Rumi read by Coleman Barks

[zerojimzero]

Thank you so much, cindynor!

[studiosguignol]

Were mystics like Rumi sharing their wisdom before Islam? Are the Sufis part of a more ancient tradition?

He sometimes sound like a Zen master.

[cindynor]

@studiosguignol There is a great book: "Mala of the Heart - 108 Sacred Poems" by Ravi Nathwani that has so much of this! At least for me, I have found that the mystics in every religion are saying the same things..the way I see it, it doesn't matter where the teacher comes from as long as he/she has something to offer. Then, I'll listen! You could check out: St Francis, Kabir, Mirabai, Hafiz, Tukaram, Ikkuyu ,Lalla, St Catherine.

[zerojimzero]

Is this taken from a CD that is available? I have been unable to locate this poem among the Barks' Rumi books that I have. If there is a CD available that contains this reading, I would like to be able to purchase it.  Thanks for any help anyone might be able to give.

[cindynor]

@zerojimzero I think the poem may be in "The Essential Rumi" but I don't have the book any longer. I have a lot of footage of Coleman so its likely that it came from some personal video or somewhere else. If I run across it again, I'll let you know! He is in a couple of films, as you may know...a recent one called "I Am" (there are 2 films named this right now. Get the one that is the documentary.) and another one called "Rumi: Poet of the Heart". Both fantastic!

[RAGSTAluvsDA90z]

words like muslim been misused just the way jesus has been manipulized just the way zionists took the jewish symbols, Rumi is a true spiritual leader (Imaam with Imaan)

[tejindia1]

universe is created by Allah . this means muslim and others (kaffir) are made by allah

we can tell other what we feel but cannot force it as mentioned in Qur'an and have no right to destroy Allah creation . only allah knows what is best , the time allah want every one to follow HIM ,all people will follow HIM and HIS teaching.

let us not become allah saviour as ALLAH IS SAVIOUR OF ALL.

[TaoistBuddhaDude]

Whenever I read Rumi it always brings me back to the realization that God is bigger than all of our religions!

[cindynor]

@ahpacific - HA! That is a good observation! Thanks!

[ahpacific]

It's so sad that we have a number of genius mystic poets like this in our culture, Zarathustra, Cyrus the great and many more other prominent timeless figures whose work transcends cultures, not to mention IT titans like the CEO of YouTube, yet the only Persian western media ever speaks about or shows the world is Ahmadinejad. It's the equivalent of personifying ancient Rome by Caligula or imagine how frustrated you would be if the only American eastern media ever covered was George Bush.

[oakdogfu]

@ahpacific

friend,

what you say is true. yet i am so thankful for knowing at least Rumi.

see what you think of my poor poem an hour after your comment.

Oak Dog

and if my frank language in the poem offends you please forgive me. But we are talking about Rumi.

acceptance

[5905752]

my friend can u please say the compleat poem?

I loved it spacialy in that voice.

[shorsh1OO]

Mewlana Rumi is the source of love

[SireAtwode]

Aye, beautiful

[soulvibrations108]

Awesome!

[RUMIandHAFIZ]

this is beautiful, just beautiful...

[RUMIandHAFIZ]

Beautiful

[bluey618]

Where can I find the original Persian written online?

[cindynor]

@bluey618 - Gee, I would have no idea. Let us all know if you find it!

[kakakaka20]

I am the servant of the Qur'an as long as I have life.

I am the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen one.

If anyone quotes anything except this from my sayings,

I am quit of him and outraged by these words.

Farsi Original

man banda-yé qur'ân-am, agar jân dâr-am

man khâk-é rah-é muHammad-e mukhtâr-am

gar naql kon-ad joz în, kas az goftâr-am

bêzâr-am az-ô, w-az-în sokhan bêzâr-am]

[cindynor]

from Rumi's poem, "Only Breath".

"Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, ..."

[InTheNameOfAllahThe1]

@cindynor "O reviling dog! thou makest a clamour, Thou makest thy abuse of the Koran thy destruction. This is not a lion, wherefrom thou canst save thy life, Or canst secure thyself from his talons! The Koran cries out even to the last day, "O people, given up as a prey to ignorance, If ye have imagined me to be only empty fables, Ye have sown the seed of reviling and infidelity. Ye yourselves who abuse me will see yourselves Annihilated, and made like a tale that is told!""

[InTheNameOfAllahThe1]

@cindynor

"Thou art as Muhammad in heaven, O brilliant Sun!

Be also as Muhammad on earth forever and ever!

So that earth and heaven on high may be united

With one heart, one worship, one aspiration!

And schism and polytheism and duality disappear,

And Unity abide in the Real Spiritual Being!"

Book IV.

STORY IX.

[KINOEYE83]

thank you! you told this ignorant people in the words of Rumis own words!

[artistdigital]

I am a lover, and I deal in love. Sow flowers,

So your surroundings become a garden

Don’t sow thorns; for they will prick your feet.

We are all one body,

Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.

Rehman Baba Sufi

[DharmaMaji]

@artistdigital Where can I find this beautiful poem? I really like it!

[shorsh1OO]

lol its true we read his books every week he is from afghanistan :) and a proud muslim believe in what you want to

he was Sufi

[shorsh1OO]

Rumi was a muslim

Look at his grave and he said he is a slave of the Holy Quran as long as he lives.

[CreatorChannel]

@shorsh1OO your ignorance kills innocents

[mullahnasruddinQQ]

My heart is melting.

Thank you so much for allowing me to find this here!

[pathWithHeart]

so much beauty has been brought from This.

[pathWithHeart]

and so is mine my friend.

[Ferdos200]

@mullahnasruddinQQ i wish you could read persian! Runi's native. i speak english and Persian and many other languages but i love I LOVE reading rumi's poems in persian. it takes me to a whole different world. i was 22 when i really began to lean who rumi is at 24 i now HAVE to read a poem of him every day and think about what he says and how much meaning is lying in under those letters. it gives me energy to live that day better then yesterday.

[SirianKings]

Rumi was too smart to be a traditional Muslim.

[cindynor]

There is a Long Long Long way from someone who follows a religion to someone who is enlightened. Rumi was enlightened. Do you mind if I have some fun and tweek your comment to say "Rumi was too enlightened to be a traditional Muslim"? ;-)

(I hope I'm not changing your meaning! Its just that your sentiment inspired me :)

[SirianKings]

Thanks for the tweak.

Though, the reason I put it boldly is because I wanted the religious folks to think.

[slimvictor]

I agree.

[ezou7]

I agree with both of you, in that there is a boundary set by any form of faith which is empty of thoughts which push past the boundaries set by the structure of those faiths and beliefs; Rumi was a thinker who achieved the power of his thoughts through reflecting upon his universal faith in God, creation and being. I think this is why he was enlightened; many a generation fallow customs and beliefs without grasping the freedom to push past the boundaries set by those beliefs and customs....

[InTheNameOfAllahThe1]

@cindynor, says who? You? Rumi was an orthodox muslim in the truest sense of the word no matter what you may think or wish to think. But I guess you've been brainwashed to think that orthodox muslims are only those who fly planes into buildings eh? Well that's not my fault. Rumi's entire work is an explanation and a commentary of the Qur'an. Almost in his every story is a quote from the Qur'an. After the Qur'an and hadiths, Mathnawi is considered by muslims to be the best source of wisdom.

[shorsh1OO]

@SirianKings

he was a Sufi Muslim wehther you like it or not . from Afghanistan

[rollingklouds]

@SirianKings

He would not be, if he saw "Reel bad Arabs" on youtube.

But then, if he were not a "traditional" Muslim, "traditional" Muslims won't call him Maulana Rumi. They did not do inquisition for him either.

[ahpacific]

@SirianKings Wow - I love how even though Rumi repeatedly clarified how every single line of wisdom he ever uttered came from the depths of the Quran people still like to disassociate him from Islam. Keep up the anti-Islamic sentiment going people. That poem cited by cindyor is not a denunciation of his religion (as it is often misinterpreted to be) but rather his declaration of the transcendentalism of his words. In the original Farsi & the cultural context it is much more obvious.

[SirianKings]

@ahpacific

He preached that creation and the creator are one in the same; in other words, all is one and the one is all.

Now, what part of it sounds Islamic to you?

[ahpacific]

@SirianKings I'm not even Muslim but I'm familiar with the Quran. Have you ever read the Quran or any significant portion of it? The Quran is MAINLY about unity and the one eternal source and how we ALL are equal in the eyes of the creator. Its completely filled with the material that Rumi is derived from - the Quran also has the quality of meaning different things to different people and therefore can be interpreted in many ways. When Rumi read it - this is what he understood of it.

[buredzici]

@ahpacific

Thank you so much for these words:)))

[ahpacific]

@SirianKings & Rumi was not as I'm sure you'll agree an everyday person. He was a scholar and an exceptional genius so his interpretation should be given the utmost regard.

[karabas1543]

too bad coleman barks doesn't actually know persian -_-;;

[cindynor]

He knows Turkish. What language were Rumi poems written in? Farsi, Turkish, ? In his book, "The Glance" he tells a great story about being in Turkey and trying to order bottled water with his meal each night. A crowd gathered each night to hear him order. Later he found out that he had been ordering "The secret of the universe" "Sir instead of su". :-)

[karabas1543]

rumi wrote in classical persian, which is nothing at all similar to turkish (turkish is an altaic language, persian is indo-european)

coleman barks "translates" rumi by re-writing other people's translations of his poems. people who know classical persian have huge issues with his translations, as many of them are nowhere close to the original's meaning.

[cindynor]

Wow! Interesting. Thanks for the info!

Then, that means I am very impressed with Coleman's poetry! Whatever makes these waterwheels turn is "truth" to me!

[cindynor]

So, I'm wondering, unless someone is on the level of Rumi, how would a person know whether Coleman translated correctly or not?

We can all "understand" on our own levels of enlightenment...but it is doubtful that any of us "understand" on Rumi's level.

...know what I mean? ;-)

Someday! Someday!

[karabas1543]

Well see that's the thing. As a Muslim, I know Rumi gets a bad rep among Muslims because quite often Coleman changes the meaning of the poem to something Muslims might see as heretical or just weird. So they think that's what Rumi is.

Rumi's real poetry though is real, orthodox Sunni Islam. He was a Sufi, but he never abandoned the principles of the beliefs of his faith. And real Sufism (not the crazy dancing/drinking kind) has always been part of our faith.

[karabas1543]

So if you want to understand Rumi's words, just study Islamic belief and practice, and then move on to spirituality. I know the basics and while I have not attained the state that Rumi did, I can certainly understand what he is talking about in his poems. You can try SunniPath online courses (google them) they teach Sufism (tasawwuf) also and you don't have to be Muslim to study there :)

Also other translators like Kabir Helminski produce poems closer to the original meaning.

[cindynor]

Yes, I love the Helminskis work as well.

I believe that truth is truth and we'll all end up at the center of this spoked wheel in our own time.

All great religions of the world have a solid "spoke" to get us there.

[cindynor]

So, when Rumi talks about pure nuggets of truth, all true seekers can understand them at some level...and it doesn't matter if we're coming at it from a Islamic/Sufi perspective or a Hindu or a Jewish or ...

Thanks for the pointers on taking the Sufi path! I would love to try them all but that will have to wait for another lifetime for that fun! ;-) I'm deep into my own path for now.

[karabas1543]

that's true, but what a lot of people seem to miss is that Rumi's love for God isn't coming from just sitting there and contemplating, it comes from having rigorous Islamic knowledge as a base. in fact, all major Sufis were also scholars - like Al-Ghazali and As-Shadhili. so there IS a significant component that non-Muslims miss out on, simply because their philosophy is quite obviously different

[karabas1543]

you should look into perennial philosophy, that sounds right up your alley. i used to have very similar beliefs and i was really into the idea. check it out on wikipedia

[cindynor]

Ah "perennial philosophy"! I hadn't heard that term. Yes, Aldos Huxley was a Vedantist...very much following that belief that all great religions hold a path to "God".

[cindynor]

Yes, it is unfortunate that we don't have the time to take all the paths! There are such beauties in each!

At my temple, we have a Memorial Day retreat each year where we invite someone from a different faith to tell us about their path. It really helps to foster respect and understanding.

[krochetnkat]

Another beautiful piece of art. Thank you.

[khiljiauto]

prophet Muhammad(p.b.u.h) split moon into two pieces.

[scherif70]

no, he did not!!! The verse speaks of another purpose, not that the moon literally burst into two parts.

[xHaQeEr]

Quran Said It 1500 Years Ago That The Earth Is Round

[scherif70]

It said it indirectly, but what is your point exactly?

[zolgharn]

Thanks a lott for your lovely recitations of Rumi ! Good works !

[rollingklouds]

What a perfect end-shot!

I have no name, for what circles so perfectly...

[aa11time]

Armghan,

inspiration does not come from any book.

Inspiration arises in the heart.

[seekingnothingatall]

Sir, my thumbs down to you was a mistake. I meant to go thumbs up. What you said is priceless and if only people really understood.

book didnt come for the sake of the book. book comes for the sake of man. which is more important? Man gives value to book, to what does book offer value?

[scherif70]

exactly, holy books are supposed to aid man, not man aid them. People can find inspiration in anything they like, it can be the mind & it can be the heart too. People are different

[armghan]

Actually Quran revealed it (earth is round), and not to forget Rumi was inspired with Quran.

[pashmak121]

sounds to me that before Galileo it was Rumi who discovered that earth is circle but Galileo is the one who get credit for it:(

[pashmak121]

sounds to me like before Galileo it was Rumi who discovered that earth is circle but Galileo is the one who get credit for it:(

[BekahShell]

peace brothers...peace sisters...peace beloved