Sufi poetry "come dance..."

[macknacat]

Although I have become that amalgam of zen/agnostic/taoist thru the years, ever since i heard Coleman Barks recite a Rumi poem on NPR a dozen years back , I have been ferociously drawn to Hafiz, Lala and , of course, Rumi. Like most mystics in any traditional 'ism' they seem to have plenty of room in their tent for anyone- often praising christianity, buddhism, hinduism [and yes, teasing them in other poems]

I've never studied Sufiism - I do know that they are persecuted relentlessly in any of the "fundamentalist" muslim regions.

I do not have tons of their poetry but will try to regularly post what little i do have recorded. Feel free to add!


Every
child
Has known God
Not the God of names
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does
Anything weird,
But the God who only knows four words
And keeps repeating them, saying:

Come dance with me....
Come
Dance

-------Hafiz [trans: Daniel Ladinsky]

[Ann]

Welcome back, Mack, and thank you for starting this thread. I'm a Sufi fan from way back and just love the idea.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.


~ Rumi ~

(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)

[macknacat]

Fear of change was[and still can be] just one of the hurdles i faced in coming into the rooms of recovery.


Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo.
You might say, ‘the world outside is vast and intricate.
there are wheatfields and mountain passes,
and orchards in bloom.

At night ther are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding.’

you ask the embryo why he or she stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer:

“There is no ‘other world’
I only know what I’ve experienced.
You must be hallucinating.”- Rumi [trans: Coleman Barks]

[Ann]

When I came to the rooms of recovery, I had not laughed in a very long time.

I Got Kin


Plant

So that your own heart

Will grow.


Love

So God will think,


"Ahhhhhh,

I got kin in that body!

I should start inviting that soul over

For coffee and

Rolls."


Sing

Because this is a food

Our starving world

Needs.


Laugh

Because that is the purest

Sound.

~Hafiz~

[macknacat]

What a great image ! to know my higher power on such a "coffee and rolls" intimacy...

This woman's story is unbelievably awesome- google her:


Naked Song
from Lalla: Naked Song, translated by Coleman Barks


Whatever I do, the responsibility is mine,
but like one who plants an orchard,
what comes of what I do, the fruit,
will be for others.
I offer the actions of this life
to the God within,
and wherever I go, the way is blessed.
*
* * -- Lalla *

[Ann]

More Lalla...(thanks Mack, I haven't read these for a very long time)

When my mind was cleansed of impurities, like a mirror of its dust and dirt,
I recognized the Self in me:
When I saw Him dwelling in me,
I realized that He was the Everything and I was nothing.

[Ann]

RIP Whitney

when you leave me
in the grave
don't say goodbye
remember a grave is
only a curtain
for the paradise behind

you'll only see me
descending into a grave
now watch me rise
how can there be an end
when the sun sets or
the moon goes down

it looks like the end
it seems like a sunset
but in reality it is a dawn
when the grave locks you up
that is when your soul is freed

~RUMI~ from ghazal number 911

[macknacat]

today i seem to be asking the Mary Oliver question : " what will you do with your one beautiful life?" too often i took my life -not just for granted- but as less than worthy. As some cheap accessory to be quickly discarded and forgotten. Today is different.

A Hard Decree:

Last

Night

God

Posted
On the tavern wall

A hard decree for all of love’s inmates

Which read:

If your heart cannot find a joyful work

The jaws of this world
Will probably

Grab hold of your

Sweet
Ass.
-Hafiz

[mattmathews]

Thanks for a little beauty today. Let's dance!

[Ann]

Dance when you're broken open.
Dance when you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free.
Struck, the dancer hears a tambourine inside her,
like a wave that crests into foam at the very top,
Begins.
Maybe you don't hear that tambourine,
or the tree leaves clapping time.
Close the ears on your head,
that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes.
There are other things to see, and hear.
Music. Dance.
A brilliant city inside your soul!

--Rumi

[macknacat]

yeah! close the ears that have listened too long to all the self destructive messages! thanks Ann.

"those ancient ones " - wait - thats the beginning of a Zen poem. I will save that for some new thread. this will continue to celebrate the Sufi tradition.
And anyway..just how did Rumi know what the essence of a fourth step looks like?

A night full of talking that hurts,
My worst held back secrets. Everything
Has to do with loving and not loving.
This night will pass.
Then we have work to do.

[newby1961]

Beloved, show me the way out of this prison.
Make me needless of both worlds.
Pray, erase from mind all
that is not You.

Have mercy Beloved,
though I am nothing but forgetfulness,
You are the essence of forgiveness.
Make me needless of all but You.

Shaikh Abu Saeed Abil Kheir - "Nobody, Son of Nobody" - Vraje Abramian

[macknacat]

To become part of the Constant Conversation then.....


God

and I have become

Like two giant fat people

Living in a
Tiny boat.

We

Keep

Bumping into each other and


LAUGHING!
[Hafiz]

[Ann]

The Mountain Got Tired of Sitting
~Hafiz~

The sun
Won a beauty contest and became a jewel
Set upon God's right hand.

The earth agreed to be a toe ring on the
Beloved's foot
And has never regretted its decision.

The mountains got tired
Of sitting amongst a sleeping audience

And are now stretching their arms
Toward the Roof.

The clouds gave my soul an idea
So I pawned my gills
And rose like a winged diamond

Ever trying to be near
More love, more love
Like you.

The Mountain got tired of sitting
Amongst a snoring crowd inside of me
And rose like a rip sun
Into my eye.

My soul gave my heart a brilliant idea
So Hafiz is rising like a
Winged diamond.

[macknacat]

"winged diamond" ...... sigh

So i clean forgot yesterday was Valentines. Working on building a big sailboat , like Tom Waits- "my body's at home but my heart's in the wind". Anyway, other than "the price of kissing.." this is my fav. Rumi love poem [and the last lines remind me what it takes to stay on this recovering road]


An eye is meant to see things.
the soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: for loving a true love.
Legs: to run after.

Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,
for learning what men have done and tried to do.
Mysteries are not to be solved. An eye goes blind
when it only wants to see WHY.

A lover is always accused of something.
But when he finds his love, whatever was lost
in the looking comes back completely changed.
On the way to Mecca, many dangers: thieves,
the blowing sand, only camel’s milk to drink.
Still each pilgrim kisses the black stone there
with pure longing, feeling in the surface
the taste of the lips he wants.

This talk is like stamping new coins. They pile up,
while the real work is done outside
by someone digging in the ground.
-Rumi

[newby1961]

Seyh Galib Love is a lamp of God (1757- 1799)

Love is a lamp of God, I am its moth;
love is a shackle, my heart is its crazy captive.

Since becoming a sharer in the secret of your glance
my heart became a friend of the friend, a stranger to the stranger.

Making no difference between dry piety and endless carouse --
such is the libertine way of the masters of ecstasy.

The black soil of the reveler's world is full of abundance,
the sun of wisdom rises in the tavern jar.

He drinks the wine mingled with poison of the glance of those eyes;
I could be tipsy from the languor of those blue eyes.

Take care, do not neglect that sleeping dagger,
its tale is always the gossip of death.

Galib, enter the secluded palace of pleasure and see its secret,
the wise way of the daughter of the vine is something else.

[macknacat]

as an old guy frantically trying to finish a 31' ocean-capable catamaran before i'm too old to sail it, I have often read this . Kinda like my HP, a process more than an object.
And thanks to all who have added to this thread.

hugs...

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,
buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.
-Rumi-trans by Coleman Barks

[Ann]

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

[macknacat]

bright bright day today. All my various solar heated/powered panels are grateful...

THE SUN NEVER SAYS
Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,

“You owe
Me”

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky

Hafiz-trans: Daniel Ladinsky

[Ann]

That's one of my favourites, Mack, it always makes me smile.