"Seek out the source"

Sunlight fell upon the wall;
the wall received a borrowed splendor.
Why set your heart on a piece of earth,
O simple one? Seek out the source
which shines forever.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Partaw-e khurshid bar divâr tâft
tâbesh `âriyati divâr yâft
Bar kolukhi del cheh bandi ay salim
watlob asli keh tâbad u moqim

--Mathnawi II: 708-709
Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
Threshold Books, 1996
Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra

The media:
http://tinyurl.com/skys3

"Seek out the source"

Solomon Ant

Solomon Ant

This feverish desiring does not calm
down, because God doesn't want it to.

Wishes and wantings come from there.
When my shirt is wet, blame the sea!

We soul-fish swim among the fishing
lines of what we want, unable to imagine

the beauty of the fisherpeople jiggling
the hooks! God was here before the

universe. What desire brought us into
being? I do not know. It's enough that

we go straight for what and who we are
drawn to. No. There's no crooked or

straight with this, though we persist in
judging actions and their source: bad,

bad, good, good. Think of an ant
that wants to fly. Wonderful! He digs at

the palace wall. He claims to be Solomon.
He demands a crown. This is how we are.

We are not what we're wanting, and yet
somewhat the longings are not apart from

us. Shams, will you untie this knot?

-- Ghazal (Ode) 2240
Version by Coleman Barks, with Nevit Ergin
"The Glance"
Viking-Penguin, 1999

The media:
http://tinyurl.com/y86rt9

Solomon Ant

"That lillies may grow"

Today, Sunlight offers Ghazal 1486, in a version by Barks, a
translation by Kolin and Mafi, and a translation by Arberry,
accompanied by a link to a Persian image:

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

"The Shape of My Tongue"

This mirror inside me shows . . .
I can't say what, but I can't not know!

I run from body. I run from spirit.
I do not belong anywhere.

I'm not alive!
You smell the decay?

You talk about my craziness.
Listen rather to the honed-blade sanity I say.

This gourd head on top of a dervish robe,
do I look like someone you know?

This dipper gourd full of liquid,
upsidedown and not spilling a drop!

Or if it spills, it drops into God
and rounds into pearls.

I form a cloud over that ocean
and gather spillings.

When Shams is here,
I rain.

After a day or two, lilies sprout,
the shape of my tongue.

-- Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
HarperSanFrancisco, 1995

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My soul is a mirror that reveals secrets,
I may not speak about them but
cannot deny knowing.
I run away from body and soul
where I belong, I swear, I do not know.
Seeker, if you want to know the secret,
first you must die to your self.
You may see me but do not think I am here
I have vanished into my Beloved
graced by the essence of love.
My arched back is the bow and my words,
the unbending arrows aimed at Truth.
My tears are testimony of my devotion to Shams
and from those tears white lilies will grow
that will speak the Truth.

-- Translation by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
"Rumi: Hidden Music"
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Like a mirror my soul displays secrets; I am not able to speak;
but I am unable not to know.
I have become a fugitive from the body, fearful as to the
spirit; I swear I know not -- I belong neither to this nor to that.
Seeker, to catch a scent is the condition of dying; look not
upon me as living, for I am not so.
Look not on my crookedness, but behold this straight word;
my talk is an arrow, and I am as a bow.
This gourdlike head on top of me, and this dervish habit of my
body -- whom am I like, whom am I like in this market of the
world?
Then this gourd on my head, full of liquor -- I keep it upside
down, yet I do not let a drop trickle from it.
And even if I do not let trickle, do you behold the power of God,
that in exchange for that drop I gather pearls from the ea.
My eyes like a cloud gather pearls from that sea; this cloud of
my spirit rises to the heaven of fidelity.
I rain in the presence of Shams al-Haqq-i Tabriz, that lillies
may grow in the form of my tongue.

-- Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 1"
The University of Chicago Press, 1968

The media:
http://tinyurl.com/sdrok

"That lillies may grow"

"As you sow, so shall you reap"

Beware Don't say, "Mind you, so and so sowed seed,
and then the locusts devoured it;
why should I bother sowing with such a risk?
Why should I let go of this corn-seed in my hand?"
Meanwhile, to your bewilderment,
one who did sow and labor
fills his barn with grain.
Since the lover patiently continued knocking at the door,
at last one day he gained an intimate meeting.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hin ma-gu "Kinke folâni kesht kard
dar folân sâli malakh kestesh be-khvord
Pas cherâ kâram keh injâ khawf hast
man cherâ afshânam in gandom ze dast"
Vânke u na-gozâsht kesht o kâr-râ
por konad kuri-ye to anbâr-râ
Chon dari mi kuft u az salvati
`âqebat dar yâft ruzi khalvati


-- Mathnawi III: 4800-4803
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)

The media:
http://tinyurl.com/y7fcwd

"As you sow, so shall you reap"

God and the World

From Professor Chittick's "The Sufi Path of Love," Chapter 5,
entitled "God and the World," come these Mathnawi verses:

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

"The Sufi said to the judge, "He whose aid is
sought has the ability to to make our trading without loss.
He who turns fire into trees and rosegardens
can also make this world a place without harm.
He who produces roses from the midst of thorns
can make our December into spring.
He from whom every cypress grows straight and
free can turn our grief into joy.
He from whom every nonexistent thing has
come into existence--how would He be any less if He made
that thing everlasting?
He who gives the body a spirit so that it may
live--how would He lose if He did not cause it to die?
After all, what would happen if that Generous
One gave each servant his soul's desire without toil,
And kept far from His weak creatures the wiles
of the ego and the temptations of the devil waiting in
ambush?"
The judge replied, "If there were no bitter
commands, beauty and ugliness, stones and pearls,
If there were no satan and ego, and self-will,
and if there were no blows, battle and war,
Then by what means would the King call His
servants, oh abandoned man?
How could He say, 'Oh patient man! Oh
forbearing man!'? How could He say, 'Oh brave man! Oh wise
man!'?
How could there be the patient, the sincere and
the spending without a highwayman and accursed
devil?
Rustam, Hamzah and a catamite would all be
one.* Knowledge and wisdom would be useless and abolished.
Knowledge and wisdom exist to distinguish the
right from the wrong: if everything were the right way, then
wisdom would be useless.
Do you consider it permissible to destroy both
worlds for the sake of keeping open the shop of your
worthless natural disposition?
Of course, I know that you are pure, not unripe,
and that your question is for the sake of the vulgar."

-- Mathnawi VI: 1739-55
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983

*Rustam is the archetypal heroic champion of ancient Persia,
immortalized by Firdawsi in the Book of Kings ("Shahnameh"). Hamzah
is an uncle of the Prophet, and one of the great warriors of early
Islam.

The media:
http://tinyurl.com/y4qsba

God and the World