Jelaluddin Rumi

Jelaluddin Rumi was a 13 century mystic poet, of the Sufi tradition. His profoundly divine poems are a catalyst to the remembrance of our true nature - that links all back to our Soul-Essence, the divine presence within. Rumi's poetry and parables come from a deeply felt experience of God's presence and love in his life, for love is the divine creative force which permeates the entire universe. And it is love that will unite us to our source. Each time we read his poems, we can find something new, something fresh, a deeper meaning: ====================================== "In truth everything and everyone Is a shadow of the Beloved, And our seeking is His seeking And our words are His words... We search for Him here and there, while looking right at Him. Sitting by His side, we ask: 'O Beloved, where is the Beloved?'" ====================================== SOME KISS WE WANT There is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of spirit on the body. Seawater begs the pearl to break its shell. And the lily, how passionately it needs some wild darling! At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me. Close the language- door and open the love window. The moon won't use the door, only the window. ================================ QUIETNESS 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 thick clouds. 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.

================================ HOW VERY CLOSE how very close is your soul with mine i know for sure everything you think goes through my mind i am with you now and doomsday not like a host caring for you at a feast alone with you i am happy all the times the time i offer my life or the time you gift me your love offering my life is a profitable venture each life i give you pay in turn a hundred lives again in this house there are a thousand dead and still souls making you stay as this will be yours a handful of earth cries aloud i used to be hair or i used to be bones and just the moment when you are all confused leaps forth a voice hold me close i'm love and i'm always yours ======================================= TWO FRIENDS A certain person came to the Friend's door and knocked. "Who's there?" "It's me." The Friend answered, "Go away. There's no place for raw meat at this table." The individual went wandering for a year. Nothing but the fire of separation can change hypocrisy and ego. The person returned completely cooked, walked up and down in front of the Friend's house, gently knocked. "Who is it?"

"Who is it?" "You." "Please come in, my self, there's no place in this house for two. The doubled end of the thread is not what goes through the eye of the needle. It's a single-pointed, fined-down, thread end, not a big ego-beast with baggage." ================================== 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 get a whole wilderness? For one weak breath, a 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 God's sake! Don't postpone it! Existence has no better gift. No amount of searching will find this. A perfect falcon, for no reason has landed on your shoulder, and become yours. =========================== MOVING WATER When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. When actions come from another section, the feeling disappears. Don't let others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures. Reach for the rope of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will. Because of willfulness people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied, fish sizzle in the skillet. The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate

inflict visible punishment. Now see the invisible. If you could leave your selfishness, you would see how you've been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well. How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don't insist on going where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring. Your living pieces will form a harmony. There is a moving palace that floats in the air with balconies and clear water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained under a single tent. ============================== ONLY BREATH Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being. ================================= THE AWAKENING In the early dawn of happiness you gave me three kisses so that I would wake up to this moment of love I tried to remember in my heart what Id dreamt about during the night before I became aware of this moving of life I found my dreams but the moon took me away It lifted me up to the firmament and suspended me there

and suspended me there I saw how my heart had fallen on your path singing a song Between my love and my heart things were happening which slowly slowly made me recall everything You amuse me with your touch although I cant see your hands. You have kissed me with tenderness although I havent seen your lips You are hidden from me. But it is you who keeps me alive Perhaps the time will come when you will tire of kisses I shall be happy even for insults from you I only ask that you keep some attention on me. ================================== This place is a dream only a sleeper considers it real then death comes like dawn and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief A man goes to sleep in the town where he has always lived and he dreams he's living in another town in the dream he doesn't remember the town he's sleeping in his bed in he believes the reality of the dream town the world is that kind of sleep Humankind is being led along an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences and though we seem to be sleeping there is an inner wakefulness, that directs the dream and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are =================================== Seeking the Sourcea voice out of this world calls on our souls not to wait any more get ready to move

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

RUMI