O cupbearer, take some of the weight off of the drunks.
It’s hard to see anyone of value
who isn’t being crushed by troubles and worries.
O rose-faced, cypress-statured Beauty,
come to the rose garden.
You won’t find anything which gives better shade than the cypress. Continue reading “Like the Sun (5/1/2022”
Choose the trouble of Love over all other troubles.
I don’t know any better way to reach the Beloved.
Don’t worry if you don’t have wealth and possessions.
Worry if you don’t have troubles.
Rubailer (2016), Rubai 3, page 366.
The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (approx pub. 5/22), Volume 2, Rubai 804.
The one to whom the secret of Love appears
loses his being,
becomes annihilated in the Beloved. Continue reading “Even If You Can’t See It (1/23/2022)”
Your greatness cannot be contained in souls.
You are beyond comprehension and imagination.
My mind doesn’t understand without You.
My hand doesn’t reach anywhere
if You are not in my arms and wings. Continue reading “It Brings Guilt (10/24/2021)”
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)”
We have neither silk garments nor silver, but we are happy.
In trouble and fear, we are content.
We are drunk on the wine of eternal submission.
This is not like your halfway happiness.
Rubailer (2016), Rubai 3, page 343
The Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (approx. pub. 5/2022), Rubai 732, Volume 2
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)”
Why are you sorry if you lose your profit, your capital?
Here I am. See My generosity?
Don’t fall into despair.
If the world disappears
and the sea becomes a drop of dew, who cares?
If it passes out and drops to the ground,
that doesn’t mean it has left My hand.
The world is a fish. Absence is an ocean.
There are so many fights in the heart of the fish.
But, I fish without a line.
Even if a fish disappears, I will still catch it.
Divan-i Kebir, Volume 15, Ghazal 98, verses 1116-1118, page 221.
I became exuberant when that pearl emerged in me.
I was turned into a rough sea by that storm.
I revealed the secrets of the ocean,
secrets shaken out with thunder.
Then, I slept on the shore like an empty cloud.
Rubailer (2016), Rubai 2, page 329.
A Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (tent. pub. 12/1/2021), Volume 2, Rubai 696.
I stopped over at a tavern one day.
There, I started to tear my patched-up body-cloak into pieces.
While everyone else was busy with their own affairs,
I was busy destroying my self, trying to find Me.
Rubailer (2016), Rubai 3, page 326.
A Rubaiyat of Rumi, The Ergin Translations (tentative pub. date 12/1/21), Vol. 2 of 4, Rubai 691.