Showing posts with label Rumi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rumi. Show all posts

Saturday, 1 June 2013

A Hundred Types of Prayer

 صد گونه نماز

امروز چو هر روز خرابیم خراب
مگشا در اندیشه  و برگیر رباب
صد گونه نماز است رکوع است و سجود
آن را که جمال دوست باشد محراب

 Today, like every day, we are ruined, ruined.
Don't open the door of worry, but take up the rubâb,
There are a hundred kinds of prayer, bowing, and prostration
It is the beauty, dear friend, of the mehrab

Maulana Rumi

Image: zawaj.com

Saturday, 21 January 2012

Beloved Allah

Beloved Lord, Almighty Allah
Aside from Whom there is nothing else
Please help us
To love Thee more.
Teach us to realize
That the sole purpose of Love is Beauty.
Bring us to know Thee as Thou art

And to find Thee in the one place
That is big enough to contain Thee
The hearth of Perfect Man.


Ameen.

Rumi

Friday, 1 July 2011

Fuzzy Sense of Something

Finding the strength and the energy to deal with the many changes surrounding a person is never easy. I am, by all accounts, not exactly the most flexible person that I know (I think), but here I am several weeks after recognising and accepting fate, bidding farewell to the part of the world that has been home for several years.

Take this week. Being a primary teacher is about relationships - with the children and with colleagues - and I really do care. To that end, I am sad, however, my last days of work brought a sense of release. I have found it incredibly cathartic letting go of material possessions and looking forwards. Not sure to what I've been looking, however. I just know that I wanted to pass over the job that I was doing, take a fresh look at myself and press on with whatever Allah has scribed for me. As I write this, I'm still figuring things out that all my life have eluded my sometimes fuzzy sense of focus. I do not guarantee that I will be any closer to knowing.

Confused? Sure. Here are some select lines that "speak" to me from a poem by Rumi. It fits a common theme of questions I ask and finishes with a line I often contemplate myself.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.  I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense
.


Oh, and I posted my tutor the first draft of the dissertation that I am writing. I'm not completed, but really want to be. More on that another time.

Monday, 11 April 2011

Talking Through The Door

The words inspire, and as such, Rumi, gets the occasional mention here. This verse, I dedicate to someone who has taken the time to call me a friend. I am humbled, so may I be so honourable as to live up to that ideal. 

Talking Through The Door

You said, Who's at the door?
I said, Your slave.

You said, What do you want?
To see you and bow.

We talked through the door. I claimed
a great love and that I had given up
what the world gives to be in that love.

You said, Such claims require a witness.
I said, This longing, these tears.

You said, Discredited witnesses.
I said, Surely not.

You said, Who did you come with?
This majestic imagination you gave me,

Why did you come?
The musk of your wine was in the air.

What is your intention?
Friendship.

Talking Through the Door Part 1
Talking Through the Door Part 2

Thursday, 23 December 2010

زہ څه یم؟

زہ څه یم؟ asks What am I? and to me it is faintly reminiscent of the question: Who am I? asked in Rumi's Only Breath.

Composed by Taj Rahim Dervaish who has given me permission to share it in this space*. Dera Manana, Dervaish Sahib!


زہ څہ یم؟
تاج رحيم درویش
* * *

دا وجود یم
زہ دا نہ یم کوم چې ښکارم
دا وجود زما دے
خو زہ دا وجود نہ یم
وجود خو پہ دنیا زما لباس دے
نن زما دے صبا بہ نہ وي
* * *
زہ خو د اوبه یوہ قطرہ یم سیند نہ یم
چې سیند لہ اورسم نو بہ سیند شم
وجود خو پنزہ اوښکو تہ غلام دے
زہ د اوښکو محتاج نہ یم
دَ مقام او د وخت پہ قابو نہ یم
د سترگے پہ یوئ رپ کے
پہ عرش یم او بیا تِہ راشم
* * *
زہ ھغہ نہ یم
زہ خو یو خیال یم
او خیال ھم د ھغہ یم
* * *


*Edited slightly, from the original draft with permission.

Monday, 27 September 2010

Only Breath - Rumi

Who am I?
 What is to be done, O Muslims?
For I do not recognize myself.
Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu
Buddhist, sufi, or zen.
Not any religion or cultural system.
I am not from the East or the West,
Not out of the ocean or up from the ground,
Not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all.
I do not exist,
I am not an entity in this world or in the next,
Did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.
Neither body or soul.
I belong to the beloved,
Have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.
  
English Translation Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks
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