Only Breath
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or in the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing hu-man being.
Jalal al-Din Rumi
Ode 44
Hafez
Last night, as half asleep I dreaming lay,
Half naked came she in her little shift,
With tilted glass, and verses on her lips;
Narcissus-eyes all shining for the fray,
Filled full of frolic to her wine-red lips,
Warm as a dewy rose, sudden she slips
Into my bed – just in her little shift.
Said she, half naked, half asleep, half heard,
With a soft sigh betwixt each lazy word,
‘Oh my old lover, do you sleep or wake!’
And instant I sat upright for her sake,
And drank whatever wine she poured for me –
Wine of the tavern, or vintage it might be
Of Heaven’s own vine: he surely were a churl
Who refused wine poured out by such a girl,
A double traitor he to wine and love.
Go to, thou puritan! the gods above
Ordained this wine for us, but not for thee;
Drunkards we are by a divine decree,
Yea, by the special privilege of heaven
Foredoomed to drink and foreordained forgiven.
Ah! HAFIZ, you are not the only man
Who promised penitence and broke down after;
For who can keep so hard a promise, man,
With wine and woman brimming o’er with laughter!
O knotted locks, filled like a flower with scent,
How have you ravished this poor penitent!
The bhakti path
The bhakti path winds in a delicate way.
On this path there is no asking and no not asking.
The ego simply disappears the moment you touch
him.
The joy of looking for him is so immense that you
just dive in,
and coast around like a fish in the water.
If anyone needs a head, the lover leaps up to offer
his.
~Khabir
The Moment
The chirping of a little bird flying overhead
Suddenly broke my train of chaotic and agitated thoughts
One by one, my ponderings tumbled down
And shattered like fragile glass
I noticed everything around was talking to me
The apple tree, the squirrel, and the bowl
I continued walking in utter amazement
How strange
I was hearing the same message coming from all directions
O my friend, how quickly your life was spent
In the pursuit of endless thoughts!
Focus now on your breaths with love
And live in this very moment with every fiber of your being
Bestow light and bring joy
Be compassionate
And seek love
Dr Alireza Nurbakhsh
Enough Is Enough
Enough is enough
Talk to me with smile
You live in my heart
And yet you me beguile
I am charmed with your name on my lip
You try as usual and give me a slip
Enough is enough
You killed the ones who was already dead
Tossed like a ball with your baton on head
You choked my words in my throat
Your arrow hit the quarry and smote
Enough is enough
Trying to hide, I've caught you
Tied you with the lock of my hair
You are yet trying to flee
This time I'll allow no plea
Enough is enough
Says Bulleh, I am your slave, my Master
I long to have a glimpse of you
I plead with you time and again
Make ky heart your shell of an oyster
Enough is enough
Bulleh Shah
The Guest House
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 its 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.
~ Jalaluddin Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks
Who gets up early
to discover the moment light begins?
Who finds us here circling, bewildered, like atoms?
Who comes to a spring thirsty
and sees the moon reflected in it?
Who, like Jacob blind with grief and age,
smells the shirt of his lost son
and can see again?
Who lets a bucket down and brings up
a flowing prophet?
Or like Moses goes for fire
and finds what burns inside the sunrise?
Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies,
and opens a door to the other world.
Soloman cuts open a fish, and there’s a gold ring.
Omar storms in to kill the prophet
and leaves with blessings.
Chase a deer and end up everywhere!
An oyster opens his mouth to swallow one drop.
Now there’s a pearl.
A vagrant wanders empty ruins.
Suddenly he’s wealthy.
But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things
have gone with others. Unfold
your own myth, without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.
Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy
and tired. Then comes a moment
of feeling the wings you’ve grown,
lifting.
~ Rumi
Both this world and the next
are adrift within the soul.
The body hidden in the soul,
the soul secreted in the body
-- each is lost inside the other.
Emerge from your confusion,
find the inner seat of your humanity.
There, a single breath will fill you
with the answer to a hundred mysteries.
But if you waver in the Path,
lamentation will swallow you from head to toe.
Keep vigil at night and fast during the day,
until yearning for knowledge
surfaces within you.
Yearn and seek until everything,
even the yearning itself, evaporates.
~ Attar of Nishapur
Whatever comes, comes from a need,
a sore distress, a hurting want……….
When God gives this knowing,
inanimate stones, plants, animals, everything,
fills with unfolding significance.
The fish and the birds become protectors.
Remember the incident of Muhammed and the eagle.
It happened that as he was listening
to this inspired baby, he heard a voice
calling him to prayer. He asked for water
to perform ablutions. He washed his hands
and feet, and just as he reached for his boot,
an eagle snatched it away! The boot turned upside down
as it lifted, and a poisonous snake dropped out.
The eagle circled and brought the boot back,
saying, “My helpless reverence for you
made this necessary. Anyone who acts
this presumptuously for a legalistic reason
should be punished!”
Muhammed thanked the eagle,
and said, “What I thought was rudeness
was really love. You took away my grief,
and I was grieved! God has shown me everything,
but at that moment I was preoccupied within myself.”
The eagle,
“But chosen one, any clarity I have
comes from you!”
This spreading radiance
of a True Human Being has great importance.
Look carefully around you and recognize
the luminosity of souls. Sit beside those
who draw you to that.
Learn from this eagle story
that when misfortune comes, you must quickly praise.
Others may be saying, Oh no, but you
will be opening out like a rose
losing itself petal by petal.
Someone once asked a great sheikh
what sufism was.
“The feeling of joy
when sudden disappointment comes.”
The eagle carries off Muhammed’s boot
and saves him from snakebite.
Don’t grieve for what doesn’t come.
Some things that don’t happen
keep disasters from happening.
Rumi
I Have Learned So Much
I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself
A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
a Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even a pure
Soul.
Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me
Of every concept and image
my mind has ever known.
~ Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky
last night i dreamed a poem
so clear it was
from the comfort of my mattress
my inert mind created
and the words flowed onto the blank dreampage effortlessly
this morning only a phrase remains
the leftovers of the mental wrestling match i do not remember
are they love?
are they empathy?
are they the path to enlightenment?
no
only three words describing my existence since i first learned i was me
nasrudin is correct
Say, what you want to say-
In a loud and clear way.
Let it be audible to one and all
Let it be a clarion’s call.
Let your message be relished.
Let it be for a lasting bliss.
To shift focus of their fixed minds-
From dullness to illumination.
Your life’s experiences –
Bitter, sour and tense,
Or sweet, like honey
In rain, sun and shade.
Has taught you wisdom
Shown you God’s Kingdom _
To illumine your soul and mind
Lit candles, to spread light around.
~SL Peeran