Topic: Saints and Mystics

[daphne]

Just as if you lit a flame from a flame,
it is the whole flame you receive.

Beauitful!

[nichi]

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 - )

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[Jennifer-]

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!

[nichi]

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~

[nichi]

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)

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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~

[nichi]

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

[erik]

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."