[Sunlight] Float, Trust, Enjoy

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Float, Trust, Enjoy

Muhammad said no one looks back and regrets leaving the
world. What's regretted

is how real we thought it was! How much we worried about
phenomena and how little

we considered what moves through form. "Why did I spend my
life denying death? Death

is the key to truth!" When you hear lamenting like that,
say, not out loud, but

inwardly, "What moved you then still moves you, the same
energy. But you understand

perfectly now that you are not essentially a body, tissue,
bone, brain, and muscle. Dissolve

in this clear vision. Instead of looking down at the six
feet of road immediately

ahead, look up: see both worlds, the face of the king, the
ocean shaping and carrying

you along. You've heard descriptions of that sea. Now
float, trust; enjoy the motion.

-- Mathnawi VI: 1450-66
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Soul of Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 2001

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The Prophet has said truly
that no one who has passed away from this world
feels sorrow, regret, or disappointment because of dying
but rather feels a hundred regrets for lost opportunities,
saying to himself, "Why didn't I keep death in mind--
death which is the storehouse of every good fortune and provision;
why, through seeing double, did I make the object of my life's attention
those fantasies that vanished at that fated hour?"
The grief of the dead isn't because of death;
no, it's because they focused on phenomenal forms
and didn't perceive that these are only the foam,
moved and fed by the Sea.

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Râst goftast ân Sepahdâr-e bashar
keh har ânkeh kard az donyâ gozar
Nistesh dard o darigh o ghabn-e mawt
balkeh hastesh sad darigh az bahr-e fawt
Keh "Cherâ qebleh na-kardam marg-râ
makhzan-e har dawlat o har barg-râ
Qebleh kardam man hameh `omr az haval
ân khayâlâti keh gom shod dar ajal"
Hasrat-e ân mordegân az marg nist
zânast k-andar naqsh-hâ kardim ist
Mâ na-didim in keh ân naqsh ast o kaf
kaf ze Daryâ jonbad o yâbad `alaf

-- Mathnawi VI: 1450-1455
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)

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[Sunlight] Float, Trust, Enjoy