Rumi Coleman Barks Quotes & Sayings

... the work of the (Muslim Sufi) dervish community
was to open the heart,
explore the mystery of union,
to fiercely search for and try to say the truth,
and to celebrate the glory and difficulty
in being in human incarnation. — Coleman Barks

We were all born by accident but this wandering caravan
will make camp in perfection
Forget the nonsense categories of there and here, race, nation, religion, starting point and destination
You are soul, and you are love, ...
No more questions now as to what it is we're doing here — Coleman Barks

We sometimes make spiderwebs of smoke and saliva, fragile though-packets
Leave thinking to the one who gave intelligence
Stop weaving and watch how the pattern improve — Coleman Barks

What I deeply want ... is for Rumi to become vitally present for readers, part of what John Keats called our soul-making, that process that is both collective and uniquely individual, that happens outside time and space and inside, that is the ocean we all inhabit and each singular droplet-self. — Coleman Barks

[Rumi] is trying to get us to feel the vastness of our true identity ... like the sense you might get walking into a cathedral ... — Coleman Barks

Ramana Maharshi and Rumi would agree: the joy of being human is in uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried in the ruin. — Coleman Barks

Water the fruit trees, and don't water the thorns. Be generous to what nurtures the spirit and God's luminous reason-light. Don't honor what causes dysentry and knotted up tumors. — Coleman Barks

Little by little a person reaches forty and fifty and sixty, and feels more complete. God could've thrown full blown prophets flying through the cosmos in an instant. — Coleman Barks

A story has come down about Rumi: a woman asks if he would say something to her young boy about his eating too much of a particular kind of white-sugar candy. Rumi tells her to come back in two weeks. She does, and he tells her again to come in two weeks. She does, and he advises the child to cut down on sweets.
"Why did you not say this a month ago?"
"Because I had to see if I could resist having that candy for two weeks. I couldn't. Then I tried again and was successful. Only now can I tell him to try not to have so much. — Coleman Barks

If Rumi is the most-read poet in America today, Coleman Barks is in good part responsible. His ear for the truly divine madness in Rumi's poetry is really remarkable. — Huston Smith

A man once asked Rumi, "Why is it you talk so much about silence?" His answer: "The radiant one inside me has never said a word. — Coleman Barks

All people on the planet are children, except for a very few. No one is grown up except those free of desire. — Rumi

From 'A Bowl Fallen From the Roof'
Be quiet now and wait.
It may be that the ocean one,
the one we desire so to move into and become,
desires us out here on land a little longer,
going our sundry ways to the shore.
-Rumi — Coleman Barks