Rumi
Hafiz
RUMI
Jalaludin Rumi, 1207-1273, is one of the greatest mystics and mystic poets
known to history. His influence throughout the Islamic world for over
seven hundred years and more recently in Western countries is astounding.
Love is the essence of Rumi, love became his very being, love is the impetus
of all his poetry. Rumi was often quoted in the writings of Sant Kirpal
Singh, who referred to Rumi as a “great saint”.
Hafiz
We have been in love with God
for so very, very long.
Hafiz’s given name was Shams-ud-din Muhammad. He chose the name
Hafiz which means “memorizer” as a pen name when he began to write
poetry; it is a title given to someone who knows the entire Quran by heart, as
he apparently did.
Hafiz was born about 1320 and died about 1389. He was born in Shiraz, a
beautiful city in southern Persia.
Hafiz did not have an easy or comfortable life. He was the youngest of
three sons of poor parents. His father was a coal merchant who died when
Hafiz was in his teens. To help support the family, Hafiz worked as a
baker’s assistant by day and put himself through school at night.
Hafiz had a natural poetic gift. Even as a child, he was able to improvise
poems on any subject in any form and style. When he was in his early
twenties he won the patronage of a succession of rulers and wealthy
noblemen. One of his benefactors founded a religious college and offered
Hafiz a position as a teacher. Thus, during his middle years, he served as a
court poet and a college professor. He married and had at least one son.
Hafiz’s livelihood depended solely on patronage. Everyone admired his
literary brilliance, but his poetry boldly celebrated ideas that bordered on
heresy, and he had enemies among the rigorously orthodox who blacklisted
him whenever they came to power. Periodically, he would fall out of favor
and lose his position both at court and in the college. He would sometimes
use his skills in calligraphy to support his family until his fortunes improved.
At least once, however, he was forced to leave Shiraz. For several years he
lived as an exile, often in dire poverty. Finally, a new, more tolerant regime
allowed him to return home and resume his career.
During the long, unsettled middle period of his life, first his son and later his
wife passed away.
By the time he was sixty, Hafiz had become famous as a master poet. A
circle of students and companions gathered around him, and he served them
as a teacher and counselor until his quiet death at about the age of seventy.
Above all, Hafiz was a spiritual seeker and later a Sufi master. As a young
man, he became a disciple of the Sufi teacher Muhammad Attar who guided
him through a long and difficult spiritual apprenticeship that lasted most of
his adult life. At about the age of sixty, after forty years of discipleship,
Hafiz attained the goal of God realization.
The relationship between Hafiz and his master was not always an easy one.
In many accounts, Muhammad Attar is presented as a stern and demanding
figure who sometimes appeared to show no compassion at all for Hafiz.
Often Hafiz is portrayed as running to Attar in despair, pleading for
enlightenment or spiritual liberation after decades of frustration. Each time,
Attar would tell Hafiz to be patient and wait, and all would be revealed.
Hafiz’s poems expressed every nuance and stage of his growing
understanding of love. He wrote of the game of love, the beauty of the
Beloved, the sweet pain of longing, the agony of waiting, the ecstatic joy of
union. He explored different forms and levels of love - his delight in
nature’s beauty, his sweet affection for his wife, his tender feelings for his
child - and his terrible grief and loneliness when both his wife and his son
passed away. He wrote of his relationship with his teacher and his
adoration of God.
Hafiz shares his intoxication with the magic and beauty of divine life that
pulsates everywhere around us and within us. He urges us to rise on the
wings of love. He challenges us to confront and master the strongest forces
of our own nature. He encourages us to celebrate even the most ordinary
experiences of life as precious divine gifts. He invites us to “awake awhile”
and listen to the delightful music of God’s laughter: “What is this precious
love and laughter budding in our hearts? It is the glorious sound of a soul
waking up!” (from The Gift)
Sant Kirpal Singh called Hafiz “a great mystic poet” and “a great saint”.
-1There is no one in this world who is not looking for God. Everyone is
trudging along with as much dignity, courage, and style as they possibly can.
(Hafiz)
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you? You
feel the separation from the Beloved. Invite Him to fill you up; embrace the
fire. (Rumi)
God has planted in your heart the desire to search for Him. Do not look at
your weaknesses but focus on the Search. Every seeker is worthy of this
Search. Strive to redouble your efforts, so that your soul may escape from
this material prison. (Rumi)
Our desire for God is fanned by His love: it is His attraction that draws all
wayfarers along the path. Does dust rise up without a wind? Does a ship
float without the sea? (Rumi)
-2Whether you are fast or slow, eventually you will find what you are seeking.
Always devote yourself wholeheartedly to your Search. Even though you
may limp or be bent double, do not abandon your Search, but drag yourself
ever toward Him. (Rumi)
The worm is in the root of the body’s tree; travelers, it is late! Life’s sun is
going to set. During these brief days that you have strength, be quick and
spare no effort of your wings. (Rumi)
I once had a thousand desires, but in my one desire to know You all else
melted away. (Rumi)
Until the cloud weeps, how can the garden flourish? Until the baby cries,
how can the milk flow? A newborn baby understands: if she cries, a nurse
will come. But the Nurse of all nurses only gives milk when you cry out.
(Rumi)
-3If once in this world I win a moment with Thee, I will trample on both
worlds, I will dance in triumph forever! (Rumi)
The sweetness and delights of the resting-place are in proportion to the pain
endured on the Journey. Only when you suffer the pangs and tribulations of
exile will you truly enjoy your homecoming. (Rumi)
Oh, my Beloved, You will find us every night, on Your street, with our eyes
glued to Your window, waiting for a glimpse of Your radiant face. (Rumi)
O Master, I know You taught us that we couldn’t get to You without much
effort and without Your help, but all this silence is leading me astray. (Hafiz)
-4Weeping is like the clouds, and longing is like the heat of the sun. Just as
the sun’s heat is the cause of bringing rains from the clouds, by which this
world remains in existence; similarly, separation, longing for Him and
restlessness - all these are like fires which make the currents of grace and
mercy of God burst out, as the rain does from the clouds, and pacify the
hearts of devotees. Tears in the eyes and pain in the heart are the two pillars
between which we pass to go within. (Rumi)
To die in the sure hope of union with God is a sweet prospect; but to live
with the bitterness of banishment from God is to be consumed by fire.
(Rumi)
I wish I could give you a taste of the burning fire of love. There is a fire
blazing inside of me. If I cry about it, or if I don’t, the fire is at work, night
and day.(Rumi)
O Beloved, please come back. My heart is broken, and my body is a wreck
and almost dead. Come back: for I’ve been blinded from the lack of Your
Light, and only Light from Your window will open my eyes again. Grief
has conquered my bleeding heart; only Your face will free me of this pain.
(Hafiz)
-5From my first breath I have longed for Him. This longing has become my
life. This longing has seen me grow old. (Rumi)
It is the burn of the heart that I want. It is this burning which is everything more precious than a worldly empire - because it calls God secretly in the
night. (Rumi)
As your lover, all I’ve ever asked for is a glance. If I could only breathe
one breath with the Beloved, that would be enough. I have been Your lover
and been with You a thousand times; yet each time You see me, Your
question is always, “Who is he?” (Hafiz)
O Master, since You went away, Your lovers are drinking poison and are
dying off like flies. Why have You abandoned us this way? Have our
weeping and our prayers been too much for Your ears? Are there not tears
in Your eyes, too? (Hafiz)
O Friend, at this banquet You have set before us, how long must we sit here
with an empty plate? (Hafiz)
O Master, how many more tears will Hafiz have to cry? Won’t you call for
him now that his heart has been broken in two? (Hafiz)
-6O Master, You are so gracious. After all these years You still remember
who I am: the one who wears the dust of Your door like a crown. Tell me,
who taught You to be so generous to Your slaves? O Holy Bird, please
bless this path I’m on, for I’m new to this traveling, and it’s a long way I
have to go. O morning breeze, take my prayers to the Master, and tell Him
that each day I am on my knees at dawn. (Hafiz)
O Wayfarer, be like Hafiz: get up and make an effort! Don’t lie around like
a bum. He who throws himself at the Beloved’s feet is like a workhorse and
will be rewarded with boundless pastures and eternal rest. (Hafiz)
O Beloved, please allow us one look at Your face, for life is short and soon
You will be gone. Hafiz, when the way to the tower of the Beloved’s palace
is blocked, then in the dust of this door’s threshold let us put our head and
stay. (Hafiz)
-7O Master, I’ve spent my whole life loving you and have no regrets. If I die
in the dust of your doorway, dreaming of You, I will have lived a full life and
will die smiling there. (Hafiz)
My soul endures a magnificent longing. (Hafiz)
When I was separated from You, I closed my eyes to the world; but hope of
our union has given me back my life. From now on, I’ll go to no one else’s
door, for You are the only one I want to see. I have learned how to pray,
and now I can talk to You both night and day. (Hafiz)
O Beloved, there is no room left in my heart for anything but You! Please
show pity on poor Hafiz. He is wounded and in pain. Even if he seems
happy today, he is waiting for sunlight, and all it ever seems to do is rain.
(Hafiz)
O Winebringer, bring me some wine, for I am surely mad and need Your
cure if I am to give up all feasting and happiness for You! (Hafiz)
-8What else is there for me to do but to sit here and cry? I wouldn’t wish this
sadness on even my worst enemy. You are far away, and day and night I lie
grieving. And why shouldn’t I, when my heart says there is no hope? O
Beloved, where are You? Since You left, my heart has become a fountain,
and blood is pouring from my eyes. From the root of every eyelash trickles
a hundred drops of blood, and from my heart pour gallons more! Hafiz has
become a slave to this grieving. (Hafiz)
What have I done that was so bad that You won’t even accept my gifts or
recognize my name? This is Hafiz, and I am standing at Your door. Where
else is there for me to go? Where will I go, what will I do, what will I be,
what will be my plan? I’m sick of all this sorrow and deceit. (Hafiz)
As I walk through the beauty of this world praising Your name, not to white
rose, red narcissus, or lovely tulip am I drawn - but only to Your face.(Hafiz)
Love is both is own pain and its remedy; This irony is almost more than I
can take: the greater my effort, the worse the pain! (Hafiz)
-9The heart is right to cry even when the smallest drop of Light, of love, is
taken away. Perhaps you may kick, moan, scream in a dignified silence, but
you are so right to do so in any fashion until God returns to you. (Hafiz)
When the words stop and you can endure the silence that reveals your heart’s
pain of emptiness or that great wrenching-sweet longing, that is the time to
try and listen to what the Beloved’s eyes most want to say. (Hafiz)
-10I am a tethered falcon with great wings and sharp talons poised, every sinew
taut, like a Sacred Bow, quivering at the edge of my Self and Eternal
Freedom, though still held in check by a miraculous Divine Golden Cord.
Beloved, I am waiting for You to free me into Your Mind and Infinite Being.
I am pleading in absolute helplessness to hear, finally, Your words of grace:
Fly! Fly into Me! (Hafiz)
O Beloved, even against a thousand armies, with You on my side I have no
fear. The promise of union with You has kept me alive, and fearing
separation from You, many deaths I’ve already died. If the breeze should
take away Your scent, for each breeze that blows I’ll make a rip in my coat.
Do you think that I’ve been lying around sleeping all these years? Never!
Or that I’ve learned to be patient from all this separation and all this pain?
Lord, no! (Hafiz)
Patience is crowned with faith: where one has no patience, one has no faith.
The Prophet said, “God hasn’t given faith to anyone in whose nature there is
no patience.” (Rumi)
Faith brings relief to the heart from pain and suffering, weakness of faith
leads to despair and torment. (Rumi)
-11-
Beware! Don’t despair if the Beloved turns you down. If He sends you
away today, might He not call you to Himself tomorrow? If He shuts the
door on you, wait there and don’t go away. After testing your patience, He
will give you the seat of honor. (Rumi)
-12What happens when your soul begins to awaken your eyes and your heart
and the cells of your body to the great journey of love? First there is
wonderful laughter and probably precious tears and a hundred sweet
promises and those heroic vows no one can ever keep. But still, God is
delighted and amused you once tried to be a saint. What happens when
your soul begins to awake in this world to our deep need to love and to serve
the Beloved? O, the Beloved will send you one of His wonderful, wild
companions - like Hafiz! (Hafiz)
Pray to be humble so that God does not have to appear to be so stingy. O
pray to be honest, strong, kind, and pure, so that the Beloved is never
miscast as a cruel great miser. I know you have a hundred complex cases
against God in court, but never mind, wayfarer, let’s just get out of this mess
and pray to be loving and humble so that the Friend will be forced to reveal
Himself so near. (Hafiz)
Although your desire tastes sweet, doesn’t the Beloved desire you to be
desireless? The life of lovers is in death: you will not win the Beloved’s
heart unless you lose your own. (Rumi)
You’re all mixed up! For the sake of position, you come with reverence
before the blind and wait in the hall; but in the presence of those who can
see, you behave with disrespect. No wonder you’ve become fuel for the
fire of desire. (Rumi)
-13-
If you can disentangle yourself from your selfish self all heavenly spirits will
stand ready to serve you. If you can finally hunt down your own beastly
self you have the right to claim Solomon’s kingdom. You are that blessed
soul who belongs to the garden of paradise! Is it fair to let yourself fall
apart in a shattered house? You are the bird of happiness in the magic of
existence! What a pity when you let yourself be chained and caged. But if
you can break free from this dark prison named body soon you will see you
are the Sage and the Fountain of Life! (Rumi)
-14Paradise is surrounded by what we dislike; the fires of hell are surrounded
by what we desire. (Rumi)
Know that every bad habit is a thorn bush. After all, many is the time its
thorns have pierced your feet. (Rumi)
Brother, stand the pain! Escape the poison of your impulses! (Rumi)
Beware! Don’t allow yourself to do what you know is wrong, relying on
the thought, “Later I will repent and ask God’s forgiveness.” (Rumi)
If you are a true believer, arise now, enter the ranks of battle, for a feast has
been prepared for you in heaven. Close your lips against food and drink:
hasten toward the heavenly table. Keep your gaze steadfastly fixed on
heaven, quivering like the willow in your desire to attain it. (Rumi)
To become spiritual, you must die to self, and come alive in the Lord. Only
then will the mysteries of God fall from your lips. To die to self through
self-discipline causes suffering but brings you everlasting life. (Rumi)
-15Little by little God takes away human beauty: little by little the sapling
withers. Go recite, “To whomever we give a length of days, we also cause
them to decline.” Seek the spirit; don’t set your heart on bones! (Rumi)
People fancy they are enjoying themselves, but they are really tearing out
their wings for the sake of an illusion. (Rumi)
Fiery lust is not diminished by indulging it, but inevitably by leaving it
ungratified. As long as you are laying logs on the fire, the fire will burn.
When you withhold the wood, the fire dies, and God carries the water!
(Rumi)
The intelligent desire self-control; children want candy! (Rumi)
-16Let’s ask God to help us to self-control: for one who lacks it, lacks His
grace. (Rumi)
Don’t allow your animal nature to rule your reason. (Rumi)
Virtues and graces are the signs of a follower of God; they are the footprints
of one who is devoted to Him. (Rumi)
The discovery of treasure is by luck, and even more, it is rare: one must earn
a living so long as the body is able. Does earning a livelihood prevent the
discovery of treasure? Don’t retire from work: that treasure, indeed,
follows after the work. (Rumi)
God forbid! I seek nothing from created beings: through contentment there
is a world within my heart. (Rumi)
Everything, except love of the most beauteous God, even though outwardly
it seems as pleasant as eating sweets, is in reality an agony of spirit. What
is meant by agony of spirit? It is to advance toward physical death without
drinking the Water of Life. (Rumi)
-17For the lovers of God, He alone is the source of all joy and sorrow. He
alone is the true object of desire; every other kind of love is idle infatuation.
Love for God is that flame which, when it blazes, burns away everything
except God. Love for God is a sword which cuts down all that is not of
God. God alone is eternal; all else will vanish. (Rumi)
When the heart becomes whole, it will know the flavors of falsehood and
truth. When Adam’s greed for the forbidden fruit increased, it robbed his
heart of health. Discernment flies from one who is drunken with desire.
He who puts down that cup lightens the inner eye, and the secret is revealed.
(Rumi)
Your earthly beloved eclipses the face of the Divine; your worldly guide
drowns out the words of your true spiritual guide. Do not despair: make
yourself cheerful, call for help to Him who comes to the call. (Rumi)
I know there is a gold mine in you, when you find it the wonderment of the
earth’s gifts you will lay aside as naturally as does a child a doll. (Rumi)
-18The spiritually enlightened choose freely to devote themselves to the work
of the next world; the foolish choose freely the work of this. (Rumi)
Your lower, hellish nature tries to lead you into temptation, but you have
struggled hard and now your soul is full of purity. You have quenched the
fires of lust for God’s sake, and they have been transformed into the light of
guidance. The fire of anger has turned to forbearance, the darkness of
ignorance to knowledge, the fire of greed to unselfishness, and the thorns of
envy to the roses of love. You have extinguished these fires for the love of
God, and converted your fiery nature into a verdant orchard. The
nightingales of the remembrance and glorification of God sing sweetly in the
garden of your heart. Answering the call of God, you have brought the
water of the spirit into the blazing hell of your soul. (Rumi)
-19You have not danced so badly, my dear, trying to hold hands with the
Beautiful One. You have waltzed with great style, my sweet, crushed angel,
to have ever neared God’s heart at all. Our Partner is notoriously difficult
to follow, and even His best musicians are not always easy to hear. So what
if the music has stopped for a while. So what if the price of admission to
the Divine is out of reach tonight. So what, my sweetheart, if you lack the
ante to gamble for real love. The mind and the body are famous for holding
the heart ransom, but Hafiz knows the Beloved’s eternal habits. Have
patience, for He will not be able to resist your longings and charms for long.
You have not danced so badly, my dear, trying to kiss the Magnificent One.
You have actually waltzed with tremendous style, my sweet, O my sweet,
crushed angel. (Hafiz)
Why complain about life if you are looking for good fish and have followed
some idiot into the middle of the copper market? Why go crazy if you are
looking for fine silk and you keep rubbing your hands against burlap and
hemp sacks? Why complain if you are looking to quench your spirit’s
longing and have followed a rat into a desert? (Hafiz)
-20I know the voice of depression still calls to you. I know those habits that
can ruin your life still send their invitations. But you are with the Friend
now and look so much stronger. You can stay that way and even bloom!
Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins that may buy you just a moment of
pleasure, but then drag you for days behind a farting camel! (Hafiz)
Your tastes have become refined. It used to be if someone stole all your
coins or locked your sexual pleasures in a room you could not reach this
world would have no meaning and a thirst for a hemlock brew might arise.
But that was many lives ago. Now look at yourself: You are often still a
mess though these days, at times, you weep because you miss Him. (Hafiz)
Wayfarer, your whole mind and body have been tied to the foot of the Divine
Elephant with a thousand golden chains. Now, begin to rain intelligence
and compassion upon all your tender, wounded cells and realize the
profound absurdity of thinking that you can ever go anywhere or do
anything without God’s Will. (Hafiz)
Free will is the salt of our devotion to God, otherwise there would be no
merit in it. The earth revolves involuntarily, and its movement deserves
neither reward nor punishment. Only actions undertaken as a result of our
free will may be weighed on the Day of Judgment. (Rumi)
-21The soil is faithful to its trust: whatever you have sown in it, you reap the
same. But until springtime brings the touch of God, the soil does not reveal
its secrets. (Rumi)
This world and that world are forever giving birth: every cause is a mother;
the effect born is as a child. When the effect was born, it too became a
cause, so that it might give birth to wondrous effects. These causes follow
generation upon generation, but it takes a very well-illumined eye to see all
the links in the chain. (Rumi)
They are the chosen ones who have surrendered. (Rumi)
The world is full of remedies, but you have no remedies until God opens a
window for you. (Rumi)
I need more grace than I thought! (Rumi)
-22No one can keep us from carrying God wherever we go. No one can rob
His Name from our hearts as we try to relinquish our fears and at last stand
victorious. We do not have to leave Him in the mosque or church alone at
night; we do not have to be jealous of tales of saints, those intoxicated souls
who can make outrageous love with the Friend. Our yearning eyes, our
warm-needing bodies, can all be drenched in contentment and Light. No
one anywhere can keep us from carrying the Beloved wherever we go. No
one can rob His precious Name from the rhythm of my heart, steps and
breath. (Hafiz)
Your breath is a sacred clock, my dear - why not use it to keep time with
God’s Name? And if your feet are ever mobile upon this ancient drum,
the earth, O do not let your precious movements come to naught. Let your
steps dance silently to the rhythm of the Beloved’s Name! (Hafiz)
When the mind is consumed with remembrance of Him something divine
happens to the heart that shapes the hand and tongue and eye into the word
love. (Hafiz)
Water gets poured through a cloth to become free of impurities. The
Beloved’s Name is a mystical weave and pattern - a hidden sieve of
effulgence we need to pass through thousands of times. From my constant
remembrance of the Friend, all I now say is safe to drink. (Hafiz)
-23Never be without the remembrance of God, for His remembrance provides
the bird of the spirit with strength, feathers, and wings. (Rumi)
Remembrance of God instills in us a desire for the journey, and makes us
into travelers. (Rumi)
Separation from God is like a well; remembrance of Him is the rope. (Rumi)
-24Time is a factory where everyone slaves away, earning enough love to
break their own chains. (Hafiz)
Birds initially had no desire to fly, what really happened was this: God
once sat close to them playing music. When He left they missed Him so
much their great longing sprouted wings, needing to search the sky. Listen,
Hafiz knows, nothing evolves us like love. (Hafiz)
The birds’ favorite songs you do not hear, for their most flamboyant music
takes place when their wings are stretched above the trees and they are
smoking the opium of pure freedom. It is healthy for the prisoner to have
faith that one day he will again move about wherever he wants, feel the
wondrous grit of life - less structured, find all wounds, debts stamped
canceled, paid. I once asked a bird, “How is it that you fly in this gravity of
darkness?” She responded, “Love lifts me.” (Hafiz)
-25God wants to see more love and playfulness in your eyes for that is your
greatest witness to Him. (Hafiz)
I’ve been dead to this world for a long time. Every day my body grows
weaker and soon it will return to the earth. It’s not difficult to renounce this
life or this world, but to give up Your love, that is difficult - no, impossible.
(Rumi)
Because of Your love I have broken with my past. (Rumi)
If destiny comes to help you, love will come to meet you. A life without
love isn’t a life. (Rumi)
Love is the energizing elixir of the universe, the cause and effect of all
harmonies. (Rumi)
Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.
(Rumi)
If God invited you to a party and said, “Everyone in the ballroom tonight
will be my special guest,” how would you then treat them when you arrived?
Indeed, indeed! And Hafiz knows there is no one in this world who is not
upon His Jeweled Dance Floor. (Hafiz)
-26Love says, “I will, I will take care of you,” to everything that is near. (Hafiz)
Once a young woman asked me, “How does it feel to be a man?” And I
replied, “my dear, I am not so sure.” Then she said, “Well, aren’t you a
man?” And this time I replied, “I view gender as a beautiful animal that
people often take for a walk on a leash and might enter in some odd contest
to try to win strange prizes. My dear, a better question for Hafiz would
have been, ‘How does it feel to be a heart?’ For all I know is love, and I
find my heart infinite and everywhere!” (Hafiz)
This Path to God made me such an old sweet beggar. I was starving until
one night my love tricked God Himself to fall into my bowl. Now Hafiz is
infinitely rich, but all I ever want to do is keep emptying out my emerald
filled pockets upon this tear stained world. (Hafiz)
Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.” Of
course you do not do this out loud; otherwise, someone would call the cops.
Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not
become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language, what every other eye in this world is dying
to hear? (Hafiz)
-27The heart is the thousand-stringed instrument. Our sadness and fear come
from being out of tune with love. (Hafiz)
Come on sweetheart let’s adore one another before there is no more of you
and me. (Rumi)
One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have when I am lying on
my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough! (Hafiz)
When all your desires are distilled you will cast just two votes - to love
more, and be happy. (Hafiz)
-28-
We are not in pursuit of formalities or fake religious laws, for through the
stairway of existence we have come to God’s Door. We are people who
need to love, because love is the soul’s life; love is simply creation’s greatest
joy. Through the stairway of existence, O, through the stairway of
existence, Hafiz, have you now come, have we all now come to the
Beloved’s Door. (Hafiz)
-29What do sad people have in common? It seems they have all built a shrine
to the past and often go there and do a strange wail and worship. What is
the beginning of happiness? It is to stop being so religious like that. (Hafiz)
Jealousy and most all of your sufferings are from believing you know better
than God. Of course, such a special brand of arrogance as that always
proves disastrous, and will rip the seams in your caravan tent, then cordially
invite in many species of mean biting flies and strange thoughts - that will
beat you up! (Hafiz)
Master, why have You given us the power of free will? For all its potential,
all it does is make us cry. (Hafiz)
Why lay yourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and future? The mind
that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities will find no rest. Be kind
to yourself, dear - to our innocent follies. Forget any sounds or touch you
knew that did not help you dance. You will come to see that all evolves us.
(Rumi)
God created pain and sorrow so that happiness is clearly shown in contrast;
for hidden things are made manifest by means of their opposites: since God
has no opposite, He is hidden. (Rumi)
Dear ones, beware of the tiny gods frightened men create to bring an
anesthetic relief to their sad days. (Hafiz)
-30The suffering in the next world is beyond description. By comparison the
suffering needed in this world to prepare yourself for the next is light.
Happy are those who immerse themselves in the suffering required for
spiritual purification, and who take willingly upon themselves the pain of
serving God, and thereby mitigate the pain of the next world. (Rumi)
When God wishes to help, He lets us weep; but tears for His sake bring
happiness, and laughter will follow. Whoever foresees this is a servant of
God. Wherever water flows, life flourishes: wherever tears fall, divine
mercy is shown. (Rumi)
When God assigns a particular lot to a person, this does not preclude him
from exercising consent, desire, and free will. But when God sends
suffering, the spiritually weak react by fleeing from God; the lovers of God
react by moving closer to Him. In battle all fear death, but the cowards
choose to retreat while the brave charge toward the enemy. Fear carries the
courageous forward, but the weak-spirited die in themselves. Suffering and
fear are the touchstones: they distinguish the brave from the cowards.
(Rumi)
We should make all spiritual talk simple today; God is trying to sell you
something, but you don’t want to buy. That is what suffering is - your
fantastic haggling, your manic screaming over the price! (Hafiz)
-31If you tan the human soul with harsh discipline and suffering, it will
gradually become pure, lovely, and very strong. But if you cannot mortify
yourself, accept the sufferings God sends you, for afflictions sent by the
Friend are the means of your purification. (Rumi)
Happy are those who immerse themselves in the suffering required for
spiritual purification, and who take willingly upon themselves the pain of
serving God, and thereby mitigate the pain of the next world. (Rumi)
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your
house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves
from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their
place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have
room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things
will take their place. (Rumi)
-32This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace to extract the silver from
the dross. This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away. (Rumi)
What is the key to untie the knot of your mind’s suffering? What is the
esoteric secret to slay the crazed one whom each of us did wed and who can
ruin our heart’s and eye’s exquisite tender landscape? Hafiz has found two
emerald words that restored me that I now cling to as I would sacred tresses
of my Beloved’s hair: Act great. My dear, always act great. What is the
key to untie the knot of the mind’s suffering? Benevolent thought, sound
and movement. (Hafiz)
Once a man came to me and spoke for hours about “his great visions of
God” he felt he was having. He asked me for confirmation, saying, “Are
these wondrous dreams true?” I replied, “How many goats do you have?”
He looked surprised and said, “I am speaking of sublime visions and you ask
about goats!” And I spoke again saying, “Yes, brother - how many do you
have?” “Well, Hafiz, I have sixty-two.” “And how many wives?” Again
he looked surprised, then said, “four.” “How many rose bushes in your
garden, how many children, are your parents still alive, do you feed the birds
in winter?” And to all he answered. Then I said, “You asked me if I
thought your visions were true, I would say that they were if they make you
become more human, more kind to every creature and plant that you know.”
(Hafiz)
-33-
It is unanimous where I come from. Everyone agrees on one thing: It’s no
fun when God is not near. All are hunters. The wise man learns the
Friend’s weaknesses and sets a clever trap. Listen, the Beloved has agreed
to play a game called Love. Our sun sat in the sky way before this earth
was born waiting to caress a billion faces. The wise man learns what draws
God near. It is the beauty of compassion in your heart. (Hafiz)
-34In the morning when I began to wake, it happened again - that feeling that
You, Beloved, had stood over me all night keeping watch, that feeling that as
soon as I began to stir You put Your lips on my forehead and lit a Holy
Lamp inside my heart. (Hafiz)
It used to be that when I would wake in the morning I could with confidence
say, “What am ‘I’ going to do?” That was before the seed cracked open.
Now Hafiz is certain: There are two of us housed in this body, doing the
shopping together in the market and tickling each other while fixing the
evening’s food. Now when I awake all the internal instruments play the
same music: “God, what love-mischief can ‘We’ do for the world today?”
(Hafiz)
It is my goal to raise my head high, like the cypress, above the clouds.
From this height I can hear the music on the other side of the world’s sad
songs. (Hafiz)
-35Sometimes love tastes like this: The pain so sweet I beg God, “May I never
open my eyes again and know another image than what I have just seen.
May I never know another feeling other than your inconceivable immaculate
touch. Why not let Hafiz die in this blessed ruin?” (Hafiz)
-36My heart sits on the arm of God like a tethered falcon suddenly unhooded.
I am now blessedly crazed because my Master’s astounding effulgence is in
constant view. My piercing eyes, which have searched every world for
tenderness and love, now lock on the Royal Target - the Wild Holy One
whose beauty illuminates Existence! (Hafiz)
Hafiz himself is singing tonight in resplendent glory, for the cup in my heart
has revealed the Beloved’s face, and I have His oath that He will never again
depart. (Hafiz)
-37From the beginning of my life I have been looking for Your face, but today I
have seen it! Today I have seen the charm, the beauty, the unfathomable
grace of the face I was looking for. Today I have found You, and those who
laughed and scorned me yesterday are sorry that they were not looking as I
did. I am bewildered by the magnificence of Your beauty and wish to see
You with a hundred eyes! My heart has burned with passion and has
searched forever for this wondrous beauty that I now behold! My arrow of
love has arrived at the target. My soul is screaming in ecstasy. Every fiber
of my being is in love with You! (Rumi)
My soul is like a young doe-eyed maid with lips still bruised from last
night’s Divine Passion but my Master makes me live like a humble servant
when any king would trade his throne for the splendor my eye can see.
(Hafiz)
-38-
I am happy even before I have a reason. I am full of Light even before the
sky can greet the sun or the moon. Dear companions, we have been in love
with God for so very, very long. What can Hafiz now do but forever dance!
(Hafiz)
-39Like a great starving beast my body is quivering fixed on the scent of Light.
(Hafiz)
-40Sitting here loving like this alone again in God’s valley after that
magnificent storm of Your Presence just passed, I am like an elegant cypress
whose face and form your beauty ruined. Why not accuse you of infidelity
or much worse when every lover of God in this world would gladly testify
on my behalf. (Hafiz)
Feed your heart on the love of God that you may become immortal, and your
face illumined with Divine Light. (Rumi)
-41Ground yourself, strip yourself down, to blind loving silence. Stay there
until you see you are gazing at the Light with its own ageless eyes. (Rumi)
The rewards of a life of faith and devotion to God are love and inner rapture,
and the capacity to receive the Light of God. (Rumi)
Looking up gives Light, though at first it makes you dizzy. Get used to this
Light, unless you’re a bat! The sign of your having this Light is your vision
of the end. The lust of the moment is in truth your dark grave. (Rumi)
In this dreamlike world, the human spirit is shrouded by a veil as clouds
block out the stars, so it can no longer see its former spiritual abode. The
task of the human spirit on earth is to purify its heart to enable it to see
through the veil and focus on the spiritual realm. The heart must pierce the
mystery of this life and see the beginning and the end with unclouded vision.
(Rumi)
Your task? To work with all the passion of your being to acquire an Inner
Light, so you escape and are safe from the fires of madness, illusion, and
confusion that are, and always will be, the world. (Rumi)
-42One day the sun admitted, I am just a shadow. I wish I could show you the
Infinite Incandescence that has cast my brilliant image! I wish I could show
you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the Astonishing Light of your own
Being! (Hafiz)
The world is a prison and we are the prisoners: dig a hole in the prison wall
and let yourself out! (Rumi)
-43Come, join the honest company of the King’s beggars - those gamblers,
scoundrels and divine clowns who need Divine Love every night. Come,
join the courageous who have no choice but to bet their entire world that
God is Real. (Hafiz)
-44For God to make love, for the Divine Alchemy to work, the Pitcher needs a
still cup. Why ask Hafiz to say anything more about your most vital
requirement? (Hafiz)
Discernment flies from one who is drunk with empty desire. He who puts
away that cup illumines his inner eye, and the hidden is revealed. (Rumi)
-45The Saints are the true devotees of God, always listening to the Divine
Music within. That infuses life into the lovers of God. (Rumi)
I have awakened to find violin and cello, flute, harp and trumpet, cymbal,
bell and drum - all within me! From head to toe, every part of my body is
chanting and clapping! (Hafiz)
-46The ship you are riding on, look where it is heading: Your body’s port is the
graveyard. Realizing the destiny of each clay bowl tossed into the sky with
no one to catch it I finally accepted the Beloved’s kind offer to enroll in His
sublime course of Spirit Love. (Hafiz)
Those to whom death seems as sweet as sugar, how can their sight be
dazzled by the temptations of this earthly realm? Physical death holds no
bitterness for them, they see it as a blessed refuge from a prison cell into a
glorious garden. It will deliver them from a world of torment: no one
weeps for the loss of such nothingness! (Rumi)
Everyone is so frightened of death, but the true Sufis just laugh; nothing
overpowers their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not harm the
pearl. (Rumi)
-47Death is a favor to us, but our scales have lost their balance. The
impermanence of the body should give us great clarity, deepening the
wonder in our senses and eyes of this mysterious existence we share and are
surely just traveling through. (Hafiz)
If I were in the Tavern tonight, Hafiz would call for drinks and as the Master
poured, I would be reminded that all I know of life and myself is that we are
just a midair flight of golden wine between His Pitcher and His Cup. If I
were in the Tavern tonight, I would buy freely for everyone in this world
because our marriage with the cruel beauty of time and space cannot endure
very long. Death is a favor to us, but our minds have lost their balance.
The miraculous existence and impermanence of form always makes the
illumined ones laugh and smile. (Hafiz)
When I die and you wish to visit me, do not come to my grave without a
drum, for at God’s banquet mourners have no place. (Rumi)
Our death is our wedding with eternity. (Rumi)
-48If I die, don’t say that he died. Say he was dead, became alive, and was
taken by the Beloved. (Rumi)
Do not cry, “Alas, you are gone!” at my graveside: For me, this is a time of
joyful meeting! Do not bid me, “Farewell” when I am lowered into my
grave: I have passed through the curtain to eternal grace! (Rumi)
Death is in reality spiritual birth, the release of the spirit from the prison of
the senses into the freedom of God, just as physical birth is the release of the
baby from the prison of the womb into the freedom of the world. While
childbirth causes pain and suffering to the mother, for the baby it brings
liberation. (Rumi)
-49The body, like a mother, is pregnant with the spirit-child: death is the labor
of birth. All the spirits who have passed over are waiting to see how that
proud spirit shall be born. (Rumi)
Resist your temptation to lie by speaking of separation from God, otherwise,
we might have to medicate you. In the ocean a lot goes on beneath your
eyes. Listen, they have clinics there too for the insane who persist in saying
things like: “I am independent from the sea, God is not always around gently
pressing against my body.” (Hafiz)
With passion pray. With passion make love. With passion eat and drink
and dance and play. Why look like a dead fish in this Ocean of God?
(Rumi)
-50Where does poetry live? In the overpowering felt splendor every sane mind
knows when it realizes - our life dance is only for a few magic seconds, from
the heart saying, shouting, “I am so damn alive!” (Hafiz)
These sayings of mine are really a prayer to God, words to lure the breath of
that sweet One. If you seek an answer from God, how then can you fail to
pray? How can you be silent, knowing He always replies to your call, “O
Lord” with, “I am here.” His answer is silent but you can feel it from head
to toe. (Rumi)
May your soul be happy; journey joyfully.
(Rumi)