Rumi Page 3

Now be silent. Let the One who creates the words speak. He made the door. He made the lock. He also made the key.

  The cure for pain is in the pain.

  My friend, the sufi is the friend of the present moment. To say tomorrow is not our way.

  If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

  The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

  What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.

  Stop searching here and there, the jewels are inside YOU.

  When you go through a hard period, When everything seems to oppose you, … When you feel you cannot even bear one more minute, NEVER GIVE UP! Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!

  Listen my love, illumination is eternal. Now is always evolving. As there are billions of stars, there are billions of steps. As there are billions of souls, there are billions of ways to grow.

  Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.

  Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and twice as beautiful as you’d ever imagined. Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

  How could you reach the pearl by only looking at the sea? If you seek the pearl, be a diver: the diver needs several qualities: he must trust his rope and his life to the Friend’s hand, he must stop breathing, and he must jump.

  I will soothe you and heal you, I will bring you roses. I too have been covered with thorns.

  When there’s no sign of hope in the desert, so much hope still lives inside despair. Heart, don’t kill that hope.

  This is Now. Now is,

  all there is. Don’t wait for Then;

  strike the spark, light the fire.

  Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.

  Once the seed of faith takes root, it cannot be blown away, even by the strongest wind - Now that’s a blessing.

  The cure for pain is in the pain. Good and bad are mixed. If you don’t have both, you don’t belong with us.

  When the world pushes you to your knees, you’re in the perfect position to pray.

  It’s good to leave each day behind, like flowing water, free of sadness. Yesterday is gone and its tale told. Today new seeds are growing.

  Carry the burden smilingly and cheerfully, because patience is the key to victory.

  Every midwife knows

  that not until a mother’s womb

  softens from the pain of labor

  will a way unfold

  and the infant find that opening to be born.

  Oh friend!

  There is treasure in your heart,

  it is heavy with child.

  Listen.

  All the awakened ones,

  like trusted midwives are saying,

  ‘welcome this pain.

  It opens the dark passage of Grace.

  By the mercy of Allah Paradise has eight doors. One of those is the door of repentance, child. All the others are sometimes open, sometimes shut, but the door of repentance is never closed. Come seize the opportunity: the door is open; carry your baggage there at once.

  Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come.

  One of the marvels of the world: The sight of a soul sitting in prison with the key in its hand.

  Move, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

  Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret, and in exchange gain the Ocean.

  Light the incense! You have to burn to be fragrant.

  What strikes the oyster shell doesn’t damage the pearl.

  Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.

  It’s your road & yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you

  Don’t sit and wait. Get out there, feel life. Touch the sun, and immerse in the sea.

  Be quiet now and wait. It may be that the ocean one, the one we desire so to move into and become, desires us out here on land a little longer, going our sundry roads to the shore.

  Whatever happens to you, don’t fall in despair. Even if all the doors are closed, a secret path will be there for you that no one knows. You can’t see it yet but so many paradises are at the end of this path…Be grateful! It is easy to thank after obtaining what you want, thank before having what you want.

  I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing. The power of love came into me, and I became fierce like a lion, then tender like the evening star.

  Don’t grieve for what doesn’t come. Some things that don’t happen keep disasters from happening.

  Search, no matter what situation you are in. O thirsty one, search for water constantly. Finally, the time will come when you will reach the spring.

  The leaf of every tree brings a message from the unseen world. Look, every falling leaf is a blessing.

  You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.

  Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.

  I lost everything i have, found myself.

  Don’t dismiss the heart, even if it’s filled with sorrow. God’s treasures are buried in broken hearts.

  Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, But don’t move the way fear makes you move.

  Don’t be sad! Because God sends hope in the most desperate moments. Don’t forget, the heaviest rain comes out of the darkest clouds.

  Don’t get lost in your pain, know that one day your pain will become your cure.

  Short and Pithy Quotes

  Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

  The Heart is like a candle, longing to be lit!

  I can heal a broken heart with a smile.

  A life without love isn’t a life.

  You’re a song, a wished-for song.

  Life is balance of holding on and letting go.

  Be suspicious of what you want.

  Lamps are different, but light is the same.

  Silence gives answers.

  There is a place where words are born of silence.

  We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.

  Let silence take you to the core of life.

  Our death is our wedding with eternity.

  The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.

  Bathe in the splendor of your own Light.

  What you are seeking is also seeking you.

  Appear as you are, or be as you appear.

  If you are looking for a friend who is faultless, you will be friendless.

  What is the Heart? A flower opening.

  Stop learning. Start knowing.

  The rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorns.

  You don’t live on the earth, you are passing through it.

  Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.

  Deep in our Hearts, the Light of Heaven is shining.

  One drop of that ocean is Hope, and the rest is fear.

  Love is fearless in the midst of the sea of fear.

  Let the beauty of what you love be
what you do.

  Protect yourself……from your own thoughts.

  Be soulful. Be kind. Be in love.

  Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder.

  Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.

  Do you pay regular visits to yourself? Start now.

  Fasting is the first principle of medicine.

  This whole universe is but a drop

  of His Beauty!

  Wise and Enlightening Quotes

  Wisdom is like the rain. Its source is unlimited, but it comes down according to the season. Grocers put sugar in a bag, but their supply of sugar is not the amount in the bag. When you come to a grocer, he has sugar in abundance. But he sees how much money you have brought and gives accordingly. Your currency on this Path is resolution and faith, and you are taught according to your resolution and faith. When you come seeking sugar, they examine your bag to see what its capacity is; then they measure out accordingly.

  Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon; How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.

  Since you are not a prophet, follow the way taught by prophets.

  Since you are not a king, be a loyal subject to The King.

  Since you are not a captain, do not take the helm of the ship.

  Since you do not possess every skill, have partners in your business.

  Be as pliant as dough in the hands of others, that you may rise well.

  There is no worse torture than knowing intellectually about love and the way.

  Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.

  Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

  If in the darkness of ignorance, you don’t recognize a person’s true nature, look to see whom he has chosen for his leader.

  Find the sweetness in your own heart, then you may find the sweetness in every heart.

  Do not sit long with a sad friend. When you go to a garden do you look at the weeds? Spend more time with the roses and jasmines.

  Trust means you’re ready to risk what you currently have.

  If you put on shoes that are too tight and walk out across an empty plain, you will not feel the freedom of the place unless you take off your shoes. Your shoe-constriction has you confined. At night before sleeping you take off the tight shoes, and your soul releases into a place it knows. Dreams glide deeper.

  There is a voice that doesn’t use words. Listen.

  Once you conquer your selfish self, all your darkness will change to light.

  Do not look back,

  No one knows how the world ever began.

  Do not fear the future, Nothing lasts forever.

  If you dwell on the past or future,

  You will miss the moment.

  Bring anger and pride under your feet,

  turn them into a ladder and climb higher.

  Treasure is stored in the ruined places.

  Do not break the hearts of the poor and heartbroken people.

  The angel is free because of his knowledge, the beast because of his ignorance. Between the two remains the son of man to struggle.

  Take someone who doesn’t keep score, who’s not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing, who has not the slightest interest even in his own personality: he’s free.

  The quieter we become, the more we can hear.

  Learn to recognize the false dawn from the true; distinguish the color of the wine from the color of the cup. Then it may be that patience and time may produce, out of the spectrum-viewing sight, true vision, and you will behold colors other than these mortal hues, you will see pearls instead of stones. Pearls, did I say? Nay more, you will become a sea, you will become a sun traveling the sky.

  The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.

  When someone is counting out gold for you, don’t look at your hands, or the gold. Look at the giver.

  My dear heart, never think you are better than others. Listen to their sorrows with compassion. If you want peace, don’t harbor bad thoughts, do not gossip and don’t teach what you do not know.

  Listen with ears of tolerance! See through the eyes of compassion! Speak with the language of love.

  Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening.

  Doing as others told me, I was Blind. Coming when others called me, I was Lost. Then I left everyone, myself as well. Then I found Everyone, Myself as well.

  Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.

  When you notice a fault in your neighbour, search for the same in yourself.

  I honor those who try to rid themselves of any lying, who empty the self and have only clear being there.

  Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,

  are your own nature reflected in them.

  Paradise is surrounded by what we dislike; the fires of hell are surrounded by what we desire.

  As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.

  A Candle never Loses any of its Light while Lighting up another candle.

  Every forest branch moves differently in the breeze,

  but as they sway they connect at the roots.

  When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety; if I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.

  You are the honoured guest,

  Do not weep like a beggar

  For pieces of the world.

  Look carefully around you and recognize the luminosity of souls. Sit beside those who draw you to that.

  If it is bread that you seek, you will have bread. If it is the soul you seek, you will find the soul. If you understand this secret, you know you are that which you seek.

  Whatever you keep hidden in your heart, God manifests in you outwardly. Whatever the root of the tree feeds on in secret, affects the bough and the leaf.

  Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.

  Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.

  Let yourself be loved, O Beloved, in the One. And from this One move out into the world, carrying within you the great potent energies of life to green your world, to create planets, suns, stars, stones, waves, oceans, to create new forms of life and expression - whether a friendship, a feeling or a new form of vocation.

  All people on the planet are children, except for a very few. No one is grown up except those free of desire.

  Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart.

  If you want money more than anything, you’ll be bought and sold. If you have a greed for food, you’ll be a loaf of bread. This is a subtle truth: Whatever you love, you are.