Silence...

"Abandon eminence and worldly energy and skill: what matters is service rendered to God, and a goodly disposition...
The heart that has seen a sweetheart, how should it remain bitter? When a nightingale has seen the rose, how should it remain silent?
To a friend, when you are seated besides your Friend, a hundred thousand tablets of mystery are made known.
My Companions are like the stars...
The star shows the way in the desert and on the sea: fix your eye on the spiritual Star, for he is the One to be followed.
Keep your eyes always focused on His face: do not stir up dust by way of discussion and argument,
Because the Star will be hidden by that dust: the eye is better than the stumbling tongue.
Be silent, in order that the One may speak, whose innermost garment is Divine inspiration, which settles the dust, and does not stir up trouble."

Rumi (Vol.6, 2500-2647)

Commentary: Today's challenging assignment: be silent (again), offer your service to God, and attempt a good disposition.

Clever Philosophers

"Abandon trust in strength, and seek the gold in piteous supplication.
That which is real is closer than the artery in your neck.
The farther one shoots the arrow, the farther away and more separated he is from the treasure that lies close by.
The philosopher exhausted himself with thinking: let him run on in vain, for his back is turned towards the treasure.
Let him run on; the more he runs, the more remote does he become from the object of his heart's desire.
That Divine King said,"those who have striven for Us": God did not say, "those who have striven away from Us", O restless one.
How often have knowledge and keen wits and understanding been as deadly as the ghost or thief to the wayfarer!
Most of those destined for Paradise are simple, so that they escape from the mischief of philosophy.
Strip yourself of useless learning and vanity, in order that the Divine Mercy can descend on you every moment.
Why should the pure devotee wish to be clever?"

Rumi (Vol. 6, 2352-2373)

Commenatry: Rumi was head of the philosophy department at the university in Tehran. He knew that being smart, or clever or strong would not bring you closer to God.

Only Mercy

"Night has wrecked the sea of my understanding and senses: no hope is left, nor fear, nor despair.
God has borne me into the sea of Mercy; I do not know with what specialty He will fill me, and send me back to the world.
In as much as my hand is made empty by this sovereign power of God's to loose and bind, oh, I wonder, from whom comes this self-conceit of mine?
I possess nothing. O Gracious One, except a heart constricted with anguish.
Do not lay another nothing, upon a nothing like this.
Truly the state of "I possess nothing" suits me better, since these hundred troubles arise from my imagining that I possess something.
I have suffered pain; do Thou increase my pleasure.
I will just stand naked in a flood of tears at your gate, since I have no sight.
O friend, do not refrain from calling on God: what business have you with God's acceptance or rejection of your prayer?"

Rumi (Vol. 6 2321-2339)

Commentary: "No hope and no fear": Rumi seems to be telling us that our empty hands and our tears are enough.

Repenting of Haste

"O Knower of the secret, I have run about in vain for the sake of this treasure.
The devil of greed and desire and hurry sought neither deliberation, or calmness.
I have not gained a morsel from any pot: I have only blackened my hand and burnt my mouth."
"O hard-faced impudent seeker, the knot which God tied, God will also loose; the die that God cast, He Himself will take off.
The seeker said, " O Lord, I repent of this haste; since You have shut the door, do Thou also open the door."
Through God's hand the unworthy and the worthy are freed by mercy from the bonds of servitude.
"O You, who has made every stranger Your friend, and O You, who has given the rose as a robe of honor to the thorn,
Sift our dust a second time, make our nothing to be something once more."

Rumi (Vol. 6 2288-2317)

Commentary. This is not about us. Not even about our efforts and our worthiness. This is about mercy, and grace, and trusting in the One who can make all things new.

A Marvelous Game of Backgammon

"Even if all the forests should become pens, and all the oceans ink, there is no hope of bringing the Mathnawi to an end...
The time has come for that righteous Beloved, and dear friend of God, to pull my ear and lead me.
God, in His mercy, has played a marvelous game of backgammon: God has made the essence of ingratitude to be a turning in repentance towards Him.
Even from the ill-fated unrighteousness of the people of the world, that Bounteous One has caused two hundred fountains of Love to flow.
He gives to the rose-bud a source of growth in the thorn.
God brings forth day from the darkness of night, and makes ease and plenty to form in the hand of the one who suffers from hardship and poverty.
The mountains become an accompanist to David.
The solitary mountain amidst the cloud of darkness opens to the music of the harp and the tones of treble and bass."

Rumi (Vol.6, 2253-2286)

Commentary: With God, all things are possible. Even for you. Even for me.

Everything Is Perishing...

"God put the fear of pain in us, to the end that good results might be achieved in consequence of our fear.
Everyone seeks a bandage for his pain, and in consequence the whole world is set in order.
God made of fear the pillar and support of this world: because of fear everyone has devoted himself to work.
All these people are afraid of losing what is good...
At every moment, O you of little means, God has conjoined with your grief and gladness an ark, to save you, and a flood, to destroy.
I will speak of God's arks, which are the spiritual counsel given by the Saints; I will speak of the whole: the part is included in the whole.
Know every Saint to be a Noah and captain of the ark; know companionship with these worldly people to be the flood.
Do not flee from lions and fierce dragons, but beware of friends and kinsmen.
They waste your time, when you are face to face with them, and when you are absent from them, your recollections of them devour your time.
Everything is perishing except His Face."

Rumi (Vol. 6, 2198-2238)

Commentary: Rumi is not all nightingales and rose-gardens. We, who love our families and friends, and who give them most of our attention, are advised to turn to that reality which is not perishing; the ark to depend on is God's love.

The Hour for Mumbling

"If the Saint did not exist, the earth would not have gained treasure within, and jasmine without...
This garment that protects you from the cold--God gives it the temperature of intense frost,
So that this garment of the body becomes cold as ice and biting as snow.
This, God does in order that you might flee from the fox-fur and silk, and take refuge with Him.
The Divine artist who depicts thought is saying, "Consider deeply, O my servant.
O you, who are as hard as steel, devote yourself...
If your body is dead, resort to resurrection...if your heart is frozen, repair to the sun of the Spirit.
Inasmuch as you have wrapped yourself in the garment of fantasy, lo, you will soon reach the position of the destructive minded skeptic.
Truly, he was dispossessed of the kernel which is reason; he was dispossessed of true perception; and deprived of immediate experience.
When this poor soul speaks, it is the hour of mumbling."

Rumi (Vol.6 2106-2186)

Commentary: What is ultimately false and transitory is taken from us. (What used to keep us warm and happy, no longer does.) The Saints beg us to turn in the direction of true perception, and real experience. Anything less, is just mumbling. (mumbling is something I am good at...)

Choices...

"Either drink in and absorb and be satisfied by duality,(you who see double), or close your mouth and be very silent.
Or, do both in turn, now silence, now speech.
When you see a confidant, declare the mystery of the Spirit: if you see the rose, sing loud, like nightingales.
Patiently endure the punishments inflicted by the ignorant ones: give them fair words, and dissemble towards them with the reason that is divinely inspired.
Patience shown to the unworthy, is the means of polishing the worthy: wherever a heart exists, patience purifies it."

Rumi (Vol.6 2035-2041)

Commentary: Today, I'll attempt to choose silence and patience. I'm not good at either.

No Duality...

"How should there be room for self assertion (wind in the mustache) and personal reputation (water in the face) in the wine in which there is no room for even a single hair of self existence?
Go to the sea of whose fish you are born: how have you fallen, like rubbish,into distraction?
You are not rubbish--far be it from you! You are an object of envy to the pearl; you have the best right to dwell among the waves and the sea.
It is the Sea of Unity: where there is no fellow or consort.
In this Sea there is no partnership or complexity; but what can I say to the one that sees double? Nothing, nothing.
O idolater, that Unity is beyond description and condition: nothing comes into the arena of speech except duality."

Rumi (Vol.6. 2021-2034)

Commentary: Words, no matter how eloquent, will not take us where we want to go. In order to experience the "Sea of Unity" we're going to have to learn to swim and dive.

The Source of the Music

"You have no kinsmen, but yourself, O distraught one.
The seeker was always praying intently, without receiving any overt response, but he was seeking in secret from the Divine Grace.
Although neither a heavenly voice, nor a Divine Messenger was ever beside him, yet the ear of his hope was filled.
His hope was always saying, without words, "Come!" and that call was sweeping away all weariness from his heart.
Saying, "Come to the moon, and leave the dust behind; Love, the King, calls you: return with all speed!"
Let the pearl shedding sea of God break into surge: today ask kindly after this ailing seeker.
This Mathnawi is only the wailing music that the author has uttered;
Yet everyone that has insight knows that the lamentations issuing at this end, are inspired from that end.
The noise of this reed is from God's breaths; the spirits outcry is from God's outcry.
If the reed had no contact with That lip, the reed could not fill the world with music sweet as sugar.
The rubies in the mountains heart are brokers and advertisers of God: the orchards in their laughter of full blown beauty are filled to the brim with the Divine One."

Rumi (Vol. 6 1983-2012)

Commentary: If you long for God, and truth and reality, Rumi tells us that God truth and reality are calling to us. And the music that we love, and the beauty that we see, are all invitations from the Beloved.

More Gambling...

"The victims of this melancholy madness expect grass to grow from iron.
This path needs a person with a stout heart, like you.
If you cannot find this treasure you will never weary of seeking for it; and if you find it, you will be granted the right of possession.
Love is reckless, not reason: reason seeks that from which it may get some profit.
The lover gambles everything clean away, he seeks no reward, even as he receives everything as a free gift from God.
Gambling oneself clean away in pure self sacrifice transcends every religion.
Religion seeks grace or salvation. Those who gamble everything clean away are chosen favorites.
They do not put God to any test, nor do they knock at the door of any profit or loss.
The medicine of all intellects is but a picture of Love, the faces of all sweethearts are but a veil of God."

Rumi (Vol. 1963-1982)

Commentary: The path of Love is not one that can be understood by reason. Still, we keep seeking...

Slow Progress

"You are still in the same state with which you were born: you have not taken one step forward.
You are still like the unbaked dough in a pot of clay: though you have been a whole lifetime in a fiery oven.
You are like an herb on a hill: your foot is fixed immovably on the earth, though your head is tossed to and fro by the winds of passion.
Like the people of Moses wandering in the heat of the desert, you have remained forty years in the same place, O foolish one.
Daily, you march rapidly until nightfall and find yourself, still in the first stage of your journey.
You will never traverse this three hundred year's distance, so long as you have love for the golden calf...
While praying, a pauper would at times become distrustful on account of the postponement of the recompense and reward.
And then again, the gracious Lord's deferment of his hopes would bring a message of joy to his heart,
For whenever, in his earnest supplication, weariness caused him to despair, he would hear from the presence of God, the call, "Come!"
This Divine Maker is the One who abases and exalts: without these two attributes no work is accomplished.
One half is day, the other, night...now health, and now sickness...
By means of these two wings this world is kept up like a bird in the air: by means of these two, all souls are inhabiting fear and hope."

Rumi (Vol.6 1784-1853)

Commentary: The way Rumi describes it, the spiritual journey is very long, and takes us up and down, high and low, from hope to despair and then back to hope. No wonder we are confused!

The Game of Love

"You are reviling on account of affliction and poverty and distress and tribulation.
No doubt the renunciation of sensuality gives bitter pain, but it is better than the bitterness that comes from being far from God.
How should pain endure for a single moment when the Giver of favors says to you,"How are you, O My sick one?"
And even if you can not hear God saying this, because you do not have the needed understanding and knowledge, yet your inward feeling of longing, is God inquiring after you.
Those beautiful Ones, who are spiritual physicians, turn toward the sick to inquire after them;
No beloved is unaware and forgetful of his lover.
O you, who desires to hear a wondrous tale, read the story of those that play the game of love."

Rumi (Vol.6, 1767-1775)

Commentary: A baffling game it is!

Without Painful Toil?

"What would it matter if the Bounteous One should bestow on his servant the desire of his soul, without painful toil?"
The teacher said, "Were there no bitter stern Commandments from God, and were there no good and evil, and no pebbles and no pearls,
And there were no flesh and Devil and passions, and were there no blows and battle and war,
Then by what name and title would the King call His servants?
How could he say, "O steadfast one, and "O forbearing one"? How could He say, "O brave one" and "O wise one"?
How could there be steadfast and sincere and generous souls, without a brigand and a thief?
Knowledge and wisdom would be annulled and utterly demolished.
Knowledge and wisdom exist for the purpose of distinguishing between the right paths and the wrong paths: when all paths are the right path, knowledge and wisdom are devoid of meaning.
The cruelty of time and fortune and every affliction that exists are lighter than farness from God , and forgetfulness of God.
Because these afflictions will pass, but the forgetfulness will not. Only the one who brings his spirit to God, awake and mindful, is possessed of happiness."

Rumi (Vol.6, 1745-1757)

Commentary: In this world, some things are true, and others false. There is no alternative to the struggle.

The Source of Hope

"God whose help is invoked has the power to make our trading free from loss.
The One who turns fire into roses and trees is also able to make the fires of this world harmless.
The One who brings forth roses from the very midst of thorns is also able to turn this winter into spring.
The One by whom every cypress is made free and evergreen, has the power, if He would, to turn sorrow into joy.
The One who gives the body a soul, that it may live, How would God be a loser, if God did not cause that body to die?"

Rumi (Vol.6, 1739-1744)

Commentary: There is an old hymn, "All My Hope on God is Founded". The One who gives us life can be depended on to give us more life and more joy than we can now imagine...

Upside Down

"The Tailor, who is Worldly vanity, takes away the fabric of your life, bit by bit, with his scissors, which are the months.
You wish that your star might always jest, and that your happiness might continue forever.
You are very angry with its divisive aspects, and its disdain, and enmity and mischief;
You are very annoyed with its silence and inauspicious severity and its attempts to show hostility.
But consider that in spite of all the World's bitterness, you are mortally enamored of it and recklessly devoted to it.
Deem bitter tribulation to be a Divine mercy...
In the Way of the search for God, everything is upside down."

Rumi (Vol.6, 1720-1738)

Commentary: The life of the spirit sure seems to be upside down, inside out, and utterly confusing.

Ruined Places

"The King deposits the royal treasure in ruined places.
Open your spiritual ear very wide.
Whatever blows come to you from Heaven, always be expecting to receive a gift of honor afterward.
For God is not the king to slap you, and then not give you a crown and throne on which to recline.
The whole world has but the value of a gnat's wing; but for one slap, there is infinite reward.
Nimbly slip your neck out of this golden collar, which is the world, and take the blows that come from God."

Rumi (Vol.6, 1634-1641)

Commentary: It's nice to ponder about the mercy and the kindness of the Creator. But who among us has not also received blows and slaps? Rumi seems to believe that some of the harder lessons contain mercy and kindness and treasure ...

Spiritual Poverty

"Consort with the One with whom your trusts are safe from loss and violation...
Reason's beginning is constraint, but its end is a hundred expansions of the spirit.
"O Giver of all understanding, come to my help; no one wills anything, unless You will it.
Both the desire for good, and the good action itself proceed from You: who are we? You are the First. You are the Last.
Increase our desire for worship: do not send upon us the sloth and the stagnation of fatalism."
Every shop has a different kind of merchandise: the Mathnawi is a shop for spiritual poverty.
Therefor do not complain of affliction, for it is a smooth paced horse carrying you toward enlightenment.
The Friend is the support and refuge on the Way: when you consider well, you will see that the Friend is the Way."

Rumi (Vol.6,1419- 1591)

Commentary: According to Rumi, what distracts us from God is no blessing. And every event that turns us toward what is true and eternal, is grace.

The Waters of Grace

"You say to me, "For the sake of the Divine reward, do not go into the water-tank without having washed."
But outside of the tank there is nothing but earth, no one who does not enter the tank is clean.
If the waters have not the grace enough to receive filth continually,
Alas for the lover's longing and hope! O sorrow, for the lover's everlasting sorrow!
In truth, the water has a hundred graces, a hundred noble compassions, for it receives the defiled ones and purifies them, and bestows peace.
Mount beyond this shop of hagglers to the shop of Bounty where God is the purchaser.
There, the Gracious One has purchased the piece of goods that no one would even look at, on account of its shabbiness.
With God, no base coin is rejected...
How long will you steal the words of the Saints of God, that you may sell them and obtain applause from the crowd?
Stop talking...Polish your heart for a day or two with silence: make that mirror your book of meditation.
That fortunate disciple, who has devoted herself to a blessed Saint, has become the companion of God.
You make friends with things because of the effect which they produce; why then are you ignorant of the One who produces all effects?
You make friends with people on the ground of fantasy: why do you not make friends with the King of west and east?"

Rumi (Vol.6, 1297-1319)

Commentary: We need to get friendlier with that ocean of grace...

New Fortune

"Have mercy upon the failure of our minds to comprehend You. O thou, who are beyond all understandings and conceptions.
O lovers, new fortune has arrived from the old World, that makes all things new.
From the World that is seeking a remedy for them that have no remedy: hundreds of thousands of wonders of the present world are contained in it.
Rejoice, O people, since the relief has come; be glad, O people, since the distress is removed.
The announcer of glad news is shouting in the ear of every sorrowful one, "Arise, O unlucky one, and take the road to fortune."
How should you keep silence now, O my beloved, when a drummer has appeared from the root of every hair in the body.
The One whom you seek in your slumbers, this is God! Open your eye, you will see that auspicious Moon.
Tribulations were laid more heavily upon God's dear ones, because the Beloved showed more playfulness towards the beauteous lovers.
God sports with the beauteous ones in every path."

Rumi (Vol.6, 1094-1109)

Commentary: You don't have to really understand Rumi's love songs, to appreciate the delight and the fragrance of a soul that enjoys this "sport", and has found his fortune.

Cat in a Bag (Part II)

"Sometimes it is spring and summer, delicious as honey and milk; sometimes the world is a place of punishment by snow and piercing cold.
How should you, O heart, which are but one of a hundred thousand particulars, not be in restless movement by God's decree?
Be at the disposal of the Prince, like a horse, now confined on the stable, now going out on the road.
When he fastens you to a peg, be fastened, be quiet and submissive; when he frees you to go, be exultant, and prance and bound.
Whether you are good or bad, or open or secret, God is the One that overhears and sees all things.
From drinking the ruby-wine of the life giving spirit, we are ruby, within ruby within ruby.
Once more the assembly place has become flourishing and heart-illuminating."

Rumi (Vol.6 925-945)

Commentary: According to Rumi, our moods will shift and change. Our devotion will appear and disappear. Sometimes we will feel constrained and trapped, and then, surprisingly soon thereafter, we'll be liberated and dancing. The life of the spirit keeps moving us forward.

Cat in the Bag (Part 1)

O fierce Wind, before You I am but a straw: how can I know where I shall fall?
Any one who offers to make a settlement with the Divine destiny is mocking at his own mustache.
A straw in the face of the wind, and then the idea of a settlement!? A Resurrection is on, and then the resolve to act independently!?
In the hand of Love I am like a cat in a bag, now lifted high, and now flung low by Love.
God is whirling me around His head: I have no rest either below or aloft.
The lovers of God have fallen into a fierce torrent: they have set their hearts on the ordinance of Love.
They are like the millstone turning day and night, in continual revolution and moaning incessantly.
The turning is evidence for those who seek the River, lest anyone should say that the River is motionless.
If you do not see the hidden River, see the perpetual turning of the celestial water wheel.
Since the heavens have no rest from being turned by Love, be thou, O heart, like a star, and seek no rest."

Rumi (Vol.6, 903-914)

Commentary: Only Rumi; he tells us that our restlessness, confusion, and bewilderment, and even our moaning, is all a gift, and a sign of God's presence. Nice to know...

For God's Sake!

"People hazard their lives in the line of battle and in fighting for the Creator's sake,
One is like Job in tribulation, another like Jacob in patience.
Hundreds of thousands of people, thirsty and sorrowful, are doing some sore trial for God's sake in desire of pleasing Him.
I too, for the merciful Lord's sake, and in hope of Him, am drumming the call at the gate.
If you want a customer from whom you will get gold, how should there be a better customer than God, O my heart?
God buys a dirty bag from your stock of goods, and gives you in return an inner light that borrows its splendor from Himself.
God receives the dissolving ice of this mortal body, and gives a kingdom beyond our imagination.
God receives a few tear drops, and gives a river in Paradise that sugar shows jealousy for, because of its sweetness.
God receives sighs full of melancholy and vaporous gloom, and gives for every sigh a hundred gainful dignities.
Pay attention, sell your old rags in this brisk incomparable market, and receive the real and genuine sterling kingdom in exchange."

Rumi (Vol.6, 875-885)

Commentary: The market will never be better...and the offer is available every moment.

The House of the Beloved

"O best Helper, only You can make the eye that now only regards what is non-existent, to regard that which in reality is existent.
The capital required for the market of this world is gold; there, in the next world, the capital is love, and two eyes wet with tears.
"Become a buyer, that My hand may move to sell to you, and that My pregnant mine may bring forth the ruby."
Preform an act of service for the Creator's sake: what have you to do with being accepted or rejected by the people?
Although in your opinion the hour is midnight, in my view the dawn of delight is near at hand.
In my sight every defect has been turned to victory, in my eyes all the nights have been turned to day.
To you the mountain is exceedingly heavy and solid and inanimate, but to David it is a master musician.
To the vulgar the particles of the world seem dead, but before God they are possessed of knowledge and submissive to God's commands.
The one that is illumined by the Light of God deems the House of the Beloved to be full of Him.
How should the form of the Perfect Teacher, which is splendid and sublime, ever be absent from the House of God?
God is always present there, exempt from exclusion, while the rest of humanity are there only on account of their occasional need."

Rumi (Vol.6, 828-870)

Commentary: "What have we to do with being accepted or rejected by the people?" Well, obsessing about it can sure pass the time! Meanwhile, Rumi suggests that the mountains are singing to us, and that what we want and need is close by, right now.

More Than a Grain of Wheat

In your countenance, where is the happiness which is the effect of the wine of true religion? If you have beheld the ocean of Bounty, where is your generous hand?
The one that has beheld the River does not begrudge water to the thirsty, especially one that has beheld that Sea and those Clouds...
The ant trembles for a grain of wheat, because it is blind to the goodly threshing floors.
It drags a grain along greedily and fearfully, for it does not see such a noble stack of wheat as is there.
The Owner of the threshing floor is saying to the ant, "Hey, you who in your blindness deems nothing to be something,
Have you regarded that alone, as belonging to my threshing floor, so that you are devoted, with all your soul, to that single grain?"

Rumi (Vol.6, 804-809)

Commentary: If we are moving along with fear and greed, perhaps we need to improve our vision and our perspective?

A Split Drum

"Incapacity is a chain: God laid it upon you: you must open your eye to behold the One who lays the chain.
Therefore, make a humble entreaty, saying, "O Guide in the ways of life, I was free, and now I have fallen into bondage: what is the cause of this?
I have planted my foot in evil more firmly than ever, for even in the midst of Your omnipotence, truthfully, I am engaged in a losing business all the time.
I have been deaf to Your admonitions: while professing to be an idol breaker, I have really been an idol maker.
Is it now more incumbent on me to think of Your works, or of death? Death is like autumn, and You are the the origin of the green leaves."
For years this death has been beating the drum, but only when it is too late, is your ear moved to listen.
In his agony, the heedless man cries from his innermost soul, "Alas, I am dying!" Has death made you aware of itself only now?
Death's throat is exhausted with shouting: his drum is split with the astounding blows with which it has been beaten.
But you enmeshed yourself in trivialities: only now have you apprehended the mystery of dying."

Rumi (Vol.6, 768-776)

Commentary: We are all "short-timers". Maybe today would be a good day to turn away from all the trivialities, and to remember what we are called to do, while we are here on earth.

Resurrection

"When you grow up, your childhood dies.
When sorrow becomes joy, the thorn of sorrowfulness does not remain.
This mystery is understood only by dying, not by using one's reason.
Do thou then, become the spiritual resurrection, and thereby see and experience the resurrection...
Until you become it, you will not know it completely, whether it be light or darkness.
If you become reason, you will know reason perfectly.; if you become Love, you will know Love's flaming fire."

Rumi (Vol.6, 739-758)

Commentary. Happy Easter! We are invited to know a joy that will last forever.

Extreme Proximity

"The person who judges on appearance is misled by the form of the expressions used in the Mathnawi, while these expressions guide the seeker of reality to the Truth.
Extreme proximity is a mystifying veil.
You have come nearer to me than the artery in my neck: how long shall I say, "Oh?" "Oh" is a call to one who is far off...
To utter words concerning God is to shut the window through which the Divine reveals Himself: the very act of expression is the concealment of God.
It is marvelous that You are not separate from me, and yet, where I am,and where You are, I know not.
"You have suffered much agony, but you are still in the veil, because dying to the self was the fundamental principle, and you have not fulfilled it.
You cannot reach the roof without competing the ladder.
When the last two rungs out of a hundred are waiting to be climbed, the one who strives will be forbidden to set foot upon the roof.
Be extinguished in the dawn, O candle of beauty.
Know that the sun of the world is hidden until our stars have become hidden.
Shatter egoism to pieces."

Rumi (Vol.6, 655-732)

Commentary: So very close, and yet until we separate from our small selves, and our huge egos, we cannot meet the Beloved.

Only Derangement and Madness

"In the end the seeker is a finder, for from patience joy is born.
Our King is entirely truth and loyalty; that disgrace which is visiting us is from ourselves alone.
Our walnuts are being crushed in this mill: whatever we may tell of our anguish, is but a little.
I will not listen to deceitful talk of separation from the Beloved: I have experienced it: how long shall I experience it?
In this Way, everything except derangement and madness is a cause of distance and alienation from God.
Though you bring two hundred fetters, I will snap them all except the curls of God's auspicious Beauty.
Love and reputation, O brother and sister, are not in accord: do not stand at the door of reputation, O lover.
O You, who by your magic has spell-bound the spirit's sleep, O hard-hearted Beloved that You are in the world....
How should God's heart be happy until I burn? O my heart is God's home and dwelling place....
Come, leave off saying "this is not" and "that is not": bring forward the One who is Real Being.
Bodies are like pots with the lids on: look and see what is in each pot.
The bodily eye is always seeing the body: the spiritual eye sees the elusive soul."

Rumi (Vol 6, 595-654)

Commentary: Rumi recommends patience, and then gets frustrated and impatient with God! Apparently it is expected that we will praise and blame, surrender and rail, experience anguish and joy. Madness, indeed.

Help Me! (even in these circumstances...)

"At the time when greed and desire have stirred in your heart, at that time keep saying, "Help me, O You who comes at the cry for help.
Do not take away your protection from my head: I am restless, restless, restless.
Though I am not deserving of Your favor, what does it matter, if for a moment You ask after an unworthy one, who is in great anguish?
What right to your favor had non-existence, to which Your grace opened such doors?
Your bounty touched the mangy earth, and put in its bosom ten pearls of the light of sensation...
O You, by whom my shop and my dwelling is ruined, how shall I not wail when you shake my heart?
How shall I flee from You, since without You none live?"
O Comrades, the Beloved has barred the ways; we are lame deer and God is a hunting lion.
For one who is in the clutch of a fierce and bloodthirsty lion, where is any resource except resignation and acquiescence?"

Rumi (Vol.6, 535-577)

Commentary: We are to ask for help, even if we are faithless and distracted and restless. Are we seeking God, or is God hunting us?