Mevlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Door of the Beloved

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

A man knocked at the door of his beloved.
"Who are you, trusted one?" thus asked the friend.
He answered: "I!" The friend said: "Go away,
Here is no place for people raw and crude!
"What, then, could cook the raw and rescue him
But separation's fire and exile's flame?
The poor man went to travel a whole year,
And burnt from separation from his friend,
And he matured, was cooked and burnt, returned
And carefully approached the friend's abode.
He walked around it now in cautious fear
Lest from his lips unfitting words appear.
His friend called out: "Who is there at my door?"
The answer: "You, dear, you are at the door?"
He said: "Come in, now that you are all I-
There is no room in this house for two 'I's!"

- Taken from the
Mathnawi

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

His Will













Bismillahir'Rahmanir'Rahim

Mevlana continued to counsel his people and invited them to the true path even in his final hours. His will was the following for his friends:

"I will for you;
to have a fear of God secretly and openly,
to eat less,
to sleep less,
to speak less,
to refrain from sins,
to continue fasting and praying,
to abstain always from lust,
to endure people's torment and ill-treatment,
to avoid of being with dissolute and ordinary men,
to be kind and wise people. For, the most beneficial man is the one who does a favor for others. And the most beneficial word is the one which is short and sincere."43

He also made a will for his son. Sultan Walad: "O Baha al-Din! If you want to like your enemy and your enemy to like you, then tell about him good things for forty days. He will become your friend, for there is a way going from tongue to heart as there is a way from heart to tongue. It is also possible to recieve God's love by His great names. God, the Most High, says: "O servants, in order your heart may get a pure heart, let not yourselves refrain remembering much about Me. The more pleasure you have, the more brightness of God's light in your heart you have. Just as the bread of the baker. The hotter the oven is, the hotter the bread is. If the oven is cold, it does not recieve bread." 44

Again, Mevlana, before taking his last breath, willed the following prayer to Siraj al-Din to read both in healthy and troubled times:

"O my Lord! I want to be healthy in order to remember you much. O my Lord! Give me no sickness that will cause me to forget your remembrance, that will extinguish my enthusiasm for you, and that will end my pleasure I feel when I remember You. Again, give me no good health that will make me lead astray, that will increase my wickedness and badness. O the Most Merciful of the merciful ones! please accept my sincere prayer with your endless mercy." 45

Friday, February 09, 2007

Love has nothing to do with...

Love has nothing to do with
the five senses and the six directions:
its goal is only to experience
the attraction exerted by the Beloved.
Afterwards, perhaps, permission
will come from God:
the secrets that ought to be told with be told
with an eloquence nearer to the understanding
that these subtle confusing allusions.
The secret is partner with none
but the knower of the secret:
in the sceptic's ear
the secret is no secret at all.
Mathnawi III, 1417-1424