The Essential Rumi

by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Be careful, Rumi suggests, about shaming sexual behavior in an adolescent or anyone who hasn’t yet had his or her fill of erotic trancing. Often, the closest we come to surrender is orgasm. In Rumi’s symbology the rooster is a symbol for that energy.

Do camel bells say, Let’s meet back here Thursday night? Ridiculous. They jingle together continuously, talking while the camel walks.

Do you pay regular visits to yourself? Don’t argue or answer rationally. Let us die, and dying, reply.

I wish I knew what you wanted. You block the road and won’t give me rest. You pull my lead-rope one way, then the other. You act cold, my darling! Do you hear what I say? Will this night of talking ever end? Why am I still embarrassed and timid about you? You are thousands. You are one. Quiet, but most articulate. Your name is Spring. Your name is wine. Your name is the nausea that comes from wine! You are my doubting and the lightpoints in my eyes.

You are every image, and yet I’m homesick for you. Can I get there? Where the deer pounces on the lion, where the one I’m after’s after me? This drum and these words keep pounding! Let them both smash through their coverings into silence.

Even if the corpse washer binds my jaw shut, you’ll still hear this song coming out of my dead-silence.

Pray for a tough instructor to hear and act and stay within you. We have been busy accumulating solace. Make us afraid of how we were.