The time for staying at home is over, It is time to enter the garden.
The dawn of happiness has risen, the moment of union and vision is now.

Rumi - from Diwan

The Master who’s full of sweetness
Is so drunk with love, he’s oblivious.

“Will you give me
some of your sweetness?”

“I have none,” he says,
unaware of his richness.

Rumi

If you can’t smell the fragrance
Don’t come into the garden of Love.
If you’re unwilling to undress
Don’t enter into the stream of Truth.
Stay where you are.

Don’t come our way.

Rumi

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age-old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell...
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

R.Tagore

Who is this? Who is the beauty who has arrived sweetly?
Who has arrived at our house drunken with shoes under arms.
By way of trickery came that ruby-lipped asking for fire.
Who does he intend to burn this time, I wonder.
He has come alone.
O come! You the source of fire, come! How could you ask us for fire?
By God this is another trick, O you who have arrived so unexpectedly.

Rumi, from Divan

You play with the great globe of union,
you that see everyone so clearly
and cannot be seen.

Even universal intelligence gets
blurry when it thinks you may leave.
You came here alone, but you create
hundreds of new worlds.

Spring is a peacock flirting with
revelation. The rose gardens flame.
Ocean enters the boat.

I throw it all away,
except this love for Shams.

Rumi

... There is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.

Rumi

A moment of happiness

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul,
You and I.

We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.

The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.

You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation,
You and I.

The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together,
You and I.

In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

Rumi

...

This lion of God
watches over me,

I sing as he roars.

He says, I've got you now.

...

I am your harp,
play me easy,
play me hard, or
don't touch my strings at all.

You know!
I think,
I've got You now.

Before I met you,
I had only one heart,
I had only one body,
I was only being.

But look at me now,

I've got You now.

from a poem translated by S. Shiva, Rumi

Only that Illumined One

Who keeps seducing
the formless into form.

Had the charm to win my Heart.

Only a Perfect One.

Who is always laughing
at the word Two.

Can make you know of

Love.

Hafiz

Think that you’re gliding out from the face of a cliff like an eagle.
Think you’re walking like a tiger walks by himself in the forest.
You are most handsome when you’re after food.
Spend less time with nightingales and peacocks.
One is just a voice, the other just a color.

Rumi

My heart is not to my heart’s liking.

How I wish I knew
How to unite the two.

Sufi poem

If the foot of the trees were not tied to earth, they would be pursuing me.. For I have blossomed so much, I am the envy of the gardens.

Rumi

Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls.

Rumi

Load the ship and set out. No one knows for certain whether the vessel will sink or reach the harbor. Cautious people say, "I'll do nothing until I can be sure". Merchants know better. If you do nothing, you lose. Don't be one of those merchants who wont risk the ocean.
Rumi

...
That's how you came here,
like a star without a name.

Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.

Rumi, from Matnahawi

Love and imagination are magicians

Who create an image of the Beloved in your mind
With which you share your secret intimate moments.

This apparition is made of nothing at all,
But from its mouth comes the question,

“Am I not your Loved One?”
and from you the soft reply

”Yes.Yes.Yes.”

Rumi

The Intellectual

The intellectual is always showing off,
the lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away, afraid of drowning,
the whole business of love is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose,
overs are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone, even surrounded with people,
like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble of giving advice to a lover gets nothing.
He's mocked by passion.

Love is like musk.
It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and lovers are its shade.

Rumi

I said, meet me in the garden.
You know the one,
it is called Smiling Spring.

There are nightingales chirping away,
wine and candle lights,
and companions as soft as
pomegranate blossoms.

You think this all would sound so perfect!
But without you by my side,
what use is the Smiling Spring?
And when you are with me,
what use are pomegranate blossoms?

Rumi

With the Beloved's water of life, no illness remains
In the Beloved's rose garden of union, no thorn remains.
They say there is a window from one heart to another
How can there be a window where no wall remains?

Rumi

The Happy Virus

I caught the happy virus last night
When I was out singing beneath the stars.

It is remarkably contagious
So kiss me.

Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.

Rumi

Dance when you are broken open,
Dance when you have torn the bandages off,
Dance in the middle of the fighting,
Dance in your blood,
Dance when you are perfectly free!

Rumi

Ghazal 2309

...
I went out of my house
a "drunkard" came to me
someone whose glance
uncovered a hundred
houses in Paradise!


Rocking and rolling
He was a sail
with no anchor but
He was the envy of all those "sober" ones
remaining on the shore.


Where are you from I asked
He smiled in mockery and said
one half from the east
one half from the west
one half made of water and earth
one half made of heart and soul
one half staying at the shores and
one half nesting in a pearl.


I begged
take me as your friend
I am your next of kin
He said I recognize no kin
among strangers.

I left my belongings and
entered this tavern
I only have a chest
full of words
but can't utter
a single one.

Rumi

Ghazal 838

If you pass your night
and merge it with dawn
for the sake of heart
what do you think will happen?

If the entire world
is covered with the blossoms
you have labored to plant
what do you think will happen?

If the elixir of life
that has been hidden in the dark
fills the desert and towns
what do you think will happen?

If because of
your generosity and love
a few humans find their lives
what do you think will happen?

If you pour an entire jar
filled with joyous wine
on the head of those already drunk
what do you think will happen?

Go my friend
bestow your love
even on your enemies
if you touch their hearts
what do you think will happen?

Rumi

The one who has not had a taste of love
Is but a piece of wood or stone to God.
Love extracts water from stones;
Love removes rust from mirrors.
infidelity seeks war, faith peace;
Love sets fire to war and peace alike.
Love opens its mouth in the sea of the heart;
It devours the two worlds like a whale.
Like a lion, love knows no ruse;
It does not change from a lion to a fox.

from Divan, Rumi

For attractive lips,
Speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes,
Seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure,
Share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair,
Let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.

For poise,
Walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

People, even more than things,
Have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed
never throw out anyone.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand,
You will find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands
One for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.

Audrey Hepburn

This is a gathering of Lovers.
In this gathering there is no high, no low,
no smart, no ignorant,no special assembly,
no grand discourse, no proper schooling required.

There is no master,no disciple.
This gathering is more like a drunken party,
full of tricksters, fools,
mad men and mad women.
This is a gathering of Lovers.

Rumi

Your love lifts my soul from the body to the sky
And you lift me up out of the two worlds.

I want your sun to reach my raindrops,
So your heat can raise my soul upward like a cloud.

Rumi

When the sweet glance of my true love caught my eyes
Like alchemy, it transformed my copper-like soul.

I searched for Him with a thousand hands,
He stretched out His arms and clutched my feet.

Rumi

I have become my own version of an optimist.
If I can't make it through one door I'll go through another door
...or I'll make a door.

Tagore

Have courage.
Be capable of loving.
Be happy in love.
Be joyful in victory.
Follow the dictates of your heart.

P. Coelho

With Passion

With passion pray.
With passion work.
With passion make love.

With passion eat and drink and dance and play.

Why look like a dead fish
in this ocean of God?

Rumi

The drum of the realization of the promise is beating, we are sweeping the road to the sky.
Your joy is here today, what remains for tomorrow?

Rumi

This shape I have, O master, who do I look like?
One moment I am a fairy, the next and enchanter of one.
Burning with enthousiasms, I am both the candle and the crowd gathered around it.
I am the smoke and the light, together and scattered at once.

from Divan, Rumi

"Why do you have to seek for paradise when it's right in front of you!"

Persian saying

"With will, fire becomes sweet water...and without will, even water becomes fire."

Rumi

"Load the ship and set out. No one knows for certain whether the vessel will sink or reach the harbor. Cautious people say, "I'll do nothing until I can be sure". Merchants know better. If you do nothing, you lose. Don't be one of those merchants who wont risk the ocean."

Rumi

Come to the orchard in spring..

Come to the orchard in spring.
There is light and wine and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

Rumi

The Freshness

When it's cold and raining,
you are more beautiful.

And the snow brings me
even closer to your lips.

The inner secret, that which was never born,
you are that freshness, and I am with you now.

I can't explain the goings,
or the comings. You enter suddenly,
and I am nowhere again.

Inside the majesty.

Rumi

Every morning, play your organon, like this!
Yes, my beauty! like this, like this!
Leave your harp next to Venus, O my moon!
enter, stamping your feet joyfully, like this!
When the crowd asks for fragrant musk
Untie your hair in a dance, like this.
If the firmament turns against your will, for one instance;
It is the day of assembly, O love hold my hand!
And guide me to the royal celebration, like this.

from Divan, Rumi