Rumi Quotes

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There is a community of the spirit.

Join it, and feel the delight

Of walking in the noisy street,

And being the noise.

Drink all your passion,

And be a disgrace.

Close both eyes

To see with the other eye.

Open your hands,

If you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

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Be melting snow.

Wash yourself of yourself.

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Do you think I know what I’m doing?

That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?

As much as a pen knows what it’s writing,

Or the ball can guess where it’s going next.

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Words are not important in themselves, but as resonators for a center.

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Loving actions are the seed of something

Completely different, a living-place.

No origin is like where it leads to.

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The eye goes blind when it only wants to see why.

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I want to see you.
Know your voice.
Recognize you when you
first come 'round the corner.
Sense your scent when I come

into a room you've just left.
Know the lift of your heel,
the glide of your foot.
Become familiar with the way
you purse your lips
then let them part,
just the slightest bit,
when I lean in to your space
and kiss you.
I want to know the joy
of how you whisper
"more.”

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All day and night, music,

A quiet, bright

Reedsong.  If it

Fades, we fade.

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Let the beauty we love be what we do.

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Longing becomes more poignant if in the distance you can’t tell whether your friend is going away or coming back.  The pushing away pulls you in.

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These pains that you feel are messengers.

Listen to them.  Turn them to sweetness.

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Let yourself be silently drawn

By the stronger pull of what you really love.

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Everything is conversation.

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A hand shifts our birdcages around.

Some are brought closer.  Some move apart.

Do not try to reason it out.  Be conscious

Of who draws you and who not.

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Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

It doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place

Where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes

Rise into the atmosphere,

And even if the whole world’s harp

Should burn up, there will still be

Hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.

We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.

The graceful movements come from a pearl

Somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge

Of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive

From a slow and powerful root

That we can’t see.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the center of your chest,

And let the sprits fly in and out.

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There is no “other world.”

I only know what I’ve experienced.

You must be hallucinating.

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Remember the lips where the wind-breath originated,

And let your note be clear.

Don’t try to end it.

Be your note.

I’ll show you how it’s enough.

Go up on the roof at night

In this city of the soul.

Let everyone climb on their roofs

And sing their notes!

Sing loud!

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Don’t unstring the bow.

I am your four-feathered arrow

That has not been used yet.

I am a strong knifeblade word,

Not some if or maybe,

Dissolving in air.

I am sunlight slicing the dark.

Who made this night?

A forge deep in the earth-mud.

What is the body?

Endurance.

What is love?

Gratitude.

What is hidden

In our chests?

Laughter.

What else?

Compassion.

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