Alif Lam Mim.If God says We, meaning I AM, then any pronoun I use becomes superfluous. Designations fall like petals. Wisdom comes, and I feel such pleasure flooding me that I fear losing my sense of it. I tell myself: Inquire into how lover, beloved and the other ways of loving exist as one thing.
As it is with God's qualities and human beings, so there is a unity with love. In the heart there is no room for differentiation, only oneness and the Beloved. I would give away books, lands, my virtues and reputation, everyone, for one hour inside that Presence.
(Maarif 1:172-173)As it is with God's qualities and human beings, so there is a unity with love. In the heart there is no room for differentiation, only oneness and the Beloved. I would give away books, lands, my virtues and reputation, everyone, for one hour inside that Presence.
This is how God talked with Muhammad, saying, 'We have given you victory' (Quran, 48:1), There was companionship between them, 'We have sent down to you a book' (4:105), and 'Have we not expanded your heart' (94:1)?
They spoke together like friends. Has anyone else had such an experience? And since the divine mystery is part of everything and everyone, must there not be such nearness inside everyone?
An answer came to this wondering argument. There are ways unique to each soul. One gets handed pain, another love, another lust. One must go through terrible punishment, another extensive comforting.
But the way of God with prophets is on another level, where miracles and grace and visions of the unseen world come. Aspire to that plane. Otherwise you will continue to speak to God about heat and cold, food, livelihood, sleep, walking, and the various human theories about mystery.
May prayer is this. When I am alone with You, let me feel pleasure of a surrendered love. Give me the oneness as I sit by myself beyond the satisfaction of any desire.
They spoke together like friends. Has anyone else had such an experience? And since the divine mystery is part of everything and everyone, must there not be such nearness inside everyone?
An answer came to this wondering argument. There are ways unique to each soul. One gets handed pain, another love, another lust. One must go through terrible punishment, another extensive comforting.
But the way of God with prophets is on another level, where miracles and grace and visions of the unseen world come. Aspire to that plane. Otherwise you will continue to speak to God about heat and cold, food, livelihood, sleep, walking, and the various human theories about mystery.
May prayer is this. When I am alone with You, let me feel pleasure of a surrendered love. Give me the oneness as I sit by myself beyond the satisfaction of any desire.
(Maarif 1:174-175)
- from The Drowned Book
Ecstatic and Earthly Reflection of Bahauddin, The Father of Rumi
by Coleman Barks and John Moyne
Ecstatic and Earthly Reflection of Bahauddin, The Father of Rumi
by Coleman Barks and John Moyne
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