Appear as you are
Be like the sun for grace and mercy.
Be like the night to cover others' faults.
Be like running water for generosity.
Be like death for rage and anger.
Be like the Earth for modesty.
Appear as you are.
Be as you appear.
My heart is so small
My heart is so small
it's almost invisible.
How can You place
such big sorrows in it?
"Look," He answered,
"your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world.”
An eye is meant to see things
An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: For loving a true love.
Feet: To chase after.
Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,
for learning what men have done and tried to do.
Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind
when it only wants to see why.
A lover is always accused of something.
But when he finds his love, whatever was lost
in the looking comes back completely changed.
You are a volume in the divine book
You are a volume in the divine book
A mirror to the power that created the universe
Whatever you want, ask it of yourself
Whatever you’re looking for can only be found
Inside of you
You think of yourself
“You think of yourself
as a citizen of the universe.
You think you belong
to this world of dust and matter.
Out of this dust
you have created a personal image,
and have forgotten
about the essence of your true origin”
Wine drinker
If the wine drinker
has a deep gentleness in him,
he will show that when drunk.
But if he has hidden anger and arrogance,
those appear.
Be Humble
The same wind that uproots trees
makes the grass shine.
The lordly wind loves the weakness
and the lowness of grasses.
Never brag of being strong.
The axe doesn't worry how thick the branches are.
It cuts them to pieces. But not the leaves.
It leaves the leaves alone.
Be motivated like the falcon
Be motivated like the falcon,
hunt gloriously.
Be magnificent as the leopard,
fight to win.
Spend less time with
nightingales and peacocks.
One is all talk,
the other only color.
The dream that must be interpreted
This place is a dream.
Only a sleeper considers it real.
Then death comes like dawn,
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief.
But there's a difference with this dream.
Everything cruel and unconscious
done in the illusion of the present world,
all that does not fade away at the death-waking.
It stays,
and it must be interpreted.
All the mean laughing,
all the quick, sexual wanting,
those torn coats of Joseph,
they change into powerful wolves
that you must face.
The retaliation that sometimes comes now,
the swift, payback hit,
is just a boy's game
to what the other will be.
You know about circumcision here.
It's full castration there!
And this groggy time we live,
this is what it's like:
A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living
in another town.
In the dream, he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in. He believes
the reality of the dream town.
The world is that kind of sleep.
The dust of many crumbled cities
settles over us like a forgetful doze,
but we are older than those cities.
On the day I die
On the day I die, when I'm being carried
toward the grave, don't weep. Don't say,
He's gone! He's gone. Death has nothing to do with going away. The sun sets and
the moon sets, but they're not gone.
Death is a coming together. The tomb
looks like a prison, but it's really
release into union. The human seed goes
down in the ground like a bucket into
the well where Joseph is. It grows and
comes up full of some unimagined beauty.
Your mouth closes here, and immediately
opens with a shout of joy there.
A jar full of delight
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.
Rumi Poems: Life
Know Yourself
Know the true definition of yourself. That is essential.
Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it.
This world
This world
hurts
my head
with its answers.
I would burn if I had a choice.
People who repress desires
People who repress desires
often turn, suddenly,
into hypocrites.
What else can I say?
What else can I say?
You will only hear
what you are ready to hear.
Don’t nod your head,
Don’t try to fool me—
the truth of what you see
is written all over your face!”
Knock
Knock, And He'll open the door
Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun
Fall, And He'll raise you to the heavens
Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.
Be empty
Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open?