What in your life is calling you, when all the noise is silenced, the meetings adjourned… the lists laid aside, and the wild iris blooms by itself in the dark forest… what still pulls on your soul?
Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven. Although the road is never ending take a step and keep walking, do not look fearfully into the distance… On this path let the heart be your guide for the body is hesitant and full of fear…
Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that. Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. Look past your thoughts, so you may drink the pure nectar of This Moment. There is a loneliness more precious than life. There is a freedom more precious than the world. Infinitely more precious than life and the world is that moment when one is alone with God….
Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion. Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder. Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. Only from the heart can you touch the sky…
Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy. These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them. What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle. The cure for pain is in the pain. The wound is the place where the Light enters you. Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form. Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure. Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love. There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. Sorrow prepares you for joy…
This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond…
My soul is from elsewhere, I am sure of that, and I intend to end up there. This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief. Into this new love, die. Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky.
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~Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, Mevlânâ/Mawlānā, Mevlevî/Mawlawī, and more popularly simply as Rumi, was a 13th-century Persian poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran.
Source Excellence Reporter 2020, for the full article https://excellencereporter.com/2020/12/19/rumi-love-the-meaning-of-life/
