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"Ripened Fruit
Do you remember how you came into existence?
You may not remember
because you arrived a little drunk.
Let me give you a hint:
Let go off your mind and then be mindful.
Close your ears and listen!
It is difficult to speak to your unripeness.
You may still be in your springtime,
unaware that autumn exists.
This world is a tree to which we cling — —
we, the half-ripe fruit upon it.
The immature fruit clings tightly to the branch
because, not yet ripe, it's unfit for the palace.
When fruits become ripe, sweet, and juicy,
then, biting their lips,
they loosen their hold.
When the mouth has been sweetened by felicity,
the kingdom of the world loses it's appeal.
To be tightly attached to the world is immaturity.
As long as you're an embryo,
all you think about is sipping blood.
There's more to be said,
but let the Holy Spirit tell it.
You may even tell it to your own ear.
Neither I, nor some other "I," needs to tell you,
you who are also I.
Just as when you fall asleep,
you leave the presence of yourself
to enter another presence of yourself.
You hear something from yourself
and imagine that someone else
has secretly spoken to you in a dream.
But you are not a single "you,"
my friend — — you are the wide sky and the deep sea.
Your awesome "You," which is nine hundredfold,
is where a hundred of your you's will drown."
About Rumi
Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (جلالالدین محمد رومی) Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi (جلالالدین محمد بلخى) (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273) was an Afghan philosopher, theologian, poet, teacher, and founder of the Mevlevi (or Mawlawi) order of Sufism; also known as Mevlana (Our Guide), Jalaluddin Rumi, or simply Rumi.
Biography information from Wikiquote
Additional quotes by Rumi
In the slaughterhouse of love, they kill only the best, none of the weak or deformed. Don't run away from this dying. Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat.
The Ripe Fig
Now that You live here in my chest,
anywhere we sit is a mountaintop.
And those other images,
which have enchanted people
like porcelain dolls from China,
which have made men and women weep
for centuries, even those have changed now.
What used to be pain is a lovely bench
where we can rest under the roses.
A left hand has become a right.
A dark wall, a window.
A cushion in a shoe heel,
the leader of the community!
Now silence. What we say
is poison to some
and nourishing to others.
What we say is a ripe fig,
but not every bird that flies
eats figs.
"The Reed Flute's Song
Listen to the story told by the reed,
of being separated.
"Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.
At any gathering I am there,
mingling in the laughing and grieving,
a friend to each, but few
will hear the secrets hidden
within the notes. No ears for that.
Body flowing out of spirit,
spirit up from body: no concealing
that mixing. But it's not given us
to see the soul. The reed flute
is fire, not wind. Be that empty."
Hear the love fire tangled
in the reed notes, as bewilderment
melts into wine. The reed is a friend
to all who want the fabric torn
and drawn away. The reed is hurt
and salve combining. Intimacy
and longing for intimacy, one
song. A disastrous surrender
and a fine love, together. The one
who secretly hears this is senseless.
A tongue has one customer, the ear.
A sugarcane flute has such effect
because it was able to make sugar
in the reedbed. The sound it makes
is for everyone. Days full of wanting,
let them go by without worrying
that they do. Stay where you are
inside such a pure, hollow note.
Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,
who swim a vast ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it!
No one lives in that without
being nourished every day.
But if someone doesn't want to hear
the song of the reed flute,
it's best to cut conversation
short, say good-bye, and leave."