The Big Red Book Quotes

“From "Wetness and Water"

How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave water?

Do not try to put out a fire
by throwing on more fire.
Do not wash a wound with blood.

No matter how fast you run,
your shadow more than keeps up.
Sometimes it's in front.

Only full, overhead sun
diminishes your shadow.

But that shadow has been serving you.
What hurts you blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“You have been walking the ocean's edge,
holding up your robes to keep them dry.

You must dive naked under and deeper under,
a thousand times deeper. Love flows down.

The ground submits to the sky and suffers what comes.
Tell me, is the earth worse for giving in like that?

Do not put blankets over the drum.
Open completely.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“Every fragile beauty, every perfect forgotten sentence,
you grieve their going away, but that is not how it is.
Where they come from never goes dry.
It is an always flowing spring.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“All religions. All this singing. One song. Peace be with you.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“Only union with you gives joy.
The rest if tearing down one building to put up another.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“You hurt and have sharp desire,
yet your presence is a healing calm.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“A Mixed-breed Apple"

A little mixed-breed apple,
half red, half yellow, tells this story.

A lover and beloved get separated.
Their being apart was one thing,
but they have opposite responses.

The lover feels pain and grows pale.
The beloved flushes and feels proud.

I am a thorn next to my master's rose.
We seem to be two, but we are not.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“All religions. All this singing. One sone. Peace be with you.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“Be silent now. Say fewer and fewer praise poems. Let yourself become living poetry.”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

“Be clear and smiling for those who are glad to see you.
Someone who is not, let his way darken like a pen leaving a faltering ink trail.”
― Rumi, The Big Red Book

“Osho was very generous with his genius. When I went to Poona in 1988, he answered a question of mine. “Rumi says, ‘I want burning, burning.’ What does this burning have to do with my own possible enlightenment?” “You have asked a very dangerous question, Coleman. Burning has nothing to do with your enlightenment. This work you have done with Rumi is beautiful. It has to be, because it is coming out of Rumi’s love. But for you these poems can become ecstatic self-hypnosis.” He pretty much nailed me to the floor with that one. Sufism is good, but end up with Zen. It was a fine hit he gave me. I am still drawn to the Sufi longing and love-madness, but clarity is coming up strong on the inside. I have not assimilated his wisdom yet, but I mean to. I am very grateful to him. But it is not wisdom for everyone. Osho crafted his words to suit the individual. Ecstatic self-hypnosis might be just the thing for someone else. He was showing me a daylight beyond any beloved darkness, an ecstatic sobriety beyond any drunkenness.”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

“You are granite. I am an empty wine glass. You know what happens when we touch.”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

“SOUL SPRING Everything visible has an invisible archetype. Forms wear down and die. No matter. The original and the origin do not. Every fragile beauty, every perfect forgotten sentence, you grieve their going away, but that is not how it is. Where they come from never goes dry. It is an always flowing spring. Imagine soul as a fountain, a source, and these visible forms as rivers that build from an aquifer that is an infinite water. The moment you come into being here a ladder, a means of escape, is set up. First, you are mineral, then plant, then animal. This much is obvious, surely. You go on to be a human developing reason and subtle intuitions. Look at your body, what an intricate beauty it has grown to be in this dustpit. And you have yet more traveling to do, the move into spirit, where eventually you will be done with this earthplace. There is an ocean where your drop becomes a hundred Indian Oceans. Where Son becomes One. Be sure of two things. The body grows old, and your soul stays fresh and young.”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

“No matter how hard you stare into muddy water, you will not see the moon or the sun.”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

“The soul is a stranger trying to find a home, somewhere that is not a where.”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

“Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover, then are taken off. That undressing, and the naked body underneath, is the sweetness that comes after grief.”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship

“giving my life”
― Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book: The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship