Jalaluddin Rumi

Only when knowledge frees thee from thyself,
Is such knowledge better than ignorance.

Beats there a heart within that breast of thine,
Then compass reverently its sacred shrine:
For the essential Kaaba is the heart,
And no proud pile of perishable art. 
When God ordained the pilgrim rite, that sign
Was meant to lead thy thoughts to things divine;
A thousand times he treads that round in vain
Who gives one human heart a needless pain. 
Leave wealth behind; bring God thy heart, Whose light
Will guide thy footsteps through the gloomiest night.
God spurns the riches of a thousand coffers,
And says, 'The saint is he his heart who offers; 
Nor gold nor silver seek I, but above
All gifts the heart, and buy it with My love:
Yea! one sad, contrite heart which men despise
More than My throne and fixed decree I prize';
The meanest heart that ever man has spurned
Is a clear glass where God may be discerned.

I was, ere a name had been named upon earth,
Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth:
When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign
And Being was none, save the Presence Divine.
Named and name were alike emanations from Me,
Ere aught that was 'I' yet existed, or 'We';
Ere the veil of the flesh for Messiah was wrought,
To the Godhead I bowed in prostration of thought;
I measured intently, I pondered with heed
(But, ah, fruitless my labour!) the Cross and its Creed:
To the pagod I rushed and the Magian's shrine,
But my eye caught no glimpse of a glory divine;
The reins of research to the Kaaba I bent,
Whither hopefully thronging the old and young went;
Candahàr and Herat searched I wistfully through,
Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view.
I toiled to the summit, wild, pathless and lone,
Of the globe-girding Kàf, but the Anka had flown!
The seventh earth I traversed, the seventh heaven explored,
But in neither discerned I the court of the Lord.
I questioned the Pen and the Tablet of Fate,
But they whispered not where He pavilions His state;
My vision I strained, but my God-scanning eye
No trace that to Godhead belongs could descry.
My glance I bent inward: within my own breast
Lo, the vainly sought elsewhere! the Godhead confessed!

Hearken to the reed flute, how it discourses,
When complaining of the pains of separation:—
'Ever since they tore me from my ozier-bed,
My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.
I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,
And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.
He who abides far away from his homeIs ever longing for the day he shall return;
My wailing is heard in every throng,In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.'

Moses, to his horror, heard one summer day
A benighted shepherd blasphemously pray:
'Lord!' he said, 'I would I knew Thee, where Thou art,
That for Thee I might perform a servant's part;
Comb Thy hair and dust Thy shoes and sweep Thy room,
Bring Thee every morning milk and honeycomb.
'Moses cried: 'Blasphemer! curb thy blatant speech!
Whom art thou addressing? Lord of all and each,
Allah the Almighty? Thinkest thou He doth need
Thine officious folly? Wilt all bounds exceed?
Miscreant, have a care, lest thunderbolts should break
On our heads and others perish for thy sake.
Without eyes He seeth, without ears He hears,
Hath no son nor partner through the endless years,
Space cannot contain Him, time He is above,
All the limits that He knows are Light and Love.' 
Put to shame, the shepherd, his poor garment rent,
Went away disheartened, all his ardour spent. 
Then spake God to Moses: 'Why hast thou from Me
Driven away My servant, who goes heavily?
Not for severance it was, but union,
I commissioned thee to preach, O hasty one!
Hatefullest of all things is to Me divorce,
And the worst of all ways is the way of force.
I made not creation, Self to aggrandize,
But that creatures might with Me communion prize.
What though childish tongues trip? 'Tis the heart I see,
If it really loves Me in sincerity.
Blood-stains of the martyrs no ablution need,
Some mistakes are better than a cautious creed,
Once within the Kaaba, wheresoe'er men turn,
Is it much to Him Who spirits doth discern?
Love's religion comprehends each creed and sect,
Love flies straight to God, and outsoars intellect.
If the gem be real, what matters the device?
Love in seas of sorrow finds the pearl of price.'

Many a net the Devil spreads, weaving snare on snare,
We, like foolish birds, are caught captive unaware;
From one net no sooner free, straightway in another
We are tangled, fresh defeats aspirations smother;
Till upon the ground we lie, helpless as a stone,
We, who might have gained the sky, we, who might have flown.
When we seek to house our grain, pile a goodly store,
Pride, a hidden mouse, is there nibbling evermore;
Till upon the harvest day, lo, no golden heap,
But a mildewed mass of chaff maggots overcreep.
Many a brilliant spark is born where the hammers ply,
But a lurking thief is there; prompt, with finger sly,
Spark on spark he puts them out, sparks which might have soared
Perish underneath his touch. Help us then, O Lord!
What with gin and trap and snare, pitfall and device,
How shall we poor sinners reach Thy fair paradise?

On the frontier set, the warden of a fort,Far from his monarch and his monarch's court,Holds the fort, let foemen bluster as they may,Nor for fear or favour will his trust betray;Far from his monarch, on the empire's edge,He, with his master, keeps unbroken pledge;Surely then his lord his worth will higher own,Than their prompt obedience who surround his throne;In the Master's absence a little work done wellWeighs more than a great one when his eyes compel;Now is the time to show who faith and trust will keep,Once probation over, faith and trust are cheap.

A merchant from India a parrot had brought,
And pent in a narrow cage, sorrow-distraught
With longing for freedom. One day the good man
Determined to try with his wares Hindustan;
So he said to his parrot, 'What gift shall I bring
From the land you were born in—what curious thing?'
The parrot replied, 'There are kinsfolk of mine
Flying blithe in those woods, for whose freedom I pine;
(Oh, the green woods of India!). Go, tell them my state—
A captive in grip of implacable fate—
And say, "Is it justice that I should despair
While you, where you list, can flash swift through the air,
Can peck at the pineapples, bathe in the springs,
And spread in the sunlight your green-gleaming wings?"
His message the man took, and made his word good
When he came where the parrots flew free in the wood;
But no sooner the message was given than one
Like lead to the earth fell as dead as a stone.
The merchant upbraided himself, 'It is clear
This parrot of mine was a relative dear,
And the shock has been fatal; myself am to blame.
'When his journey was finished and homeward he came,
His parrot inquired, 'Hast brought me a crumb
Of comfort in sorrow where, caged, I sit dumb?'
The merchant said, 'No; 'twas a pity you sent,
For the message you gave proved of fatal content;
As soon as I gave it one shuddered and fell
Stone-dead, as if struck by some magical spell.
'No sooner that bird's fate it heard, than his own
On the floor of its cage fell as dead as a stone
.'Alas!' cried the merchant, 'my own bird I've killed—
My own pretty parrot, so Allah has willed!'
Sadly out from the cage the dead body he drew,
When, to his amazement, straight upwards it flew
And perched on a tree. 'Lo! the message,' he said,
'My friend sent—"Die thou, as I make myself dead,
And by dying win freedom." Farewell, master dear,
I caught the plain hint with intelligence clear.
Thyself reckon dead, and then thou shalt fly
Free, free, from the prison of earth to the sky!
Spring may come, but on granite will grow no green thing;
It was barren in winter, 'tis barren in spring;
And granite man's heart is, till grace intervene,
And, crushing it, clothe the long barren with green.
When the fresh breath of Jesus shall touch the heart's core,
It will live, it will breathe, it will blossom once more.'

You deserted Jesus, a mere ass to feed,
In a crowd of asses you would take the lead;
Those who follow Jesus, win to wisdom's ranks;
Those who fatten asses get a kick for thanks.
Pity keep for Jesus, pity not the ass,
Let not fleshly impulse intellect surpass.
If an ass could somewhat catch of Jesus' mind,
Classed among the sages he himself would find;
Though because of Jesus you may suffer woe,
Still from Him comes healing, never let Him go.

In each human spirit is a Christ concealed,
To be helped or hindered, to be hurt or healed;
If from any human soul you lift the veil
You will find a Christ there hidden without fail;
Woe, then, to blind tyrants whose vindictive ire,
Venting words of fury, sets the world on fire.

Knowledge hath two wings, Opinion hath but one,
And opinion soon fails in its orphan flight;
The bird with one wing soon droops its head and falls,
But give it two wings and it gains its desire.
The bird of Opinion flies, rising and falling,
On its wing in vain hope of its rest;
But when it escapes from Opinion and Knowledge receives it,
It gains its two wings and spreads them wide to heaven;
On its two wings it flies like Gabriel
Without doubt or conjecture, and without speech or voice.
Though the whole world should shout beneath it,
'Thou art in the road to God and the perfect faith,
'It would not become warmer at their speech,
And its lonely soul would not mate with theirs;
And though they should shout to it,
'Thou hast lost thy way;
And thinkest thyself a mountain and art but a leaf,
'It would not lose its convictions from their censure,
Nor vex its bosom with their loud reproof;
And though sea and land should join in concert,
Exclaiming, 'O wanderer, thou hast lost thy road!'
Not an atom of doubt would fall into its soul,
Nor a shade of sorrow at the scorner's scorn.
(Professor Cowell's translation.)

One day a lion, looking down a well,
Saw what appeared to him a miracle,
Another lion's face that upward glared
As if the first to try his strength he dared.
Furious, the lion took a sudden leap
And o'er him closed the placid waters deep.
Thou who dost blame injustice in mankind,
'Tis but the image of thine own dark mind;
In them reflected clear thy nature is
With all its angles and obliquities.
Around thyself thyself the noose hast thrown,
Like that mad beast precipitate and prone;
Face answereth to face, and heart to heart,
As in the well that lion's counterpart.
'Back to each other we reflections throw,
'So spake Arabia's Prophet long ago;
And he, who views men through self's murky glass,
Proclaims himself no lion, but an ass.

Every night, O God, from the net of the body
Thou releasest our souls and makest them like blank tablets;
Every night thou releasest them from their cages
And settest them free: none is master or slave.
At night the prisoners forget their prisons,
At night the monarchs forget their wealth:
No sorrow, no care, no profit, no loss,
No thought or fear of this man or that.
Such is the state of the Sufi in this world,
Like the seven sleepers he sleeps open-eyed,
Dead to worldly affairs, day and night,
Like a pen held in the hand of his Lord.
—(Professor Cowell.)

From the inorganic we developed into the vegetable kingdom,Dying from the vegetable we rose to animal,And leaving the animal, we became man.Then what fear that death will lower us?The next transition will make us an angel,Then shall we rise from angels and merge in the Nameless,All existence proclaims, "Unto Him shall we return."

Soul becomes pregnant by the Soul of souls
And brings forth Christ;
Not that Christ Who walked on land and sea,
But that Christ Who is above space.

If thou takest offence at every rub,
How wilt thou become a polished mirror?

For as a stone, so Sufi legends run,
Wooed by unwearied patience of the sun
Piercing its dense opacity, has grown
From a mere pebble to a precious stone,
Its flintiness impermeable and crass
Turned crystalline to let the sunlight pass;
So hearts long years impassive and opaque
Whom terror could not crush nor sorrow break,
Yielding at last to love's refining ray
Transforming and transmuting, day by day,
From dull grown clear, from earthly grown divine,
Flash back to God the light that made them shine.