It's Rumi's 800th birthday today. Your favorite poems?

Question

Much of the world is celebrating today as the 800th birthday of the wonderful Persian Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi.

When there is currently so much enmity towards Muslims and the Muslim world, it can a real benefit to reconnect with the power and beauty of that civilization's most lovely contributions. And it doesn't get more lovely than Rumi (who, for some years now, is the most widely read poet in the world, including the Americas).

This question was asked by someone else a couple weeks ago, but it feels especially fitting to ask it again today:

Do you have favorite poems from Rumi you'd like to share?

Here are a pair I am especially fond of ....

.The Caravan of the Unseen
enters the visible world,...
The other world keeps coming into this world.
Like cream hidden in the soul of milk,
No-place keeps coming into place ...
And from beyond intellect, beautiful Love
Comes dragging her skirts,
a cup of wine in her hand.
And from beyond Love,
that indescribable One
Who can only be called "That"
keeps coming.
.

.
thou art a shadow
in love with the sun:
the sun comes ...
.

These are lovely.

And congratulations to everyone on being born, especially Calmness and Septembersong, who get especial reminders of that miracle on this day!
.

Answer 1

I love Rumi.

And Im born on Sep 30 as well ^^ so we share more than just a love for poetry.

My favorite Rumi sayings:

“You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?”

“Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.”

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Answer 2

THE WORM'S WAKING

This is how a human can change:

there's a worm addicted to eating
grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it grace,whatever,something
wakes him, and he's no longer
a worm.
He's the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn't need
to devour.

Answer 3

ONE ONE ONE

The lamps are different.
But the Light is the same.
So many garish lamps in the dying brain's lamp shop, Forget about them.
Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light.
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own hold fire, The Light streams
toward you from all things, All people, all possible permutations of good,
evil, thought, passion.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, Endlessly emanating all things.
One turning and burning diamond,
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down,
To blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
You are gazing at the Light
With its own ageless eyes.



Mevlana Rumi (1207 - 1273)

Answer 4

The beauty of the heart

is the lasting beauty:

its lips give to drink

of the water of life.
Truly it is the water,

that which pours,

and the one who drinks.

All three become one when

your talisman is shattered.

That oneness you can't know

by reasoning.

edit: and this one.... so hard to choose just one!

The Meaning of Love

Both light and shadow
are the dance of Love.

Love has no cause;
it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets.

Lover and Loving are inseparable
and timeless.

Although I may try to describe Love
when I experience it I am speechless.

Although I may try to write about Love
I am rendered helpless;
my pen breaks and the paper slips away
at the ineffable place
where Lover, Loving and Loved are one.

Every moment is made glorious
by the light of Love.

Answer 5

My favorite Rumi Sufi quote has always been:

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?"

To me, that always sounded like the Catholic Spiritual Life in a nutshell.

Answer 6

I do not know much. I am aware of a few only. My favourite is -

This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!

Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.

Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.

Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.

Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.

The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.

These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:

Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof. -

Answer 7

From the poet's little known 'Irish' period, this is one of my favourites :

The was an old camel from Mecca
Whose load was piled up like a double-decker's
His struggles to appease
His arthritic old knees
Only slightly amused rubber-neckers

( With profound apologies to the sensibilities of the devout )

{{{{{Cosmic Clowning}}}}}

Answer 8

wasnt he labeled an apostate in his time? or am i thinking of someone else

anyway the poems make no sense

then again im not a big fan of poetry