For Lovers, Advice Is Never Useful...

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"

HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

Be Cautious...

*Al-Baqarah (255)

Allah. There is no god but He,-the Living, the Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede in His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth what (appeareth to His creatures as) before or after or behind them. Nor shall they compass aught of His knowledge except as He willeth. His Throne doth extend over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth no fatigue in guarding and preserving them for He is the Most High, the Supreme (in glory). 

The greed of hunting makes one oblivious to being a prey:

the hunter tries to win hearts,

though he has lost his own.

Don't be inferior to a bird in your seeking:

for even a sparrow sees what is before and behind.*

When the bird approaches the bait,

at that moment it turns its head several times

to the rear and the front,

as if to say,

"Is there a hunter somewhere near?

Should I be careful?

Should I touch this food?"

Mathnawi V: 752-755

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"

Threshold Books, 1996

Tell no one what you've seen...

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 within his light.

If you see me, be careful.

Tell no one what you've seen.

Ghazal (Ode) 331, 

Version by Coleman Barks,

 "Say I Am You" 

Maypop, 1994

The One Who Sees

today like everyday
I'm in no sober mood
don't open the door
to my thoughts
begin the music instead
for the one who sees
only the beloved's face
there are a hundred
ways to pray
to prostrate
or to be humbled
to the ground

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

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Version by Coleman Barks
Open Secret, Threshold Books, 1984

You are the guy...

The Places You'll Go (excerpt)

Theodore Geisel

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
 You can steer yourself any direction you choose.

You're on your own.
 And you know what you know. 
And YOU are the guy
 who'll decide where to go.

~ Dr. Seuss ~

(Oh, the Places You'll Go!)

Isn't this like our dreams?

FROM BOX TO BOX

Don't weep.

The joy that has gone

will come round again in another form

Have no doubt about this!

A child's first joy

comes from its mother's milk;

After the child is weaned

his joy comes from drinking sweet wine.

This supreme joy has no resting place

It enters one form then another,

from box to box - an eternal movement

between heaven and earth.

Here it comes, pouring down from the sky,

seeping into the earth,

and rising up again as a bed of roses.

Now it is water, now a plate of rice,

Now the swaying trees, now a horse and rider.

It lies within these forms for awhile

then bursts forth to become something new.

(The Mystic's Dream by PinkyPinkee on deviantART)

Isn't this like our dreams?

The body sleeps

while the soul moves on

to take other forms.

You say,

I dreamt I was a cypress, a bed of tulips,

the blossoms of roses and jasmines.

Then the soul returns, and you wake up

the cypress is gone, the roses are gone.

I tell you truly,

everything you now see

will vanish like a dream.

I do not mean to trouble you, O friend,

with words so bold as these.

Perhaps you will only listen to God.

He speaks more gently than I.

But how will you ever hear Him with

All that blathering going on?

Everyone is speaking about golden bread

yet no one has ever tasted it!

O my soul, where can I find rest

but in the shimmering love of his heart?

Where can I see the pure light of the Sun

but in the eyes of my own Shams-e Tabriz?

Version by Jonathan Star 

"A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi"

Bantam Books, 1992

Always be happy....

Four principles of spirituality

The First Principle states:

 "Whomsoever you encounter is the right one"

(Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter by David Lean)

This means that no one comes into our life by chance. Everyone who is around us, anyone with whom we interact, represents something, whether to teach us something or to help us improve a current situation.

 

 

The Second Principle states:

 "Whatever happened is the only thing that could have happened"

Nothing, absolutely nothing of that which we experienced could have been any other way. Not even in the least important detail. There is no "If only I had done that differently…, then it would have been different…". No. What happened is the only  thing that could have taken place and must have taken place for us to learn our lesson in order to move forward. Every single situation in life which we encounter is absolutely perfect, even when it defies our understanding and our ego.

 

 

The Third Principle states:

"Each moment in which something begins is the right moment"

Everything begins at exactly the right moment, neither earlier nor later. When we are ready for it, for that something new in our life, it is there, ready to begin.

The Fourth Principle states:

 "What is over, is over"

(by mouseek on deviantART)

It is that  simple. When something in our life ends, it helps our evolution. That is why, enriched by the recent experience, it is better to let go and move on.

 

 

Think it is no coincidence that you're here reading this.

If these words strike a chord, it's because you meet the requirements and understand that not one single snowflake falls accidentally in the wrong place!

Be good to yourself.

Be in love with your whole being.

Indian Spirituality

(Source unknown)