Wednesday, March 1, 2023

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī - He is the source

 

     Seek God in self-abasement and self-extinction,
    for nothing but form is produced by thinking.
    And if you derive no comfort except from form,
    then the form that comes to birth within you involuntarily is best.

    Suppose it is the form of a city to which you are going:
    you are drawn there by a formless feeling of pleasure, O dependent one;
    therefore, you are really going to that which has no location,
    for pleasure is something different from time and place.

    Suppose it is the form of a friend to whom you would go:
    you are going for the sake of enjoying his company;
    therefore, in reality you go to the formless world,
    though you are unaware of that being the object of your journey.

    In truth, then, God is worshiped by all, since all wayfaring
    is for the sake of the pleasure of which He is the source.


   
—Rumi
    Mathnawi VI: 3749-3755
    Camille and Kabir Helminski version

 


 

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