Make yourself low

Loving kindness is drawn to the saint, as medicine goes
to the pain it must cure.
Where there is pain, the remedy follows:
wherever the lowlands are, the water goes.
If you want the water of mercy, make yourself low;
then drink the wine of mercy and be drunk.
Mercy upon mercy rises to your head like a flood.
Don't settle on a single mercy, O son.
Bring the sky beneath your feet
and listen to celestial music everywhere.

 

Mathnawi II: 1938-1942
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight", Threshold Books, 1994