Rumi

The Three Stooges Jalal al-Din Rumi

When eternity touches anything temporal, silence deepens
 and becomes one zeroed thing
made of both. Dervishes can find a hundred ways to say
 how this happens. I’ve
no interest in more poetic images. Mysterious combinations
 of Arabic letters stand
at the begining of certain Qur’anic chapters: alif lam
 mim ba-mim. They seem
like other letters, but only as biscuits resemble the
 moon! A true feeling of
what comes from the presence can free the imprisoned and resurrect the helpless.
Some word combinations, like skin-and-bone arrangements,
 have sublime qualities. These
three people talking in the street are ordinary young
 men, but Alif, Lam, and
Mim have an exchange more like Larry, Curly, and Moe.

Dżalal ad-Din ar-Rumi „The Three Stooges”

Jami’s the camel driver’s song Jalal al-Din Rumi

A sufi was on the path of clarity. Every day he walked
 the desert, and every night
he walked and slept in the emptiness of God’s custody.
 One night he came upon
a merchant’s tent and felt the need for conversation. He
 lifted the tent flap
and saw a black slave in chains, unable to move, but shining
 with intelligence like
the moon. „Help me”, the slave whispered. „My master will
 not refuse the guest. Ask
him to set me free”. The merchant welcomed the sufi
 to his tent and brought
food. „I cannot accept your generosity until you release
 this poor man”. „I will.
But first listen to what I have suffered because of him!
 I used to have many purebred
camels, beautiful animals with humps like mountains, swift
 as the wind over steep
and flat, powerful as rhinoceri, tall and dignified as
 elephants. Their crossing
and recrossing this desolation were the source of my
 existence, their bells my most
wished-for sound. As they traveled, this camel driver sang
 songs. The camels heard
and carried their loads with courage and discipline. This time,
 though, when we unloaded
them, they fled in every direction, vanished in the desert,
 all but the one still
tied outside my tent”. The sufi said. „Let me hear the camel driver’s song”. The master
gestured, and the slave began. The visitor sat politely
 watching the tethered animal,
but as longing deepened in the song, the night walker
 tore his clothes and fell
on the ground, while the last camel snapped its rope and
 escaped into the darkness.

Dżalal ad-Din ar-Rumi „Jami’s the camel driver’s song”

Rumi "Bowls of food"

Moon and evening star do their
slow tambourine dance to praise
this universe. The purpose of
every gathering is discovered:
to recognize beauty and love
what’s beautiful. „Once it was
like that, now it’s like this,”
the saying goes around town, and
serious consequences too. Men
and women turn their faces to the
wall in grief. They lose appetite.

Then they start eating the fire of
pleasure, as camels chew pungent
grass for the sake of their souls…

Rumi, from „Bowls of food”

Rumi A WAY OF LEAVING THE WORLD

Some clouds do not obscure the moon, and there are mornings
when drops of rain descent
from an open sky. A saint is a cloud that’s here, but
with its cloud nature
erased. Something in us wants no intermediary, no nurse,
just to be the wide blue
merged with the mothers breast, sublime emptiness. There
is a way of leaving the
world that nourishes the world. Don’t do anything for
applause…
What you are is a soul
that is both food and hunger, longing and what the
longing is for. Remember
that, and try then to experience renunciation.

Rumi "Love dervishes"

It takes the courage of inner majesty
to stand in this doorway, where there’s
no celebrating good fortune, where talk
of luck is embarrassing. However your
robe of patches fits is right. If you
are God’s light, keep moving east to
west as you have been. Don’t pretend
something other than truth. Measuring
devices don’t work in this room where
the love dervishes meet. No tradition
grows here and no soup simmers! We sit
in pure absence without expectation.
Rumi „Love dervishes”