Death--Gateway to Eternity
by Rumi
If you bake bread with the wheat that grows on my grave you'll become drunk with joy and
even the oven will recite ecstatic poems.
If you come to pay your respects even my gravestone will invite you to dance so don't come without your drum.
Don't be sad. You have come to Gods feast.
Even death cannot stop my yearning for the sweet kiss of my love.
Tear my shroud and wear it as a shirt, the door will open and you'll hear the music of your soul fill the air.
I am created from the ecstasy of love and when I die, my essence will be released
like the scent of crushed rose petals.
My soul wants to leap and join the towering soul of Shams.
Ghazal (Ode) 683
Translated by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi
"Rumi: Hidden Music"
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
Here, Sunlight offers Ghazal (Ode) 1937, from Rumi's Diwan-e Shams, in versions by Jonathan Star and Coleman Barks, and in the A.J. Arberry translation, upon which Barks based his interpretive version:
FROM BOX TO BOX
Don't weep.
The joy that has gone
will come `round again in another form –
Have no doubt about this!
A child's first joy
comes from its mother's milk;
After the child is weaned
his joy comes from drinking sweet wine.
This supreme joy has no resting place -
It enters one form then another,
from box to box – an eternal movement
between heaven and earth.
Here it comes, pouring down from the sky,
seeping into the earth,
and rising up again as a bed of roses.
Now it is water, now a plate of rice,
Now the swaying trees, now a horse and rider.
It lies within these forms for awhile
then bursts forth to become something new.
Isn't this like our dreams? –
The body sleeps
while the soul moves on
to take other forms.
You say,
I dreamt I was a cypress, a bed of tulips,
the blossoms of roses and jasmines.
Then the soul returns, and you wake up –
the cypress is gone, the roses are gone.
I tell you truly,
everything you now see
will vanish like a dream.
I do not mean to trouble your, O friend,
with words so bold as these.
Perhaps you will only listen to God.
He speaks more gently than I.
But how will you ever hear Him with
All that blathering going on? –
Everyone is speaking about golden bread
yet no one has ever tasted it!
O my soul, where can I find rest
but in the shimmering love of his heart?
Where can I see the pure light of the Sun
but in the eyes of my own Shams-e Tabriz?
Version by Jonathan Star
"A Garden Beyond Paradise: The Mystical Poetry of Rumi"
Bantam Books, 1992
UNMARKED BOXES
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round
in another form. The child weaned from mother's milk
now drinks wine and honey mixed.
God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As rose, up from the ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.
Part of the self leaves the body when we sleep
and changes shape. You might say, "Last night
I was a cypress tree, a small bed of tulips,
a field of grapevines." Then the phantasm goes away.
You're back in the room.
I don't want to make any one fearful.
Hear what's behind what I say.
Tatatumtum tatum tatadum.
There's the light gold of wheat in the sun
and the gold of bread made from that wheat.
I have neither. I'm only talking about them,
as a town in the desert looks up
at stars on a clear night.
-- Version by Coleman Barks "Open Secret"
Threshold Books, 1984
Do not grieve over any joy that has gone forever, for it will
return to you in another form, know that for sure.
Did not the child find joy in its nursing and in milk? When the
child was weaned from milk, the joy came from wine and honey.
This joy is an unqualified thing which enters various forms,
moves from box to box between water and clay;
It suddenly displays its grace in the water of the rain, again
enters into the rosebed, and lifts its head from the earth.
Now it comes by water, now by way of bread and meat, now
by way of beauty, now by way of horse and saddle.
From behind these veils suddenly one day it peeps and shat-
ters all the idols, that which is neither that nor this.*
The soul in sleep leaves the body and appears in a
phantasm;
the body is deposed and idle -- in another form it is manifest.*
You might say, "In a dream I saw myself like a cypress, my
face as a bed of tulips, my body as roses and jasmine.*
That phantasm of the cypress vanished, the soul returned to
its house; verily in this and that is a warning to all beings.
I fear stirring up trouble, though I would have spoken what
may be spoken, God speaks fairer than I - do not let go of the
saddlestraps of the faith.
Fa'ilatun fa'ilatun fa'ilatun fa'iltat, if you have not gold-wheat
bread, yet speak the golden words.
At last, Tabriz of the soul, look upon the stars of the heart,
that you may see this mundane sun to be a reflection of
Shams-e Din.
Translation by A. J. Arberry
"Mystical Poems of Rumi 2"
The University of Chicago Press, 1991
*Any object which keeps one from being absorbed in divine love is an idol.
*See Nicholson's commentary of I: 400-1.
*"Kiyal (fantasy or phantasm) is the same as the World of
Similitude (`alam-e mesal), of which everything in the sensible
world (`alam-e sahada) is a reflection. The World of Similitude is
a purgatory stage between the worlds of souls and things."
Sajjadi Farhang-e `erfani, 204.
Tonight, take my spirit totally from my body, so that I
may no longer have shape and name in the world!
At this moment I am drunk in Thee - give me another
cup! Then I may be obliterated from the two worlds in Thee,
and be done with it.
When I have been annihilated through Thee and be-
come what Thou knowest, then I will take the cup of non-
existence and drink it, cup after cup.
When the spirit becomes radiant through Thee,
when the candle lights up - if not consumed by Thee it is raw,
raw.
Give me now the wine of nonexistence instant by
instant; when I have entered nonexistence, I will not know
the house from its roof.
When your nonexistence increases, the spirit will
prostrate itself to you a hundred times - oh you to whose
nonexistence thousands of existences are slave!
Give me wine, measure by measure! Deliver me from
my own existence! Wine is Thy special grace, intellect Thy
general grace.
Send up waves from nonexistence to steal me away!
How long will I pace the Oceans shore in fear?
The snare of my king Shams al-Din is catching
prey in Tabriz, but I have no fear of the snare, for I am
within it.
Ghazal 1716
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
SUNY Press, Albany, 1983
"I am searching everywhere for a human being who is alive
with the life inspired by divine breath.
Does such a being exist?"
"This bazaar," said the other, "is crowded with human beings."
The sage answered, "I want one
who is a human being on the two-eyed road:
in the moment of anger and at the time of desire.
Where is someone who is a human being
both when anger comes and at the moment of appetite?
From street to street, I search for someone like that.
Where in the world is one who remains human in both these
moments?
I would devote my life to such a human being."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Goft "Mi juyam beh-har su âdami
keh bovad hayy az hayât-e ân dami
Hast mardi?" Goft "In bâzâr por
mard mânand âkhar ay dânâ-ye horr"
Goft "Khvâham mard bar jâdeh-ye do rah
dar rah-e cheshm o be-hangâm-e sharah
Vaqt-e kheshm o vaqt-e shahvat mard ku
tâleb-e mardi-vânam ku beh-ku
Ku darin do hâl mardi dar jahân
tâ fedâ-ye u konam emruz jân"
-- Mathnawi V: 2890-2894
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)
"After the Meditation"
Now I see something in my listeners
that won't let me continue this way.
The ocean flows back in
and puts up a foam barrier,
and then withdraws.
After a while,
it will come in again.
This audience wants to hear more
about the visiting sufi and his friends
in meditation. But be discerning.
Don't think of this as a normal character
in an ordinary story.
The ecstatic meditation ended.
Dishes of food were brought out.
The sufi remembered his donkey
that had carried him all day.
He called to the servant there, "Please,
go to the stable and mix the barley generously
with the straw for the animal. Please."
"Don't worry yourself with such matters.
All things have been attended to."
"But I want to make sure that you wet the barley first.
He's an old donkey, and his teeth are shaky."
"Why are you telling me this?
I have given the appropriate orders."
"But did you remove the saddle gently,
and put salve on the sore he has?"
"I have served thousands of guests
with these difficulties, and all have gone away
satisfied. Here, you are treated as family.
Do not worry. Enjoy yourself."
"But did you warm his water
just a little, and then add only a bit of straw
to the barley?"
"Sir, I'm ashamed for you."
"And please,
sweep the stall clean of stones and dung,
and scatter a little dry earth in it."
"For God's sake, sir,
leave my business to me!"
"And did you currycomb his back?
He loves that."
"Sir! I am personally
responsible for all these chores!"
The servant turned and left at a brisk pace ...
to join his friends in the street.
The sufi then lay down to sleep
and had terrible dreams about his donkey,
how it was being torn to pieces by a wolf,
or falling helplessly into a ditch.
And his dreaming was right!
His donkey was being totally neglected, weak and gasping
without food or water all the night long.
The servant had done nothing he said he would.
There are such vicious and empty flatterers
in your life. Do the careful,
donkey-tending work.
Don't trust that to anyone else.
There are hypocrites who will praise you,
but who do not care about the health
of your heart-donkey.
Be concentrated and leonine
in the hunt for what is your true nourishment.
Don't be distracted by blandishment-noises,
of any sort.
-- Mathnawi II: 194-223; 260-63
Version by Coleman Barks
"The Essential Rumi"
Harper San Francisco, 1995
