Selected by Kabir Helminski Let's ask God to help us to self-control: for one who lacks it, lacks His Grace. The undisciplined person doesn't wrong himself alone— but sets fire to the whole world. Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light; discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy. The peacock's plumage is [...]
Vision of the World Know, son, that everything in the universe is a pitcher brimming with wisdom and beauty. The universe is a drop of the Tigris of His Beauty, this Beauty not contained by any skin. His Beauty was a Hidden Treasure so full it burst open and made the earth more radiant than [...]
Rumi: Daylight, tr. by Kabir & Camille Helminski (Threshold Books, 1995) In the last decades of the Twentieth Century the spiritual influence of Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi is being strongly felt by people of diverse beliefs throughout the Western world. He is being recognized here in the West, as he has been for seven centuries in the Middle East and Western Asia, as one of the greatest literary and spiritual figures of all time. Different qualities of Rumi have been brought forth by a variety of new translations that have appeared during the nineteen-eighties. He has been presented as both refined and sensual, sober and ecstatic, deeply serious and extremely funny, rarefied and accessible. It is a sign of his profound universality that he has been so many things to so many people.
Excerpts from Jewels of Remembrance, passages from the Mathnawi of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, tr. by Kabir & Camille Helminski (Threshold Books, 1996).
The one who is ruled by Mind, without sleeping, puts her senses to sleep, so that unseen things may emerge from the world of the Soul. Even in her waking state, she dreams dreams, and opens thereby the gates of Heaven.
This world is like a tree, and we are the half-ripe fruit upon it. Unripe fruit clings tight to the branch because, immature, it's not ready for the palace.
May God have mercy on those who lead the way and those who come behind and those who fulfill their vows, and those who seek to fulfill them, with His Grace and bounty, His great benefits and favors!
Day and night there is movement of foam on the Sea. You see the foam, but not the Sea. Amazing! We are dashing against each other like boats: our eyes are darkened though we are in clear water.
The light of the senses and spirit of our fathers is not totally perishable like the grass, but, like the stars and moonbeams, they vanish in the radiance of the Sun.
The deliciousness of milk and honey is the reflection of the pure heart: from that heart the sweetness of every sweet thing is derived. The heart is the substance, and the world the accident: how should the heart's shadow be the object of the heart's desire?