spiritual window-shoppers

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,
buy _something,_ to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

Rumi, 'We Are Three', Mathnawi VI, 831-845

say i'm you

I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.

To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.

I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.

I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.

The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of stone, a flickering in metal.
Both candle and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.

I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift, and the falling away.

What is, and what isn't.

You who know, Jelaluddin,
You the one in all, say who I am.
Say I am you.

the way of quest

On the way of quest, the sane and insane are one.
On the way of love, relatives and strangers are one.
Whom the wine of the beloved's union was given,
In his religion, the Ka'ba and the idol-temple are one.

insomnia

“When I am with you, we stay up all night.

When you're not here,

I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for those two insomnias!!

And the difference between them.."

where's the beloved

In truth everything and everyone
Is a shadow of the Beloved,
And our seeking is His seeking
And our words are His words...
We search for Him here and there,
while looking right at Him.
Sitting by His side, we ask:
'O Beloved, where is the Beloved?'

i long to see your face

"In the orchard and rose garden

I long to see your face.

In the taste of Sweetness

I long to kiss your lips.

In the shadows of passion

I long for your love.

Oh! Supreme Lover!

Let me leave aside my worries.

The flowers are blooming

with the exultation of your Spirit.

By Allah!

I long to escape the prison of my ego

and lose myself

in the mountains and the desert.

These sad and lonely people tire me.

I long to revel in the drunken frenzy of your love

and feel the strength of Rustam in my hands.

I’m sick of mortal kings.

I long to see your light.

With lamps in hand

the sheiks and mullahs roam

the dark alleys of these towns

not finding what they seek.

You are the Essence of the Essence,

The intoxication of Love.

I long to sing your praises

but stand mute

with the agony of wishing in my heart."

nearer to you than your neck-vein

God is "what is nearer to you than your neck-vein,"
You have cast the arrow of speculation afar off.
O you, who have made ready your bow and arrows,
The game is close to you, and you shoot too far off.
The further a man shoots, the further off he is,
And the more removed from the treasure he seeks.
The philosopher kills himself with thinking,
Tell him that his back is turned to that treasure;
Tell him that the more he runs to and fro,
The further he is removed from his heart's desire.
The Almighty says, "Make efforts in our ways,"
Not "Make efforts away from us," O restless one.