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The Prophet said that women
totally dominate men of intellect and possessors
of hearts,
But ignorant men dominate women,
for they are shackled by the ferocity of animals.
--Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression,
a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're
a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of it's furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He
may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and
invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
--Rumi
This moment, this love, comes to rest in me
many
beings in one being
In one wheat grain a thousand sheep stacks
Inside the needle's eye
a turning night of stars
There
is a light seed grain inside
you fill it with yourself or it dies
I am caught in this curling energy, your hair
who
ever is calm and sensible
is insane!
--Rumi
Desse Barama (Peace)
by Hamza El Din
The world shines about me,
luminous as the moon, smiling like a rose,
and a sweet benediction
flows through everything existing.
How beautiful life is.
I
marvel at people who are not in love with life.
You, my girl, are beautiful,
and your beauty,
like the beautiful thought
of peace,
belongs to the eternity.
Detest war and destruction.
When you go to the riverbank,
and the sun sets in the evening,
the waters of the river will
be rippling softly,
and from a distance, in the
twilight, you will see white sails.
A song of the boatman will
come from there.
'Today no suffering, no suffering.'
The world shines about me,
luminous as the moon,
smiling like a rose.
THE LUTE
WILL BEG
You need
to become a pen
In the Sunīs
hand.
We need for
the earth to sing
Through our
pores and eyes.
The body
will again become restless
Until your
soul paints all its beauty
Upon the
sky.
Donīt tell
me, dear ones,
That what
Hafiz says is not true,
For when
the heart tastes its glorious destiny
And you awake
to our constant need
for your
love
Godīs lute
will beg
For your
hands.
Hafiz
Tender Words
--Rumi
Tender words we spoke
to one another
are sealed
in the secret vaults of heaven.
One day like rain,
they will fall to earth
and grow green
all over the world.
Good poetry makes the universe reveal a secret
--Hafiz
You Were Brave in that Holy War
You have done well
In the contest of madness.
You were brave in that holy war.
You have
all the honorable wounds
Of one who has tried to find love
Where the Beautiful Bird
Does not drink.
May I
speak to you
Like we are close
And locked away together?
Once I found a stray kitten
And I used to soak my
fingers
In warm milk;
It came to think I was five mothers
On one hand.
Wayfarer,
Why not rest your
tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes.
Come morning
I will kneel by your side and feed you.
I will so
gently
Spread open your mouth
And let you taste something of my
Sacred mind and life.
Surely
There is something
wrong
With your ideas of
God
O, surely there is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
If you think
Our
Beloved would not be so
Tender.
---"The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the great
Sufi Master" translated by
Daniel Ladinsky
Every child has known God
Every child has known God,
Not
the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does Anything weird,
But the God who knows
only 4 words.
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come Dance with Me , come dance.”
-- Hafiz
With That Moon Language
Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?
Stop Being So Religious
What
Do sad people have in
Common?
It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past
And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.
What is the beginning of
Happiness?
It is to stop being
So religious
Like That.
("The Gift" - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
I realize that the dawn
when we'll meet again
will never break,
so I give it up,
little by little,
this love.
But something in me laughs
as I say this, someone
shaking his head and chuckling
softly, Hardly,
hardly
--Rumi a la coleman barks...
Some Kiss We Want
There
is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of
spirit on the body.
Seawater
begs the pearl to break its
shell.
And
the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling!
At night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine.
Breathe into
me.
Close the language-door and
open the love window.
The moon
won't use the door, only the window.
--Rumi. Translator: Coleman Barks
Tired of Speaking Sweetly
Love wants to reach out and manhandle
us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.
If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He
would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you
no joy.
Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth
That
make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
Causing the world to weep
On too many fine days.
God
wants to manhandle us,
Lock us inside of a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.
The Beloved sometimes
wants
To do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out.
But when we hear
He is in
such a "playful drunken mood"
Most everyone I know
Quickly packs their bags and hightails it
Out of town.
It happens all the time in heaven
It happens all the time in heaven,
And some
day
It will begin to happen
Again on earth -
That men and women who are married,
And men and men who are
Lovers,
And
women and women
Who give each other
Light,
Often will get down on their knees
And while so tenderly
Holding
their lover's hand,
With tears in their eyes,
Will sincerely speak, saying,
"My dear,
How can I be more loving
to you;
How can I be more
Kind?"
--Hafiz
The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While
the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.
--Hafiz
Someone Should Start Laughing
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are
you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can
be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called
the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing -
Now!
A Golden Compass
Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any
classroom ever taught you
Because
An
empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear
Are always the testimony
You have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those
Who would imprison
your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company
Of the King’s beggars –
Those gamblers, scoundrels
and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous
Who have no choice
But
to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.
I will lead you into the Circle
Of the Beloved’s cunning thieves,
Those playful
royal rogues –
The ones you can trust for true guidance –
Who can aid you
In this Blessed Calamity of
life.
Hafiz,
Look
at the Perfect One
At the Circle’s Center:
He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,
Beyond all that is Rational,
To show this dear world
That Everything,
Everything in
Existence
Does point to God.
--Hafiz
What Happens?
What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And
the cells of your body
To the great Journey of Love?
First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears
And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep.
But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint.
What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in this
world
To our deep need to love
And serve
the Friend?
O the Beloved
Will send you
One
of His wonderful, wild companions ~
Like Hafiz.
From: 'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz' - Daniel Ladinsky
Dance, Dervish Dance
Dance, dervish dance----
bring the face of god before you.
only love
can lift the heart up so high that its true color is restored by the sun!
see him near and clapping, that perfect one who
fathers divine rhythm.
o dance, dervish dance,
and know you bring your master happiness whenever you smile.
last
night so many tears took flight because of joy that the sky god crowded and complained
when i discovered god hiding again
in my heart
and i could not cease to celebrate.
hafiz
A poet
A poet is someone
Who can pour Light into a cup
and raise it to nourish your
beautiful parched
holy mouth
--Hafiz
Manic Screaming
We should make
all spiritual talk simple today
God is trying sell you something but you dont want to buy
That is what your suffering
is:
your fantastic haggling
your manic screaming
over
price.
--Hafiz
My Eyes So Soft
Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly
let
it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
as few human or even divine ingredients can
Something
missing in my heart tonight
has made my eyes so soft
my voice so tender
my need of god
absolutely
clear.
--Hafiz
Constant Yearning
We are like lutes once held by God.
Being away from his warm body
Fully
explains
This constant yearning.
---Hafiz
Look
Look as long as you can
at the
friend you love
No matter whether that friend is moving away from you
or coming back toward you.
--Rumi
I didn't trust it for a moment,
but I drank it anyway,
the wine of my own poetry.
It
gave me the daring to take hold
of the darkness and tear it down
and cut it into little pieces.
--Lalla, Contemporary of Hafiz
The way of love is not a subtle argument.
The door
there is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling,
they're given wings.
--Rumi
THE SILENT ARTICULATION OF A FACE
Love comes with a knife,
not some shy question,
and not with fears
for its reputation!
I
say these things disinterestedly.
Accept them in kind.
Love is a madman, working his wild schemes, tearing off his
clothes,
running through the mountains, drinking poison,
and now quietly choosing annihilation.
A tiny spider
tries to wrap an enormous wasp.
Think of the spiderweb woven across the cave
where Muhammad slept!
There are
love stories,
and there is obliteration into love.
You've been walking the ocean's edge,
holding up your robes
to keep them dry.
You must dive naked under and deeper under,
a thousand times deeper!
Love flows down!!
The
ground submits to the sky and suffers
what comes.
Tell me, is the earth worse
for giving in like that?
Don't
put blankets over the drum!
Open completely.
Let your spirit-ear listen to the green dome's passionate murmur.]
Let
the cords of your robe be untied.
Shiver in this new love beyond all above and below.
The sun rises, but which
way
does night go?
I have no more words. Let soul speak with the silent
articulation of a face.
--Rumi
A Barroom View of Love
I would not want all my words
To
parade around this world
In pretty costumes,
So I will tell you something
Of the Barroom view of Love.
Love
is grabbing hold of the Great Lion's mane
And wrestling and rolling deep into Existence
While the Beloved gets rough
And
begins to maul you alive.
True Love, my dear,
Is putting an ironclad grip upon
The soft, swollen balls
Of
a Divine Rogue Elephant
And
Not having the good fortune to Die!
--Hafiz
My Sweet, Crushed Angel
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.
You have waltzed with great style,
My sweet, crushed angel,
To have ever neared God's heart at all.
Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
And even His best musicians are not always easy
To hear.
So what if the music has stopped for a while.
So what
If the price of admission to the Divine
Is out of reach tonight.
So what, my dear,
If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.
The mind and the body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,
But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.
Have patience,
For He will not be able to resist your longing
For Long.
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.
You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet,
O my sweet crushed angel.
-- Hafiz
* * * I saw you dancing last night
on the roof of your house
all alone.
I felt your heart longing for the Friend.
I saw you whirling
beneath the soft bright rose
that hung from an invisible stem in the sky.
So I began to change into my best clothes
in hopes of joining you,
even though I live a thousand miles away.
And if you had spun like an immaculate sphere
just two more times,
then bowed again so sweetly to the east,
you would have found God and me
standing so near
and lifting you into our arms.
I saw you dancing last night
near the roof of this world
---Hafiz
Dance when you're broken open.
Dance when you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free.
Struck, the dancer hears a tambourine inside her,
like a wave that crests into foam at the very top,
Begins.
Maybe you don't hear that tambourine,
or the tree leaves clapping time.
Close the ears on your head,
that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes.
There are other things to see, and hear.
Music. Dance.
A brilliant city inside your soul!
--Rumi
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