There is nothing you can't achieve

 If you realize that all things change,
there is nothing you will try to hold on to.
If you aren't afraid of dying,
there is nothing you can't achieve.

 

Trying to control the future
is like trying to take the master carpenter's place.
When you handle the master carpenter's tools,
chances are that you'll cut yourself.

 

(Tao Te Ching, trans. by Stephen Mitchell)

 

Still, that doesn't stop the sun from shining...

To follow one's own desires is to flee from God

and to spill the blood of spirituality

in the presence of His justice.

This world is a trap, and desire its bait:

escape the traps, and quickly

turn your face toward God.

When you have followed this Way,

you have enjoyed a hundred blessings.

When you have gone the opposite way, you have fared ill.

So the Prophet said, "Consult your own hearts,

even though the religious judge

advises you about worldy affairs."

Abandon desire, and so reveal His Mercy:

you've learned by experience

the sacrifice He requires.

Since you can't escape, be His servant,

and go from His prison into His rose garden.

When you continually keep watch over your thoughts and actions,

you are always seeing the Justice and the Judge,

though heedlessness may shut your eyes,

still, that doesn't stop the sun from shining.

Mathnawi VI: 377-384

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"

Threshold Books, 1996

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