Topic: Saints and Mystics

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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"

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[Jennifer-]

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

 

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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~

[nichi]

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 ~

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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"

[nichi]

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

[nichi]

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"