Moving Water

A beautiful poem by Rumi:

"When you do things from your soul, you feel a moving in you, a joy.


When actions come from another section, the feeling disappears. Don't let others lead you.


They may be blind or, worse, vultures. Reach for the rope of God.


And what is that? Putting aside self-will. 
Because of willfulness people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied, fish sizzle in the skillet.


The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate inflict visible punishment. 


Now see the invisible. If you could leave your selfishness, you would see how you've been torturing your soul. 


We are born and live inside black water in a well.


How could we know what an open field of sunlight is? Don't insist on going where you think you want to go. 


Ask the way to the spring. Your living pieces will form a harmony.


There is a moving palace that floats in the air with balconies and clear water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained under a single tent."

Rumi!!!!!!!!!!!!

Poem By Ibn "Arabi

Gentle now, doves...
Don't add to your sighs
To my heartache

Gentle now,
Or your sad cooing
Will reveal the love I hide,
The sorrow I hide away

I echo back, in the evening
In the morning, echo
The longing of a lovesick lover,
The moaning of the lost.

In a grove of Ghada,
Spirits wrestled
Bending the limbs down over me
Passing me away

They brought yearning
Breaking of the heart
And other new twists of pain
Putting me through it...

Hour by hour
They circle my heart
In rapture, in love ache
And touch my pillars with a kiss

As the best of creation
Circled the Ka'aba
Which reason with its proofs
Called unworthy

He kissed the stone there
And was entrusted with the Word.
What is a house of stone
Compared to a man or woman...

A white blazed gazelle
Is an amazing sight.
Red-dye signaling
Eyelids hunting.

Pasture between breastbone
And innards.
Marvel,
A garden among the flames!

My heart can take on
Any form:
For gazelles, a meadow
A cloister for monks

For idols, sacred ground
Ka'aba for circling pilgrims,
The Tables of the Torah,
The Scrolls of the Qu'ran

I profess the religion of love
Wherever its caravan turns
Along the way-that is the belief,
The faith that I keep...


By Ibn' Arabi
Translated by Michael Sells

Cleansing Conflict

What is a saint? One whose wine has turned to vinegar.
If you're still wine-drunkenly

brave, don't step forward. When your sheep becomes a lion,
then come. It is said

of hypocrites, "They have considerable valor among themselves!"
But they scatter when

a real enemy appears. Muhammad told his young soldiers, "There
is no courage before

an engagement." A drunk foams at the mouth talking about what
he will do when he gets his sword

drawn, but the chance arrives, and he remains sheathed as
an onion. Premeditating,

he's eager for wounds. Then his bag gets touched by a needle,
and he deflates. What sort of

person says that he or she wants to be polished and pure,
then complain about being

handled roughly? Love is a lawsuit where harsh evidence must
be brought in. To settle

the case, the judge must see evidence. You've heard that every
buried treasure has a snake

guarding it. Kiss the snake to discover the treasure! The
severe treatment is not toward

you, but the qualities that block your growth. A rug beater
doesn't beat the rug, but

rather the dirt. A horse trainer switches not the horse, but
the going wrong. Imprison

your mash in a dark vat, so it can become wine. Someone
asks, "Don't you worry

about God's wrath when you spank your child?" "I'm not
spanking my child, but the demon

in him" When a mother screams, "Get out of here!" she means
the mean part of the child.

Don't run from those who scold, and don't turn away from
cleansing conflict, or you will

remain weak. Also, don't listen to bragging. If you go along
with self-importance, the work

collapses. Better a small modest team. Sift almonds. Discard
the bitter. Sour and sweet

sound alike when you pour them out on the rattling tray, but
inside they're very different.

Whirling Dervishes

Who is Rumi?

To properly glorify the great souls, we must sincerely pray for their guidance and the guidance of Their Divine Lordships Who reside in Goloka. Therefore, I pray unto you, O great lover of the invisible, who the West has come to know simply as Rumi. I pray to my spiritual master, His Holiness Radhanath Swami, who has cleared away the darkness in my heart.
I am insignificant and blinded by material enjoyment; I have no qualification to speak about this great soul, but the bird rises in the sky as high as he can reach according to his ability. I will try to glorify Rumi to my best ability and become purified.
To understand Rumi, we must have some knowledge of the Sufi order. Some will say that Sufism is a denomination of Islam, while others will say that it is it’s own religion. Just like Christians will deny the Gnostics. Sufism is the mystical path on the road of Islam. Muslims as well as many other religions, believe after death they will return to the paradise of God. The practitioners of Sufism believe that you can achieve an intimate closeness to God while still living. Sufis generally teach in personal groups, as the counsel of the master is considered necessary for the growth of the pupil. They make extensive use of parable, allegory, and metaphor, and it is held by Sufis that meaning can only be reached through a process of seeking the truth, and knowledge of oneself. Although philosophies vary among different Sufi orders, Sufism as a whole is primarily concerned with direct personal experience, and as such may be compared to various forms of mysticism such as Bhakti form of Hinduism, Hesychasm, Zen Buddhism, Kabbalah, Gnosticism and Christian mysticism.
Rumi was born as Mawlana Jalal-ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, on September 30, 1207. He was born in the Balkh, Afghanistan. Some argue as to exactly what village he was born in. His father was a great theologian, jurist and mystic who was nicknamed “Sultan of Scholars.” When the Mongols invaded Central Asia sometime between 1215 and 1220, his father with his whole family and a group of disciples set out westwards. On the road to Anatolia, Rumi encountered one of the most famous mystic Persian poets, Attar, in Iran's city of Nishapur, located in the province of Khor_s_n. 'Attar immediately recognized Rumi's spiritual eminence. He saw the father walking ahead of the son and said, "Here comes a sea followed by an ocean." He gave the boy his Asrarnama, a book about the entanglement of the soul in the material world. This meeting had a deep impact on the eighteen-year-old Rumi's thoughts and later on became the inspiration for his works. Baha' ud-Din, Rumi's father, became the head of a madrassa (religious school) and when he died Rumi inherited his position and succeeded him at the age of twenty-five. One of Baha' ud-Din's students, Sayyed Burhan ud-Din-e Muhaqqiq, continued to train Rumi in the religious and mystical doctrines of Rumi's father. For nine years, Rumi practiced Sufism as a disciple of Burhan ud-Din until the latter died in 1240-1. From then on started Rumi's public life. He became the teacher who preached in the mosques of Konya and taught his adherents in the madrassah.

On November 15, 1244, Rumi met the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi. This changed his life completely. Shams had traveled all over the Middle East searching and praying for friendship. A celestial voice asked Shams what he would give in return for such friendship. Shams answered, "My head." The voice told him about Rumi. On December 5, 1248, Shams disappeared. Some say he was murdered.

Rumi left the mortal realm on December 17, 1273. Above his tomb is written,
"When we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men."

Throughout Rumi's life he wrote beautiful poetry that Shahram Shiva said "is able to verbalize the highly personal and often confusing world of personal/spiritual growth and mysticism in a very forward and direct fashion. He does not offend anyone, and he includes everyone. The world of Rumi is neither exclusively the world of a Sufi, nor the world of a Hindu, nor a Jew, nor a Christian; it is the highest state of a human being..."

Rumi also began the order named Mevlevi, also known as the Whirling Dervishes. To remember God they dance and perform music, a ceremony they termed Sema. The Sema represents a mystical journey of man's spiritual ascent through mind and love to "Perfect." Turning towards the truth, the follower grows through love, deserts his ego, finds the truth and arrives at the "Perfect." He then returns from this spiritual journey as a man who has reached maturity and a greater perfection, so as to love and to be of service to the whole of creation.

I pray to Rumi that anyone who reads this will be filled with love.

The soul

Soul And The Old Woman

What is the soul? Consciousness. The more awareness, the

deeper the soul, and when

such essence overflows, you feel a sacredness around. It's 

so simple to tell one who

puts on a robe and pretends to be a dervish from the real

  thing. We know the taste

      of pure water. Words can sound like a poem but not have

  any juice, no flavor to

  relish. How long do you look at pictures on a bathhouse 

  wall? Soul is what draws

  you away from those pictures to talk with the old woman 

  who sits outside by the door

        in the sun. She's half blind, but she has what soul loves

  to flow into. She's kind, she weeps.

  She makes quick personal decisions, and laughs so easily.

-Jelaluddin Rumi