Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207 – 1273) was a Persian poet, Islamic scholar, and Sufi mystic. His influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions, and his poems have been widely translated into many of the world’s languages. At age twenty-five, Rumi began service as a Molvi (Islamic teacher) and later became a Jurist, but his life completely changed following a trip to Damascus. Here he met a teacher under whose instruction he chose the way of the mystic, becoming an ascetic, devoted to the unorthodox spiritual path. Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry and dance as a path for reaching God. His best-known work, the Masnavi (Spiritual Couplets), is a six-volume poem that holds a distinguished place within the rich tradition of Persian Sufi literature, and has been commonly called “the Quran in Persian.”
Quotations by Jalal al-Din Rumi…
When the ocean surges,
don’t let me just hear it.
Let it splash inside my chest!
One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked.
A voice asked, “Who is there?”
He answered, “It is I.”
The voice said, “There is no room for Me and Thee.”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked.
A voice from within asked, “Who is there?”
The man said, “It is Thee.”
The door was opened for him.
And watch two men washing clothes, one makes dry clothes wet. The other makes wet clothes dry. They seem to be thwarting each other, but their work is a perfect harmony. Every holy person seems to have a different doctrine and practice, but there’s really only one work.
All the particles in the world
Are in love and looking for lovers.
Pieces of straw tremble
In the presence of amber.
Don’t unstring the bow,
I am your four-feathered arrow
that has not been used yet.
I am a strong knifeblade word,
not some if or maybe,
dissolving in air.
I am sunlight slicing the dark.
Who made this night?
A forge deep in the earth-mud.
What is the body?
Endurance.
What is love?
Gratitude.
What is hidden in our chests?
Laughter.
What else?
Compassion.
Let the beloved be a hat pulled down firmly on my head.
Or drawstrings pulled and tied around my chest.
Someone asks, “How does love have hands and feet?”
Love is the sprouting-bed for hands and feet!
Your father and mother were playing love games,
They came together, and you appeared!
Don’t ask what love can make or do!
Look at the colours of the world.
The riverwater moving in all rivers at once.
The truth that lives in Shams’ face.
One Song
What is praised is one, so the praise is one too,
many jugs being poured into a huge basin.
All religions, all this singing, one song.
The differences are just illusion and vanity.
Sunlight looks a little different
on this wall than it does on that wall,
and a lot different on this other one,
but it is still one light.
We have borrowed these clothes,
these time-and-space personalities,
from a light, and when we praise,
we are pouring them back in.
Yesterday, I was clever so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Be certain in the religion of Love there are no believers or unbelievers. Love embraces all.
There is a force within that gives you life — seek that. In your body there lies a precious jewel — seek that. Oh, wandering Sufi, if you are in search of the greatest treasure, don’t look outside, look within, and Seek That.
One of the marvels of the world
is the sight of a soul sitting in prison
with the key in his hand.
