
Even if your heart becomes tired and frustrated,
there is no way to get out of this journey. Continue reading “Pay Attention (5/29/2022)”
Even if your heart becomes tired and frustrated,
there is no way to get out of this journey. Continue reading “Pay Attention (5/29/2022)”
Where are you, O God’s martyrs,
O ones who looked for trouble in the Karbala* desert?
Where are you, O impatient lovers,
O ones who fly faster than the birds in the sky? Continue reading “Where Are You? (2/20/2022)”
O One who kneaded my hands and feet from mud
and gave senses and mind to my body,
O Moon, enlighten my eyes and heart.
Take me into Your arms.
My soul, which chews Your sugar, is crying and wailing for You.
Rubailer (2016), Rubai 3, page 355.
The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (approx. pub. 5/2022), Rubai 762, Volume 2.
How can you know the design of the Designer,
the paint of the Painter?
You are mere form and flesh.
How could you possibly know Soul? Continue reading “Mere Form and Flesh (10/10/2021)”
The mind is a roadblock on the journey, O son.
The road is wide open.
Untie this bond. Tear it, O son. Continue reading “This is Expected of You (9/12/2021)”
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.
You cut me off like an umbilical cord in the name of drunkenness.
Even then, O Cupbearer, why did You leave me?
You create such Love with every breath.
O One who makes everything appear,
why are You not apparent? Continue reading “Focus Your Eyes on Absence (7/4/2021)”
I wasn’t as insane as I am now.
I wasn’t out of my mind like this before.
I used to be prudent and wise once,
not crazy and insane like I am now. Continue reading “I am the Treasure (2/28/2021)”
What kind of work bench do You have in that heart?
What idols are You carving in that heart?
Spring has come. It is seed time.
Who knows what You are sowing in that heart?
Outside, You are covered with curtains of secrecy.
But, You are wide open in the middle of that heart.
The person who searches gets his feet stuck in the mud.
But, You scratch his head in that heart.
If a heart were not bigger and greater than the skies,
You wouldn’t ride the Moon in that heart.
If a heart were not such a big city,
no Sultan could fit in, move around in that heart.
O my Soul, the heart is an amazing forest.
You are the master of hunting in that heart.
There are thousands of waves which move in the sea of heart.
You harvest pearls in that heart.
I have kept silent,
because even if one tries to describe its qualities,
no mind can comprehend the heart.
Divan-i Kebir, Volume 18, Ghazal 103, verses 1024-1032, pages 3-4.
The mind may give you what you think is evidence.
Love gives you the Beloved, the Friend.
What comes from the mind is dirty water.
What comes from the Beloved is the Water of Life.
You may ascend to the sky with all the signs of a lover’s journey,
all the evidence which your mind so freely gives.
But in the sky, you will find no signs, no tricks, no traces.
The Rubaiyat of Rumi (2021), Rubai 1376 (Volume 3).
Come, O One who gives new life to the world.
Stop the workings of this smart mind. Continue reading “Where is His Roof? (8/9/2020)”
Who is it that gives taste and charm to color and shape?
When He hides, form becomes like a child of the devil. Continue reading “Who Is It? (5/3/2020)”
You have said so many times, “I have given up words. I prefer silence.”
Yet, you turn around words, so much so that you have turned into talk.
You sail with words’ ship on the sea of thought,
that sea which you have not renounced and which words’ ship never will.
Rubailar, Rubai #2, Page 454.
Every mind becomes confused when it sees Your face.
Every face is scratched by Your Absence.
I have become drunk because of Your reproach.
I don’t even know if Your pure wine is better than a sedimented one. Continue reading “I am at Peace with Him (11/18/18)”
Once more, we have given up our heart, mind and soul.
The Beloved has come. We will stay out of the way.
We have turned our back on existence. Our direction is Absence.
We have found the One whose trace is unseen.
We have given up the trace. Continue reading “Absence Is for Heroes (11/12/17)”
The mind is a bondage to lovers and the ones on the journey, O son.
The road is clear, obvious if you break your ties, O son.
The mind is an impediment. The heart is a deception.
The soul is a curtain. The body is coarse.
The road is hidden because of all this heaviness, O son. Continue reading “Once Love Comes to Talk (10/29/17)”
Love is not knowledge or superiority.
Love is not in books or papers.
The words of people are mere gossip.
Love is not like that.
Continue reading “The Longing Inside of You Is for You (10/1/17)”
There are rose gardens for lovers inside of those bloody fences.
There are so many other businesses for lovers thanks to the absolute beauty of Love.
The mind says, “There are six dimensions to the world of existence.
There is no road beyond those boundaries.”
Yet Love says, “Yes, there is. I have been back and forth many times. Continue reading “There Are Rose Gardens for Lovers (9/3/17)”
If Love has the desire to embrace and kiss someone,
who could resist, my friend, who could?
When the Sultan goes hunting, the place where He hunts smiles.
But, when the Sultan becomes the hunt, what can you say to that? Continue reading “The Smoke and Saliva of Thought (1/22/17)”
You are the only one with us from the beginning of the beginning, O Love.
Tell us the secrets one by one; You are in the same house as we are. Continue reading “You Are the Only One (12/11/16)”