More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
All people on the planet are children, except for a very few. No one is grown up except those free of desire.
Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight. Be a connoisseur, and taste with caution.
Any wine will get you high. Judge like a king, and choose the purest, the ones unadulterated with fear, or some urgency about “what’s needed.” Drink the wine that moves you as a camel moves when it’s been untied, and is just ambling about.
Notice how each particle moves. Notice how everyone has just arrived here from a journey. Notice how each wants a different food. Notice how the stars vanish as the sun comes up, and how all streams stream toward the ocean. Look at the chefs preparing special plates for everyone, according to what they need. Look at this cup that can hold the ocean. Look at those who see the face. Look through Shams’ eyes into the water that is entirely jewels.
But listen to me: for one moment, quit being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you. God.
like the shadow of a rose, I live close to the rose. If I separated myself from you, I would turn entirely thorn. Every second, I drink another cup of my own blood-wine. Every instant, I break an empty cup against your door. I reach out, wanting you to tear me open.
Try and be a sheet of paper with nothing on it. Be a spot of ground where nothing is growing, where something might be planted, a seed, possibly, from the Absolute.
QUIETNESS Inside this new love, die. Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into color. Do it now. You’re covered with thick cloud. Slide out the side. Die, and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. The speechless full moon comes out now. SANAI
“Anything that comes and goes, rises and sets, is not what I love.”
Love is the astrolabe that sights into the mysteries of God.
