The Servant Who Loved His Prayers

At dawn a certain rich man
wanted to go to the steambaths,
He woke his servant, Sunqur,
"Ho! Get moving! Get the basin
and the towels and the clay for washing
and let's go to the baths."

Sunquer immediately collected what was needed,
and they set out side by side along the road.

As they passed the mosque, the call to prayer sounded.
Sunqur loved his five times prayer.
"Please, master,
rest on this bench for a while that I may recite sura 98,
which begins,
'You who treat your slave with kindness.' "

The master sat on the bench outside while Sunqur went in.
When prayers were over, and the priest and all the worshipers
had left, still Sunqur remained inside. The master waited
and waited. Finally he yelled into the mosque,
"Sunqur,
why don't you come out?"
"I can't. This clever one
won't let me. Have a little more patience.
I hear you out there."
Seven times the master waited,
and then shouted. Sunqur's reply was always the same,
"Not yet. He won't let me come out yet."
"But there's no one
in there but you. Everyone else has left.
Who makes you sit so long?"

"The one who keeps me in here is the one
who keeps you out there.
The same who will not let you in will not let me out."

The ocean will not allow its fish out of itself.
Nor does it let land animals in
where the subtle and delicate fish move.

The land creatures lumber along on the ground.
No cleverness can change this. There's only one
opener for the lock of these matters.

Forget your figuring. Forget your self. Listen to your Friend.
When you become totally obedient to that one,
you'll be free.

-- Mathnawi III: 3055-76
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

Delusion is a divine curse

Delusion is a divine curse
that makes someone envious, conceited, malicious,
so that he doesn't know the evil he does
will strike him back.

If he could see his nothingness
and his deadly, festering wound,
pain would arise from looking within,
and that pain would save him.

-- Mathnawi II:2513-2517
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra

Thanksgiving is sweeter than the bounty itself

Thanksgiving for the bounty is sweeter than the bounty
(itself): how should he that is addicted to thanksgiving go towards

(direct his attention to) the bounty?
Thanksgiving is the soul of the bounty, and the bounty is as a
husk because thanksgiving brings you to the abode of the Beloved.

Bounty produces heedlessness, and thanksgiving alertness:
hunt after bounty with the snare of thanksgiving to the King.
The bounty of thanksgiving will make you contented and princely so
that you will bestow a hundred bounties on the poor.
You will eat your fill of the viands and dessert of God, so that
hunger and begging will depart from you.

-- Mathnawi III: 2895-2899
Translation and Commentary by Reynold A. Nicholson
"The Mathnawi of Jalalu'ddin Rumi"
Published and Distributed by
The Trustees of The "E.J.W. Gibb Memorial"

The Sunrise Ruby

In the early morning hour,
just before dawn, lover and beloved wake
and take a drink of water.

She ask, "Do you love me or yourself more?
Really, tell the absolute truth."

He says, "There's nothing left of me.
I'm like a ruby held up to the sunrise.
Is it still a stone, or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance
to sunlight."

This is how Hallaj said, I am God,
and told the truth!

The ruby and the sunrise are one.
Be courageous and discipline yourself.

Completely become hearing and ear,
and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.

Work. Keep digging your well.
Don't think about getting off from work.
Water is there somewhere.

Submit to a daily practice.
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door.

Keep knocking, and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who's there.

-- Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
Castle Books, 1997

A Great Rose Tree

This is the day and the year
of the rose. The whole garden

is opening with laughter. Iris
whispering to cypress. The rose

is the joy of meeting someone.
The rose is a world imagination

cannot imagine. A meessenger from
the orchard where the soul lives.

A small seed that points to a great
rose tree! Hold its hand and walk

like a child. A rose is what grows
from the work the prophets do.

Full moon, new moon. Accept the
invitation spring extends, four

birds flying toward a master. A rose
is all these, and the silence that

closes and sits in the shade, a bud.

-- Ghazal (Ode) 1348
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999

Don't go back to sleep!

The early breeze before dawn
is the keeper of secrets.
Don't go back to sleep!
It is time for prayer, it is time to ask for
what you really need.
Don't go back to sleep!
The door of the One who created the world
is always open.
Don't go back to sleep.

-- Translation by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
"Rumi: Hidden Music"
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001

In This Garden

O soul, who is that standing in the house of the heart? Who
may be on the royal throne but the king and the prince?*
He signaled with his hand, "Tell me, what do you want of
me?" What does a drunken man desire but sweetmeats and a
cup of wine?

Sweetmeats hanging from the heart, a cup of pure light, an
eternal banquet laid in the privacy of "He is the Truth."*
How many deceivers there are at the wine-drinkers' feast!
Beware, lest you fall, soft and simple man!

In the circle of reprobates beware lest you be eye-shut like
the bud, mouth-open like the rose.

The world is like a mirror, the image of the perfection of Love;
men, who has ever seen a part greater than the whole?

Go on foot like the grass, for in this rose garden the Beloved
like a rose is riding; all the rest are on foot.

He is both sword and swordsman, both slain and slayer, all
Reason, and giving reason to the mind.*

That king is Salah-al-din* may he endure forever, may his
bountiful hand be perpetually a necklace on my neck!

-- Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
The University of Chicago Press, 1968

* According to Nicholson (Divan-i Sham, 238, 300) this is a reference
to the hadis' of the Prophet, where God says: "My earth and heaven
contain me not, but the heart of my believing servant contains me."
* "He is the Truth" Qur'an 22:6.
* Reason is annihilated in mystical love.
* "Salah-al-din Zarkub", who died c. 659/1261, was Rumi's pir'
(teacher) after Shams al-Din vanished he is here hailed as an
embodiment of the Spirit of Muhammad, the Perfect Man.