Rumi

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Wean Yourself

 

 

Little by little, wean yourself.

This is the gist of what I have to say.

 

From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood,

move to an infant drinking milk,

to a child on solid food,

to a searcher after wisdom,

to a hunter of more invisible game.

 

Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.

You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate.

There are wheatfields and mountain passes,

and orchards in bloom.

 

At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight

the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."

 

You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up

in the dark with eyes closed.

 

Listen to the answer.

 

 

There is no "other world."

I only know what I've experienced.

You must be hallucinating.

 

 

 

-translated by Coleman Barks

[Trunk]

Rumi is pure gold.

[NeiChuan]

Wish I could rate threads, that was really great.

[strawdog65]

Hi TSoDE!

 

Thank you... Awesome.

[Trunk]

Wish I could rate threads, that was really great.

 

There's the "+" button, TTB's version of 'like'.

[buscon]

Wunderful piece, Rumi is great - thx for sharing!

[Mark Foote]

Hopefully Coleman Barks is alright with my quoting his translation here- I went looking for something else, found this which I like very much:

 

RUMI - We Are Three

by Coleman Barks

 

Recognize that you imagination and your thinking

and your sense-perception are reed canes

that children cut and pretend are horsies.

 

The Knowing of mystic Lovers is different.

The empirical, sensory, sciences

are like a donkey loaded with books,

or like the makeup woman's makeup.

It washes off.

 

But if you lift the baggage rightly, it will give you joy.

Don't carry your knowledge-load for some selfish reason.

Deny your desires and willfulness,

and a real mount may appear under you.

 

Don't be satisfied with the name of HU,

with just words about it.

 

Experience That Drunkenness.

From books and words come fantasy,

and sometimes, from fantasy

comes UNION.

[Gerard]

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."

 

Humanity needs to learn from deep statements like this.

 

Blessings,

 

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Those who don't feel this Love

pulling them like a river,

those who don't drink dawn

like a cup of spring water

or take in sunset like supper,

those who don't want to change,

 

let them sleep.

 

This Love is beyond the study of theology,

that old trickery and hypocrisy.

If you want to improve your mind that way,

 

sleep on.

I've given up on my brain.

I've torn the cloth to shreds

and thrown it away.

 

If you're not completely naked,

wrap your beautiful robe of words

around you,

 

and sleep.

 

Rumi, Ode 314 from Like This, Coleman Barks

Edited January 24, 2011 by TheSongsofDistantEarth

[zerostao]

after i read the first post here and re-read and again.

i realized that when i was 19 i had been to a museum/tomb of rumi in konya, turkey.

and i enjoyed watching the whirling dervishes and eating the fine shish kabob. but i missed out on rumi. hey , i was 19 and on a weekend off while being stationed in the usaf, on the turkish/sryian border. it was a really cool place , it is just now that i realize how cool.in my defence , i dont think they had the poetry translated in english there.

thanks for posting here, rumi will be my companion this year.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Sour, Doughy, Raw and Numb

 

 

If we are not together in the heart,

what's the point?

 

When body and soul are not dancing,

there is no pleasure in colorful clothing.

 

Why have cooking pans

if there is no food in the house?

 

In this world full of fresh bread,

amber, and musk, what are they

to someone with no sense of smell?

 

If you stay away from fire,

you will remain sour,

doughy, raw, and numb.

 

You may have lovely just-baked loaves

around you, but those friends cannot help.

You have to feel the oven fire yourself.

[al.]

Do you remember how you came into existence?

You may not remember

because you arrived a little drunk.

Let me give you a hint:

Let go of your mind and then be mindful.

Close your ears and listen!

[al.]

There is no love greater than love with no object.

 

For then you, yourself, have become love itself.

[Gerard]

More sufi wisdom:

 

You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life? (Rumi)

 

Come on humanity stop crawling and start revealing your Buddha nature!

 

Blessings,

 

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Blasphemy and the Core

 

 

My soul keeps whispering, "Quickly,

be a wandering dervish, a salamander

 

sitting in its homefire. Walk about

watching the burning turn to roses.

 

As this love-secret we are both

blasphemy and the core of Islam.

 

Don't wait! The open plain is better

than any closing door. Ravens love

 

ruins and cemetery trees. They

can't help but fly there. For us

 

this day is friends sitting together

with silence shining in our faces."

[Gerard]

About impermanence, karma and rebirth, using simple words in a poem form:

 

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."

 

And Rumi, the Daoist:

 

"Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still."

 

Edited February 6, 2011 by Gerard

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

About impermanence, karma and rebirth, using simple words in a poem form:

 

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."

 

And Rumi, the Daoist:

 

"Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still."

 

 

mmmm...nice...

[zerostao]

 

oops

[Ulises]

This is a gathering of Lovers.

In this gathering

there is no high, no low,

no smart, no ignorant,

no special assembly,

no grand discourse,

no proper schooling required.

There is no master,

no disciple.

This gathering is more like a drunken party,

full of tricksters, fools,

mad men and mad women.

This is a gathering of Lovers

 

***

 

Outside ideas of right doing

And wrong doing,

There is a field.

I'll meet you there.

 

***

 

Whenever Beauty looks,

Love is also there;

Whenever beauty shows a rosy cheek

Love lights Her fire from that flame.

When beauty dwells in the dark folds of night

Love comes and finds a heart

entangled in tresses.

 

Beauty and Love are as body and soul.

Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond.

 

They have together

since the beginning of time-

Side by side, step by step.

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

[manitou]

 

Listen to the answer.

 

 

There is no "other world."

I only know what I've experienced.

You must be hallucinating.

 

 

 

-translated by Coleman Barks

 

 

Just think how frightened the embryo must feel before the moment of delivery, after the violence of the labor. The embryo is probably petrified, fearing death. Perhaps he actually feels like he dies the moment before he gasps for air.

 

Maybe our death is just one more birth, and we too are the ones in the womb fearing delivery.

[manitou]

This is a gathering of Lovers.

 

 

...This is a gathering of Lovers.

We do not judge you here;

we allow you your joy, your sorrow,

your arrogance, your pride.

 

Us Lovers are the ones

Who have come to love the human within us all

Because we have come to find

The human in ourselves.

 

The Bums are a gathering of Lovers.

[GreytoWhite]

God has given us a dark wine so potent that,

drinking it, we leave the two worlds.

 

God has put into the form of hashish a power

to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

 

God has made sleep so

that it erases every thought.

 

God made Majnun love Layla so much that

just her dog would cause confusion in him.

 

There are thousands of wines

that can take over our minds.

 

Don't think all ecstacies

are the same!

 

Jesus was lost in his love for God.

His donkey was drunk with barley.

 

Drink from the presence of saints,

not from those other jars.

 

Every object, every being,

is a jar full of delight.

 

Be a conoisseur,

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

 

 

 

Mathnawi IV, 2683-96

The Essential Rumi, Coleman Barks

[iamtheare]

[zerostao]

just passin a bottle of rum around......