Friday, February 12, 2010

How Rumi Sees the World

"When anyone shows ingratitude to Universal Reason, the form of the universe appears to him as mean; accordingly,
Make peace with this Father, abandon disobedience, that the water and clay of the world may appear to you to be a carpet of gold...
At every moment appears a new form and a new beauty, so that from seeing the new visions, boredom dies away.
I see the world to be full of bounty- the waters constantly gushing from the springs.
I see the boughs dancing like those who have newly entered the mystical life, the leaves clapping their hands like minstrels...
Your intelligence is distributed over a hundred important affairs, over thousands of desires and great matters and small.
You must unite the scattered parts by means of love, to the end that you might become sweet..
When you become united, grain by grain, after your dispersion in perplexity, then it is possible to stamp upon you the King's die;
So that the Beloved will be to you both bread and water and lamp and minion and dessert and wine.
Unite yourself- union is a Divine mercy...
Silence is best; it gives peace to the spirit."

Rumi (Vol. 4, 3260-3297)

Commentary: Rumi has endless names for God; the Universal Reason, the Beloved, the King, the Father, the One. What is ultimately nameless, can only be reached by love.