Posts Tagged Rumi

Thanks to Taimur on Twitter, I found this portrait of Mevlana Rumi:

My interview which has appeared on Wikileaks Central.

Pak-Usa

The Dawn Media Group in partnership with WikiLeaks has been releasing the “Pakistan Papers.” Thus far, some of the revelations include the following: US was concerned that Pakistan would oppose its policies at the United Nations; US was worried Pakistan would purchase oil from Iran, allowing them to get a foothold in Pakistan; Pakistan’s government was upset with US funding for the Pakistan military, which led to increased civil-military tensions; Pakistan’s military asked for continued drone coverage; the US has had troops deployed on Pakistan soil; Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been financing jihadist groups in Pakistan and the US did not provide Benazir Bhutto with proper security. (more…)

Coleman Barks is a great translator. His recent essay here is a great read especially in terms of debates on Islamophobia

Rumi: The Big Red Book collects all the work that I have done on The Shams (Rumi’s Divani Shamsi Tabriz, The Works of Shams Tabriz) over the last 34 years. As I put this book together, I felt drawn to revise slightly almost every poem, to relineate and reword. So I hope this is a refreshed collection.

I sent a copy to my friend, Robert Bly. He describes in a letter what I have done with these poems: “You have given them pats on the shirt, set them on some local horse, and given the horse a clap on the rear, and the poems are gone, well almost gone.” He should know. He got me started on this path, when in June of 1976, he handed me a copy of Arberry’s translation of Rumi and said, “These poems need to be released from their cages,” by which he meant they needed to be translated out of their scholarly idiom into the lively American free verse tradition of Whitman. Hence this book. It is not all that I have done the last three decades, but I did spend some time, almost every day, with Rumi’s poetry. I do not regret it. Something about the practice keeps unfolding.

The organization of this book is unique. The odes (ghazals) are divided into 27 sections, each a Name for the Mystery. I avoid, wherever I can, using the word God. It feels so freighted, to me, with doctrine and division and violence. I don’t necessarily recommend this avoidance to anyone else. Eighteen of the Names are taken from my teacher, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen‘s The 99 Beautiful Names of Allah (The Opener, The Gatherer, The Patient, The Kind, The Intricate, Majesty, Light, Peace, The Grateful, The Living, etc). Two of the Names for Mystery are people I have been fortunate enough to meet, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Osho. Two other Names are also human beings, the Indian saint, Ramana Maharshi, and Shams Tabriz. Three other Names are borrowed. Dissolving the Concept of “God” (I have heard this somewhere, but I don’t remember where), Playing (Plotinus), Tenderness Toward Existence (Galway Kinnell’s phrase) and then there’s the next to last, Everything and Everyone Else. The last Name is one that is implied in every Sufi list of the 99 Names, The Name That Cannot Be Spoken or Written. (more…)

You have fallen in love my dear heart
Congratulations!

You have freed yourself from all attachments
Congratulations!

You have given up both worlds to be on your own
the whole creation praises your solitude
Congratulations! (more…)

No sound of clapping comes from only one hand.
The thirsty man is moaning, “O delicious water!”
The water is calling, “Where is the one who will drink me?”
This thirst in our souls is the magnetism of the Water:
We are Its, and It is ours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hich bâng-e kaff zadan na-âyad beh dar
az yeki dast to bi dasti degar
Teshneh mi nâlad keh “Ay âb-e govâr”
âb ham nâlad keh “Ku ân âb khvâr”
Jazb-e âbast in `atash dar jân-e mâ
mâ az ân-e U va U ham ân-e mâ

– Mathnawi III: 4397-4399
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”
Threshold Books, 1996
Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra

This caravan is not bringing our baggage — it has

none of the fire of our Friend.

Though the trees have all turned green, they

have caught no scent of our spring.

Your spirit may be a rosegarden, but its heart

has not been wounded by our thorn.

Your heart may be an ocean of realities, but its

boiling does not compare with that of our shore.

Although the mountains are very steady — by

God, they do not have our steadiness.

The spirit drunk with the morning wine has not

even caught a scent of our winesickness.

Venus herself, the minstrel of heaven, has not

the capacity for our work.

Ask us about the lion of God — every lion has

not our backbone.

Show not Shams-I Tabrizi’s coin to him who

has not our fineness!

– Ghazal (Ode) 695

Translation by William C. Chittick

“The Sufi Path of Love”

SUNY Press, Albany, 1983

” I am enslaved to fate, of all else say no more

With a sweet tongue speak, else I plea say no more

Speak not of troubles, of treasures, tell me more

And if of this you know not, be not troubled, say no more

I have gone insane, Love found me, then whispered in my ear

‘I am here, cry not aloud, curse yourself not, say no more’

I said ‘ O Love it is other than Thee that I fear’

Said ‘ it may thus appear, yet it is not so, say no more

I speak in you ear, to you bring secrets near

Speak with your head, confirm a nod, say no more’

I asked, ‘ What do I see? Is it an angel or a man? ‘

Said ‘ no more an angel than a man, is another, say no more’

‘Tell me what it is, why withhold, why the flames of my torment fan’

Said ‘ just be tormented, confused, say no more

For leaving this colorful and false abode, you have made no plan

Rise up and just depart, leave this home, say no more’

Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi