Considered the greatest poet of the Persian language, Jalaludin Rumi left the world with an astonishing collection of mystical teachings and lyrical poetry that has shaped the Islamic world for over seven hundred years, and more recently the Western world. He is currently one of the most widely read poets in the English language.
Born in 1209 in Balkh, Afghanistan, which was at that time on the eastern edge of the Persian empire, Rumi was forced to flee from the Mongol invasion. He eventually settled in Konya, central Turkey where he remained for the rest of his life. Following his father’s footsteps, he became an eminent preacher, theologian, and founder of the Whirling Dervishes, whose signature whirling dance symbolizes the letting go of the material self towards union with God. Rumi died in Konya at the age of 66, gifting to the world an enormous literary treasure without equal in the Persian world.
Wisdom of a Sage
This world does not need more successful people. This world desperately needs more peacemakers, healers and lovers of all kinds.
***
I am nothing, yet I appear:
as a translucent dream
where your eternity
briefly trembles.
Close your eyes,
fall in love.
Stay there.
I profess the religion of love. Love is my religion and my faith.
***
For those who love with their heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation.
***
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
***
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Being a candle is not easy. In order to give light, one must first burn.
***
Let your kindness be like the rain that doesn’t care who it falls upon.
***
Teach them to be kind to animals. They will grow up to be kind to people too.
***
My friend,
do not look back.
No one knows how the world
ever began. Do not fear
the future, for nothing
lasts forever. If you dwell on the
past or the future, you
will miss the Moment.
***
If you look around, you can find a face of God in each thing, because He is not hidden in a church, in a mosque.
***
Let me not pray
to be sheltered from dangers
but to be fearless
in facing them.
Let me not beg
for the stilling of my pain
but for the heart to conquer it.
Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
***
With passion pray.
With passion work.
With passion make love.
With passion eat and drink
and dance and play.
Why look like a dead fish
in this vast ocean of God?
***
Love describes its own perfection. Be speechless and listen.
***
I choose to love you in silence, for in silence, I find no rejection.
***
He didn’t have much, yet he shared all he had. If you don’t have much wealth, if you have little, give of your heart.
***
Fall in love in such a way that it frees you from any connecting.
***
Death has nothing to do with going away. The sun sets. The moon sets. But they are not gone.
***
There comes a time when nothing is meaningful except surrendering to love.
***
I said to God, I will not die before I know you. God replied: He who knows me never dies.
