799. Your Soul Is So Close to Mine, by Jalal al-din Rumi

Your soul is so close to mine
I know what you dream.
Friends scan each other's depths;
Would I be a Friend, if I didn't?
A Friend is a mirror of clear water;
I see my gains in you, and my losses.
Turn away from me for one moment
My mouth fills and chokes with gall.
Like a dream that flows from heart to heart,
I, too, flow continually through all hearts.
Everything you think, I know;
Your heart is so close to mine.
I have other symbols, even more intimate,
Come closer still, dare to invoke them.
Come, like a real dervish, and dance among us,
Don't joke, don't boast I am already present.
n the center of your house I am like a pillar,
On your rooftop I bow my head like a gutter.
I turn like a cup in the heart of your assembly;
In the thick of your battles, I strike like an arrow.
When I give my life for yours, what Grace descends!
Each life I give gives you a thousand new worlds!
In this house, there are thousands of corpses.
You sit and say: "Here is my kingdom."
A handful of dust moans: "I was hair."
Another handful whispers: "I was bones."
Another cries: "I was old."
Yet another: "I was young."
Another shouts: "Stop where you are! Stop!
Don't you know who I am! I am so-and-so's son!"
You sit destroyed, astounded, and then suddenly Love appears.
"Come closer still," Love says, "it is I, Eternal Life."

(trans Andrew Harvey)

Source: The Rumi Collection

862. Ask the Rose About the Rose, by Jalal al-Din Rumi

The interpretation of a sacred text is true
if it stirs you to hope, activity, and awe;
and if it makes you slacken your service,
know the real truth to be this:
it's a distortion of the sense of the saying,
not a true interpretation.
This saying has come down
to inspire you to serve—
that God may take the hands
of those who have lost hope.
Ask the meaning of the Qur'an from the Qur'an alone,
and from the one who has set fire
to his idle fancy and burned it away,
and has become a sacrifice to the Qur'an,
bowing low in humbleness,
so that the Qur'an has become the essence of his spirit.
If an essential oil that has utterly devoted itself to the rose,
you can smell either than oil or the rose, as you please.

(trans Kabir Helminsky and Camille Helminsky)

Source: The Rumi Collection