Rumi
 

 

Jelaluddin Rumi was born on September 30, 1207, and died on December 17, 1273.

He is one of the world’s great mystical poets. During the first half of his life he was fairly conventional, very learned, and a teacher of the colleges of Konya in Turkey. Then he met that Presence which is called the Beloved, and also in this tradition, the Friend. In 1244 he encountered the powerful, wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz.

    'What I had thought of before as God,
    I met today in a human being.'

     

The mysterious conversations they had (sohbet) opened Rumi into a deep Friendship with existence, and non–existence, that became the spontaneous river of his poetry. His message of spiritual love speaks directly to our hearts after more than seven hundred years.
 

 

Poems
 

I

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

 
 

II

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.



 
III

 

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep.