The Essential Rumi

Rumi

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.

I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

Close both eyes to see with the other eye.

Open your hands, if you want to be held.

Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought!

Listen to the story told by the reed,of being separated.

"Since I was cut from the reedbed,I have made this crying sound.

Anyone apart from someone he loves

understands what I say.

Anyone pulled from a source longs to go back.

I've said before that every craftsman

searches for what's not there

to practice his craft.

A builder looks for the rotten hole

where the roof caved in. A water carrier

picks the empty pot. A carpenter

stops at the house with no door.

Workers rush toward some hint

of emptiness, which they thenstart to fill. Their hope, though,is for emptiness, so don't think

you must avoid it. It contains what you need!

Dear soul, if you were not friends

with the vast nothing inside,

why would you always be casting your net

into it, and waiting so patiently?

This invisible ocean has given you such abundance,

but still you call it "death,"

that which provides you sustenance and work.

The beauty of careful sewing on a shirt

is the patience it contains.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

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Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?

Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?

Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?

Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,

smells the shirt of his lost son

and can see again?

Who lets a bucket down and brings upa flowing prophet?

Or like Moses goes for fireand finds what burns inside the sunrise?

Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,and opens a door to the other world.

Solomon cuts open a fish, and there's a gold ring.

Omar storms in to kill the prophetand leaves with blessings.

Chase a deer and end up everywhere!

An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.

Now there's a pearl.

A vagrant wanders empty ruins.Suddenly he's wealthy.

But don't be satisfied with stories, how things

have gone with others. Unfold

your own myth, without complicated explanation,so everyone will understand the passage,

We have opened you.

Start walking toward Shams.

Your legs will get heavy

and tired.

Then comes a moment

of feeling the wings you've grown,

Lifting

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Let yourself be silently drawn

by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Expect to see it, when you fast, this table

spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.

Don't go to sleep one night.

What you most want will come to you then.

Warmed by a sun inside, you'll see

wonders.

Tonight, don't put your head down.

Be tough, and strength will come.

That which adoration adores
appears at night.

Those asleep

may miss it.

One night Moses stayed awake

and asked, and saw a light in a tree.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

Then death comes like dawn,

and you wake up laughing

at what you thought was your grief.

Drumsound rises on the air,

its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat says,

"I know you're tired, but come.

This is the way."

When the ocean surges,

don't let me just hear it.

Let it splash inside my chest!

"May God cause you to change your life

in the way you know you should."

No image can describe

what of our fathers and mothers,

our grandfathers and grandmothers, remains.

Language does not touch the one

who lives in each of us.

Lovers of God, sometimes a door opens,

and a human being becomes a way

for grace to come through.