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Ode 1022
Yesterday at dawn, my Friend said, How long
will this unconsciousness go on?
You fill yourself with the sharp pain of Love,
rather than its fulfillment.
I said, "But I can't get to You!
You are the whole dark night,
and I am a single candle.
My life is upside down
because of You!"
The Friend replied, I am your deepest being.
Quit talking about wanting Me!
I said, "Then what is this
restlessness?"
The Friend, Does a drop
stay still in the Ocean?
Move with the Entirety,
and with the tiniest particular.
Be the moisture in an oyster
that helps to form one pearl.
~~Shariar Shahriari at www.shahriari.com
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Oh, if a tree could wander
and move with foot and wings!
It would not suffer the axe blows
and not the pain of saws!
For would the sun not wander
away in every night?
How could at every morning
the world be lighted up?
And if the ocean’s water
would not rise to the sky,
How would the plants be quickened
by streams and gentle rain?
The drop that left its homeland,
the sea, and then returned?
It found an oyster waiting
and grew into a pearl.
Did Josef not leave his father,
in grief and tears and despair?
Did he not, by such a journey,
gain kingdom and fortune wide?
Did not the Prophet travel
to far Medina, friend?
And there he found a new kingdom
and ruled a hundred lands.
You lack a foot to travel?
Then journey into yourself!
And like a mine of rubies
receive the sunbeams’ print!
Out of yourself, such a journey
will lead you to your self,
It leads to transformation
of dust into pure gold!
Look! This is Love - Poems of Rumi,
~~Annemarie Schimmel
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Happy was I
In the pearl's heart to lie;
Till, lashed by life's hurricane,
Life a tossed wave I ran.
The secret of the sea
I uttered thunderously;
Like a spent cloud on the shore
I slept, and stirred no more.
~A.J. Arberry - Rubayiat
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I will not tell the secret my Friend spoke.
That pearl, that precious trust, will not be pierced.
I have not slept these many nights for fear
That I might spill those words out in my sleep.
~From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi #347
Edited by Badiozzaman Forouzanfar (Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1988).
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The moment my eyes are flooded with tears
Her image, like a lustrous pearl, appears.
"Pour more wine for this dear honored guest,"
I tell my eyes, whispering in their ears.
~From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi #100
Edited by Badiozzaman Forouzanfar (Tehran, Amir Kabir, 1988).
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O you who've gone on pilgrimage -
where are you, where, oh where?
Here, here is the Beloved!
Oh come now, come, oh come!
Your friend, he is your neighbor,
he is next to your wall -
You, erring in the desert -
what air of love is this?
If you'd see the Beloved's
form without any form -
You are the house, the master,
You are the Kaaba, you! . . .
Where is a bunch of roses,
if you would be this garden?
Where, one soul's pearly essence
when you're the Sea of God?
That's true - and yet your troubles
may turn to treasures rich -
How sad that you yourself veil
the treasure that is yours!
From 'I Am Wind, You are Fire'
~~Annemarie Schimmel
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It is your turn now,
you waited, you were patient.
The time has come,
for us to polish you.
We will transform your inner pearl
into a house of fire.
You're a gold mine.
Did you know that,
hidden in the dirt of the earth?
It is your turn now,
to be placed in fire.
Let us cremate your impurities.
~Shahram Shiva, Hush Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi
(Jain Publishing, 1999)
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Sweet surrender
In the beloved's sea, fear not the waves,
No matter, if your vessel strays,
Toss, it may, side to side, to and fro,
In search of beloved's pearl you must go,
Today in the quite, the next in the noise,
One day in distress, another with poise
But the sea sees that you fear her,
Not believing to have a single prayer
The beloved's pearl remember:
"Fear not, thy heart surrender"
~Guive Mirfendereski with Shahrzad Irani @ Iranian.com December 9, 1999
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At every instant and from every side, resounds the call of Love:
We are going to sky, who wants to come with us?
We have gone to heaven, we have been the friends of the angels,
And now we will go back there, for there is our country.
We are higher than heaven, more noble than the angels:
Why not go beyond them? Our goal is the Supreme Majesty.
What has the fine pearl to do with the world of dust?
Why have you come down here? Take your baggage back. What is this place?
Luck is with us, to us is the sacrifice!...
Like the birds of the sea, men come from the ocean--the ocean of the soul.
How could this bird, born from that sea, make his dwelling here?
No, we are the pearls from the bosom of the sea, it is there that we dwell:
Otherwise how could the wave succeed to the wave that comes from the soul?
The wave named 'Am I not your Lord' has come, it has broken the vessel of the body;
And when the vessel is broken, the vision comes back, and the union with Him.
~Eva de Vitray-Meyerovitch, 'Rumi and Sufism'
trans. Simone Fattal Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press, 1977, 1987.
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See how every particle of the world is passing by, see how
everyone has arrived from a journey;
See how everyone desirous of his own sustenance has bowed
his head before his king.
See how, like the stars, for the sake of its glow, are all fallen
helpless at the foot of the sun;
See how, like torrents in a quest of water, all are tumbling head-
long toward their sea.
See how for each from the king's kitchen a table is prepared
according to his needs.
See how the sea of the world is contracted before this sea-
drinking cup.
And as for those whose sustenance is the king's countenance,
See how their mouths are filled with sugar of the king's beauty.
Behold with the eyes of Shams-i Tabrizi; see another ocean
filled with pearls.
~~ Ghazal 1910, from the Diwan-e Shams-i Tabrizi
Translation by A.J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
University of Chicago Press, 1979
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The Prophet said, “O bold seeker, beware! Do not contend
with any one who is sought.”
In thee is a Nimrod: do not go into the fire. If thou wish to
go in, first become Abraham!
When thou art neither a swimmer nor a seaman, do not cast
thyself (into the sea) from a (feeling of) self-conceit.
He (the saint) fetches pearls from the bottom of the sea, from
losses he brings gain to the surface.
If a perfect man (saint) take earth, it becomes gold; if an
imperfect one has carried away gold, it becomes ashes.
Since the righteous man is accepted of God, his hand in
(all) things is the hand of God.
The hand of the imperfect man is the hand of Devil and
demon, because he is in the trap of imposition and guile.
If ignorance come to him (the perfect man), it becomes
knowledge, (but) the knowledge that goes into the imperfect
man becomes ignorance.
Whatever an ill man takes becomes illness, (but) if a perfect
man takes infidelity, it becomes religion.
O thou who, being on foot, has contended with a horseman,
thou wilt not save thy head. Not hold thy foot (desist)!
“The Mathnawi of Jalalu’ddin Rumi”
Edited and translated by Reynold A. Nicholson 1: 1603-1614
Published by “E.J.W.Gibb Memorial”, Cambridge, England.
First published 1926, Reprinted 1990.
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Arise O son! burst thy bonds and be free!
How long with thou be captive to silver and gold?
Though thou pour the ocean into thy pitcher,
It can hold no more than one day’s store.
The pitcher of the desire of the covetous never fills,
The oyster shell fills not with pearls till it is content;
Only he whose garment is rent by the violence of love
Is wholly pure from covetousness and sin.
Hail to thee, then, O LOVE sweet madness!
Thou who healest all our infirmities!
Who art the physician of our pride and self-conceit!
Who art our Plato and our Galen!
Love exalts our earthly bodies to heaven,
And makes the very hills to dance with joy!
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I use the dust of my grief as salve for my eyes,
That my eyes, like seas, may team with pearls.
The tears which are shed because of His chastening
Are very pearls though men deem them mere tears.
‘Tis “the Soul of souls” of whom I’m making complaint.
Yet I do not complain. I merely state my case.
My heart says “He has injured me,”
But I laugh at these pretended injuries.
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How long will thou steal shoes from the asses of the world?
If thou must steal, steal pearls of the world above.
Thy sisters have found a kingdom that lasts forever
Thou cleavest to the kingdom of darkness.
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This visible ‘you’ which you fancy to be yourself
Is limited in place, the real ‘you’ is not limited
Why, O pearl, linger you trembling in your shell?
Esteem not yourself mere sugar-cane, but real sugar.
This outward ‘you’ is foreign to your real ‘you;’
Cling to your real self, quit this dual self.
Your last self attains to your first (real) self
Only through your attending earnestly to that union.
Your real self lies hid beneath your real self,
For “I’m the servant of him who looks into himself.”
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When the Prophet used to tell us deep sayings,
That chosen one, while scattering pearls of speech,
Would bid us preserve perfect quiet and silence.
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Whatever pearl you seek,
look for the pearl within the pearl!
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God drops into the heart, a single pearl-drop
Which is not bestowed on oceans or skies!
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A painting on a wall resembles a man,
But see what it is lacking in that empty form.
‘Tis life that is lacking to that mere semblance of man.
Go! Seek for that pearl it will never find.
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A swimmer brings pearls from the deep sea;
Yea, he plucks gain from the midst of perils.
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The drop, not yet become pearl, sever not from it’s shell.
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You’ll be an ocean of pearls
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He (Noah) became a soul bearing pearls in the tempest of the flood”
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When his (Ali’s) two sons were illumined by His light
They became the “pearly earrings” of highest heaven.
~~Misc verses translated by Edward H. Whinfield
“Spiritual Couplets of Rumi”
Pub. 2001 Omphaloskepsis, Ames, Iowa
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