Only God Knows (9/5/2021)

Only God Knows (9/5/2021)

We keep turning like the sky in our longing for the Moon.

Only God knows our business.

Considering all the things which are happening in this world,

we wonder how smart people can keep their minds in their heads.

Yet, they wonder about our exuberance.

Rubailer (2016), Rubai #1, page 335.

The Rubais of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (pub. approx. 5/22), Rubai 721, volume 2.

Only a Fool Says… (8/16/2020)

Only a Fool Says… (8/16/2020)

Union with God cannot be achieved

until a person completely annihilates his self.

Such a Union is not the merging of two to make one.

Union is your total annihilation.

Absurdity doesn’t turn falsehood into Truth.

Only a fool says, “Everything is God.”

Rubailer (2016), Rubai #2, page 179

Only a Fool Says… (6/21/2020)

Only a Fool Says… (6/21/2020)

Union with God cannot be achieved

until a person has completely annihilated his self.

Such a Union is not the merging of two to make one.

Union requires your total annihilation.

Absurdity does not turn falsehood into Truth.

Only a fool says, “Everything is God.”

Rubailer (2016, Rubai #2, page 179)

Being in God’s Vicinity (5/24/2020)


Being in God’s Vicinity (5/24/2020)

This solitude is better than the company of thousands.

This freedom is sweeter than owning the whole world.

Being in God’s vicinity for even a short time

is worth more than the soul, more than the universe,

more than all of this, more than all of that.

Rubailer (2016), Rubai #4, page 167.

How Lucky (1/12/20)

How Lucky (1/12/10)

The soul’s Sultan pushes us from one play to another

as if we were pawns in a chess game.

I wonder if He wins. I wonder if He is ever checkmated.

After all, aren’t we the ones on trial?

 

He picked up our particles, gathered them together,

then kneaded them with the universe to make a paste.

 

He pierced our noses and inserted reins made of greed and lust

in order to pull us around the world like camels.

 

Who are we?

He put an oxen’s bell on the neck of the sky

and keeps crushing us under that sky as if we were sesame.

 

How lucky is that camel who has been tied by the halter of God’s Love.

He makes us drunk and excited while we are among the other camels.

Divan-i Kebir, Volume 15, Ghazal 6, verses 48-52, page 11.

Death is Reaching Out to God (12/8/19)

Death is Reaching Out to God (12/8/19)

There is a new life in death for the man of faith and justice.

From death, peace and calm come to clean souls.

Death is reaching out to God, not out to fear and cruelty.

The one who refuses to die with that death will die every day.

That is the greatest of all troubles.

Rubailer (2016), Page 101, #2.