FROM MEDITATOR.ORG 

 

"13th Century Sufi Jalal U'Din Rumi Poems"

 

  

    Walk to the well.
turn as the earth and moon turn,
circling what they love.
Whatever circles comes from the centre.
 
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I honour those who try
to rid themselves of any lying,
who empty the self
and have only clear being there.
 
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No better love than love with no object,
no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.
If you could give up tricks and cleverness,
that would be the cleverest trick!
 
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The centre clears. Knowing comes:
The body is not singular like a corpse,
but singular like a salt grain
still in the side of a mountain.
 
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Not Christian, Jew or Muslim,
not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen:
not any religion or cultural system.
I am not from the east or the west,
not out of the ocean or up from the ground,
not natural or ethereal,
not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist,
I am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve
or any origin story.
Neither body or soul.
I belong to the friend,
have seen the two worlds as one
and this one invoke and know:
first, last, outer inner,
unique breath breathing being
 
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I died a mineral and became a plant.

I died a plant and rose an animal.

...I died an animal and I was man.

Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?

Yet once more I shall die as man, to soar with blessed angels.

But even from angelhood I must pass on.

All except God perishes.

When I've sacrificed my angel soul,
I'll become that which no mind has ever conceived