and Rumi’s poetry, are reminders of experience,
larger and deeper ways we readers and listeners might live.
The words describe a taste of grandeur and love, and as they keep
telling us, you cannot do that: it’s impossible to describe such
wonders. The great winetasters may come as close as one
can get. But try to tell me, really, about a pistachio,
or something you have never tasted. Say what
you want, eventually we have
to taste to know.
commentary on The Drowned Book
If anyone asks you
how the perfect satisfaction
of all our sexual wanting
will look, lift your face
and say,
Like this.
When someone mentions the gracefulness
of the nightsky, climb up on the roof
and dance and say,
Like this.
If anyone wants to know what “spirit” is,
or what “God’s fragrance” means,
lean your head toward him or her.
Keep your face there close.
Like this.
When someone quotes the old poetic image
about clouds gradually uncovering the moon,
slowly loosen knot by knot the strings
of your robe.
Like this.
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
Like this. Like this.
When someone asks what it means
to “die for love,” point
here.
If someone asks how tall I am, frown
and measure with your fingers the space
between the creases on your forehead.
This tall.
The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns.
When someone doesn’t believe that,
walk back into my house.
Like this.
When lovers moan,
they’re telling our story.
Like this.
I am a sky where spirits live.
Stare into this deepening blue,
while the breeze says a secret.
Like this.
When someone asks what there is to do,
light the candle in his hand.
Like this.
How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob?
Huuuuu.
How did Jacob’s sight return?
Huuuu.
A little wind cleans the eyes.
Like this.
When Shams comes back from Tabriz,
he’ll put just his head around the edge
of the door to surprise us.
Like this.
And did
you feel it, in your heart,
how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out
what beauty is for? And have
you changed your
life?
September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019
they see the divine in all forms
Man’s attitude is the secret of life,
for it is upon man’s attitude that success and failure
depend. Both man’s rise and fall depend upon his attitude.
By attitude I mean that impulse which is like
a battery behind the mechanism
of thought.
There is hidden in our heart a
wonderful power. It is a divine power,
a sacred power, and it can be developed
and cherished by keeping our
attitude right.
to know the right attitude from the wrong
🪷
While the unawakened soul
thinks that it is his neighbor or his relation
who is his enemy, the awakened soul says, ‘It is my self;
my ignorant ego is my enemy; and it is the struggle
with this enemy that will bring me light and
raise me from the denseness
of the earth.’
jacob wrestling with the angel
Having anxieties and feeling sad
about being alive is like piling black mud
and garbage on your head. The mud slides over
your eyes and the rubbish infects them. You can’t
see and you get sick. Everyone does this at some
time. Try to stop doing it. Let your eyes get
clear enough to see the beauty
around you.
O giver of worriedness and grief,
remove me from my being. Give me the peace
of not-being. This prayer, if you can pray it, will wash
the mud off your head. There is a beloved who pours muddy
water over the head of the lover, and there is a lover who
says, I cannot see you with my eyes, but the drops
of muddy water on my eyelashes are filled
with the rose of your face.
In the East,
when we speak of saints
or sages, it is not because of their
miracles, it is because of their presence
and their countenance which radiate vibrations
of love. How does this love express itself? In tolerance,
in forgiveness, in respect, in overlooking the faults of others.
Their sympathy covers the defects of others as if they were
their own; they forget their own interest in the interest
of others. They do not mind what conditions they are
in; be they high or humble, their foreheads are
smiling. To their eyes everyone is the
expression of the Beloved, whose
name they repeat. They see the
divine in all forms and
in all beings.