A Star Without a Name
When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,
it easily forgets her
and starts eating solid food.
Seeds feed awhile on ground,
then lift up into the sun.
So you should taste the filtered light
and work your way toward wisdom
with no personal covering.
That's how you came here, like a star (I Love this part)
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.
-- Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I am You"
Maypop, 1994
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When the sucking (babe) is separated from its nurse, it
becomes an eater of morsels and abandons her.
Thou, like seeds, art in bondage to the milk of earth: seek
to wean thyself by (partaking of) the spiritual food (lit., "the food
of hearts").
Drink the word of Wisdom, for it hath become a hidden
(veiled) light, O thou who are unable to receive the unveiled
Light,
To the end that thou mayst become able, O Soul, to receive
the Light, and that thou mayst behold without veils that which
(now) is hidden,
And traverse the sky like a star; nay, (that thou mayst)
journey unconditioned, without (any) sky.
('Twas) thus thou camest into being from non-existence.
Say now, how didst thou come? Thou camest drunken (unconscious) .
-- Translation by Reynold A. Nicholson
"The Mathnawi of Jalalu'ddin Rumi"
Published and Distributed by
The Trustees of The E.J.W. Gibb Memorial
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~
Come, arise from the depths of your heart!
You are alive and born of the living.
O lovely one, aren't you suffocated
by this narrow tomb?
You are the Joseph of the time, the bright sun:
arise from this prison and show your face!
Your Jonah has been cooked and absorbed
in the belly of the fish:
to deliver him there is no way
but glorification of God.*
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Gur-e khvosh-tar az chonin del mar terâ
âkher az gur-e del-e khvod bartar â
Zendeh-'i va zendeh-zâd ay shawkh o shang
dam na-mi-girad to-râ zin gur-e tang
Yusof-e vaqti va khurshid-e samâ
zin cheh va zendân bar â va ru namâ
Yunoset dar batn-e mâhi pokhteh shod
mokhallesesh- râ nist az tasbih* bod
*al-Anbiyâ, 87
-- Mathnawi II: 3132-3135
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra
The saints come to the rescue of this world when hearing
from everywhere the moans of the oppressed.
They run towards them like God's mercy.
These fortresses against weakness,
these doctors of hidden disease,
Are pure love, pure justice, pure mercy; like God they
are unstained and impregnable.
-- Mathnawi II:1933-1936
Translated by Muriel Maufroy
Breathing Truth - Quotations from Jalaluddin Rumi
Sanyar Press - London, 1997
In form you are the microcosm;
in reality you are the macrocosm.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~
Pas beh surat `âlam-e asghar tuyi
pas beh ma`nâ `âlam-e akbar tuyi
-- Mathnawi IV: 521
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra