“TWENTY SMALL GRAVES
There was a woman who bore a child almost every year, but the children never lived longer
than six months. Usually after three or four months they would die. She grieved long and
publicly. "I take on the work of pregnancy for nine months, but the joy vanishes quicker
than a rainbow." Twenty children went like that, in fevers to their small graves. One night
she had a revelation. She saw the place of unconditional love, call it the garden or source
of gardens. The physical eye cannot see its unseeable light. Lamp, green flower, these
are just comparisons, so that some of the love-bewildered may catch a fragrance. The woman
saw pure grace and, drunk with the seeing, fell to the ground. Those who have the vision said
then, "This morning meal is for those who rise with sincere devotion. The tragedies you've
had came from other times when you did not take refuge." "Lord, give me more grief.
Tear me to pieces, if it leads here." She said this and walked into the presence
she had seen. Her children were all there, "Lost to me," she cried, "but not to you."
Without this great grieving no one can enter the spirit.”
―
Rumi,
The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems – Coleman Barks's Sublime Renderings of the 13th-Century Sufi Mystic's Insights into Divine Love and the Human Heart
