivan M. Granger
-
I saw a wise man dying of starvation.
Leaves fall in the slightest
wind in December.
And I saw a wealthy man beating his cook
for some mistake with the spices.
Since then, I Lalla, have been waiting
for my love of this place to leave me.
- Lalla
-
Holy Sixth Day
Holy sixth day
in the woods they worship the
trees then
then my heart beats hard
at how far I was going into
the woods
a snake appeared in front of me
and I fell down
I started writhing and rolling
this way and that way
my dress fell off
my hair burned along
my back
thorns scratched me
everywhere
suddenly who am I
who was I
how I
love those celebrations
Govindasvamin
I encountered something today on the Goddess Shashti, worshiped in West Bengal. The description said this:
In the Bengal region, Shashthi is worshiped as a goddess of birth and protector of small children. She is identified by the babies she holds and her yellow-colored skin, and particularly by the cat that is her vehicle and complement. Women worship her if they wish to become pregnant, and on the sixth day after a child is born. Calcutta, c.1880.
Just wondering what significance the "Sixth Day" holds in Hinduism...
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/03/5c/be/035cbeaae5e30f0d4ae6c02419669832.jpg)
-
For those who have Awareness,
a hint is quite enough.
For the multitudes of heedless
mere knowledge is useless.
- Haji Bektash Veli
-
Turkey's "national poet", Yunus Emre (1240-1321), a contemporary of Haji Bektash, is considered Bektashi, with lines such as A Moses may lie under every stone.
One of his poems well-describes the future Bektashi Order of Dervishes:
Our laws are different from other laws.
Our religion is like no other:
Different from the seventy-two Islamic sects.
We are guided by different signs,
And a Hereafter only before our deaths. We worship without ritual or cleansing,
Without positioning our bodies or facing Mecca.
Whether at the Ka'aba, in the mosque,
or in domestic prayer,
We all bear our own defects and handicaps.
Which religious sect is true, no one in truth can say.
Only the future can reveal 'the truth' - too late.
Yunus, renew your soul, be remembered as a Friend of Love,
Connect with the power of your integrity
and listen with compassionate ears.
http://www.beyond-the-pale.uk/albanian4.htm
-
For those who have Awareness,
a hint is quite enough.
For the multitudes of heedless
mere knowledge is useless.
- Haji Bektash Veli
The Gap... as the years roll by, we try to close the gap, yet...
-
Good and Evil
By Kahlil Gibran
(1883 - 1931)
And one of the elders of the city said, Speak to us of Good and Evil.
And he answered:
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil.
For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.
And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.
You are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.
For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast.
Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.
And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.
You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
Even those who limp go not backward.
But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.
You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.
In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.
And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore.
But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, "Wherefore are you slow and halting?"
For the truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your garment?" nor the houseless, "What has befallen your house?"
-- from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran
-
"In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?"
(Rabia al-Basri)
-
A single word can brighten the face
By Yunus Emre
(1238 - 1320)
English version by Kabir Helminski & Refik Algan
A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.
War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there's a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.
Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.
Know when to speak a word
and when not to speak at all.
A single word turns the universe of hell
into eight paradises.
Follow the Way. Don't be fooled
by what you already know. Be watchful.
Reflect before you speak.
A foolish mouth can brand your soul.
Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words --
Only the word "I"
divides me from God.
-- from The Drop That Became the Sea: Lyric Poems of Yunus Emre, Translated by Kabir Helminski / Translated by Refik Algan
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Becoming sky & earth
By Manikkavacakar
(9th Century)
Becoming sky & earth
Wind & light
Becoming flesh & spirit
All that truly is
& all that which is not
Becoming the Lord,
He makes those who say,
"I" & "mine"
Dance in the show
Becoming sky
& standing there...
How can my words
praise Him?
-
Becoming sky & earth
By Manikkavacakar
(9th Century)
Becoming sky & earth
Wind & light
Becoming flesh & spirit
All that truly is
& all that which is not
Becoming the Lord,
He makes those who say,
"I" & "mine"
Dance in the show
Becoming sky
& standing there...
How can my words
praise Him?
:)
-
"On the seventh day of the Seventh-month, in the Palace of Long Life,
We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world
That we wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one,
And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.
Earth endures, heaven endures; some time both shall end,
While this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever."
- Bai Juyi - A Song of Unending Sorrow - 300 Tang Poems