Mystical Poems of Rumi

[Nik Pritchard]

Confused and distraught


Again I am raging, I am in such a state by your soul that every
bond you bind, I break, by your soul.
I am like heaven, like the moon, like a candle by your glow; I am all
reason, all love, all soul, by your soul.
My joy is of your doing, my hangover of your thorn; whatever
side you turn your face, I turn mine, by your soul.
I spoke in error; it is not surprising to speak in error in this
state, for this moment I cannot tell cup from wine, by your soul.
I am that madman in bonds who binds the "divs"; I, the madman,
am a Solomon with the "divs", by your soul.
Whatever form other than love raises up its head from my
heart, forthwith I drive it out of the court of my heart, by your soul.
Come, you who have departed, for the thing that departs
comes back; neither you are that, by my soul, nor I am that, by your soul.
Disbeliever, do not conceal disbelief in your soul, for I will recite
the secret of your destiny, by your soul.
Out of love of Sham-e Tabrizi, through wakefulness or
night rising, like a spinning mote I am distraught, by your soul.


    A New Rule

    It is the rule with drunkards to fall upon each other,
    to quarrel, become violent, and make a scene.
    The lover is even worse than a drunkard.
    I will tell you what love is: to enter a mine of gold.
    And what is that gold?

    The lover is a king above all kings,
    unafraid of death, not at all interested in a golden crown.
    The dervish has a pearl concealed under his patched cloak.
    Why should he go begging door to door?
    Last night that moon came along,
    drunk, dropping clothes in the street.
    "Get up," I told my heart, "Give the soul a glass of wine.
    The moment has come to join the nightingale in the garden,
    to taste sugar with the soul-parrot."

    I have fallen, with my heart shattered -
    where else but on your path? And I
    broke your bowl, drunk, my idol, so drunk,
    don't let me be harmed, take my hand.
    A new rule, a new law has been born:
    break all the glasses and fall toward the glassblower.



Ode 314

Those who don't feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don't want to change,

let them sleep.

This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
I you want to improve your mind that way,

sleep on.

I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.

If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,

and sleep.

----------------

Love has nothing to do with

the five senses and the six directions:

its goal is only to experience

the attraction exerted by the Beloved.

Afterwards, perhaps, permission

will come from God:

the secrets that ought to be told with be told

with an eloquence nearer to the understanding

that these subtle confusing allusions.

The secret is partner with none

but the knower of the secret:

in the skeptic's ear

the secret is no secret at all.

---------------------

[Alexander]

has anyone noticed, on a related note, that as a mystic you understand the different poets (like Dante) better than any academic who studies them? it's hard to explain, even, but you "get it" and they don't.

[Jhanananda]

Yes, I agree, aglorincz, I studied English literature while at the University of Arizona, and found that my interpretation of the mystic's poetry was quite different than the academic interpretation.  I also found as I study religion that translators of religious literature often do not get the message that the mystics wrote about.  I conclude that we mystics have intuitive, revelatory, insight into the sacred that academics and clergy will never get until they become mystics.

[Zack]

It always amazes me how popular Rumi is, since I don't think the vast majority of people that read him realize what he is talking about at all. Do they realize he is writing about the total death of identity?

Here are a few poems I like:


Suffering

Suffering is a treasure, for it conceals mercies;
The almond becomes fresh when you peel off the rind.
O my brother, staying in a cold dark place
And bearing patiently the grief, weakness, and pain
Is the Source of Life and the cup of Abandon!
The heights are found only in the depths of abasement;
Spring is hidden in autumn, and autumn pregnant with spring.
Flee neither; be the friend of Grief, accept desolation,
Hunt for the life that springs from the death of yourself.


Until I Die

Sometimes fury shoots from me, sometimes love,
I never know which face you'll show
Who lives in me now and dangles my body
Whatever way you want until I die.


That Moment

That moment you are drunk on yourself
You are withered, withered like autumn leaves.
That moment you leap free of yourself
Winter to you appears in the dazzling robes of spring.
All disquiet springs from the search for quiet;
Look for disquiet and you will come suddenly upon a field of quiet.
All illnesses spring from the scavenging for delicacies;
Renounce delicacies, and poison itself will seem delicious to you.
All disappointments spring from your hunting for satisfactions;
If only you could stop, all imaginable joys
Would be rolled like pearls to your feet.


Love Drives You Mad

Love drives you mad
from revelation to revelation
through ordeal after ordeal
until humble and broken
you are carried tenderly
into the heart of the rose.


Ecstatic Breathing

No Heaven or earth, just this mysterious place
We walk in dazedly, where being here
Or there, in time or not, are only
Two motions of the same ecstatic breathing.


Sun on My Doorstep

Reconciled to myself, I emerge into the world
Bare of all thought, clear love in which
The sun on my doorstep dances to your drum
The ant walking into it is no less than You

[Jhanananda]

Thank-you, Zack, for the Rumi quotes.  I agree most people who read Rumi are not mystics, not even contemplatives, so it is not likely that they would understand what they are reading, but it is good that they are reading Rumi any way.

Who was the translator of these poems?  Coleman Barks?

[Cal]

I think most look at any poem and "run it through the wash" of Identity. Perception, I'd say youre correct that most do not know what he speaks of, as they took it and related it to some, most likely meaningless, experience of their own. The more I try to speak with people, the more clear it becomes that they do not realize that the Identity is separate from them. Most of them believe it is who they are, in the figurative and literal sense. I think adolenscense would be a key target for spiritual development, as this is when the Identity becomes most influenced.

Sorry, off topic =) the poems are great, I had never read them before, thank you for the share.

[Zack]

I actually can't figure out who the translator is. The poems are "from" Andrew Harvey, from here: http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=35 (they seem to have changed the pricing scheme because I didn't pay that much for it). That page specifically avoids mention of the word 'translate' anywhere in the description and there is nothing I can find elsewhere that states Andrew Harvey has ever translated anything, so... I don't know.

[Jhanananda]

Hello, Zack, it does not sound like Andrew Harvey is the translator of these Rumi poems, but just someone who mined them off the web.  It is good to know who the translator was, and read as many translations of a particular poem that inspires you, so that you gain more from reading mystical writing from other languages.

I think most look at any poem and "run it through the wash" of Identity. Perception, I'd say youre correct that most do not know what he speaks of, as they took it and related it to some, most likely meaningless, experience of their own.

I agree, Cal.  Otherwise why are mystics most often marginalized in any culture and religion?

The more I try to speak with people, the more clear it becomes that they do not realize that the Identity is separate from them. Most of them believe it is who they are, in the figurative and literal sense.

Yes, I agree, most people are bound up in their identity, and have no idea what it is like to be conscious and aware without identity.  But, then only a mystic would know.

I think adolenscense would be a key target for spiritual development, as this is when the Identity becomes most influenced.

Sorry, off topic =) the poems are great, I had never read them before, thank you for the share.

Well, adolescence, might be the best time to take up the contemplative live; however, most adolescents are in mad pursuit of developing an identiy, as I was, when I was an adolescent.

Also, the problems that I have had with criminals in Sedona involved an accusation that I am a pedophile.  I am not. In fact I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, so I am the least likely to sexually abuse children.  And, there are no children in my work.

However, the issue of pedophilia points out the importance for a mystic not to work with under-age people, because these days all you need is an accusation from a child, and you go to jail.

Pedophilia or paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children, generally age 11 years or younger. As a medical diagnosis, specific criteria for the disorder extends the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13.[1][2][3][4] A person who is diagnosed with pedophilia must be at least 16 years of age; adolescents must be at least five years older than the prepubescent child for the attraction to be diagnosed as pedophilia.[1][2]

Pedophilia has a range of definitions, as found in psychiatry, psychology, the vernacular, and law enforcement. The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) defines it as a "disorder of adult personality and behaviour" in which there is a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age.[5] It is termed pedophilic disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), and the manual defines it as a paraphilia in which adults or adolescents 16 years of age or older have intense and recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about prepubescent children that they have either acted on or which cause them distress or interpersonal difficulty.[1]

I have never had such an attraction to prepubescent children even when I was post-pubescent. In fact I had such an avoidance syndrome around pedophilia that once I turned 18 I could no longer engage in sexual behavior with anyone who was younger than 18.  Further my primary sexual psychological response has always been toward women of my own age.

[Jhanon]

"Until I Die

Sometimes fury shoots from me, sometimes love,
I never know which face you'll show
Who lives in me now and dangles my body
Whatever way you want until I die."

I wish to suggest that this poem indicates one of three things.

1) It was written before Rumi attained Arahantship.
2) Rumi never attained arahantship.
3) Arahantship is a realization of the true nature, and not control over one's "faces."

[Alexander]

This is Love: to fly heavenward,
To rend, every instant, a hundred veils.
The first moment, to renounce life;
The last step, to fare without feet.
To regard this world as invisible,
Not to see what appears to oneself.

[Jhanananda]

"Until I Die

Sometimes fury shoots from me, sometimes love,
I never know which face you'll show
Who lives in me now and dangles my body
Whatever way you want until I die."

I wish to suggest that this poem indicates one of three things.

1) It was written before Rumi attained Arahantship.
2) Rumi never attained arahantship.
3) Arahantship is a realization of the true nature, and not control over one's "faces."

Interesting hypotheses.  The suttas suggest that Siddhartha Gautama was not always blissed out.  In fact I believe that the Devadata division in his sangha was driven by less than saintly behavior of Siddhartha Gautama.  So, perhaps he was not an arahant either?

Since people are posting their favorite Rumi stanzas, here is one of mine.

Jalalu’l-Din Rumi,
“There is a strange frenzy in my head,
each particle circulating on its own 
Is the one I love everywhere.”

the Illustrated Rumi, translated by Colman Barks

[Jhanon]

What do you mean, exactly, Jhananda?

Number three of the hypothesis was the one I felt most true. That arahantship is a deep realization. One that changes the relationship between awareness and existence. But a "perfect" human is not possible. How could deep insight into the three characteristics, namely unsatisfactoriness/suffering, lead to a wholly satisfactory human? My point is that the Buddha was an arahant, but as a human, he wasn't flawless or always "saintly" to the external observer. That would go against what he taught.

[Alexander]

I think both Christ and the Buddha faced many challenges in their ministries. Jeffrey's theory about the suicides/schism is one I'm inclined to agree with. We may have had an account of that drama in an earlier time - but at some point it could have been destroyed.

The narrative of Christ's life is full of adversity, failure, and strife. Actually, those things are a part of the prophecy of Christ: that he would be a "man of sorrows, rejected by men, acquainted with grief." The supreme example of his failing is his death on the cross - but, at the same time, in the understanding of Christianity that is also his triumph.

I agree that our starting point has to be to take the Buddha and Christ as examples of perfect human beings. If we reject those two then we are setting ourselves up for failure. We're letting the fetter of doubt creep in, and think that there is no escape, no liberation, no salvation from this hell.

[Jhanananda]

I agree that our starting point has to be to take the Buddha and Christ as examples of perfect human beings. If we reject those two then we are setting ourselves up for failure. We're letting the fetter of doubt creep in, and think that there is no escape, no liberation, no salvation from this hell.

I agree, Alexander, except that we all have feet of clay, which means we are all fallible.  I certainly was not born of a virgin, nor do I walk on water; nonetheless, I have traversed the 8 stages of the religious experience, and understand, and value, a contemplative life that leads to the 4 jhanas.

[Zack]

In the driest
whitest stretch
of pain's
infinite desert
I lost my sanity
and found
this rose.