"There have been very few people who have moved and transformed as many hearts as Jalaluddin Rumi.

In the world of the Sufis, Mevlana Rumi is the emperor. His words have to be understood not as mere words, but sources of deep silences, echoes of inner and the innermost songs. He is the greatest dancer the world has known.

His dance is a special kind of dance. It is a kind of whirling, just the way small children whirl; standing on one spot they go on round and round. And perhaps everywhere in the world small children do that and their elders stop them saying, 'You will become dizzy, you will fall, you will hurt yourself,' and, 'What is the point of doing it?'



Jalaluddin Rumi made a meditation of whirling. The meditator goes on whirling for hours -- as long as the body allows him; he does not stop on his own. When whirling a moment comes that he sees himself utterly still and silent, a center of the cyclone. Around the center the body is moving, but there is a space which remains unmoved; that is his Being.

Rumi himself whirled for thirty-six hours continuously and fell, because the body could not whirl anymore. But when he opened

his eyes he was another man. Hundreds of people had gathered to see. Many thought he was mad: "What is the point of whirling?"

... Nobody can say this is a prayer; nobody can say this is great dance; nobody can say in any way that this has something

to do with religion, spirituality....

But after thirty-six hours when they saw Rumi so luminous, so radiant, so new, so fresh -- reborn, in a new consciousness, they

could not believe their eyes. Hundreds wept in repentance, because they had thought that he was mad. In fact he was sane

and they were mad.

And down these twelve centuries the stream has continued to be alive. There are very few movements of spiritual growth

which have lived so long continuously. There are still hundreds of dervishes. 'Dervish' is the Sufi word for sannyas. You cannot

believe it unless you experience, that just by whirling you can know yourself. No austerity is needed, no self-torture is needed,

but just an experience of your innermost being and you are transported into another plane of existence from the mortal to

the immortal. The darkness disappears and there is just eternal light.

Oh Jalaluddin!
You counseled me to "Tear down this house"
My House

Because I Love you
I'm taking your advice
Tearing it down

Brick
by
Brick

Plank
by
Plank

I'll start from the outside
And work my way in

People will stop and stare
"Another crazy person" they'll observe
"He's gone mad" they'll whisper as I break down the walls
"He's a fool" they'll note as I bring down the chimney
"He's lost" they'll gossip as I break the foundation
"Stay away from him" they'll warn as I sit in the rubble

"Were they right all along" I'll ask again and again
"Did I make a mistake"
"Did I burn my life on a whim"
"How do I know"
"Is it possible to know"

It's a lonely place this one
In the ruins
Tired and hungry
Gathering energy to dig
With the Pickaxe You gave me at birth

Alone
Homeless
Afraid

I Surrender...

beam me up, Scotty!

hundred percent proof Gaelic,
drawn from a shaft of wheat,
near Glasgow, or in the Canines
mountain range - strange that
so few mountain ranges are called
Canines - all weathered protruding -
man perfected the mountain,
constructed a mountain improvement
in Egypt... but reduced it to a status
of tomb, every stone a man dead,
and inside the womb of fancy
gold, no books... just gold and a
zombie flesh, papyrus rotten -
imagine waking up in the afterlife looking
like a ******* mummy - i'd rather wake
up like the Brahmin stated: elemental,
fiery, ******* - yeah, i know, the part
where we get to be part of the geological
history, compressed, burnt in diesel...
i don't mind the "covered in cow-****"
that much, surfs up on the Ganges;
**** alba corruptor primus.
that's how Latin translates - the verb before
the adjective - in Anglo-Saxon
the arithmetic is white man, prime corruptor.
****... the poem was about ****** Muslims...
well, i have a pair of aces and we're
rightly gambling solidarity...
Jalaluddin Rumi... and *Omar Khayyan...
they were ****-heads, winos and worse off
than the last Tsar of Russia, hashish smokers...
poets, defilers... what else?!
i'm not going for a citation, that's too scientific,
just trust me on this one, no one sober in
the right frame of mind writes words like that,
sanity and sobriety doesn't work like that,
you can stack supermarket shelves with
packaged goods, but poetry? nah, no regime,
all spontaneity - the similar thrill of theft -
you steal blanks and write whatever is jeopardy;
i swear to Allah the brimstone knee-******,
if your people don't start dipping their soul
in the fiery water of the second to none Styx
that's εθαε i'll be worried - dudes, you have
a reputation for pristine Persian poetry...
i'm done.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

By Jalaluddin Rumi