Sometimes (10/20/2024)

Sometimes (10/20/2024)

O Sultan of our body and soul!

O One who makes us sometimes smile, sometimes grimace,

O One who puts salve on the eyes of our body and soul!

 

O Beautiful One, the moon is embarrassed

seeing Your light, Your height.

Let our blood be sacrificed to You.

When the heart sees You, it says,

“Divine fate has come. Divine fate has come.”

 

We become a ball for You,

in order to fit into the curved end of Your club.

Sometimes You put us to sleep.

Sometimes You send us to reason.

Sometimes You throw us into the world of existence,

sometimes into the desert of Absence.

 

The soul gives thanks to the Master.

Sometimes he yells and screams, “Alas!”

Sometimes he goes to serve his lover.

Sometimes he becomes God’s drunk, God’s crazy one.

 

You torment the soul, making him crazy, insane.

Sometimes You make him enjoy solitude.

Sometimes You make him fond of ostentation and hypocrisy.

 

Sometimes he wants gold,

but then other times spreads earth on his head.

Sometimes he thinks he’s Caesar.

Sometimes he wears old, patched, worn-out clothes.

 

What a strange tree he is.

Sometimes an apple is grown, sometimes a pumpkin.

Sometimes he yields poison, sometimes sugar.

Sometimes he causes trouble.

Sometimes he is the remedy.

 

What a strange river he is.

Sometimes he becomes water, sometimes blood.

He turns into ruby-colored wine or milk, or health-giving honey.

 

Sometimes he weaves knowledge into the heart.

Sometimes he destroys one’s knowledge.

Sometimes he achieves superiority.

Sometimes he encounters nothing but trouble and misfortune.

 

One day he becomes Master Muhammed.

One day he turns into a tiger, then a dog.

Sometimes he becomes a ferocious enemy.

Sometimes he becomes a father, mother, or close friend.

 

Sometimes he becomes a thorn, then a rose.

Sometimes he is the vinegar. Sometimes he is the wine.

Sometimes he plays the drum.

Sometimes he becomes a drum, hit constantly with a mallet.

 

Sometimes he falls in love with his five senses and the six diimensions.

Sometimes he prefers good spirits.

But sometimes, like a lost camel in the desert,

he just wanders around.

 

Sometimes his aims and hopes are as deep as a well-diggers.

Sometimes he is among the treasures of a rich man who hides his treasures.

Sometimes he is like Jesus and ascends to the sky.

 

In the end, when Your Grace opens his way, our soul sings one tune

and is saved from changing from color to color.

He becomes crazy and dips into one color like the early morning sun.

 

He dives into the sea like a fish.

His garden, his meadow, his country becomes the sea.

His coffin, his grave and everything else are dead,

a plague to him… everything except that sea.

 

When he slips out of those colors,

he slips into the jar of Jesus.

God’s color appears to do God’s wishes.

 

He is saved from malice, from modesty.

He is saved from running and stopping

like the millstone turning around the pin.

He is saved from “come” and “go.”

 

We open your door, really,

so you can keep your Friend next to you.

We merge your coming generation with you.

This is the reward of Love.

 

We tie your waist tightly. We forgive your sins.

You give thanks to God. That’s the reason.

Thanks brings contentment.

 

Mustef’ilun, Mustef’ilun, Mustef’ilun, Mustef’ilun,

The door of explanation is closed.

It is better for us to be silent.

Divan-i Kebir, Volume 1, Ghazal 5, verses 88-108, pages 16-19.

The Mirror (6/23/2024)

The Mirror (6/23/2024)

Poor heart, you are the mirror of everything.

God has favored you with beautiful attributes,

and you act like you don’t even see them.

Such rebellion can give you nothing but headaches.

O mirror which has accepted good as bad as it reflects on you,

you don’t even know what is reflected.

Rubailer (2016), Rubai 2, page 447.

The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (pubsummer2024), Rubai 1133, Volume 3.

The Land of Truth (5/19/2024)

The Land of Truth (5/19/2024)

Hey, night guard, what kind of guard are you anyway?

A thief stole all of our belongings last night.

 

Slap cold water on your face.

Yell and scream.

Our gains became a loss because of your sleep. Continue reading “The Land of Truth (5/19/2024)”

Your Being is the Curtain (8/20/2023)

Your Being is the Curtain (8/20/2023)

If you become God’s prey, you will be freed from sorrows.

If you run after your desires, you will be a slave to yourself.

You should know this very well:

your being is the curtain which conceals God from you.

Do not stay with you, or you will get hurt all the time.

Rubailer (2016), Rubai 2, page 474.

The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (apprx.pub.fall2023), Rubai 1018, Volume 3.

Tell Us (7/16/2023)

Tell Us (7/16/2023)

O one whose heart is full of words, yet remains silent,

Read the chapter, Hel Eta, in the Quran.*

Read the epigram, La Feta.**

 

Put on the tent of soul at the top of the sky.

Raise the waves from the sea of the heart.

Tear the bag of existence.

Let those two or three water carriers go. Continue reading “Tell Us (7/16/2023)”

You are on a Journey (3/26/2023)

You are on a Journey (3/26/2023)

You are neither water nor earth. You are something else.

You are created from mud, but you are not mud.

You are beyond this muddy world.

You are on the journey to your Essence.

Your body is a riverbed. Your soul is the Water of Life.

But, as long as you stay with your self,

you will not know either one.

Rubailer (2016), Rubai 4, page 450.

The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (apprx.pub.Fall 2023), Rubai 963, Volume 3.

Sometimes (11/20/2022)

Sometimes (11/20/2022)

O heart, what did you find in all of your lootings,

in those pillagings where you spread out all of your belongings?

What did you find before you closed the door?

 

In this ruined building, you still keep making webs with your own saliva

in order to catch flies like the spider of greed. Continue reading “Sometimes (11/20/2022)”