Five Day Friends

"From the pure souls and intelligences there is coming to the spirit a letter, saying, "O Faithless one,
You have found some miserable five day friends and have turned your face away from your friends of old."
Although the children are happy in their play, yet at nightfall they are dragged off and taken Home.
Half of your life has been lost to the ones who capture your heart, the other half of life is lost in anxieties caused by foes...
The road to God is self-sacrifice, and in every thicket is a tribulation to drive back any one whose soul is as brittle as a glass bottle.
The road of religion is full of trouble and suffering for the reason that it is not the road for any one whose nature is cowardly."

Rumi (Vol.6, 456-508)

Commentary: Rumi recognizes and acknowledges the pleasures of this material world. He just reminds us that all our worldly happiness is short lived. And then he invites us to travel a spiritual path that he promises will be painful and constantly challenging. Truth in advertising...

God Always Wins

"Since you have apprehended the fact that God will overpower you, and beat the mace of tribulation on your head,
Like a Nimrod, repel God by war, if you can! Launch an arrow of hard poplar wood into the air against the Divine!
Like the Mongol soldier, shoot an arrow at heaven to prevent your soul from being torn from your body!
Or flee from God, if you can, and go your way; but how can you go, since you are a pawn in God's hand?
When you were in non-existence, you did not escape from God's hand; how will you escape from His hand now, O helpless one?
To seek one's own desire is to attempt to flee from God...
This world is a trap, and desire is its bait: flee from the traps, and quickly turn your face towards God. Abandon desire, in order that God may shower mercy on you.
Since you cannot escape, do service to God, that you may go from His prison into His rose garden"

Rumi (Vol.6, 372-383)

Commentary: Can God blame us for trying? We attempt to declare our independence and autonomy, but it simply isn't true. How lovely it will be, to live in that rose garden...

Parables...

"The mystics use comparison and illustration, in order that a loving feeble minded person may apprehend the truth.
It is a parable for the purpose of melting the frozen intellect.
What is soul? Soul is rejoicing on account of kindness, weeping on account of injury.
Since consciousness is the innermost nature and essence of soul, the more aware one is, the more spiritual one is...
O Thou, who are the help of those who seek help, help me to escape from this prison of my wicked acts of free-will.
By the heart's deceit and guile, I have been so disoriented that I am left, unable even to lament.
Who am I? Heaven with its hundred affairs, cried out for help against the ambush of arrogance and selfishness.
O gracious One, this duality is agonizing to the spirit.
This perplexity is like the heart at war.
In perplexity the fear of failure and the hope of success are always in conflict with one another, now advancing, and now retreating.
From You first, came this ebb and flow within me...
From the same source from where you gave me this perplexity, graciously now make me unperplexed.
Bestow on me one path, do not make me follow ten paths!
What is the means of ascension to heaven? This not-being. Humility, and selflessness is the creed and the religion of the lovers of God."

Rumi (Vol 6, 117-233)

Commentary: Speaking as one of the feeble minded...the war can seem quite real. I suspect God will free us from our selfishness and our perplexity when the time is right. Until then, we can only ask for help...

The Scent of Apples

"Now, O spiritual one, I bring to you as an offering the Sixth part to complete the Mathnawi.
These Six Books give light to the Six Directions...
Love has nothing to do with the five senses and the six directions: its goal is only to experience the the attraction exerted by the Beloved.
The command to call the people to God comes down from the Maker: what has the Saint to do with their acceptance or non-acceptance?
If you are thirsting for the spiritual Ocean, make an opening in the island of the Mathnawi.
Behold the fresh branches of coral, behold the fruits grown from the water of the spirit.
When the Mathnawi is made single, and stripped of words and sounds and breaths, it leaves all that behind and becomes the spiritual Ocean.
The speaker of the words and the hearer of the words, and the words themselves- all three become spirit in the end.
The Holy Transcendent One who makes the reality of the apple orchard, conceals the apples in a mist of words.
From this mist of sound and words and talk arise such a screen that nothing of the apple comes into our perception, but the scent.
At least, inhale this scent in greater quantity with your intelligence, that, taking you by the ear, it may lead you towards your origin."

Rumi (Vol.6, 3-86)

Commentary: In this, the last of the six books of the Mathnawi, Rumi lets us know that all this poetry is a mysterious part of God pulling us closer.

Every Spring

"This new springtime after the fall of leaves is a proof of the existence of the Resurrection.
In spring the secrets are revealed; whatsoever this earth has eaten comes into view.
It shoots up from her mouth and lips, in order that she may bring to mind her hidden mind and way.
The secret of the root of every tree and its nutriment- the whole of that is plainly brought forth on its leafy top...
To whomsoever God has announced victory and triumph, to that one success and unsuccess are one.
To whosoever the favor of the Friend has become a surety-what fear should he have of defeat and painful combat?
When it has become certain that he will checkmate his opponent, the loss of a knight and a bishop is a trifle to him.
You perceive that in the past you have sown lentils: you know now what the crop will be.
Formerly, you had feelings from God of fear and hope:the fear has passed away, and the hope has come into clear view."

Rumi (Vol. 5 3971-4070)

Commentary: The spring is a perfect time to remember that new life has already won the game.

A Safe Refuge

"Love is an infinite ocean, on which the heavens are but a flake of foam.
Know that the wheeling heavens are turned by waves of Love: were it not for Love, the world would be frozen and inanimate.
Every mote is in love with that Perfection, and hastening upward like a sapling...
Suppose the empire is the empire of the West and East: since it will not remain, deem it to be as fleeting as a lightening flash.
O you, whose heart is heedless and slumbering, know that the kingdom that does not remain until eternity is but a dream.
Consider what you will do with all your vanity and glory; for ultimately it will grip your throat like an executioner.
Know that even in this world there is a safe refuge...
A rational person does not see the various aspects of Love, yet the auspicious moon of Love does not wane."

Rumi (Vol.5, 3835-3932)

Commentary: Heedless and slumbering we may be. Love will wake us up.

Entertaining Guests

"This body is a guest house: every morning a new guest comes running into it.
Beware, do not say, "This guest is a burden to me," for presently he will fly back into non-existence...
Every day, too, at every moment, a different thought comes, like an honored guest, into your heart.
O dear soul, regard every thought as a person, since every person derives his worth from thought and spirit.
If the thought of sorrow is waylaying joy, yet it is also making preparations for joy.
It violently sweeps your house clean of all else, in order that a new joy, from the source of goodness, may enter in.
It scatters the yellow leaves from the bough of the heart, in order that continual green leaves may grow.
It uproots the old joy, in order that a new joy may march in from the Beyond...
Good and ill fortune become guests in your heart, like the stars that move from one planet in the zodiac to another."

Rumi (Vol. 5, 3644-3686)

Commentary: The rule of spiritual hospitality: graciously welcome reality.

The Root of All Afflictions

"He has suffered pain, but has never seen the gain that comes from the Beloved: he has done many works of devotion, but has never seen the wages for his work.
Either the essential thing was not in his work at all, or by Divine decree the hour of his reward has not yet arrived.
The recompense has been deferred until the appointed season...
He is making a great effort with the help of conjecture and opinion: the matter rests in "maybe" until it turns out well.
Far is the road he must travel before he can see the Beloved...
At one moment he is engaged in reproach, saying to God, "The portion allotted to me from this calculation of mine is nothing but pain."
At another time, he is engaged in a quarrel with his own luck, saying. "All the others are flying, and we have our wings cut off."
Whoever is imprisoned in the worldly vanities, his spirit is oppressed, even though he is occupied in the practice of spirituality.
Until he comes forth from his narrow resting place, how should his spirit be happy, and his heart expand with joy?
This separation from God is the root of all affliction: how should anyone endure it?
O my generous friends, have pity on those who have taken vows of Love...
Pardon their violence: consider their sorrow and ill-fortune,
In order that God may pardon your sins likewise, and heap forgiveness on your faults.
Pardon, that you may win pardon in return."

Rumi (Vol. 5 3521-3552)

Commentary: God bless Rumi! He offers solace to all of us who are unsuccessful seekers. He understands, and even excuses our complaints. He tells us that we are not the only disciples to suffer and question: it is apparently a long tradition and goes back centuries.

A True Profession of Faith

"O my God, our eyes have become intoxicated. Forgive us: our burdens have been made heavy.
O concealed One, who has filled the world from East to West with Your radiance, and who is exalted above the light of the place of sunrise and sunset,
You are the inmost ground of consciousness revealing our innermost thoughts. You are the force that causes our damned up rivers to burst forth.
O You, whose essence is hidden, while Your gifts are perceived by the senses, You are as the water, and we are as the millstone.
You are the wind and we are the dust: the wind is hidden, while the dust blown by it is plainly visible.
You are the spring, we are fair as the verdant orchard: the spring is hidden while its bounty is manifest.
You are as the Spirit, we are like hand and foot: the opening and the closing of the hand is due to the spirit.
You are like the joy, and we are the laughter, for we are the result of Your blessed joy.
All our actions are really a continual profession of faith, which bears witness to the Eternal Almighty One.
You are beyond my conception and utterance."

Rumi (Vol.5, 3307-3318)

Commentary: Rumi's prayers sound more like love letters...imagine, imagining yourself as God's laughter!

Love's Gamble

"How long will you set up a show on the public road? You are footsore with travel and no desre of yours has been fulfilled.
When you enjoy good health, all are your friends and comrades, but in the hour of pain and sorrow, where is any familiar friend but God?
In the hour of eye ache or toothache will any take your hand to help, except the One who comes at the hour of distress?
Become a lover, seek a fair follower, hunt a waterfowl from river to river.
In Love, which is glorious and resplendent, you will find new intelligible things, other than what you now consider intelligible things.
For by your individual intelligence you procure the means of subsistence, while by that other, universal intelligence, you make the tiers of heaven a carpet under your feet.
When you gamble away and sacrifice your intelligence, in love of the Lord, God gives you ten like it, or seven hundred.
Love, which is the cup bearer of life, takes away your intelligence in one moment: then you drink your fill of wisdom for all the rest of your life.
O dear Soul, Love alone cuts disputation short, for it alone comes to the rescue when you cry for help against arguments.
Eloquence is dumbfounded by Love."

Rumi (Vol.5, 3205-3240)

Commentary: This kind of Love is worth betting your whole life on....

The Purchasers of Words

"These sayings have come down in order to make people ardent in serving God, that God may take the hands of those who have lost hope and deliver them.
You continually work yourself to death in the service of worldly kings, yet they are ignorant of the difference between treachery and honesty...
If anyone gives you a tiara, yet God gave you the head that bears it.
Abandon the state of being loved by the audience, and adopt the practice of loving God, O you, who think you are excellent and pre-eminent.
O you, who are really more silent than night, how long will you seek a purchaser for your words?
Your hearers nod their heads in your presence for the purpose of assenting to you; your time is wasted in the passionate desire of attracting them.
Instruct yourself in love of God and spiritual insight; for that is like a design engraved on a solid mass of stone.
Your own self is the only pupil that is really faithful to you; all the others perish; where will you seek them, where?
Behold your true lovers behind the veil of the Divine Bounty, crying aloud to you continually.
Be the lovers of those unseen lovers: do not cherish the lovers who last no more than five days."

Rumi (Vol.5 3127-3203)

Commentary: The spiritual work that matters is between you and God...and it is not a performance...

Free Will

"God's universal power of choice brought our individual powers of choice into existence: God's power of choice is like a rider, hidden within the dust that he raises.
The carpenter has authority over a piece of wood, and the artist has authority over beauty;
The iron-smith is a superintendent of iron; the builder is a ruler over his tools.
This is extraordinary; for all this human free will is bowing low, like a servant, in homage to God's free will...
An oxen is forced, if it refuses the yoke: is an ox ever beaten by blows because it refuses to fly?
Since you are not ill, don't bandage your head: you have free will, don't make a fool of yourself, (by claiming everything is destined).
Endeavor to gain freshness and spiritual grace from God's cup of love, then you will become selfless and obedient.
The saying of the servant,"Whatever God wills will come to pass"does not signify "be lazy and inactive in that matter."
No, it is an incitement to complete devotion and exertion, meaning, "Make yourself exceedingly ready to preform that service."
The interpretation that makes you ardent and hopeful and active and reverent is the true one."

Rumi (Vol.5,3087-3125)

Commentary: Spiritually speaking, there are no excuses. Rumi wants us to get up out of bed, and walk.

Anxiety and Grace

"In God's bounty there is no retrenchment or reduction...
(God says)"Give the hidden pearl to everyone who desires it.
Scatter the daily bread recklessly.
Release those in debt from their responsibility: like rain make the carpet of the earth green."
What is this feverish trembling for fear of hunger? In possession of trust of God one can live full-fed.
There is in the world a green island, where a sweet-mouthed cow lives alone.
She feeds on the whole field until nightfall, so that she grows fat and big as a mountain crag.
During the night she becomes thin as a hair from anxiety, because she thinks, "What shall I eat tomorrow?"
At the rise of dawn the field becomes green: the green blades and the grain have grown up as tall as a man's middle.
The cow eats ravenously from her hunger; til night she feeds on that vegetation and devours it entirely.
Again she becomes fat and stout and bulky: her body is filled with fat and strength.
Then, again at night, she is stricken by panic, and falls into a fever of anxiety, so that from the fear of vainly seeking for fodder she becomes lean.
Thinking, "What shall I eat tomorrow at noon time?" This is what the cow does for many years.
She never thinks, " All these years...my nourishment has never failed, even for a day: what then is this fear and anguish and heart burning of mine?"
You have eaten for years, and the food has never failed: leave the future and look at the past....do not be miserable."

Rumi (Vol.5, 2791-2869)

Commentary: I must give up this diet of anxiety! All this grace, for so many years.. and still I wonder whether I will be fed!

Beyond This World

"Love is reckless: beware!
Love makes the sea boil like a kettle: Love crumbles the mountains like sand.
Those firm set mountains represent to you the state of lovers in steadfastness.
Lover's souls are on the watch for the beloved.
Beyond this world is a world where if you take a handful of earth, it will turn to gold;
If a dead man enters it, he will become living;
If the most ill-starred enters it, he will become the most fortunate;
If infidelity enters therein, it will become faith; if poison enters in, it will become an antidote to poison.
That world is neither inside of this world, or outside;
Neither beneath it, or above it;
Neither joined with it, nor separate from it;
It is devoid of quality and relation. At every moment, thousands of signs and types are displayed by Divine Love in this world."

Rumi (Vol.5, 2734-2786)

Commentary: It helps me to imagine a place where there are no obstacles to God's love.

The Ladders

"In the world there are invisible ladders, leading step by step up to the summit of heaven.
There is a different heaven, for every traveler's way.
Everyone is ignorant of every other one's condition in the kingdom, which is wide and without end or beginning...
A hundred bodies are not worth a bean in the eyes of the lover who has received nourishment form God's love.
To be in love with God, and then desire a wage!?
In the eyes of that infatuated lover of Layla, the kingdom of the world was as worthless as a vegetable.
Earth and gold were alike in his eyes..
Everything except love is devoured by Love: to the beak of Love, the two worlds are but a single grain.
Does a grain ever devour a bird?
Do service to God, that perchance you might become a lover: devotional service is a means of gaining Love: it arises from action.
The servant of God desires to be free from fortune; the lover of God nevermore desires to be free.
The servant is always seeking a robe of honor and a stipend; the lover's robe of honor is his vision of the Beloved.
Love is not contained in speech or hearing: Love is an ocean where the depth is invisible."

Rumi (Vol.5, 2556-2731)

Commentary:It was an easy mistake to make... thinking we might get paid..instead, we are offered many heavens, deep waters and an incomprehensible Love..

Imitation and Faith

"This one's faith is mere imitation: his spirit has never seen the face of Faith.
The imitator is in great danger from the road and the thief...
But when he beholds the life of God, he becomes safe: he is at rest from the agitation of doubt...
You have emboldened those who are afraid of traveling on the Way, but underneath, and inwardly, you are trembling more than all the rest.
You lecture to them all on trust in God, while you are grasping at flies, and attempting to slit the veins of the gnats in the air.
Advance one or two paces, make a good endeavor: Love will lay hold of your ear and then draw you inward.
There, it is dessert on dessert, and wine on wine! Go up and proclaim that all are welcome at the feast.
The sun in heaven is clapping its hands: the motes are dancing like lovers.
All eyes are intoxicated with an orchard abounding in greenery, where the blossoms are budding on the boughs.
The eye of blessedness works absolute magic: the spirit is made victorious, crying, "I am God."

Rumi (Vol. 5, 2449-2536)

Commentary: For Rumi,in the season of the spirit, it is always spring. And God's transformative magic is there for those of us who are afraid that the winter will last forever.

Far from Sorrow

"What does anyone know of me but a little?
I know, and God, who draws a veil of concealment over me.
Whatever ill deeds I have done, the Divine Mercy took them as not having been done: and my undone acts of obedience, that Mercy took as having been preformed.
Mercy made me free as the cypress and the lily, it made me glad of heart as fortune and felicity.
Mercy inscribed my name in the registry of the righteous: I was one doomed to Hell; it gave me Paradise.
When I cried "Alas", my "Alas" became a rope, and the rope was let down into my well.
I clutched the rope and climbed out: I became glad and strong and stout and rosy.
Formerly I was lying in misery at the bottom of the well: now I am not contained in the whole world.
Praise be onto You, O God! You did suddenly put me far from sorrow."

Rumi (Vol. 5 2303-2314)

Commentary: This is a view that those of us still at the bottom of the well, can at least look forward to; we are promised a time when all of our cries of "alas", will be turned into joy.

Repentance

"I clutch the skirt of God's mercy. Help, help!
I have a soul of stone, and my heart is of iron.
The time presses and I have only one moment left: act in a Kingly fashion, come to my aid!
Accept my repentance, this once more...."
When his ship was wrecked and every hope had failed, he was cast on the seashore of Divine Mercy.
His soul became united with God: at that moment when he lost consciousness, the waves of Mercy began to surge.
When his soul was freed from the body, it went rejoicing towards it Origin.
The soul is like a falcon, and the body is its fetter, it is a foot-bound broken-winged creature.
But when its self consciousness is gone, and its foot untied, that falcon flies toward the King.
When the sea of Mercy begins to surge, even stones drink the Water of Life.
The whole face of this earth becomes verdant; the dry wood buds and becomes flourishing.
The wolf becomes the cup companion of the lamb; the despairing become courageous and valiant."

Rumi (Vol.5 2260-2285)

Commentary: Asking for forgiveness, departing from our own self consciousness: only then do we begin to become aware of mercy.

A Hundred Resurrections

"Intellects are excluded from this mystery: if the heart of imagination burst, let it burst!
In the sight of Love, fear is not as much as a single hair: in the law of love, all things are offered as a sacrifice.
Love is an attribute of God, but fear is an attribute of a servant of God who is affected by desire and gluttony...
If I should continue to describe Love, a hundred Resurrections would pass, and my description would still be incomplete.
Love has five hundred wings and every wing extends from above the highest heaven to beneath the earth.
The timid ascetic runs on foot; the lovers of God fly more quickly than the lightening and wind.
Perchance, the favors of the Divine Light may come and say, "Become free of this world and from this wayfaring."
Your duality is the push and pull of necessity and free-will. The pull of the Beloved, who draws you to Himself, transcends these two."

Rumi (Vol 5, 2183-2196)

Commentary: It pays to fly...

Make an Experiment

"Be without lip and without ear for a while, and then like the lip, be the companion of honey.
How long have you been uttering poetry, and prose and proclaiming mysteries! O you, who play at leadership, try the experiment, and for one day, be dumb!
How long have you been cooking food that is sour and acidic? For this one time, make an experiment and cook sweets.
God, who makes the rose lovely and sweet-scented...God bestows fresh running water onto the salt sea."

Rumi (Vol.5, 2148-2159)

Commentary: How long, O Lord? I guess it wouldn't hurt (too much) to try to be silent?

Keep Working

"Become entirely hearing, like an ear, in order that you may gain an earring of ruby.
If you are someone, dig earth, like a well digger, from this earthen body, that you may reach some water,
And if the inspiration of God comes to you, the running water will bubble up from the earth, without your well having been dug.
Be always working, do not pay any heed to that hope of being able to dispense with work; keep scraping away the earth of the well of the body, little by little.
To every one who suffers a tribulation, there is revealed a treasure: everyone who makes an earnest effort comes into a fortune...
When anyone continues to knock on that door, generosity comes forth, for his sake."

Rumi (Vol.5, 2043-2049)

Commentary: Our spiritual work is worthwhile. Keep digging.

Thorns Into Roses

"Outside of my own exertion and action, beyond good and evil, and religion and infidelity,
And beyond my feeble supplication, and the fancy and the imagination of myself, or a hundred like me,
Beyond living righteously or behaving disobediently--I had a great hope in Thy loving kindness.
O Gracious One...I turn my face back to that pure grace. I am not looking towards my own actions...I have always relied upon that generosity."
(God replies, saying)" O angels, bring this one back to us...his inward eye has always been turned towards hope...We will set him free and cancel all his trespasses..
We will kindle up a goodly fire of grace, in order that no sin, small or great, may endure...
We will make the thorns a spiritual garden of roses...
What is humanity's sovereignty and power of choice, beside the light of the Everlasting Abode?"

Rumi (Vol. 5, 1837-1852)

Commentary: This is the conclusion to my absolute favorite Rumi story. I'm hoping it is not just a story...

The Secret of Winter

"O God, show us everything as it really is in this house of illusion.
No one who has died is filled with grief on account of death; his grief is caused by having too little provision for the life hereafter.
From this place of mourning, and this narrow vale of tribulation, he has been transported to the spacious plain.
It is the seat of truth, and God is there besides him.
And if you have not yet led the illuminative life, one or two moments still remain: die to the self, like a true human being!
Dawn is the little resurrection: O seeker of refuge with God, judge from the sunrise what the greater resurrection will be like.
From onion, leek and poppy the hand of spring reveals the secret of winter."

Rumi (Vol. 5, 1765-1801)

Commentary: With our remaining moments, may we turn in the direction that spring comes from.

When You Are Hungry

"For this search is God's pledge, deposited within you, because every seeker deserves something that is sought.
Strive that this search may increase...
Be patient and persistent in fasting: be always expecting the food of God;
For God, who acts with goodness and is long suffering, bestows His gifts on those that are in expectation.
The food-less man is always asking, "Where is it?" and expecting nourishment hungrily, and seeking and searching for food.
Unless you are expectant, that bounty of many blessings and bliss will not come to you.
Every hungry person obtained some food at last: the sun of spiritual fortune shone upon him.
When a magnanimous guest will not eat some inferior food, the host brings better food.
Unless he be a poor host and a mean one. Do not think so ill of the generous Provider!
Lift up your head like a mountain...in order that the first rays of the Sun may strike upon you;
For the lofty firm-based mountain-peak is expecting the sun of dawn."

Rumi (Vol. 5, 1734-1759)

Commentary: On this spiritual path, have confidence in the host...we will be fed and cared for. Morning (and the sun rise) is coming.

God's Harshness and Cruelty

"O Thou, whose harshness is better than the pledge of the faithful, the kindness of the faithful is also from Your bounty.
You counsel the heedless with a hundred courtesies, yet he turns away from your counsel.
A single person who obstinately refuses to listen, will baffle a hundred eloquent speakers.
Such hearts that are bound up in egoism are harder than stone...
The remedy for such a heart is the gift bestowed by the One who transforms: receptivity is not a necessary condition for God's bounty.
No, God's bounty is the necessary condition for receptivity...
Until the sinner deems himself rebellious, how can tears run from his eyes?
Oh, take hope! Now, today, arise, O weeper and laugh continually...
The cruelty done by God is better than the clemency of both worlds.
In God's cruelty there is a hidden kindness: to surrender the soul for God's sake, increases the life of the soul.
Pay attention, dismiss suspicion and error: make your head a foot to hasten towards God, since God has bidden you to come...
My ear is deaf to all words but His: God is dearer to me than my sweet soul.
Who is the soul that I should prefer her to the Gracious One?
What is a flea that I should burn a blanket on account of it?
I know no good, but God's good.
If you are a true believer, come now, and enter the ranks of battle, for a feast has been prepared for you in Heaven....hasten towards the heavenly table."

Rumi (Vol. 5, 1525-1730)

Commentary: A strange journey it is...where grace can come in the form of rebelliousness, and a heart of stone; where the harshest of circumstances can hide a tender compassion, and a great love.

Idle Words

The wise get happiness from this present life, not sorrow, while the ignorant are left in disappointment and regret.
Oh, there are many impudent fellows who, with little practice in the religious life, have learned from the spiritual Kings nothing but talk and brag...
The disciple, full of egoism, sees himself in the Teacher's form...he learns the words, but the eternal mystery he cannot know, for he is a parrot, not a boon companion.
He is a man of this sort because of covetousness and desire for eminence, is dull as regards spiritual vision, and bold in prating. ..
Seek the Purchaser who is seeking thee, One who knows your beginning and end.
The real source of livelihood is God.
When you sow, sow in the soil of your Origin, that for every single seed, a hundred thousand blessings may grow.
Seek sustenance from God: seek intoxication from Him, do not seek it from beng and wine.
Desire wealth from God, not from treasure and possessions.
Desire aid from Him, not from paternal and maternal uncles.
Call onto God now, and leave all the rest, that you may inherit the kingdom of the world."

Rumi (Vol.5, 1409- 1499)

Commentary: Talk doesn't count...only moving closer to the Beloved.
(For the next few days I will not have access to a computer..a two day Rumi vacation for this blog...feel free to visit some past postings. The mind doesn't retain Rumi as well as most of us would like.)

Beyond Reason

"O Giver of spiritual nourishment and steadfastness and stability, give your creature deliverance from this instability.
Grant unto the soul--for it is bent and crooked--to stand upright, to persevere with honesty in the work where it ought to be stable."
The thought of children is of the nurse, or milk, or raisins and walnuts, or weeping and crying.
The imitator is like a sick child, although he may have at his disposal subtle argument and logical proofs.
That profundity in dealing with proofs and difficult problems is severing him from spiritual insight.
O imitator, turn back, go to humility that you may become a spiritual hero.
God has great bounty: run to receive it, O You who has become a pawn to imagination and fancy.
A weeping full of ignorance and conformity and mere opinion is not like the weeping of that trusted One.
That weeping is after thirty years of spiritual warfare: the intellect can never get there.
Beyond reason there are a hundred stages: deem not the intellect to be acquainted with that caravan."

Rumi (Vol.5, 1197-1306)

Commentary: We can't get "there" with even the best mind. We have to give up the imitation of spirituality, and do the actual work.

What Are You Selling?

"God has concealed the sea and made the foam visible; He has concealed the Wind, and displayed it to you as dust...
Praise to You, O Master-weaver of Magic, who has made the dregs to seem to be pure wine, in order to turn people away from the Truth...
This world is a sorcerer, and we are the merchants who buy from it the measured moonbeams.
Yet when the world takes the money, which is your life, O slave, the money is gone, and there is no linen and your purse is empty...
Invoke God with the tongue of deed, for the tongue of words is weak...
If you desire spiritual poverty, that depends on companionship with the Teacher...
Soul receives from soul the knowledge thereof, not by way of book, nor from speech...
From love of having an admirer, you are looking intently in the hope of gaining eminence and leadership.
At every moment you want a purchaser cringing before you: what have you to sell? Nothing, nothing.
If your heart had any spiritual bread for breakfast, it would have been empty of desire for worldly purchasers...
You are fleeing from Love, because of a single humiliation: what do you know of Love except the name?
Love has a hundred disdains and prides: Love is gained by means of a hundred allurements.
A human being resembles a tree, and the root is the covenant with God: the root must be cherished with all one's might."

Rumi (Vol. 5 1027-1166)

Commentary: Selling our words, is selling moonbeams. Apparently we need to go to a market where what counts are deeds, Love, and our capacity to cherish our most important covenant.

A Borrower

"Only the one who sins seeks to repent; only the one who has lost the way cries "Alas"...
The beauty personified in Adam, to which the angels bowed down, is afterward deposed from its former perfection, like Adam, when he fell from Paradise...
The lovely face whose splendor was like the moon, becomes with old age like the back of a Libyan lizard.
And the fair hair and crown of the head that once were radiant, become ugly and bald at the time of being an elder;
And the tall proud figure, piercing the ranks like a spear point, in old age is bent double like a bow.
He that used to grip a man in his arms in the skill of wrestling, they now take hold of his arms to support him at the time of departure.
Truly these are marks of pain and decay: every one of them is a messenger of death...
O God, I wonder what fault did an orchard commit, that these beautiful robes should be stripped from it?
"It paid regard to itself, and self regard is a deadly poison...
The crime is that he put on a borrowed adornment and pretended that these robes were his own property.
We take them back so that he can know that these robes were a loan from the Sun of Being."
All that beauty and power and virtue and knowledge have journeyed here from the Sun of Excellence.
God takes away his lamp, that you may know you are a borrower, not a giver.
If you give thanks to God for what you have received, and make the utmost exertion in doing so, be not grieved at your losses. God will give you a hundred such gifts in return."

Rumi (Vol. 5, 832-973)

Commentary: What I take such pride in, was never mine.