My Favorite Rumi

selected by Jason Espada

Preface In the early 1980s, I had the incomparable good fortune of finding Rumis poetry. Since that time, its been a faithful companion; at times a stern teacher, and most often, just the right, delightful medicine. Like a letter from a dear friend, it has always been Rumis poetry that reminds me the most of my true home. These last couple of years Ive had the thought of assembling my favorite Rumi to share with both fellow lovers of his poetry, and especially those who have never read or even heard of him. Ive been able to make shorter collections of the poetry of Hafiz and Pablo Neruda, to share with others, but with Rumi its been more of a challenge. For one thing, I have more of his poetry to choose from. But more than this, Rumi is the poet who is closest to my own heart, and so naturally I really want to get this right. At some point though, not being able to do something perfectly is no excuse for not acting. This is the best I can do right now, and so I send this out into the world with the wish that others receive at least some of the same joy, nourishment and inspiration I have over the years. Who knows? Dear reader, perhaps meeting Rumis poetry, the door will open for you, and all the riches he encourages us to know will be yours. Its with good reason that great works are always in season. I was reminded again today of just how troubled this world is, how dis-empowered. Rumis works seem to be, once again, just exactly the right antidote: a true scale of values, food, and light for our times. Ive seen how its out of overflowing fullness and satisfaction and gratitude that the wish to give to others comes about. And so, here at last, are my favorite works by Rumi. Share the joy. A table of contents follows. Jason Espada, October 21st, 2009

Table of Contents Preface and Table of Contents Introductions By Jason Espada: Love Makes All the Difference: An Introduction to Rumi By Coleman Barks: From Open Secret From This Longing From The Essential Rumi Poetry (titles or first lines)

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7 12 12 15

From Rumi Fragments, Ecstacies, translated by Daniel Liebert 1. the flute weeps / to the pacing drum 2. that moon has come / that moon face of Joseph 3. a woman is God shining / through subtle veils 16 17 18 19

4. within me is an ocean / where a thousand Rumis drown 5. what is this fragrance? / is it from heaven? 6. subtle degrees / of domination and servitude 7. rock, plant, animal; / to each I have died 8. you embrace some form / saying, I am this 9. No Longer Drunk, but the Wine Itself 21 22 23 24 20

Table of Contents 10. love says, / I will deliver you this instant!

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Translations by Coleman Barks, from: The Soul of Rumi, The Essential Rumi, Open Secret, Birdsong, Say I Am You, One-Handed Basket Weaving, We Are Three, This Longing, and Like This From The Soul of Rumi 11. What was told, that 12. The clear bead at the center / changes everything 13. What we hear in a friends voice 14. The City of Saba 15. Medicine 16. A Necessary Autumn Inside Each 17. Paradox 27 28 29 31 33 35 36

18. There is nourishment like / bread that feeds one part 37 From The Essential Rumi 19. No Room for Form 20. The Pickaxe 21. New Moon, Hilal 22. The Granary Floor 38 40 42 47

Table of Contents From Open Secret 23. Bored onlookers, / but with such Light in our eyes 24. Friend, our closeness is this 25. Someone who goes with half a loaf of bread 26. The sufi opens his hands to the universe 27. Who is the luckiest in the whole orchestra? 28. Fasting 29. The Image of Your Body 30. Today, like every other day 31. Sometimes I Forget Completely 32. An Empty Garlic 33. The Question 34. The Phrasing Must Change From Birdsong 35. In your light I learn how to love 36. Gamble everything for love 37. When you come back inside my chest

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49 49 49 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 58

59 59 59

Table of Contents From Say I Am You 38. Dear Soul 39. Joseph 40. People say that human beings From One-Handed Basket Weaving 41. Snow and the Voice From We Are Three 42. Little by little, wean yourself 43. When you are with everyone but me 44. When you do things from your soul 45. Someone who doesnt know the Tigris River exists 46. A man on his deathbed left instructions 47. A friend remarks to the Prophet From This Longing 48. You Are Not a Single YOU 49. A Basket of Fresh Bread

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60 61 63

64

65 66 67 68 69 72

74 76

Table of Contents From Like This 50. I dont get tired of You. Dont grow weary 51. Give yourself a kiss 52. I was dead, then alive 53. If anyone asks you 54. An intellectual is all the time showing off Translated by Kabir Helminsky 55. At breakfast tea a beloved asked her lover Translated by Nader Khalili 56. my dear friend

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80 82 83 85 88

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Love Makes All the Difference: An Introduction to Rumi, by Jason Espada To say that many of us dont see this world as it is, would be a huge understatement, I know, but we have to start somewhere. For a lot of people, human beings are little more than animals, and life is mostly about struggle - its something to be gotten through, with only brief moments of light or happiness. Or else, theres a quality of nothing special about it, with no feeling one way or another. The tragedy of course is that our experience here doesnt have to be this way. There are a few other people who tell us that, far from being a burden, this life is something to be celebrated. There are people who say this world is Divine - that it can be an unending source of wonder and joy. What do you think? Most people usually dont see it this way, and so they take advantage of each other, they prey on each other, or else they waste time, or feel bored, or dissatisfied. This is all so common. In the greatest contrast to the way most people experience this world, there are those who have found a deep source of nourishment in this life, such that everything they say, and everything they do comes out of that joy. Such people throughout time have been called mystics. The 13th century Persian teacher and poet, Jelaluddin Rumi was one such person who was able to offer the world an inspiring vision, and also the guidance and encouragement to live from this realization. He tells us: Every object and being in the universe is a jar overflowing with wisdom and beauty, a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth more shining, as though covered in satin

And he says: Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty. And: Human beings are mines. World-power means nothing. Only the unsayable, jeweled inner life matters And: A man sleeps heavily, though something blazes in him like the sun, like a magnificent fringe sewn up under the hem The Life of Rumi Jalal ad-Din ar-Rumi was born 1207, in what is now Afghanistan. As a child, Rumis family traveled and settled in Turkey. Rumi succeeded his father as a Muslim teacher. Then, when he was 37 years old, Rumi met a mystic named Shams-I-Tabriz, and the two formed a deep spiritual relationship. Rumis students, its told, were jealous, and Shams disappeared, apparently killed out of jealousy. Rumi grieved for his loss, having seen the Divine in Shams, or we can say having seen Shams as God, and as a doorway, to further understanding the mysteries of this life. In his grief, Rumi created the Turning Dance (called Whirling) that is still a part of the Sufi Tradition today. The turning represents the search for Truth, the Beloved, the Divine, or God. The Sufis are the mystics of Islam. The Sufi Path is sometimes called The Path of Love, or The Way of Passion, as love is such a strong element in their search for Truth, in their way of life, and their teaching.

Although they have some elements in common with more Orthodox Muslim Traditions, the Sufis are also unique in some ways. They are not only looking for an intellectual understanding of the Divine - they aim for personal experience, and for union with this deep Truth, or with God. Another feature that stands out is that the Sufis love, for God, for the Divine, or for this life is often expressed in earthy, sensual language, like a lover speaking or writing to his beloved. And so their writing moves from the experiences of longing, to the joy at being touched, to those of fulfillment. Rumi says: I want this music and this dawn and the warmth of your cheek against mine And: Who is the luckiest in this whole orchestra? The reed. Its mouth touches your lips to learn music. All reeds, sugarcane especially, think only of this chance. They sway in the canebreaks, free in the many ways they dance. Without you the instruments would die. One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss. The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself. Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone, so that what died last night can be whole today. Why live some soberer way and feel you ebbing out? I wont do it. Either give me enough wine or leave me alone, now that I know how it is to be with you in constant conversation.

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And: In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art. In the translations that have reached the West, there are included many teaching stories that are meant to guide people to living more deeply. In addition to being beautifully expressed, there is a whole way of life described in these writings. Rumi describes how we can grow and develop as individuals, how we can learn to see, and to live more authentic lives; how we can find fulfillment. He describes many of the processes and obstacles that are a part of life often in a humorous way, but always with compassion and respect for his listeners. A few quotes from Rumi: Dont ask what love can make, or can do. Look at the colors of the world! Today, like every other day, we wake up empty, and scared. Dont open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument and start to play. Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

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Be patient. Respond to every call that excites your spirit Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love When you do things from your soul, a river moves though you, Freshness and a deep joy are the signs

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Introduction - From Open Secret Rumi's Life (1207-1273) Jelaluddin Rumi was born in Balkh, in what is now Afghanistan, on September 30, 1207. When he was still a young man, though, his family fled under the threat of a Mongol invasion, and after much traveling, finally settled in Konya, Turkey. Rumi means "the Roman that is, "from Roman Anatolia." Rumi followed in the line of his father and his ancestors scholars, theologians, and jurists. Until the age of thirty-seven he seems to have been a conventional teacher under the royal patronage. In 1244 he met the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz. "What I had thought of before as God, I met today in a person." This recognition strengthened and galvanized his belief. His poetry filled with a longing to be the Friend, the close spiritual presence he first saw in Shams, later in Saladin Zarkub, the goldsmith, still later in his scribe, Husam. Rumi died December 17, 1273. During the last thirty years of his life he became a brilliant unfolding of that recognition, and a cause of its incandescence in others. From This Longing The Ocean of the Mathnawi The Mathnawi is Rumi's masterwork, and it is impossible to give much sense of it in a selection of excerpts. It runs to six volumes, over fifty-one thousand verses of poetry, couplets in twelve-beat lines, in which the hemistichs, or half-lines, also rhyme. I have not tried, of course, to duplicate the music of the Persian. These versions of the Mathnawi are set in the free verse of American poetry, one of the strongest and most spiritually open and questing traditions in Western writing. But the majestic intricacy of the original, its reef-like porousness, cannot be brought over in free verse. The Mathnawi is complex, mature work, like Shakespeare's tragedies and the late romances, which cannot, of course, be translated, and yet they must.

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To use Rumi's own metaphor, the Mathnawi is an ocean, with myriad elements swimming and adrift and growing in it: folklore, the Qur' an, stories of saints and teachers, myth, the sayings of Muhammed, jokes from the street, actual interruptions, whispered asides to Husam. There is an enormous generosity and humor at play here, and at work. Fresh, wild moments within a profound peace. Drunken, lyric dissolvings within a starry clarity. Spontaneous pleasure within discipline. The Mathnawi was spoken aloud and taken down by Rumi's beloved scribe, Husam Chelebi. The following story is told of how it began: The two were walking in the Meram vineyards outside Konya when Husam suggested that Mevlana begin a new work in a new form, something different from the odes and the quatrains, something in the mathnawi (couplets) tradition of Attar and Sanai and others. Rumi took a piece of paper from his turban and told Husam to read aloud what was on it. It was the opening of the Mathnawi, which Rumi had composed just that morning, the famous couplets spoken by the reed flute. "There must be more," said Husam. "If you will write for me, I will continue," replied Rumi. "From this moment, I am your servant." Thus the long, twelve-year process began. Husam describes it. "He never took a pen in his hand while composing the Mathnawi. He would recite wherever he was, in the medrese (the dervish college), at the I1gin hot springs, in the Konya baths, in the vineyards. When he started, I would write, and I often found it hard to keep up. Sometimes he would recite night and day for several days. Other times, he would compose nothing for months. Once for a period of two years he spoke no poetry. As each volume was completed, I would read it back to him, so that he could revise it." The form, then, is an inspired and intuitively moving tapestry, a format that can include anything it meets. A question from Husam, Arabic poetry; a surprise visitor, Quranic commentary, all get woven into One Vision, the pattern of which seems almost beyond human comprehension, as with the wonderful pun that Rumi uses to describe the daily motion of the sun as a

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weaver's shuttle (maku). Ma-ku, in Persian, also means "Where are we?" so the weaving being done by the sun-shuttle back and forth, east to west, is also the repeated question, Where are We? with the implied pattern, and answer, not in sight. Not to the shuttle, anyway. Likewise, the Mattnawis whole truth may not be accessible to a particular reader standing in its surf, but the beauty and mystery of its Presence can be sensed.

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From The Essential Rumi Rumi puts a prose prayer at the beginning of each book of the Mathnawi. Here is the blessing he gives before Book IV. Praise to Early- Waking Grievers In the name of God the Most Merciful, and the Most Compassionate. This is the fourth journey toward home, toward where the great advantages are waiting for us. Reading it, mystics will feel very happy, as a meadow feels when it hears thunder, the good news of rain coming, as tired eyes look forward to sleeping. Joy for the spirit, health for the body. In here is what genuine devotion wants, refreshment, sweet fruit ripe enough for the pickiest picker, medicine, detailed directions on how to get to the Friend. All praise to God. Here is the way to renew connection with your soul, and rest from difficulties. The study of this book will be painful to those who feel separate from God. It will make the others grateful. In the hold of this ship is a cargo not found in the attractiveness of young women. Here is a reward for lovers of God. A full moon and an inheritance you thought you had lost are now returned to you. More hope for the hopeful, lucky finds for foragers, wonderful things thought of to do. Anticipation after depression, expanding after contraction. The sun comes out, and that light is what we give, in this book, to our spiritual descendants. Our gratitude to God holds them to us, and brings more besides. As the Andalusian poet, Adi aI-Riga, says, I was sleeping, and being comforted by a cool breeze, when suddenly a gray dove from a thicket sang and sobbed with longing, and reminded me of my own passion. I had been away from my own soul so long, so late-sleeping, but that dove's crying woke me and made me cry. Praise to all early-waking grievers! Some go first, and others come long afterward. God blesses both and all in the line, and replaces what has been consumed, and provides for, those who work the soil of helpfulness, and blesses Muhammad and Jesus and every other messenger and prophet. Amen, and may the Lord of all created beings bless you.

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From Rumi Fragments, Ecstacies the flute weeps to the pacing drum the drunken camel rises from its knees and tugs at the rope of reason the bird flutters in the hearts cage putting out his head on this side and that the flood fills the ancient riverbed and once again the riverbanks are green the falcon hears the royal drum and circles seeking the wrist of the king the musk deer smells the lion and her haunches are trembling the madmen have seen the moon in the window; they are running to the roof with ladders somewhere tonight a dervish cries it was my soul in the wine! it was my soul!

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that moon has come that moon face of Joseph if you havent any eyes go borrow them from someone when you see that face youll no longer care for sightseeing you more resemble Joseph than all that is high or low by God, when you see your beauty youll be the idol of yourself dont run off chattering from the silence dont go haggling there is no other market here, one rose buys a garden one penny buys a gold mine for the sea is in love with the drop the sun is in love with the candle the Joseph of the heart is in the pit of the body and the bedouin buys him for eighteen coins

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a woman is God shining through subtle veils haughty spirit astride the elegant mare of her body loving her you love spirit not a corpse spirit is for lovers the corpse is for necrophiles heart's ease, laughter meaningfulness, love Friend! you desire formless things you are seeking the beloved and don't even know.

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within me is an ocean where a thousand Rumis drown with all their sorrow worlds within worlds dreamers concoct entire Baghdads from their breasts asleep or waking where have you seen yourself mirrored completely? a dreamer wanders from room to room only to awaken in another sort of room another sort of dawn comes white as camphor to show you complete and a cold wind a breast-burnishing wind

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what is this fragrance? is it from heaven? whose laughter is this? is it Houris in paradise? what wedding is this with moon for a platter and heaven for a veil? what banquet is this that the Sultan of Baghad licks the platters in our kitchen? God alone knows! but come! take a pick-axe and break apart your stony self the heart's matrix is glutted with rubies springs of laughter are buried in your breast unstop the wine-jar, batter down the door to the treasury of non-existence the water in your jug is brakish and low smash the jug and come to the river!

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subtle degrees of domination and servitude are what you know as love but love is different it arrives complete just there like the moon in the window like the sun of neither east nor west nor of anyplace when that sun arrives east and west arrive desire only that of which you have no hope seek only that of which you have no clue love is the sea of not-being and there intellect drowns this is not the Oxus River or some little creek this is the shoreless sea; here swimming ends always in drowning a journey to the sea is horses and fodder and contrivance but at land's end the footsteps vanish you lift up your robe so as not to wet the hem; come! drown in this sea a thousand times

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rock, plant, animal; to each I have died and become more, when have I become less by dying? Now I am man. when I die I will soar with angels and when I die to the angels what I shall become you cannot imagine. from dead stinking semen love formed you it was love that dragged you howling from the bloodrinker's womb to the nursemaid s breast and from breastmilk to roast meat and wine and the nursemaids beauty it is love that drags this embryo soul out of the body and into paradise

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you embrace some form saying, I am this. By God, you are not this or that or the other you are Unique One Heartravishing you are throne and palace and king you are bird and snare and fowler like water in jar and river are in essence the same you and spirit are the same your every idol prostrates before you your every thought-form perishes in your formlessness

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No Longer Drunk, but the Wine Itself the gnat is in the wine jar he is no longer drunk he is wine itself the ambergris sits in the fire turning to fragrance the grain falls under the millstone and is lost in the measure the cat is in the gunnysack swinging high and low the sugar sack is ripped spilling sugar everywhere I am so ruined with love that beggar children stone me in the alleys I am so mad with love that madmen say Be still! This village is so poor even the taxman doesn't come here I am gone from your world where swords clash over bread

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I steal pearls from a Sultan not cloth from the tailor I am melting in meaningfulness like sugar in water love is the sea where intellect drowns speak! o soul of the soul of the soul o face that renders every created atom articulate with love!

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love says, I will deliver you this instant! I groped for excuses but love came excusing me I dont feel strange anymore with my heart here my soul there I discovered He is heart and soul It was He, not I, knocking at the door it was He within I caress my own breast for there He is hidden no one else knows you; since you are I, I know you forms become a trifle when feeling and intuition richly intensify in the end a man tires of everything except hearts desiring souls journeying sultan, saint, pickpocket; love has everyone by the ear dragging us to God by secret ways I never knew that God, too, desires us

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From The Soul of Rumi What was told, that What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest. What was told the cypress that made it strong and straight, what was whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made sugarcane sweet, whatever was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in Turkestan that makes them so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush like a human face, that is being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in language, thats happening here. The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude, chewing a piece of sugarcane, in love with the one to whom every that belongs!

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The clear bead at the center changes everything. There are no edges to my loving now. Youve heard it said theres a window that opens from one mind to another, but if theres no wall, theres no need for fitting the window, or the latch.

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What we hear in a friends voice If you are my soul's friend, what I say won't be just an assertion. You may hear me at midnight, Come out in the dark, and dont be afraid. Nearness and kinship are assertions, but the sound of a voice is not. The delight a friend feels when he hears a friend's voice brings all that matters. There are those who hear within a voice the essence being said, and there are those who cant. When one who grew up speaking Arabic says in Arabic, 'Arabic is my mother tongue, you know it's true. Or someone writes in beautiful calligraphy, I can read and write. The accomplished script is that. A sufi might say, Last night you saw me carrying my prayer rug on my shoulder. I explained something then about clairvoyance. Let that guide you. Your dreaming soul says, Yes! Such confirmation is like your lost camel. You listen with interest when someone says he saw it, but you feel differently if it's there in front of you. To a man dying of thirst you hand a cup of spring water. Will he demand a certificate saying, This liquid is of the aqueous variety?

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Does an infant ask his mother to validate the breast? When a true human being appears in a community thirsty for the taste of soul, they immediately hear in the voice the meaning of I am near.

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The City of Saba There is a glut of wealth in the city of Saba. Everyone has more than enough. Even the bath stokers wear gold belts. Huge grape clusters hang down on every street and brush the faces of the citizens. No one has to do anything. You can balance a basket on your head and walk through an orchard, and it will fill by itself with overripe fruit dropping into it. Stray dogs stray in lanes full of thrown-out scraps with barely a notice. The lean desert wolf gets indigestion from the rich food. Everyone is fat and satiated with all the extra. There are no robbers. There is no energy for crime, or for gratitude, and no one wonders about the unseen world. The people of Saba feel bored with just the mention of prophecy. They. have no desire of any kind. Maybe some idle curiosity about miracles, but that's it. This overrichness is a subtle disease. Those who have it are blind to what's wrong and deaf to anyone who points it out. The city of Saba cannot be understood from within itself! But there is a cure, an individual medicine, not

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a social remedy: sit quietly, and listen for a voice within that will say, Be more silent. As that happens, your soul starts to revive. Give up talking and your positions of power. Give up the excessive money. Turn toward teachers and prophets who don't live in Saba. They can help you grow sweet again and fragrant and wild and fresh and thankful for any small event.

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Medicine Thirteen prophets come as a group to the city of Saba, which has been so blessed with material wealth. Where is your gratitude for this? The one who gives you your head wants only one bow. The Sabaens answer, There is no thanksgiving in us; only weariness with receiving gifts. We're tired of wonder, tired of rest, tired of excitement. No more orchards, please, no more beauty. The gift of being does not delight us anymore. But this is the soul sickness we cure," say the prophets. Your death-in-life makes sweet things bitter and those who poison you seem like noble friends. Your perception is jaded. You hear fresh phrasing that carries truth and you say, 'Cliches. I've heard all that before.' When we make you well, you'll hear new implications in every old story. Ordinary doctors check the heart by finding a pulse. We listen without intermediary. We see from the high belvedere of clairvoyance. Physicians tend the health of animal energies, whereas the ray of divine majesty moves through

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us with right language and action. We know what keeps you on the way and what distracts. Physicians look at urine samples. We wait for inspiration and ask no fee, the feel of sacred ambiance being enough. So bring your malaise, your dullness, your callous ingratitude. As we meet you, the coming together itself will be medicine. We are the cure, the look that opens your looking.

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A Necessary Autumn Inside Each You and I have spoken all these words, but as for the way we have to go, words are no preparation. There is no getting ready, other than grace. My faults have stayed hidden. One might call that a preparation! I have one small drop of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean. There are so many threats to it. Inside each of us, there's continual autumn. Our leaves fall and are blown out over the water. A crow sits in the blackened limbs and talks about what's gone. Then your generosity returns: spring, moisture, intelligence, the scent of hyacinth and rose and cypress. Joseph is back! And if you don't feel in yourself the freshness of Joseph, be Jacob! Weep and then smile. Don't pretend to know something you haven't experienced. There's a necessary dying, and then Jesus is breathing again. Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. You've been stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.

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Paradox Paradoxes: best wakefulness in sleep, wealth in having nothing, a pearl necklace fastened around an iron collar. Fire contained in boiling water. Revenues growing from funds flowing out. Giving is gainful employment. It brings in money. Taking time for ritual prayer and meditation saves time. Sweet fruit hide in leaves. Dung becomes food for the ground and generative power in trees. Nonexistence contains existence. Love encloses beauty. Brown flint and gray steel have orange candlelight in them. Inside fear, safety. In the black pupil of the eye, many brilliancies. Inside the body-cow, a handsome prince.

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There is nourishment like bread that feeds one part of your life and nourishment like light for another. There are many rules about restraint with the former, but only one rule for the latter, Never be satisfied. Eat and drink the soul substance, as a wick does with the oil it soaks in. Give light to the company.

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From The Essential Rumi No Room for Form On the night when you cross the street from your shop and your house to the cemetery, you'll hear me hailing you from inside the open grave, and you'll realize how we've always been together. I am the clear consciousness-core of your being, the same in ecstasy as in self-hating fatigue. That night, when you escape the fear of snakebite and all irritation with the ants, you'll hear my familiar voice, see the candle being lit, smell the incense, the surprise meal fixed by the lover inside all your other lovers. This heart-tumult is my signal to you igniting in the tomb. So don't fuss with the shroud and the graveyard road dust. Those get ripped open and washed away in the music of our finally meeting. And don't look for me in a human shape. I am inside your looking. No room for form with love this strong. Beat the drum and let the poets speak. This is a day of purification for those who

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are already mature and initiated into what love is. No need to wait until we die! There's more to want here than money and being famous and bites of roasted meat. Now, what shall we call this new sort of gazing-house that has opened in our town where people sit quietly and pour out their glancing like light, like answering?

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The Pickaxe Some commentary on I was a hidden treasure, and I desired to be known: tear down this house. A hundred thousand new houses can be built from the transparent yellow carnelian buried beneath it, and the only way to get to that is to do the work of demolishing and then digging under the foundations. With that value in hand all the new construction will be done without effort. And anyway, sooner or later this house will fall on its own. The jewel treasure will be uncovered, but it wont be yours then. The buried wealth is your pay for doing the demolition, the pick and shovel work. If you wait and just let it happen, youll bite your hand and say, I didnt do as I knew I should have. This is a rented house. You dont own the deed. You have a lease, and youve set up a little shop, where you barely make a living sewing patches on torn clothing. Yet only a few feet underneath are two veins, pure red and bright gold carnelian. Quick! Take the pickaxe and pry the foundation. Youve got to quit this seamstress work. What does the patch-sewing mean, you ask. Eating and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body is always getting torn. You patch it with food,

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and other restless ego-satisfactions. Rip up one board from the shop floor and look into the basement. Youll see two glints in the dirt.

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New Moon, Hilal You've heard about the qualities of Bilal. Now hear about the thinness of Hilal, which is more advanced than Bilal. He denied his nafs more than some of you who move backward, from being an illumined globe toward becoming again an opaque stone. Remember the story of the young guest who came before a certain king. And how old are you, my lad? Tell the truth now. Say it out. Eighteen, well seventeen. Sixteen. Actually, uh, fifteen. Keep going! You'll end up in your mother's womb. Or the man who went to borrow a horse. Take the gray. No, not that one. Why? It goes in reverse. It backs up. Then turn its tail toward your home. The beast you ride is your various appetites. Change your wantings. When you prune weak branches, the remaining fruit get tastier. Lust can be redirected, so that even when it takes you backward, it goes toward shelter. A strong intention can make two oceans wide

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be the size of a blanket, or seven hundred years the time it takes to walk to someone you love. True seekers keep riding straight through, whereas big, lazy, self-worshiping geese unload their pack animals in a farmyard and say, This is far enough. Do you know the story of the travelers who came to a village in early Spring? There's an abandoned house with an open door. Why don't we wait for this cold spell to pass, this old woman's chill, they call it. Let's put our baggage in here and rest. A deep voice from inside, No. Unload outside, then enter. This is a meeting hall of great dignity! There are such secret sanctuaries. Although he worked in a stable as a groom, Hilal was an enlightened master. His employer did not understand Hilal's, state. He knew up and down and north-south-east-west, the evidence of the senses, but nothing else. The color of the ground is in front of us, but prophetic light is hidden. One person sees a minaret, but not the bird perched there. A second person sees the bird, but not the hair it carries. A third sees minaret, bird, and hair.

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Until you can see the thread of the hair, the knot of awareness will not be loosened. The body is the minaret. Obedience, the bird. Or three hundred birds, or two, however you want it. The second person sees the bird, and only the bird. The hair is the secret that belongs to the bird. No nest built with such material will go unused. A song-thread flows continuously out of the bird. Try to see this bird on its clay tower, and also the hair floating in its beak. Hilal becomes ill. Nine days he lies sick in the stable. No one notices, except the prophet Muhammad, peace and blessing be upon him. He comes to visit. Hilal's employer is ecstatic. With elaborate ceremony he emerges from his upstairs room and kisses the ground in front of the Prophet. In God's name, please honor this house. I'm not here to visit you. Who then? There is a new-moon new-man planted near here, spending the lightness of his humility like blossoms on the ground. Where is Hilal?

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I haven't seen him for days . He must be out with the mules and the horses. Muhammad runs to the stable. It's dark, and the stench of manure is strong, but all that vanishes when friendship enters. Miracles don't cause faith, but rather the scent of kindredness that unites people. Miracles overwhelm unbelief. Faith grows from friendship. With the familiar fragrance, Hilal wakes up. How could such a thing be in a stable? Through the legs of the horses he sees the robes of Muhammad! He comes crawling out from the dark corner and lays his cheek on Muhammad's feet. Muhammad puts his cheek on Hilal's and kisses his head and face. How hidden can one be! Are you better? How are you? HOW! A man sits and eats damp clay for moisture. How is it with him when a flood of fresh prophetic rainwater suddenly rides him along? How is it when a blind, filthy dog wakes up, and finds that he's a lion, and not a lion such as could be killed, but a spirit-lion who shatters sword and javelin with just his presence?' How would that feel? A man crawls for years on his stomach with his eyes closed.

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Then one moment he opens his eyes, and he's in a garden. It's Spring. How is it to be free of HOW, loose in howlessness? Howlers sit waiting around your table. Throw them a bone! This suggestion: wash before going to the watertank. The waters there have grace enough to clean and give you peace, but wash yourself of hows before you go. Wash off all wanderings-why and workings-out-however. Don't take those with you to the big watertank. Husam! Bats don't bother Husamuddin. He's an expert on sunlight! He's written about the new moon, Hilal. Now he'll write about the full moon, the sheikh. New moon and full moon are the same. A new moon teaches gradualness and deliberation and how one gives birth to oneself slowly. Patience with small details makes perfect a large work, like the universe. What nine months of attention does for an embryo forty early mornings will do for your gradually growing wholeness.

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The Granary Floor A sufi was wandering the world. One night he came as a guest to a community of sufis. He tied up his donkey in the stable and then was welcomed to the head of the dais. They went into deep meditation and mystical communion, he and these friends. For such people a person's presence is more to learn from than a book. A sufi's book is not composed with ink and alphabet. A scholar loves, and lives on, the marks of a pen. A sufi loves footprints! He sees those and stalks his game. At first, he sees the clues. After a time he can follow the scent. To go guided by fragrance is a hundred times better than following tracks. A person who is opening to the divine is like a door to a sufi. What might appear a worthless stone to others, to him's a pearl. You see your image clearly in a mirror. A sheikh sees more than that in a discarded brick. Sufi masters are those whose spirits existed before the world. Before the body, they lived many lifetimes. Before seeds went into the ground, they harvested wheat. Before there was an ocean, they strung pearls. While the great meeting was going on about bringing human beings into existence, they stood up to their chins in wisdom water. When some of the angels opposed creation, the sufi sheikhs laughed and clapped among themselves. Before materiality, they knew what it was like to be trapped inside matter. Before there was a nightsky, they saw Saturn. Before wheat grains, they tasted bread. With no mind, they thought. Immediate intuition to them is the simplest act of consciousness, what to others would be epiphany. Much of our thought is of the past, or the future.

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They're free of those. Before a mine is dug, they judge coins. Before vineyards, they know the excitements to come. In July, they feel December. In unbroken sunlight, they find shade. In fana, the state where all objects dissolve, they recognize objects. The open sky drinks from their circling cup. The sun wears the gold of their generosity. When two of them meet, they are no longer two. They are one and six hundred thousand. The ocean waves are their closest likeness, when wind makes, from unity, the numerous. This happened to the sun, and it broke into rays through the window, into bodies. The disc of the sun does exist, but if you see only the ray-bodies, you may have doubts. The human-divine combination is a oneness. Plurality, the apparent separation into rays. Friend, we're traveling together. Throw off your tiredness. Let me show you one tiny spot of the beauty that cannot be spoken. I'm like an ant that's gotten into the granary, ludicrously happy, and trying to lug out a grain that's way too big.

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From Open Secret

Bored onlookers, but with such Light in our eyes! As we read this book, the jewel-lights intensify." * * * Friend, our closeness is this: Anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness underneath. * * * Someone who goes with half a loaf of bread to a small place that fits like a nest around him, someone who wants no more, who's not himself longed for by anyone else, He is a letter to everyone. You open it. It says, Live. * * * The sufi opens his hands to the universe and gives away each instant, free. Unlike someone who begs on the street for money to survive, a dervish begs to give you his life.

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Who is luckiest in this whole orchestra? The reed. Its mouth touches your lips to learn music. All reeds, sugarcane especially, think only of this chance. They sway in the canebrakes, free in the many ways they dance. Without you the instruments would die. One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss. The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself. Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone, that what died last night can be whole today. Why live some soberer way and feel you ebbing out? I won't do it. Either give me enough wine or leave me alone, now that I know how it is to be with you in a constant conversation.

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Fasting Theres hidden sweetness in the stomachs emptiness. We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music. If the brain and belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire. The fog clears, and new energy makes you run up the steps in front of you. Be emptier, and cry like reed instruments cry. Emptier, and write secrets with the reed pen. When youre full of food and drink, Satan sits where your spirit should, and ugly metal statue in place of the Kaaba. When you fast, good habits gather like friends who want to help. Fasting is Solomons ring. Dont give it to some illusion, and lose your power, but even if you have, if youve lost all will and control, they come back when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, pennants flying above them. A table descends to your tents, Jesus table. Expect to see it, when you fast, this table spread with other food, better than the broth of cabbages.

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The Image of Your Body You've made it out of the city, that image of your body, trembling with traffic and fear slips behind. Your face arrives in the redbud trees, and the tulips. You're still restless. Climb up the ladder to the roof. You're by yourself a lot, become the one that when you walk in, luck shifts to the one who needs it. If you've not been fed, be bread.

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Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don't open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

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Sometimes I Forget Completely Sometimes I forget completely what companionship is. Unconscious and insane, I spill sad energy everywhere. My story gets told in various ways: A romance, a dirty joke, a war, a vacancy. Divide up my forgetfulness to any number, it will go around. These dark suggestions that I follow, are they part of some plan? Friends, be careful. Don't come near me out of curiosity, or sympathy.

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An Empty Garlic You miss the garden, because you want a small fig from a random tree. You don't meet the beautiful woman. You're joking with an old crone. It makes me want to cry how she detains you, stinking-mouthed, with a hundred talons, putting her head over the roofedge to call down, tasteless fig, fold over fold, empty as dry-rotten garlic. She has you tight by the belt, even though there's no flower and no milk inside her body. Death will open your eyes to what her face is: Leather spine of a black lizard. No more advice. Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

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The Question One dervish to another, What was your vision of God's presence? I haven't seen anything. But for the sake of conversation, I'll tell you a story. God's presence is there in front of me, a fire on the left, a lovely stream on the right. One group walks toward the fire, into the fire, another toward the sweet flowing water. No one knows which are blessed and which not. Whoever walks into the fire appears suddenly in the stream. A head goes under on the water surface, that head pokes out of the fire. Most people guard against going into the fire, and so end up in it. Those who love the water of pleasure and make it their devotion are cheated with this reversal. The trickery goes further. The voice of the fire tells the truth, saying I am not fire. I am fountainhead. Come into me and don't mind the sparks. If you are a friend of God, fire is your water. You should wish to have a hundred thousand sets of mothwings, so you could burn them away, one set a night. The moth sees light and goes into fire. You should see fire and go toward light. Fire is what of God is world-consuming. Water, world-protecting. Somehow each gives the appearance of the other. To these eyes you have now what looks like water burns. What looks like fire is a great relief to be inside. You've seen a magician make a bowl of rice seem a dish full of tiny, live worms. Before an assembly with one breath he made the floor swarm with scorpions that weren't there. How much more amazing God's tricks. Generation after generation lies down, defeated, they think,

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but they're like a woman underneath a man, circling him. One molecule-mate-second thinking of God's reversal of comfort and pain is better than any attending ritual. That splinter of intelligence is substance. The fire and water themselves: Accidental, done with mirrors.

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The Phrasing Must Change Learn about your inner self from those who know such things, but don't repeat verbatim what they say. Zuleika let everything be the name of Joseph, from celery seed to aloes-wood. She loved him so much, she concealed his name in many different phrases, the inner meanings known only to her. When she said, The wax is softening near the fire, she meant, My love is wanting me. Or if she said, Look, the moon is up, or The willow has new leaves, or The branches are trembling, or The coriander seeds have caught fire, or The roses are opening, or The king is in a good mood today, or Isn't that lucky, or The furniture needs dusting, or The water-carrier is here, or It's almost daylight, or These vegetables are perfect, or The bread needs more salt, or The clouds seem to be moving against the wind, or My head hurts, or My headache's better, anything she praises, it's Joseph's touch she means, any complaint, it's his being away. When she's hungry, it's for him. Thirsty, his name is a sherbet. Cold, he's a fur. This is what the Friend can do when one is in such love. Sensual people use the holy names often, but they don't work for them. The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God, Zuleika felt in the name of Joseph. When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that is to breathe the name Hu, empty of self and filled with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it. The saffron spice of connecting, laughter. The onion-smell of separation, crying. Others have many things and people they love. This is not the way of Friend and friend.

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From Birdsong In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art. * * * Gamble everything for love, if you're a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at meanspirited roadhouses. * * * When you come back inside my chest, no matter how far I've wandered off, I look around and see the way. At the end of my life, with just one breath left, if you come then, Ill sit up and sing.

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From Say I Am You Dear Soul Dear soul, when the condition comes that we call being a lover, there's no patience, and no repenting. Both become huge absurdities. See regret as a worm and love as a dragon. Shame, changeable weather. Love, a quality which wants nothing. For this kind of lover love of anything or anyone is unreal. Here, the source and object are one.

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Joseph Joseph has come, the handsome one of this age, a victory banner floating over Spring flowers. Those of you whose work it is to wake the dead, get up! This is a work day. The lion that hunts lions charges into the meadow. Yesterday and the day before are gone. The beautiful coin of now slaps down in your hand. The streets and buildings of this city are all saying, The prince is coming! Start the drumbeat. Everything we've said about the Friend is true. The beauty of that peacefulness makes the whole world restless. Spread your love-robe out to catch what sifts down from the ninth level. You strange, exiled bird with clipped wings, now you have four full-feathered pinions. You heart closed up in a chest, open, for the Friend is entering you. You feet, it's time to dance! Don't talk about the old man. He's young again. And don't mention the past. Do you understand? The Beloved is here!

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You mumble, But what excuse can I give the king? when the king is here making excuses to you! You say, "How can I escape his hand?" when that hand is trying to help you. You saw a fire, and light came. You saw blood, and wine is being poured. Don't run from your own tremendous good fortune. Be silent and don't try to add up what's been given. An uncountable grace has come to you.

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People say that human beings are microcosms and this outer universe a macrocosm, but for us the outer is a tiny wholeness and the inner life the vast reality.

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From One-Handed Basket Weaving Snow and the Voice Ater Bestami died, it happened as he said it would, that Bu'l-Hasan became the sheikh for the community, and every day he would go to Bestami's tomb to receive instruction. Bu'l-Hasan had been told to do this in a dream, by Bestami himself. Every dawn he went and stood facing the grave until mid-morning. Either the spirit of Bestami would come and talk to him, or in silence the questions he had would be answered. But one day a deep snow had fallen. The graves were piled together and indistinguishable. Bu'l- Hasan felt lost. Then he heard the sheikh's voice. The world is made of snow. It falls and melts and falls again. Don't be concerned with that. Come toward the sound of my voice. Always move in this direction. And from that day Bu'l- Hasan began to experience the enlightened state which he had only heard and read about before.

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From We Are Three Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game. Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say, The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom. At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding. You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with eyes closed. Listen to the answer. There is no other world I only know what I've experienced. You must be hallucinating.

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When you are with everyone but me, you're with no one. When you are with no one but me, you're with everyone. Instead of being so bound up with everyone, be everyone. When you become that many, you're nothing. Empty.

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When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. When actions come from another section, the feeling disappears. Don't let others lead you. They may be blind, or worse, vultures. Reach for the rope of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will. Because of willfulness people sit in jail. From willfulness, the trapped birds' wings are tied. From willfulness, the fish sizzles in the skillet. The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate inflict visible punishment. Now see the invisible. If you could leave selfishness, you would see how your soul has been tortured. We are born and live inside black water in a well. How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don't insist on going where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the Spring. Your living pieces will form a harmony. There is a moving palace that floats through the air, with balconies and clear water running in every part of it, infinity everywhere, yet contained under a single tent.

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Someone who doesn't know the Tigris River exists brings the Caliph who lives near the river a jar of fresh water. The Caliph accepts, thanks him, and gives in return a jar filled with gold coins. Since this man has come through the desert, . he should return by water. Taken out by another door, the man steps into a waiting boat and sees the wide freshwater of the Tigris. He bows his head, What wonderful kindness that he took my gift. Every object and being in the universe is a jar overfilled with wisdom and beauty, a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth more shining, as though covered in satin. If the man had seen even a tributary of the great river, he wouldn't have brought the innocence of his gift. Those that stay and live by the Tigris grow so ecstatic that they throw rocks at the jugs, and the jugs become perfect! They shatter. The pieces dance, and water .... Do you see? Neither jar; nor water, nor stone, nothing. You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought-wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.

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A man on his deathbed left instructions for dividing up his goods among his three sons. He had devoted his entire spirit to those sons. They stood like cypress trees around him, quiet and strong. He told the town judge, Whichever of my sons is laziest, give him all the inheritance. Then he died, and the judge turned to the three, Each of you must give some account of your laziness, so I can understand just how you are lazy. Gnostics are experts in laziness. They rely on it, because they continuously see God working all around them. The harvest keeps coming in, yet they never even did the ploughing! Come on. Say something about the ways you are lazy. Every spoken word is a covering for the inner self. A little curtain-flick no wider than a slice of roast meat can reveal hundreds of exploding suns. Even if what is being said is trivial and wrong, the listener hears the source. One breeze comes from across a garden. Another from across the ash-heap. Think how different the voices of the fox and the lion, and what they tell you! Hearing someone is lifting the lid off the cooking pot. You learn what's for supper. Though some people can know just by the smell, a sweet stew from a sour soup cooked with vinegar. A man taps a clay pot before he buys it to know by the sound if it has a crack.

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The eldest of the three brothers told the judge, I can know a man by his voice, and if he won't speak, I wait three days, and then I know him intuitively. The second brother, I know him when he speaks, and if he won't talk, I strike up a conversation. But what if he knows that trick? asked the judge. Which reminds me of the mother who tells her child, When you're walking through the graveyard at night and you see a boogeyman, run at it, and it will go away. But what, replies the child, if the boogeyman's mother has told it to do the same thing? Boogeymen have mothers too. The second brother had no answer. The judge then asked the youngest brother, What if a man cannot be made to say anything? How do you learn his hidden nature? I sit in front of him in silence, and set up a ladder made of patience, and if in his presence a language from beyond joy and beyond grief begins to pour from my chest, I know that his soul is as deep and bright and the star Canopus rising over Yemen. And so when I start speaking a powerful right arm of words sweeping down, I know him from what I say, and how I say it, because theres a window open between us, mixing the night air of our beings.

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The youngest was, obviously, the laziness. He won.

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A friend remarks to the Prophet, Why is it I get screwed in business deals? It's like a spell. I become distracted by business talk and make wrong decisions. Muhammad replies, Stipulate with every transaction that you need three days to make sure. Deliberation is one of the qualities of God. Throw a dog a bit of something. He sniffs to see if he wants it. Be that careful. Sniff with your wisdom-nose. Get clear. Then decide. The universe came into being gradually over six days. God could have just commanded, Be! Little by little a person reaches forty and fifty and sixty, and feels more complete. God could have thrown full-blown prophets flying through the cosmos in an instant. Jesus said one word, and a dead man sat up, but Creation usually unfolds, like calm breakers. Constant, slow movement teaches us to keep working like a small creek that stays clear, that doesn't stagnate, but finds a way through numerous details, deliberately. Deliberation is born of joy, like a bird from an egg. Birds don't resemble eggs! Think how different the hatching out is.

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A white-leathery snake egg, a sparrow's egg; a quince seed, an apple seed: Very different things look similar at one stage. These leaves, our bodily personalities, seem identical, but the globe of soul-fruit we make, each is elaborately unique.

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From This Longing You Are Not a Single YOU You're a common rhyme-word now, dependent on some other for your emotional force, but real life will come. As when a baby stops nursing and grows interested in solid food. As when seeds break open in the ground and act differently. There is a hidden love-center in human beings that you will discover and savor and nourish yourself with. That will be your food. There's a way of going that's like the stars. No, even freer than they are, completely unconditioned, unlocated, unpathed. A journey without a sky! You came from Non-existence into being. How did that happen? Tell me about it! You were a little drunk when you arrived, so you can't remember exactly? I'll give you some secret hints. Let your mind go, and be mindful. Close your ears, and listen. But maybe I shouldn't tell, if you're not ripe. You're still in early Spring. July hasn't happened yet in you. This world is a tree, and we are green, half-ripe fruit on it. We hold tight to the limbs, because we know we're not ready to be taken into the palace. When we mature and sweeten, we'll feel ashamed

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at having clung so clingingly. To hold fast is a sure sign of unripeness. To drink and enjoy blood is fine for an embryo. More needs to be said on this, but the Holy Spirit will tell it to you when I'm not here. You'll tell it to yourself. Not I, or some other I You who are Me! As when you fall asleep and go from the presence of your self to the Presence of your Self. You hear That One and you think, Someone must have communicated telepathically in my sleep. You are not a single You, good Friend, you are a Sky and an Ocean, a tremendous YHUUUUUU, a nine hundred times huge drowning place for all your hundreds of you's. What are these terms wakefulness and sleep? Don't answer. Let God answer. Don't speak, so the Speakers can. Not a word, so Sun-Light can say what has never been in a book, or said. Don't try to put it into words, and the Spirit will do that through you, in spite of you, beside you, among you. Stop swimming so hard, and climb in the boat with Noah.

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A Basket of Fresh Bread The Prophet Muhammad said, "There is no better companion on this Way than what you do. Your actions will be your best friend, or if you're cruel and selfish, your actions will be a poisonous snake that lives in your grave." But tell me, can you do the good work without a teacher? Can you even know what it is without the presence of a Master? Notice how the lowest livelihood requires some instruction. First comes knowledge, then the doing of the job. And much later, perhaps after you're dead, something grows from what you've done. Look for help and guidance in whatever craft you're learning. Look for a generous teacher, one who has absorbed the tradition he's in. Look for pearls in oyster shells. Learn technical skill from a craftsman. Whenever you meet genuine spiritual teachers, be gentle and polite and fair with them. Ask them questions, and be eager for answers. Never condescend. If a master tanner wears an old, threadbare smock, that doesn't diminish his mastery. If a fine blacksmith works at the bellows in a patched apron, it doesn't affect how he bends the iron.

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Strip away your pride, and put on humble clothes. If you want to learn theory, talk with theoreticians. That way is oral. When you learn a craft, practice it. That learning comes through the hands. If you want dervishood, spiritual poverty, and emptiness, you must be friends with a sheikh. The mystery of spiritual emptiness may be living in a pilgrim's heart, and yet the knowing of it may not be his. Wait for the illuminating openness, as though your chest were filling with Light, as when God said, Did we not expand you? (Qur'an, XCIV,1) Don't look for it outside yourself. You are the source of milk. Don't milk others! There is a milk-fountain inside you. Don't walk around with an empty bucket. You have a channel into the Ocean, and yet you ask for water from a little pool. Beg for that love-expansion. Meditate only on THAT. The Qur'an says, And he is with you (VII,4) There is a basket of fresh bread on your head, and yet you go door to door asking for crusts.

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Knock on your inner door. No other. Sloshing kneedeep in fresh riverwater, yet you keep wanting a drink from other people's waterbags. Water is everywhere around you, but you only see barriers that keep you from water. The horse is beneath the rider's thighs, and still he asks, Where is my horse? "Right there, under you!" Yes, this is a horse, but where's the horse? "Can't you see!" Yes, I can see, but whoever saw such a horse? Mad with thirst, he can't drink from the stream running so close by his face. He's like a pearl on the deep bottom, wondering, inside his shell, "Where's the Ocean?" His mental questionings form the barrier. His physical eyesight bandages his knowing. Self-consciousness plugs his ears. Stay bewildered in God, and only that. Those of you who are scattered, simplify your worrying lives. There is one righteousness: Water the fruit trees, and don't water the thorns. Be generous to what nurtures the Spirit and God's luminous reason-light. Dont honor what causes dysentery and knotted-up tumors. Don't feed both sides of yourself equally. The spirit and the body carry different loads and require different attentions. Too often we put saddlebags on Jesus and let the donkey run loose in the pasture.

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Don't make the body do what the spirit does best, and don't put a big load on the spirit that the body could carry easily.

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From Like This I don't get tired of You. Don't grow weary of being compassionate toward me! All this thirst-equipment must surely be tired of me, the waterjar, the water-carrier. I have a thirsty fish in me that can never find enough of what it's thirsty for! Show me the way to the Ocean! Break these half-measures, these small containers. All this fantasy and grief. Let my house be drowned in the wave that rose last night out of the courtyard hidden in the center of my chest. Joseph fell like the moon into my well. The harvest I expected was washed away. But no matter. A fire has risen above my tombstone hat. I don't want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music and this dawn and the warmth of your cheek against mine. The grief-armies assemble, but I'm not going with them.

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This is how it always is when I finish a poem. A Great Silence overcomes me, and I wonder why I ever thought to use language.

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Give yourself a kiss. If you live in China, don't look somewhere else, in Tibet, or Mongolia. If you want to hold the beautiful one, hold yourself to yourself. When you kiss the Beloved, touch your own lips with your own fingers. The beauty of every woman and every man is your own beauty. The confusion of your hair obscures that sometimes. An artist comes to paint you and stands with his mouth open. Your love reveals your beauty, but all coverings would disappear if only for a moment your holding-back would sit before your generosity and ask, Sir, who are you? At that, Shams' life-changing face gives you a wink.

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I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing. The power of Love came into me, and I became fierce like a lion, then tender like the evening star. He said, 'You're not mad enough. You don't belong in this house. I went wild and had to be tied up. He said, Still not wild enough to stay with us! I broke through another layer into joyfulness. He said, It's not enough. I died. He said, You're a clever little man, full of fantasy and doubting. I plucked out my feathers and became a fool. He said, Now you're the candle for this assembly. But I'm no candle. Look! I'm scattered smoke. He said, You are the Sheikh, the Guide. But I'm not a Teacher. I have no power. He said, You already have wings. I cannot give you wings.' But I wanted His wings. I felt like some flightless chicken.

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Then New Events said to me, Don't move. A sublime generosity is coming toward you.' And Old Love said, Stay with me. I said, I will. You are the fountain of the sun's light. I am a willow shadow on the ground. You make my raggedness silky. The soul at dawn is like darkened water that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you. Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky. This comes of smiling back at Your smile. The Chess Master says nothing, other than moving the silent chess piece. That I am part of the ploys of this game makes me amazingly happy.

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If anyone asks you how the perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting will look, lift your face and say Like this. When someone mentions the gracefulness of the nightsky, climb up on the roof and dance and say Like this? If anyone wants to know what spirit is, or what Gods fragrance means, lean vour head toward him or her. Keep your face there close. Like this. When someone quotes the old poetic image about clouds gradually uncovering the moon, slowly loosen knot by knot the strings of your robe. Like this? If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead, don't try to explain the miracle. Kiss me on the lips. Like this. Like this. When someone asks what it means to die for love, point here.

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If someone asks how tall I am, frown and measure with your fingers the space between the creases on your forehead. This tall. The soul sometimes leaves the body, then returns. When someone doesn't believe that, walk back into my house. Like this. When lovers moan, they're telling our story. Like this. I am a sky where spirits live. Stare into this deepening blue, while the breeze says a secret. Like this. When someone asks what there is to do, light the candle in his hand. Like this. How did Joseph's scent come to Jacob? Huuuu . How did Jacob's sight return? Huuuuu. A little wind cleans the eyes. Like this.

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When Shams comes back from Tabriz, he'll put just his head around the edge of the door to surprise us. Like this.

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An intellectual is all the time showing off. Lovers dissolve and become bewildered. Intellectuals try not to drown, while the whole purpose of love is drowning. Intellectuals invent ways to rest, and then lie down in those beds. Lovers feel ashamed of comforting ideas. You've seen a glob of oil on water? That's how a lover sits with intellectuals, there, but alone in a circle of himself Some intellectual tries to give sound advice to a lover. All he hears back is, I love you. I love you. Love is musk. Don't deny it when you smell the scent! Love is a tree. Lovers, the shade of the long branches. To the intellectual mind, a child must learn to grow up and be adult. In the station of love, you see old men getting younger and younger. Shams chose to live low in the roots for you. So now he soars in the air as your sublimely articulating love!

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At breakfast tea a beloved asked her lover, "Who do you love more, yourself or me?" From my head to my foot, I have become you. Nothing remains of myself but my name. You have your wish. Only you exist. I've disappeared like a drop of vinegar in an ocean of honey. A stone, which has become a ruby is filled with the qualities of the sun. No stoniness remains in it. If it loves itself, it is loving the sun. and if it loves the sun, it is loving itself. There's no difference between these two loves. Before the stone becomes the ruby it is its own enemy. Not one but two exist. The stone is dark and blind to daylight. If it loves itself it is unfaithful. It intensely resists the sun. If it says "I" it is all darkness. A Pharaoh claims divinity and is brought down. Hallaj says the same and is saved. One I is cursed, another is blessed. One I is a stone, another a crystal. One an enemy of the light, the other a reflector of it. In its inmost consciousness, not through any doctrine, it is one with the light. Work on your stony qualities and become resplendent like the ruby. Practice self-denial and accept difficulty. Always see infinite life in letting the self die. Your stoniness will decrease, your ruby nature will grow. The signs of self-existence will leave your body and ecstasy will take you over. Become an all-hearing ear and gain a ruby earring. Dig a well in the earth of this body,

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or even before the well is dug let God draw the water up. Be always at work scraping the dirt from the well. To everyone who suffers, endeavor always brings its fortune. The prophet has said each prostration of prayer is a knock at heaven's door. When anyone continues to knock felicity shows its smiling face. translated by Kabir Helminsky

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my dear friend never lose hope when the beloved sends you away if you're abandoned if you're left hopeless tomorrow for sure you'll be called again if the door is shut right in your face keep waiting with patience don't leave right away seeing your patience your love will soon summon you with grace raise you like a champion and if all the roads end up in dead ends you'll be shown the secret paths no one will comprehend the beloved i know will give with no qualms to a puny ant the kingdom of Solomon my heart has journeyed many times around the world but has never found and will never find such a beloved again

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ah i better keep silence i know this endless love will surely arrive for you and you and you translated by Nader Khalili.