Don't Be Bitter My Friend - Rumi

Come down my love...by Rumi

Come down my love
abandon your adventurous flight
it's high time for a happy life


Come into my house
throw out my old belongings
burn me again with your love

I know for sure
even if you burn the entire house
your love will build me a new paradise

You empowered the drops of water
to shine like diamonds
you blew life into a piece of clay

You gave a lowly fly
the same wings as an eagle
the aspiration of the sky

There was a blind sage in our town
a healer took mercy on him with medicine
to set his eyes open to the light

The sage refused and replied
if you could only see the light i see
you'd pluck out both of your eyes..!

~ Rumi
(Come into my house)
Ode (Ghazal) 2512
Translated by Nader Khalili
"Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
Burning Gate Press, Los Angeles, 1994

Ask the way to the Spring...by Rumi

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 Love.
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.

~ Rumi
Mathnawi, VI, 3487-3510
Version by Coleman Barks
"We Are Three,"
Maypop, 1987
Art by Marcia Baldwin

As you sow, so shall you reap...by Rumi

Beware Don't say, 
"Mind you, so and so sowed seed,
and then the locusts devoured it;

why should I bother sowing with such a risk?
Why should I let go of this corn-seed in my hand?"

Meanwhile, to your bewilderment,
one who did sow and labor
fills his barn with grain.

Since the lover patiently
continued knocking at the door,
at last one day
he gained an intimate meeting.

~ Rumi
Mathnawi III: 4800-4803
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996