Recognize that your imagination and your thinking
and your sense perception are reed canes
that children cut and pretend are horsies.

The Knowing of mystic Lovers is different.
The empirical, sensory, sciences
are like a donkey loaded with books,
or like the makeup woman’s makeup.
It washes
off.

But if you lift the baggage rightly, it will give you joy.
Don’t carry your knowledge-load for some selfish reason.
Deny your desires and willfulness,
and a real mount may appear under you.

Don’t be satisfied with the name of HU,
with just words about it.

Experience that breathing.
From books and words come fantasy,
and sometimes, from fantasy
comes union.

Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks

Rumi - Version by Coleman Barks

Read poem here >>

Solomon Marni has contributed this beautiful poem for JR. 

I thought I must give up on life
And turn into a stone;
The desert wind quite suited me:
No heart, no mind–just bone.
I thought it would be dumb to try
To want something again;
Wanting turns to need, and then
Transmogrifies to pain.

I laughed at people still in love
Who trusted someone’s word;
To make my happiness depend
On faith seemed quite absurd.

I lay alone and wonder-struck,
Sleepless in my bed,
Still numb, still dumb, still ice, ice cold,
Not knowing I was dead.

And then you came and shone upon
My meadow full of snow,
And saw the flowers only love
Could recognize and grow;

And made me feel so beautiful
I shed my cold, cold skin,
And opened up my heart to you,
And, fearful, let you in.

And now, my dear, I am in love,
With all that I’ve been through.
I know the worst of all the world,
And I believe in you

believe me
i wasn’t always like this
lacking common sense
or looking insane

like you
i used to be clever
in my days

never like this
totally enraptured
totally gone

like sharp shooters
i used to be
a hunter of hearts

not like today
with my own heart
drowning in its blood

nonstop asking and
searching for answers
that was then

but now
so deeply enchanted
so deeply enthralled

always pushing
to be ahead and above
since i was not yet hunted down
by this
ever-increasing love

Rumi 

– Translation by Nader Khalili
“Rumi, Fountain of Fire”
Cal-Earth Press, 1991

Courtesy Sunlight

Enough of learning, my friend!

Enough of learning, my friend!

To it there is never an end

An alphabet should do for you,

It’s enough to help you fend.

You’ve amassed much learning around,

The Quran and its commentaries profound.

There is darkness amidst lighted ground.

Without the guide you remain unsound.

Learning makes you a Sheikh or his minion,

And thus you create problems trillion.

You exploit others who know not what,

Misleading them with wild opinion.

You meditate and you say your prayers

You go and shout at the top of the stairs.

Your cry reaching the high skies,

Its your avarice which ever belies.

The day I learnt love’s lesson,

I plunged into the river of divine passion;

An overwhelming gale, I was confounded and lost

When Shah Inayat cruised me across.

Source: here

More on Bulleh Shah here and here

I had earlier posted a few poems by Ayesha Salman. She has sent me her new poem which, true to her style, is original and inventive with the diction.

Read poem here >>

Read poem here >>

 Guest Article by Vidya Rao - Click here >>

Read poem here >>

Now the nightbirds will be singing
of the way we love each other.
Why should they sing about flowers
when they’ve seen us in the garden?

Maybe they’re shy. They can’t look at the face,
so they describe feet.
If they keep dividing love into pieces,
they’ll disappear altogether. We must be gentle
and explain it to them.

Think of a mountain so huge the Caucasus Range
is a tiny speck. Normal mountains
run toward her when she calls.
They listen in their cave-ears and echo back.
They turn upsidedown when they get close,
they’re so excited.

No more words. In the name of this place we
drink in with our breathing, stay quiet like a flower.
So the nightbirds will start singing.

Rumi
Version by Coleman Barks
“Open Secret,”
Threshold Books, 1984

With due apologies to those who cannot understand Punjabi. I will work on a translation sometime later.
mar na mulla bulariyan
sanon apna yaar rajhawan dey

kanjri banyaan meri ezat na ghatdi
meinon naach ke yaar manawan deey

loog ishaq noon mool gindey
meinnoon gaal wich mala pawan deey

Bulleh shah odi oo janey
meinon apni toord nebha lein deey

Love and reputation, brother,
are not in harmony:
don’t stand at the door of reputation, if you are a lover.

Rumi

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

When you whirl, your eye sees the room whirling, too.
If you sail in a ship over the sea,
it seems the seashore is running past.
If your heart is oppressed with struggle,
the whole atmosphere of the world feels tight;
but if you are happy as your friends would wish,
this world seems to be a garden of roses.

Rumi
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”
Threshold Books, 1996

What can I write more about these lyrical lines and a thought process immersed in love.

Version by Coleman Barks
“Like This”
Maypop, 1990

Full entry here >>

Poem by Rumi click here >> 

Version by Coleman Barks
“Say I am You”
Maypop, 1994

Kashful Mahjub is one of the early treatises on Sufism and has shown light to many Sufis world-wide. Full entry here >>