Love Letters

 

Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.

 

~ Ikkyu ~

 

 

(Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology, trans. by Sonya Arutzen)

Who do you think it is?

(credit : Send Me Free by *designerm @ deviantart)

If this me is not I, then
who am I?
If I am not the one who speaks, then
who does?
If this me is only a robe then
who is
the one I am covering?

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the one you know me as me 

it isn't me
who do you think it is ?
I utter no words with my tongue
who do you think it is ?
I'm only a shirt
from my head to my toes
the one whose shirt is me
who do you think it is ?

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

LET'S HAVE A DREAM

Srikandi Cinta Ku

M. NASIR

Pada Mu jua tertuju segala jalan
Pada Mu jua cinta ku serahkan
Kerna hati seorang pencinta
Pandangannya satu
Matanya hanya melihat dia
Yang melihatnya hanya dia kekasihnya

- SANG PENCINTA

The Prophet said,

"God doesn't pay attention to your outer form: so in your improvising, seek the owner of the Heart." 

God says,

"I regard you through the owner of the Heart, not because of prostrations in prayer or the giving of wealth in charity."*

The owner of the Heart becomes a six-faced mirror:  through him God looks out in all the six directions.

*Hadith qudsi, an extra-Qur'ânic revelation.

Mathnawi V: 869-870; 874

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"

 Threshold Books, 1996 

13

TIDAK ADA KELEBIHANNYA ABU BAKAR DENGAN BANYAKNYA SEMBAHYANG DAN DENGAN BANYAKNYA PUASA. TETAPI KELEBIHANNYA IALAH KERANA DIA TELAH MELIHAT RAHSIA PADA DADANYA (YANG ADA PADANYA) DENGAN TETAP.

Owner of a lonely heart - YES

Give your free will a chance

Kerna dia yang terbangkan ku ke mari...

The veils hiding the way of the lover

Love is a stranger to the two worlds:

in it are seventy-two madnesses.

It is hidden; only its bewilderment is manifest:

the soul of the spiritual sultan longs for it.

Love's religion is other than the seventy-two sects:

beside it the throne of kings is just a floorboard.

In the moments of sema* Love's bard strikes up the melody:

"Servitude is bondage and power is a headache."

Then what is Love? 

The Sea of Not-Being:

there the foot of the intellect is shattered and can no longer swim.

Servitude and sovereignty are known:

the way of the lover is hidden by these two veils.

Mathnawi III: 4719-4724 

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance

Threshold Books, 1996

*The occasion of listening to spiritual music.

Tanya Sama Itu Hud-Hud

Tujuh puluh tiga pintu

Tujuh puluh tiga jalan

Yang sampai hanya satu jalan

Beribu-ribu Margasatua

Mencari raja si Muraq

Yang sampai hanya tiga puluh

Dalam kalut ada peraturan

Peraturan mencipta kekalutan

Di mana pula kau berdiri

Di sini

M. NASIR

Be a connoisseur, and taste with caution

God has given us a dark wine so potent that,
drinking it, we leave the two worlds.

God has put into the form of hashish a power
to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

God has made sleep so
that it erases every thought.

God made Majnun love Layla so much that
just her dog would cause confusion in him.

There are thousands of wines
that can take over our minds.

Don't think all ecstasies
are the same!

 

Jesus was lost in his love for God.
His donkey was drunk with barley.

Drink from the presence of saints,
not from those other jars.

Every object, every being,
is a jar full of delight.

Be a connoisseur,
and taste with caution.

Any wine will get you high.
Judge like a king, and choose the purest,

the ones unadulterated with fear,
or some urgency about "what's needed."

Drink the wine that moves you
as a camel moves when it's been untied,
and is just ambling about.

  Mathnawi IV, 2683-96
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
Castle Books, 1997

A Rare Event

(HAQQ - by Samir Malik)

If anybody goes traveling without a guide,
every two day's journey
becomes a journey of a hundred years.

The one who takes up a profession
without having had a teacher
becomes a laughing-stock,
no matter where he lives.

Except perhaps for a single occurrence,
in all the world, is a descendant of Adam
ever born without parents?

The one who earns gains wealth;
it's a rare event
to find a buried treasure.

Mathnawi III: 588; 590-592
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996

I Will Meet You There

Let yourself be silently drawn
by the strange pull of what you really love.
It will not lead you astray.

~ Rumi ~

(Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)