Rumi’s Sufi Prayer

“O my God, don’t leave me in the hand of this unreliable self.
Don’t make me agree with anyone but You.
I run to You from deceits, troubles of ‘myself’,
I am Yours.
Don’t give myself back to me…”

– Rumi

Ya Haqq

“That your drop may become a sea…”

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

XII

Every form you see has its archetype in the placeless world;
If the form perished, no matter, since its original is everlasting.
Every fair shape you have seen, every deep saying you have heard,
Be not cast down that it perished ; for that is not so.
Whereas the spring-head is undying, its branch gives water continually .
Since neither can cease, why are you lamenting?
Conceive the Soul as a fountain, and these created things as rivers:
While the fountain flows, the rivers run from it.
Put grief out of your head and keep quaffing this river water;
Do not think of the water failing; for this water is without end.
From the moment you came into the world of being,
A ladder was placed before you that you might escape.
First you were mineral, later you turned to plant,
Then you became animal: how should this be a secret to you?
Afterwards you were made man, with knowledge, reason, faith;

Behold the body, which is a portion of the dust-pit, how perfect it has grown!
When you have travelled on from man, you will doubtless become an angel;
After that you are done with this earth: your station is in heaven.
Pass again even from angelhood: enter that ocean,
That your drop may become a sea which is a hundred seas of ‘Oman.
Leave this ‘ Son,’ say ever’ One’ with all your soul;
If your body has aged, what matter, when the soul is young?

– from Selected Poems from the Divani Shams i Tabriz by Jalaluddin Rumi, translated by Reynold A. Nicholson.

Ya Haqq!

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.”

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not democracy.”   – Abraham Lincoln

Ya Haqq!

Note:   Born February 12, 1809, this year marks Abraham Lincoln’s 204th birthday.

Listen, O Dearly Beloved

Salaam and Greetings of Peace:

Listen, O dearly beloved!
I am the reality of the world, the center of the circumference,
I am the parts and the whole.
I am the will established between Heaven and Earth,
I have created perception in you only in order to be the
object of my perception.
If then you perceive me, you perceive yourself.
But you cannot perceive me through yourself,
It is through my eyes that you see me and see yourself,
Through your eyes you cannot see me.

Dearly beloved!
I have called you so often and you have not heard me
I have shown myself to you so often and you have not
seen me.
I have made myself fragrance so often, and you have
not smelled me.
I am the savor of food, and you have not tasted me.
Why can you not reach me through the object you touch
Or breathe me through sweet perfumes?
Why do you not see me? Why do you not hear me?
Why? Why? Why?

– Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi

Note:  The above is not really a poem as originally written in Arabic, but part of a chapter from ibn Arabi’s Kitab al-Tajalliyat (The Book of Theophanies).  However, since it was translated in the form of a poem by Henry Corbin in Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi,  it has become justly famous.

Ya Haqq!