Rumi ... Mathnawi I (3605-3607)

Whatever it is you wish to marry

Go, absorb yourself in that beloved

Assume its shape and qualities

If you wish for the light, prepare yourself to receive it 

If you wish to be far from God, nourish your egoism and drive yourself away

If you wish to find a way out of this ruined prison

Don't turn your head away from the Beloved

But bow in worship and draw near

Rumi ...

If in thirst you drink water from a cup ... 

You see God in it ...

Those who are not in love with God ... 

Will see only their own faces in it ...

Rumi ...

Till the cloud weeps

How should the garden smile ???

The weeping of the cloud and the burning of the Sun 

Are the pillars of this world ...

Twist these two strands together ...

Since the searing heat of the Sun and the moisture of the clouds 

Keep the Sun of your intelligence burning bright ... 

And your eyes glistening with tears ...

Rumi ... Mathnawi ...

Love of the dead does not last 

Because the dead will not return ...

But love of the living

Is in every moment fresher than a bud ...

Both to the inward and the outward eye

Choose the love of that Living One 

Who is everlasting ...
Who offers you the wine that increases life ...

Do not say: We have no entrance to that King

Dealings with the generous are not difficult ...

Un-Invited ... By Jafar Alam ...

I look out at the dark sky

waiting for the sun to embrace this beautiful day ...

My heart beats slowly

To my souls dismay ...

Battling my nafs, trying to contain this desire ...

The desire is not of this world

But for something much Higher ...

My emptiness I cannot speak of,

It's something that I feel ...

The remedy for this

iIs closeness to The Real ...

He gave me this feeling

Filling it to the brim ...

How can I complain

When this longing is from Him ???

He does this to me often

That I may turn and come back ...

When I start to stray away

And faith is what I lack ...

Now the birds start chirping

And quickly fly by ...

Taking in what they can

Of the cold gray sky ...

I lay here hungry and cold

Trying to fill this void ...

When close to Him

I'm filled and overjoyed ...

So I lay here waiting

For I will not fight it ...

Love and death, both come

Un-Invited (c)

A Word To The Heart ... Rumi

That which God said to the rose

And caused it to laugh in full blown beauty ...

He said to my heart

And made it a hundred times more beautiful ...

Abd Allah bin Mas'ud ...

You are only guests in this world ... 

And what you own is only a borrowed trust ... 

Eventually the guest will depart ... 

And the borrowed trust must be returned to its rightful Owner ...

Choosing to Love ...

You don't choose whom you love ... 

He chooses them ... 

If you had that choice to choose; then the road would be simple ... 

Whom he puts in your life, is part of your test: 

To bear with them ... 

To accept them ...

And most of all to love them despite all that they may agitate you with ...

After all, they come from Him and they return to Him ...

Just like you did and will do ... 

And We have made some of you as a trial for others ... Will you have patience ??? 

And your Lord is Ever All-Seer - (Surah al-Furqan:20)

Rumi ...

If you never searched for truth

Come with us

And you will become a seeker ...

If you were never a musician

Come with us

And you will find your voice ...

You may posses immense wealth

Come with us

And you will become love's beggar ...

You may think yourself a master

Come with us

And love will turn you into a slave ...

If you've lost your spirit

Come with us ...

Take off your silk coverings

Put on our rough cloak

And we will bring you back to life ...

Depression is when you don't see the ocean behind the door ... 

Depression is when the planet is a vast prison ... 

You are depressed when you don't see solutions ... 

Depression is when you see yourself as a problem ... 

Depression is when self-worth vanishes ... 

Depression is when you feel useless ... 

When you see your power again ...

You are out of depression ...

Ibn Arabi ...

The movement which is the existence of the universe ...
Is the movement of love ...

The only love thats unchanging ...
Is the love of Allah ...

The Radical Middle Way Part One ... By Moez Masud

Love is difficult to fake, you can't imitate true love ...
If your love were sincere then you wouldn't disobey the one you love ...

We are given the ability to love 
By the One who gave us the ability to love ... Allah ...
Grief isn't the absence of happiness ... 
But the absence of Allah in your life, that is true grief ...
Harun Rashid said on his deathbed,
"Oh how we have been deceived by the world and what an awful abode"
(Don't worship for pleasure ... Worship for Allah ... Fulfill His rights)

Feel the value of your guidance
Say Subhnallah and experience the pleasure
Be grateful to Allah for all our blessings ... 
The love of the world must leave us ... We must remove it from ourselves.

We pray in order to get closer to Allah ...
The lost person has five traits:

1. They hate death
2. Heedless
3. They don't want to meet Allah
4. Content with being lost
5. They can't see the signs

Allah guides who He wills ...

Meet people in such a manner ... 

That if you die they should weep for you ... 

And if you live they should long for you ...

The tongue of the wiseman is behind his heart ... 

And the heart of the fool is behind his tongue ...

The people of the world are like travellers who are being carried while asleep ...

Beware of disobeying Allah in solitude ... 

For the witness is also the judge ...

The Cry Of The Soul ...

In the West we are conditioned to believe that at the beginning of every journey we should know where we are going and how to get there ... 

Caught in this conditioning, we apply it to spiritual life: 

What is the goal we seek and what are the practices that will take us there ??? 

But the real journey of the soul is not of our own choosing ... 

Nor can we find our own way ... 

We are responding to a call that will take us beyond the known into the unknown ... Beyond the world of forms into the formless ...

The spiritual journey is the most difficult undertaking ... 
It is a voluntary crucifixion in which we die to the ego ... 

Of our own accord we would never turn away from the world with its many attractions and illusions and begin this painful, lonely quest ... 

It is only because He calls us, because He attracts our attention with His love ... 
That we set out upon the path of no return ... 

Like a magnet He draws us to Him with love ... 

For, in the words of the Sufi poet Nizami: 

If the magnet were not loving ... How could it attract the iron with such longing ???

Divine Discontentment ...

In the innermost chamber of the heart we have seen His face ... 
But this is hidden from consciousness ... 

The heart speaks a language so different from that of the mind and the ego ... 
That we are not directly aware of what has happened ... 

Instead we are left with a feeling of the emptiness of our ordinary life ... 
The painful side of spiritual awakening is that the world becomes desolate ... 

We may try to improve our outer situation ...
Work harder ... 
Make money ... 
Or take a vacation ... 

But we soon find that this is no answer ... 

What is it that we really want ??? 
Why is the outer world losing its attraction ??? 

Friends and interests that used to be fulfilling can seem empty ... 
And we are left only with a discontent that we cannot satisfy ...

We long for what our heart knows to be real ... 
For love's union which is hidden beneath the surface of our lives ... 

When we are awakened to this real love we can never be satisfied by anything else ... 

This is why the world begins to lose its attraction ... 
Why we become discontented ... 

We have been given a glimpse of something else ...
The real substance of our own self ... 

Longing is both a blessing and a curse ... 

A blessing because it takes us home ... 
And a curse because of the pain it brings ... 

Nothing can satisfy us but union with God ... 


Rabi'a, who knew the deepest meaning of love's pain, expresses this in her usual straightforward way:

The source of my grief and loneliness is deep in my breast ...

This is a disease no doctor can cure ...

Only union with the Friend can cure it ...

In The Shade Of The Quran - (Sayyid Qutb)

A man's beliefs are meaningless ... 

Unless his actions and behaviour become a practical translation of those beliefs ...

When a man's conduct reflects his words, no matter how plain and ordinary these words are, people will trust him and take him seriously ... 

His words draw their power and effect from the sincerity and honesty with which they are being uttered ... 

Not from the rhetoric or eloquence in which they are delivered ... 

They assume a force of their own ...