In the core of your Heart..

you see no center

you’re so ego ridden

within your shell

your senses are

the brain of your body

and your brain

the sense of your soul

remember

that there is a friend

within your soul

once you surpass

the body sense and soul

there is nothing but the friend

Translation by Nader Khalili

Rumi, Dancing the Flame

Cal-Earth Press, 2001 

Don’t forget the nut, being so proud of the shell,

The body has its inward ways,

the five senses. They crack open,

and the Friend is revealed.

Crack open the Friend, you become

the All-One.

Version by Coleman Barks

"Unseen Rain" 

Threshold Books, 1986

Deafened by the voice of desire

you are unaware the Beloved

lives in the core of your heart.

Stop the noise,

and you will hear His voice

in the silence.

Translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi

Rumi: Whispers of the Beloved

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1999

Be silent, for madness has begun to boil

(credit : World Photograhy)

Where is the knowing, nimble Minstrel of Love -
He who plays only for Love, accepting no one's request?

I have died hoping for Him but have not seen Him;
I have entered the grave in my desire.

Oh dear friend, if you have seen Him, how
good for you! Oh friend, indeed, how good for you!

But if He is hidden like Khidr*,
alone upon the shores of the sea,

Then oh wind, take our salaam to Him! For my
heart is in tumult over Him.

I know that burning salaams take lovers to their
Beloved.

Love makes the millwheel of the heavens spin, not water;
Love makes the moon go forward, not feet.

In remembrance, the millwheel of spirits begins
to turn through the water of the eyes.

Remembrance is the noose of union with the Beloved -
be silent, for madness has begun to boil.

  Ghazal 127
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983

*"Hidden like Khidr" -- Khidr is one of the four prophets whom the Islamic tradition recognizes as being `alive' or`immortal', the other three being Idris (Enoch), Ilyas (Elias), and `Isa (Jesus). Khidr is immortal because he drank from the water of life. In Sufi tradition, Khidr has come to be known as one of the afrâd, those "who receive illumination direct from God without human mediation." He is the hidden initiator of those who walk the mystical path like some of those from the Uwaisi tariqa.
-- Derived by Sunlight from http://www.khidr.org

My Friend, I offer You my life.

O my Beloved!
Take me,
Liberate my soul,
Fill me with your love,
and release me from both worlds.

If I set my heart
On anything but you,
O fire, burn me from inside!

O my Beloved
Take away what I want,
Take away what I do,
Take away everything
that takes me from you.

Version by Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
A Garden Beyond Paradise
Bantam Books, 1992

 take me in my love
take my soul
set me on ecstasy
take both of my worlds
if I rest my heart on
anything but you
throw me with fireball
take everything I hold

Translation by Nader Khalili
Rumi, Dancing the Flame
Cal-Earth Press, 2001
 

 My Friend,
I offer You my life.
Accept me, make me drunk
and save me from both worlds.
Set me on fire
if my heart settles on anything
but You.

Translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Whispers of the Beloved
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 1999

The two parties He made

No Opposite, Without its Own Opposite
 

The Forgiving God desired and decided in
eternity to reveal and manifest Himself.

But no opposite can be displayed without its
own opposite, and that peerless King had no opposite.

So He made a vicegerent, a Possessor of the
Heart, to be the mirror of His Kingship.

Then He gave him limitless purity, and
produced his opposite from darkness.

He made two banners, white and black:

The one was Adam, the other the satan of His way.
 

Then the strife and war that came to pass
between these two great camps came to pass.

In a similar manner, Abel came in the second period: 

Opposed to his pure light was Cain. . . .

Period after period, generation after generation, 

the two parties have continued to war.

Mathnawi VI: 2151-57, 62
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983

 

 

There is no room

I am filled with you.
Skin, blood, bone, brain and soul.
There's no room for lack of trust, or trust.
Nothing in this existence but that existence.

Version by Coleman Barks
Unseen Rain
Threshold Books, 1986



in my heart
inside and out
is all beloved
in my body
blood and veins
is none but beloved
how can there by any
room for religion
or Godlessness in me
since my existence
is overflowing
with beloved

Translation by Nader Khalili
"Dancing the Flame"
Cal-Earth, 2001

Truth

seeker of truth

follow no path
all paths lead where

truth is here

~ e. e. cummings ~
(Complete Poems 1904-1962)

(credit)

Lies !

They say,
"The King of Love will turn from His lovers." - Lies!
They say, "The darkness will never turn to dawn." - Lies!

They say,

 "Do not sacrifice your life for love's sake. When the body dies, you will die." - Lies!

They say,

 "You can go beyond the cycle of time but your soul can travel no further." - Lies!

People who are caught in their own vanity say,
"The lives of the prophets are nothing but fairy tales." - Lies!

People who have lost their way say,
"The servant can never reach God." - Lies!

They say,
"The Knower of Secrets does not tell His servants all the mysteries of the Unseen." - Lies!

They say,
"He does not reveal the heart's innermost secrets. He does not lift His servants up to heaven." - Lies!

They say,

 "One who is born of Earth will never join the angels of heaven." - Lies!

They say,

 "The Sun of God does not fill this whole world; He misses a few atoms." - Lies!

Now go to that inner stillness.
Some say, "You will not hear the voice of God there." - Lies!
 

Version by Jonathan Star
"Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved "
Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

 

(No more lies by yana182 - deviantart)

They say,

 "The king of love is not faithful." Lies! 

They say,
"Your night will never have a dawn." Lies!
They say,

 "Why do you slay yourself for love's sake? There is no survival after the body's death." Lies!
They say,

 "Your tears shed in love are vain; once the eyes are closed, there will be no encounter." Lies!
They say,

 "When we have gone outside the cycle of time, beyond this soul of ours will not travel." Lies!
 

Those persons who have not escaped from fancy say, 

"The stories of the prophets were all mere fancies." Lies!
Those persons who have not gone on the right way say, 

"The servant has no way to come to God." Lies!

They say, 

"He who knows all secrets tells not the servant the secrets and mysteries of the Unseen without intermediary!" Lies!
They say,

 "They open not to the servant the heart's secret, and He does not graciously carry the servant up to heaven." Lies!
They say, 

"That one who has earth in his composition will never be familiar with the heavenly host." Lies!
They say, 

"The ' pure soul will never fly on the wings of love out of this earthly nest to the free air." Lies!
They say, 

"that sun of God will never bring retribution for the several atoms' weight of evil and good of men." Lies!
 

Keep silent from speaking; and if anyone says to you, 

"Speech has no other expression but letters and sounds" -- Lies!

Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 1"
The University of Chicago Press, 1968