Rumi

For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself.
From within, I couldn't decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name being called.
Then I walked outside.

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The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
 Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
 Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
 where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
 Don't go back to sleep.

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Stay together friends.
Don’t scatter and sleep.

Our friendship is made
Of being awake.

The waterwheel accepts water
And turns and gives it away , weeping.

That way it stays in the garden,
Whereas another roundness
Rolls through a dry riverbed looking
For what it thinks it wants.

Stay here, quivering with each moment
Like  drop of mercury.



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Gamble everything for love,
If you are a true human being.
If not, leave this gathering.

Half heartedness does not reach
Into majesty. You set out
To find God, but then you keep
Stopping for long periods
At mean spirited roadhouses.



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There are guides 
Who can show you the way
Use them

But they will not satisfy your longing
Keep wanting the connection with presence
With all your pulsing energy

The throbbing vein
Will take you further
Than any thinking

Mohammed said: Do not theorize
About essence. All speculations
Are just more layers of covering
Human beings love coverings

They think the design on the curtains
Are what is being concealed

Observe the wonders as they occur around you
Do not claim them. Feel the artistry
Moving through and be silent.


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Life is not for waiting
Do not postpone
Love is bringing everyone by the ear
To a place where reason cannot go
Where Muhammed’s eyes close in sleep
And the night grows quiet

Truth does not sleep. Sunlight does not go away
The stars are suns. Shams is everywhere.



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In the slaughterhouse of love
They kill only the best,
None of the weak or deformed.

Do not run away from this dying.
Whoever is not killed for love is dead meat.

.


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The way of love is not a subtle argument.
The door there is devastation.
Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom.
How do they learn it?
They fall, and falling they're given wings.


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One who does what the Friend wants done
will never need a friend.

There is a bankruptcy that is pure gain.
The moon stays bright
when it does not avoid the night.
A rose’s rarest essence
lives in the thorn.



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When I see you and how you are,
I close my eyes to the other.
For your Solomon’s seal I become wax
Throughout my body. 
I wait to be light.
I give up opinions on all matters
I become the reed flute for your breath.

You were inside my hand.
I kept reaching around for something.
I was inside your hand, but I kept asking questions
Of those who know very little.

I must have been incredible simple or drunk or insane
To sneak into my own house and steal money.
To climb over my own fence and take my own vegetables.
But no more. I have gotten free of that ignorant fist.
That was pinching and twisting my secret self.

The universe and the light of the stars come through me.
I am the crescent moon put up
Over the gate to the festival.