I honor those who try
to ride themselves of any lying
who empty the self
and have only clear being there.
- - -
Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.
Don't try to see the distances.
That's not for human beings. Move within,
but don't move the way fear makes you move.
Walk to the well.
Turn as the earth and the moon turn,
circling what they love.
Whatever circles comes from the center.
---
This world is a watery shadow of ocean-love.
That sea of light cannot be contained
in single human beings, so leave fragments,
and be the mountain.
---
When light returns to its source,
it takes nothing
of what it has illuminated.
It may have shone on a garbage dump, or a garden,
or in the center of a human eye. No matter.
It goes, and when it does,
the open plain becomes passionately desolate,
wanting it back.
---
Every part of you has a secret language.
Your hands and your feet say what you've done.
---
Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside
are lame!
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
from The Essential Rumi, translations by C. Barks. 2004
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