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

My Friend, I offer You my life.

O my Beloved!
Take me,
Liberate my soul,
Fill me with your love,
and release me from both worlds.

If I set my heart
On anything but you,
O fire, burn me from inside!

O my Beloved
Take away what I want,
Take away what I do,
Take away everything
that takes me from you.

Version by Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
A Garden Beyond Paradise
Bantam Books, 1992

 take me in my love
take my soul
set me on ecstasy
take both of my worlds
if I rest my heart on
anything but you
throw me with fireball
take everything I hold

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

 My Friend,
I offer You my life.
Accept me, make me drunk
and save me from both worlds.
Set me on fire
if my heart settles on anything
but You.

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

The two parties He made

No Opposite, Without its Own Opposite
 

The Forgiving God desired and decided in
eternity to reveal and manifest Himself.

But no opposite can be displayed without its
own opposite, and that peerless King had no opposite.

So He made a vicegerent, a Possessor of the
Heart, to be the mirror of His Kingship.

Then He gave him limitless purity, and
produced his opposite from darkness.

He made two banners, white and black:

The one was Adam, the other the satan of His way.
 

Then the strife and war that came to pass
between these two great camps came to pass.

In a similar manner, Abel came in the second period: 

Opposed to his pure light was Cain. . . .

Period after period, generation after generation, 

the two parties have continued to war.

Mathnawi VI: 2151-57, 62
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983

There is no room

I am filled with you.
Skin, blood, bone, brain and soul.
There's no room for lack of trust, or trust.
Nothing in this existence but that existence.

Version by Coleman Barks
Unseen Rain
Threshold Books, 1986



in my heart
inside and out
is all beloved
in my body
blood and veins
is none but beloved
how can there by any
room for religion
or Godlessness in me
since my existence
is overflowing
with beloved

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