Growing Large with Love

The Sound of Waves

Give up subtle thinking,
the twofold, threefold
multiplication of mistakes.

Listen to the sound of waves
within you.

— Excerpted from Rumi, Mathnavi IV: 3226-3241 Version by Coleman Barks “Say I Am You”

My King

I was dead and now I am alive.
I was in tears and now I am laughing.
The power of love swept over my soul
and now I am that eternal power.

My eyes are content.
My soul is fulfilled.
My heart is roaring.
My face glows like Venus.

You are the majestic fountain of the Sun
that pours upon my head.
I am the shadow of a willow tree
bent over and melting.

The knowledge of you has lifted me up,
Now I am a star shining above the seventh heaven.
I was a glitter in the night sky,
Now I am the Moon and the two hundred folds of heaven.
I was Joseph at the bottom of a well,
Now I am Joseph the King!

O famous Moon, shine on me.
A ray of your light
would turn my world into a rosegarden.

Now I will move in silence,
Like a chess piece,
Watching as my whole life
revolves around
the position of my King.

— Version by Jonathan Star “Rumi - In the Arms of the Beloved” by Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, New York 1997

True Identity

In form you are the microcosm;
in reality you are the macrocosm.

Excerpted from Rumi (Mathnawi IV: 521) Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski, “Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”

Something better in return

Should heartache enter your mind and ambush your joy,
it prepares the way for happiness.
Quickly it sweeps all others out of the house so that joy
may come to you from the Source of good.
It shakes the yellow leaves from the branch of the heart,
so that fresh leaves may grow continuously.
It pulls up the root of old happiness so that a new ecstasy
may stroll in from Yonder.
Heartache pulls up withered and crooked roots so that no
root may remain concealed.
Though heartache may extract many things from the heart,
in truth it will bring something better in return.

Excerpted from the Sunlight List - ”The Sufi Path of Love - The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi” translated by William C. Chittick

Coming back to wakefulness

“The Dream That Must Be Interpreted”
by Mevlana Jallaludin Rumi

We began as a mineral.
We emerged into plant life,
and into the animal state,
and then into being human,
and always we have forgotten our former states,
except in early spring
when we slightly recall
being green again.

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