This is Love

This is love –-- to fly upward
toward the endless heavens.
To rend a hundred veils at every moment.
At the first breath, to give up for life;
At the final step, to go without feet.
To see the world as a dream
and not as it appears.

I said, O heart
What a blessing it is
To join the circle of lovers,
To see beyond sight,
To know the secrets within every breast.

I said, O soul
From where comes your life
And the power of your spirit?
Tell me, speak in the language of birds,
And I will understand.

My soul said to me:
They brought me to God's workshop
Where all things take form – and I flew.
Before this form of mine
was even shaped – I flew and flew.

And when I could fly no longer
They dragged me into this form,
and locked me into this house
of water and clay.

Version by Jonathan Star
"A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi,"
Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
Bantam Books, 1992

This is Love: to fly heavenward,
To rend, every instant, a hundred veils*.
The first moment, to renounce life*;
The last step, to fare without feet.
To regard this world as invisible*,
Not to see what appears to one's self*.
"O heart," I said, "may it bless thee
To have entered the circle of lovers,
To look beyond the range of the eye,
To penetrate the windings of the bosom*!
Whence did this breath come to thee, O my soul,
Whence this throbbing, O my heart?
O bird*, speak the language of birds*:
I can understand thy hidden meaning."
The soul answered: "I was in the (divine) Factory*
While the house of water and clay* was a-baking*.
I was flying away from the (material) workshop
While the workshop* was being created*.
When I could resist no more, they dragged me
To mould me into shape like a ball*."

T.267.8 ("Tabriz Edition of the Divani Shamsi Tabriz)
"Selected Poems from the Divani Shamsi Tabriz"
Edited and translated by Reynold A. Nicholson
Cambridge, At the University Press, 1898, 1952

Nicholson's notes:

* "a hundred veils" "a veil' is whatever prevents union with the Deity. "Some one said to Junaid (ob.297 A.H.): 'I find that the shaikhs of Khorasan recognise three species of veils, the first is the human nature, the second is the world, and the third is concupiscence.' 'These,' answered Junaid, 'are veils on the hearts of the vulgar; the elect are veiled otherwise, namely by regarding works, by seeking future recompense for them, and by considering the favour of God'" (Jami, "Nafahatu'l Uns," p. 92).

* "to renounce life" -- to renounce self (fana') and to travel abidingly in God (bagha'), which are the beginning and end of the mystical journey; cf. i.e. transported me out of self. The first stage is fana', return from phenomenal to Absolute Being. In the second stage of his journey (bagha') the pilgrim abides in God and experiences with Him the differentiation of Unity into plurality. "Gulshani Raz," 307 seq.). In the "Baharistan" (p. 10, 1. 16 seq.) faith is defined as "severing and uniting", i.e., to sever the heart from created things and unite it with God.'

* "To regard this world as invisible" -- cf. Look not on the world from outside, for the world is within the eye; When you shut your eyes to the world, the world remains not. (T. 164. 3a)

* "Not to see what appears to one's self" -- this misra' allows of another interpretation, viz, 'not to see your own eye,' whence all objects derive their unreal existence.

* "To penetrate the windings of the bosom" -- introrsum ascendere,  cf. Returning to its ancient nest My restless fluttering soul had rest. (T. 340. 3a)

* "O bird" -- we shall often meet with this comparison of the soul to a bird.
 

* "speak the language of birds" -- use the language of mystics, speak in parables. The hoopoe "hod hod" which Solomon sent with a letter to Bilqis, queen of Sheba (Koran XXVII. 16: "and Solomon was David's heir, and he said, O people, we have been taught the language of birds.'"
 

* "I was in the (divine) Factory" "in the presence of, and not yet separated from, the divine artificer. cf. "Then he (Gabriel) approached (the Prophet), and drew nigh, until he was at the distance of two bow-lengths, or nearer' (Koran LIII. 809). But the Sufi's interpret the passage as signifying the approach of Mohammed himself to the divine presence."
 

* "While the house of water and clay" -- the body. While the house of water and clay was a-baking" -- According to an hadis, "He kneeded the clay of Adam forty days."
 

* "workshop" -- the phenomenal world.
 

* "was being created" -- because the soul was reluctant to enter the world, and hated the body in which it was doomed to captivity.
 

* "like a ball" -- this simile may have been suggested by the words 'chon pai namanad': 'the epithet footless', frequently applied to a ball.