A Mine of Rubies~Rumi

 



 Last night I learned how to be a lover of God,
 To live in this world and call nothing my own.

 I looked inward
 and the beauty of my own emptiness
 filled me till dawn.
 It enveloped me like a mine of rubies.
 Its hue clothed me in red silk.

 Within the cavern of my soul
 I heard a voice of a lover crying,
 "Drink now! Drink now!" --

 I took a sip and saw the vast ocean --
 Wave upon wave caressed my soul.
 The lovers of God dance around
 And the circle of their steps
 becomes a ring of fire round my neck.

 Heaven calls me with its rain and thunder --
 a hundred thousand cries
 yet I cannot hear ...

 All I hear is the call of my Beloved.

        ~Maulana Rumi 

The path of Love

“The essence of God is love and the Sufi Path is the Path of Love. Love is to see what is good and beautiful in everything. It is to learn from everything, to see the gifts of God and the generosity of God in everything. It is to be thankful for all of God’s bounties. This is the first step on the road to the love of God. This is just a seed of love. In time, the seed will grow and become a tree and bear fruit. Then, whoever tastes of that fruit will know what real love is. It will be different for those who have tasted to tell of it to those who have not. When you find love, you will find yourself. When you have the knowledge of love, you will then feel peace in your heart. Stop searching here and there, the Jewels are inside you. This, my friends, is the holy meaning of love.” ~ Sufi Teachings of Rumi”

an amazing anecdote

There is a story which Sayyidina Jalaluddin Rumi tells of an ant that’s creeping across the carpet in a mosque, and the ant complains to God saying: “what is this, these bumps, and strange colours, and patterns, this must have been created just as a meaningless obstacle course, what a futile thing to have made.” But of course the carpet maker, looking at it from above can see the patterns and the purpose of it, and can see that the whole thing is perfect and is good. And Allah is often like that. We often can’t make sense of the misfortunes because we are two dimensional, we are at ground level, we can’t see what it all means, but the khalifa of Allah subhanahu wa’tala knows even if he can’t always see that this is a manifestation of Allah’s will which is always good and always perfect and always beautiful. ~ Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad