From Rumi's Mathnawi

[Guest guest]

SOME WORDS OF WISDOM

 

There's no show of grief,or thought of gain or loss,

This is the blessed state of the Sufis even when awake.

He's asleep night and day to mundane affairs

Like a chrystal fountain pen in the hand of God.

So notice His mighty hand in the written script.

The unfortunate ignorant drown in sensual sleep.

Their wretched souls flounder on the sandy beach,

Their essentail spirit and vile body are both in dreams ,

With his cunning whistle the fowler calls them home

To receive God's mercy in His Court of Divine Justice .

 

God, who makes the dawn to break brings them back

From astral spheres to this world of name and form.

He clothes their souls in newly fashioned bodies

Burdened again with their past deeds and works.

The proud steeds of these souls are bare of saddle,

Their deep hypnotic sleep is the brother of death.

He ties a very long tether round their legs,

So they may return to Earth again at day break

To lead them from grazing in the green meadow

Back to pull the plough in their lonely furrow.

 

Would he had kept his soul as did Noah his Ark.

That this weak mind and body might be saved

From the vast flood of wakeing consciousness.

In this strange world there dwells many a Sage

In the deep cave of self abandonement,

The cave is within him, the Friend converses,

But our eyes and ears are well and truly sealed .