AL-HUDA
Foundation, NJ U. S. A
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The
good
will
return
to
you!
by Rumi
If you speak well of another, the good will return to you.
The good and praise you speak of another you speak in reality of
yourself. A parallel would be when someone plants a garden and
herb bed around his house. Every time he looks out he sees
flowers and herbs. If you accustom yourself to speak well of
others, you are always in a "paradise." When you do a good deed
for someone else you become a friend to him, and whenever he
thinks of you he will think of you as a friend and thinking of a
friend is as restful as a flower garden. When you speak ill of
someone else, you become detestable in his sight so that
whenever he thinks of you he will imagine a snake or a scorpion,
or thorns and thistles. Now, if you can look at the flowers in a
garden day and night, why would you wander in a briar patch or
snake pit? Love everybody so that you may always stay among the
flowers of the garden. If you hate everybody and imagine enemies
everywhere, it would be like wandering day and night in a briar
patch or snake pit.
The saints love everybody and see everything as good, not for
anyone else's sake but for their own, lest a hateful, detestable
image come into their view. Since there is no choice in this
world but to think of people, the saints have striven to think
of everybody as a friend so that hatred may not mar their way.
So, everything you do with regard to people and every
mention you make of them, good or evil, will all return to you.
Hence you make of them, good or evil, will all return to you.
Hence God says, "He who doth right, doth it to the advantage of
his own soul; and he who doth evil, doth it against the same"
[41:46], and "Whoever shall have wrought evil of the weight of
an ant, shall behold the same" [99:8].
from: Rumi's "Fihi Ma Fih"
The discourses of Rumi
Translated by W.M.Thackston, Jr.
Threshold Books, Vermont,1994
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