Jalaluddin Quotes & Sayings

You've seen my descent, now watch my rising. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Look for the answer inside your question. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I can conquer the World with a blink.
I can heal a broken Heart with a Smile. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Death is our wedding with eternity. — Jalaluddin Rumi

When you find Love,
you will find yourself. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Judge the moth by the beauty of the candle — Jalaluddin Rumi

An intelligent man, or woman, is a lamp that guides itself. Let

him or her lead. Trust the knowing they browse. A half-intelligent person is one who lets

the intelligent person be guide. He holds on like the blind to the coat of a helper. Through

another, he acts and sees and learns. There is a third kind with no intellect at all, who

takes no advice, strolls out into the wilderness, runs a little to one side, stops, limps

through the night with no candle, no stub of a candle, no notion what to ask for.

The first has perfect intellect. The second knows enough to surrender to the first. One

breathes with Jesus. The other dies, so Jesus can breathe through him. The third

flops and flounders in all directions, with no direction, lurches and leaps, trying

everything, with no way or way out. — Jalaluddin Rumi

This We Have Now

This we have no
is not imagination.

This is not
grief or joy.

Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.

Those come
and go.

This is the presence
that doesn't.

It's dawn, Husam,
here in the splendor of coral,
inside the Friend, the simple truth
of what Hallaj said.

What else could human beings want?

When grapes turn to wine
they're wanting
this.

When the nightsky pours by,
it's really a crowd of beggars,
and they all want some of this!

This
that we are now
created the body, cell by cell,
like bees building a honeycomb.

The human body and the universe
grew from this, not this
from the universe and the human body. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I manage fine with no others around;
I cannot manage without you.
My heart bears your brand,
it won't wander away from you.
Reason's eye blurs with your wine
heaven's wheel spins under your thumb Pleasure's nose follows your lead,
I cannot manage without you. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Stay in the spiritual fire. Let it cook you. — Jalaluddin Rumi

God continually turns you from one state of feeling to another, revealing truth by means of opposites.... So that you may have the two wings of fear and hope; for the bird with one wing is unable to fly.... — Jalaluddin Rumi

Love is the vital core of the soul,
and of all you see, only love is infinite — Jalaluddin Rumi

I am at rest and remaining. — Jalaluddin Rumi

This moment is all there is. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Men and women run away from every goal, whether worldly or spiritual, because they overestimate the initial task. The proper way is a bit at a time. It is the same if someone eats too much; they should diminish it daily by a small bit, gradually. In that way, before a year or two have passed, they will have cut down what they eat by half, reducing it in such a way that their body does not notice. So it is with worship, withdrawing into solitude, attending to the service of God, and prayer. When a person enters upon the Way of God, for a while their prayers will be short. But after that, if they pray with their whole heart, their prayers will go on and on without end. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I Lost Everything,
I Have Found Myself. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I said: How can such an ocean be contained in a jar? He replied: "How can you even grasp the understanding of the how and the means of this? Who can come to realize the mastery of the work that has no like?!... Inside the limited, He lays the world of infinity. — Jalaluddin Rumi

What becomes of the heart, when the heart's hand grasps the hand of a sweetheart?
What becomes of the dross copper, when it hears the welcoming voice of the philosopher's stone? — Jalaluddin Rumi

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Make me sweet again,
and fresh
and fragrant
and grateful
for any small event. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Shams, my body is a candle touched with fire. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Your boundaries are your quest. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Beyond this world is another world for us. This world and its delights cater to the animal within us. These pleasures all fill our animal nature, while our real self slowly dies. They say, "The human being is a rational animal," yet we consist of two things. Lusts and desires feed our animality in this material world. But as for our true essence, its food is knowledge, wisdom, and the sight of God. The animality within us flees away from God, while our spiritual self flees away from this world. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The gates made of light
swing open. You see in. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I am the bird of the spiritual Garden,
not of this world of dust; for a few days,
they have a cage of my body made. — Jalaluddin Rumi

In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Understand the secret unseen ways of heart to heart contact like this:

When two lamps are being lit.

The lamps will remain separate

But their light will become intermixed — Jalaluddin Rumi

If love were only spiritual, the practices of fasting and prayer would not exist. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Of the book of God
Thou art a copying,
A mirror, wherein showed
The beauty of the King.
All God ever wrought
Dwelleth not apart;
All thou hast ever sought,
Find it in thy heart. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Without love I was one who had lost the way; of a sudden love entered. I was a mountain; I became a straw for the horse of the king. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Life is a balance between holding on and letting go. — Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi

If I set my heart on anything but you Let fire burn me from inside. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The middle path is the way to wisdom — Jalaluddin Rumi

Solomon lifts his morning cup to the mountains. Sit down in this pavilion, and don't listen to religious bickering. Be silent as we absorb the spring. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Before this we were one community, none knew whether we were good or bad. False coin and fine (both) were current in the world, since all was night, and we were as night-travellers, Until the sun of the prophets rose and said, "Begone, O alloy! Come, O thou that art pure!" The eye can distinguish colours, the eye knows ruby and (common) stone. The eye knows the jewel and the rubbish; hence bits of rubbish sting the eye. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Cradle My Heart

Last night, I was lying on the rooftop, thinking of you. I saw a special Star, and summoned her to take you a message. I prostrated myself to the Star and asked her to take my prostration to that Sun of Tabriz so that with his light, he can turn my dark stones into gold. I opened my chest and showed her my scars, I told her to bring me news of my bloodthirsty Lover. As I waited, I paced back and forth, until the child of my heart became quiet. The child slept, as if I were rocking his cradle. Oh Beloved, give milk to the infant of the heart, and don't hold us from our turning. You have cared for hundreds, don't let it stop with me now. At the end, the town of unity is the place for the heart. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Where there is a ruin, there is hope for a treasure. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Like the rose I am laughing with all my body, not only with my mouth, because I am without myself, alone with the king of the world.

You who came with torch and at dawn ravished my heart, dispatch my soul after my heart, do not seize my heart alone.

Do not in rage and envy make my soul a stranger to my heart; do not leave the former here, and do not summon the latter alone.

Send a royal message, issue a general invitation; how long, O sultan, shall the one be with you and the other alone?

If you do not come tonight as yesterday and close my lips, I will make a hundred uproars, my soul, I will not lament alone. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Let yourself becoming living poetry — Jalaluddin Rumi

You are prime matter, who am I?
The looking-glass in your fingers.
I become all that you display -
The mirror to prove you exist. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The Glance of Love is Crystal Clear. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Be empty
and weep with the fullness of the reed flute.
Be empty
and discover the mysteries of the reed pen. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The moment you accept the troubles you have been given , the door will open — Jalaluddin Rumi

Laila And The Khalifa

The Khalifa said to Laila,
"Art thou really she
For whom Majnun lost his head
and went distracted?
Thou art not fairer than many
other fair ones."
She replied, "Be silent;
thou art not Majnun!"


If thou hadst Majnun's eyes,
The two worlds would be within thy view.
Thou art in thy senses, but Majnun is beside himself.
In love to be wide awake is treason.
The more a man is awake, the more he sleeps (to love);
His (critical) wakefulness is worse than slumbering.


Our wakefulness fetters our spirits,
Then our souls are a prey to divers whims,
Thoughts of loss and gain and fears of misery.
They retain not purity, nor dignity, nor lustre,
Nor aspiration to soar heavenwards.
That one is really sleeping who hankers after each whim
And holds parley with each fancy. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Swim out of your little pond. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Wherever you go, you are with me still, you who are my eyes and my brightness; if you will, draw me to drunkenness, if you will, transport me to annihilation. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I came back to You because I could not find the kind and decent things I found in You anywhere else. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Don't toy with things that block your light. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious. — Jalaluddin Rumi

All change is due to time, therefore if you
Are freed from time, you're free from changing too. — Jalaluddin Rumi

See that caravan of camels
loaded with sugar?--
His eyes contain that much sweetness.
But don't look into His eyes
unless you're ready to lose all sight of your own. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I worship the moon.
Tell me of the soft glow of a
candle light
and the sweetness of my moon. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Whoever's calm and sensible is insane! — Jalaluddin Rumi

Whatever picture you paint
or poem you write
He is beyond that.
Whatever height you can reach,
He is higher than your 'highest'.

Get rid of your talking and your books -
it is far better
to let Him be your book. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Let the beauty we love be what we do. — Jalaluddin Rumi

It would be as if a king sent you to a village on a specific mission. If you went and performed a hundred other tasks, but neglected to accomplish the task for which you were sent, it would be as though you had done nothing. — Jalaluddin Rumi

IGNORANCE

I didn't know love would make me this
crazy, with my eyes
like the river Ceyhun
carrying me in its rapids
out to sea,where every bit
of shattered boat
sinks to the bottom.

An alligator lifts its head and swallows
the ocean, then the ocean
floor becomes
a desert covering
the alligator in
sand drifts.

Changes do
happen. I do not know how,
or what remains of what
has disappeared
into the absolute.

I hear so many stories
and explanations, but I keep quiet,
because I don't know anything,
and because something I swallowed
in the ocean
has made me completely content
with ignorance. — Jalaluddin Rumi

To dance is not to jump to your feet and rise painlessly in the air like dust. To rise above both worlds is to dance in the blood of your pain and give up your life. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Either give me more wine or leave me alone. — Jalaluddin Rumi

They followed the middle way of Muhammad, which included marriage, a socially useful livelihood, and a life "in the world but not of it. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Give your weakness to one who helps. — Jalaluddin Rumi

MAULANA'S LAST LETTER TO SHAMS

Sometimes I wonder, sweetest love, if you
Were a mere dream in along winter night,
A dream of spring-days, and of golden light
Which sheds its rays upon a frozen heart;
A dream of wine that fills the drunken eye.

And so I wonder, sweetest love, if I
Should drink this ruby wine, or rather weep;
Each tear a bezel with your face engraved,
A rosary to memorize your name...

There are so many ways to call you back-
Yes, even if you only were a dream. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Like the shadow
I am
and
I am not — Jalaluddin Rumi

A builder looks for the rotten hole where the roof caved in. A water carrier picks the empty pot. A carpenter stops at the house with no door. Workers rush toward some hint of emptiness, which they then start to fill. Their hope, though, is for emptiness, so don't think you must avoid it. It contains what you need! Dear soul, if you were not friends with the vast nothing inside, why would you always be casting your net into it, and waiting so patiently? This — Jalaluddin Rumi

When I am silent, I have thunder hidden inside. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Like a shadow,
I am and I am not. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Have you ever seen a seed fallen to earth not rise with a new life why should you doubt the rise of a seed named human. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Being in love is made manifest by soreness of heart: there is no sickness like heart-sickness.
The lover's ailment is separate from all other ailments: love is the astrolabe of the mysteries of God.
Whether love be from this (earthly) side or from that (heavenly) side, in the end it leads us yonder. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Do not seek water, get thirst. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The peacock's plumage is its enemy: O many the king who hath been slain by his magnificence! — Maulana Jalaluddin Mohammad Balkhi

The beauty you see me is reflection of you.. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Wherever you stand, be the Soul of that place. — Jalaluddin Rumi

The life-energy in a body contains eternity. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Discrimination is a quality that is always hidden in a person. Don't you see that an insane person possesses hands and feet but lacks discrimination? Discrimination is a subtle essence within you.
Yet, day and night you have been occupied with nurturing the physical form that does not know right from wrong. Why have you devoted all your energies to looking after the physical, entirely neglecting that subtle essence? The physical exists through that essence, but that essence in no way depends on the physical. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Go find yourself first so you can also find me. — Jalaluddin Rumi

What messages are momently flashing from his eyes to mine - may my eyes be gladdened and intoxicated by his message! — Jalaluddin Rumi

Be suspicious of what you want. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Love

Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name?
Love has a hundred forms of pride and disdain,
and is gained by a hundred means of persuasion.
Since Love is loyal, it purchases one who is loyal:
it has no interest in a disloyal companion.
The human being resembles a tree; its root is a covenant with God:
that root must be cherished with all one's might.
A weak covenant is a rotten root, without grace or fruit.
Though the boughs and leaves of the date palm are green,
greenness brings no benefit if the root is corrupt.
If a branch is without green leaves, yet has a good root,
a hundred leaves will put forth their hands in the end. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Create the bounty of madness in your heart (of His love)

Not by intelligence alone will you reach to the truth."

(For if the mind is not enlightened by revelation,

It is better to remain an ignorant one.) — Jalaluddin Rumi

In the heavens I see your eyes,
In your eyes I see the heavens.

Why look for another Moon or another Sun? -
What I see will always be enough for me. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Love is the whole thing.
We are only pieces. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Consult with the assembly of righteous,

For the Prophet 1ft was also ordered to do that.

The minds of men are like lighted lamps,

The light of twenty lamps surely gives more light than one — Jalaluddin Rumi

What does not come into man's imagination is called a "gift" because whatever passes through his imagination is in proportion to his aspiration and his worth. However, God's gift is in proportion to God's worth....no matter how much eyes have seen, ears heard, or minds conceived the gift you expect of Me, My gift is above and beyond all that. — Jalaluddin Rumi

I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine — Jalaluddin Rumi

There are no edges to my loving now. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace. — Jalaluddin Rumi

you only knew what bliss I found in being nothing you would not advise me how to live. When — Jalaluddin Rumi

Let silence take you to the core of life. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Love is a river. Drink from it. — Jalaluddin Rumi

If something

goes wrong, accuse yourself first. Don't be like Pharaoh chopping off the heads

of innocent babies, when the enemy he is looking for, Moses, was in his own house. — Jalaluddin Rumi

May these nuptials be blessed for us, may this marriage be blessed for us,
May it be ever like milk and sugar, this marriage like wine and halvah.
May this marriage be blessed with leaves and fruits like the date tree;
May this marriage be laughing forever, today,tomorrow, like the houris of paradise.
May this marriage be the sign of compassion and the approval of happiness here and hereafter;
May this marriage be fair of fame, fair of face and fair of omen as the moon in the azure sky.
I have fallen silent for words cannot describe how the spirit has mingled with this marriage — Jalaluddin Rumi

I Have Vanished In the early morning, A lover asked her beloved, "Do you love me more than yourself?" "More than myself? For sure I have no self any more - I am you already. The 'I' has gone; the 'you' has come about. Even my identity is gone. The answer is taken for granted. 'You and I' has no meaning. The 'I' has vanished like a drop into an ocean of honey. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Woman is the light of God. — Jalaluddin Rumi

It's rigged - everything, in your favor.
So there is nothing to worry about.

Is there some position you want,
some office, some acclaim, some award, some con, some lover,
maybe two, maybe three, maybe four - all at once,

maybe a relationship
with
God?

I know there is a gold mine in you, when you find it
the wonderment of the earth's gifts
you will lay aside
as naturally as does
a child a
doll.

But, dear, how sweet you look to me kissing the unreal:
comfort, fulfill yourself,
in any way possible - do that until
you ache, until you ache,

then come to me
again. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Although you see the pit, you cannot avoid it. — Jalaluddin Rumi

Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. — Jalaluddin Rumi

You have read in the text where They love him
blends with He loves them.
Those joining loves
are both qualities of God. Fear is not. — Jalaluddin Rumi

WARRIOR LIGHT

Jafar, Muhammad's cousin, was a warrior of concentrated light. When he rode up

to a walled city, it was no more to him than a gulp of water in his dry mouth. This

happened at Mutah. No one went out to fight him. "What's to be done?" the king asked

his clairvoyant minister. "If you strap on your sword with this one," replied

the advisor, "also wrap your shroud around you!" "But he's only one man!"

"Ignore the singularity. Look with your wisdom. He gathers multitudes, as stars

dissolve in sunlight." Human beings can embody a collective, a majesty

of spirit, which is not like having a name or a body. A herd of onagers may display

a thousand antler points; then a lion comes to the edge of their field: they scatter. — Jalaluddin Rumi