Mawlana Quotes

What you seek is seeking you.

The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

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

Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.

There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don't you?

Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison When the door is so wide open?

I want to see you. Know your voice. Recognize you when you first come 'round the corner. Sense your scent when I come into a room you've just left. Know the lift of your heel, the glide of your foot. Become familiar with the way you purse your lips then let them part, just the slightest bit, when I lean in to your space and kiss you. I want to know the joy of how you whisper "more

But listen to me. For one moment quit being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you.

This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. 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.

Oh soul, you worry too much. You have seen your own strength. You have seen your own beauty. You have seen your golden wings. Of anything less, why do you worry? You are in truth the soul, of the soul, of the soul.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky.

I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing. The power of love came into me, and I became fierce like a lion, then tender like the evening star.

You think because you understand 'one' you must also understand 'two', because one and one make two. But you must also understand 'and'.

Here is a relationship booster that is guaranteed to work: Every time your spouse or lover says something stupid make your eyes light up as if you just heard something brilliant.

At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me. Close the language-door and open the love-window. The moon won't use the door, only the window.

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be.

On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day.

When someone is counting out gold for you, don't look at your hands, or the gold. Look at the giver.

They say there is a doorway from heart to heart, but what is the use of a door when there are no walls?

You try to be faithful And sometimes you're cruel. You are mine. Then, you leave. Without you, I can't cope. And when you take the lead, I become your footstep. Your absence leaves a void. Without you, I can't cope. You have disturbed my sleep, You have wrecked my image. You have set me apart. Without you, I can't cope.

There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.

You are a volume in the divine book A mirror to the power that created the universe Whatever you want, ask it of yourself Whatever you’re looking for can only be found Inside of you

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

There are lovers content with longing. I’m not one of them.

The rose's rarest essence lives in the thorns.

The lion is most handsome when looking for food.

The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth.

Not only the thirsty seek the water, the water as well seeks the thirsty.

You are so weak. Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.

Love comes with a knife, not some shy question, and not with fears for its reputation!

Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall and falling, they're given wings.

Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings. Move within, But don't move the way fear makes you move.

Love calls - everywhere and always. We're sky bound. Are you coming?

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. Feet: To chase 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: The 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.

For without you, I swear, the town Has become like a prison to me. Distraction and the mountain And the desert, all I desire.

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.

I, you, he, she, we In the garden of mystic lovers, these are not true distinctions.

Don't try to steer the boat. Don't open shop for yourself. Listen. Keep silent. You are not God's mouthpiece. Try to be an ear, And if you do speak, ask for explanations.

The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they're given wings.

Oh sky, without me, do not change, Oh moon, without me, do not shine; Oh earth, without me, do not grow, Oh time, without me, do not go. ...Oh, you cannot go, without me.

I am weary of personal worrying, in love with the art of madness.

Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.

Have you ever gotten breathless before from a beautiful face, for i see you there, my dear.

Poems are rough notations for the music we are.

If the wine drinker has a deep gentleness in him, he will show that when drunk. But if he has hidden anger and arrogance, those appear.

You have forgotten the One who doesn't care about ownership, who doesn't try to turn a profit from every human exchange.

Nothing can help me but that beauty. There was a dawn I remember when my soul heard something from your soul. I drank water from your spring and felt the current take me.

No more words. In the name of this place we drink in with our breathing, stay quiet like a flower. So the nightbirds will start singing.

You are the Truth from foot to brow. Now, what else would you like to know?

Some nights stay up till dawn, as the moon sometimes does for the sun. Be a full bucket pulled up the dark way of a well, then lifted out into light.

There are thousands of wines that can take over our minds. Don't think all ecstasies are the same! Jesus was lost in his love for God. His donkey was drunk with barley.

You must ask for what you really want. / Don't go back to sleep. / The door is round and open. / Don't go back to sleep.

Thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.

For the thirst to possess your love, Is worth my blood a hundred times.

A strange passion is moving in my head My heart has become a bird which searches in the sky. Every part of me goes in different directions. Is it really so that the one I love is Everywhere?

Hear this if you can: If you want to reach him You have to go beyond yourself And when you finally arrive at the land of absence Be silent Don’t say a thing Ecstasy, not words, is the language spoken there

Love so needs to love that it will endure almost anything, even abuse, just to flicker for a moment. But the sky's mouth is kind, its song will never hurt you, for I sing those words.

Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret, and in exchange gain the Ocean. Listen, O drop, bestow upon yourself this honor, and in the arms of the Sea be secure. Who indeed should be so fortunate? An Ocean wooing a drop! In God's name, in God's name, sell and buy at once! Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls.

I am the servant of the Qur'an as long as I have life. I am the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen One.

Sadness to me is the happiest time, When a shining city rises from the ruins of my drunken mind. Those times when I'm silent and still as the earth, The thunder of my roar is heard across the universe.

I searched for God among the Christians and on the Cross and therein I found Him not. I went into the ancient temples of idolatry; no trace of Him was there. I entered the mountain cave of Hira and then went as far as Qandhar but God I found not. With set purpose I fared to the summit of Mount Caucasus and found there only 'anqa's habitation. Then I directed my search to the Kaaba, the resort of old and young; God was not there even. Turning to philosophy I inquired about him from ibn Sina but found Him not within his range. I fared then to the scene of the Prophet's experience of a great divine manifestation only a "two bow-lengths' distance from him" but God was not there even in that exalted court. Finally, I looked into my own heart and there I saw Him; He was nowhere else.

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 roads to the shore.

The same wind that uproots trees makes the grass shine. The lordly wind loves the weakness and the lowness of grasses. Never brag of being strong. The axe doesn't worry how thick the branches are. It cuts them to pieces. But not the leaves. It leaves the leaves alone.

O my choice beauty You've gone But your love remains in my heart Your image in my eye O guide on my winding road I keep turning round and round in the hopes of Finding you

You're water. We're the millstone. You're wind. We're dust blown up into shapes. You're spirit. We're the opening and closing of our hands. You're the clarity. We're the language that tries to say it. You're joy. We're all the different kinds of laughing.

You soak up my soul and mingle me. Each drop of my blood cries out to the earth. We are partners, blended as one.

Stars burn clear all night till dawn. Do that yourself, and a spring will rise in the dark with water your deepest thirst is for.

My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless ; 'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one; One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.

I would love to kiss you. The price of kissing is your life.

Shams, my body is a candle touched with fire.

You are the drop,and the ocean you are kindness,you are anger, you are sweetness,you are poison. Do not make me more disheartened. you are the chamber of the sun, you are the abode of venus, you are the garden of all hope. Oh, Beloved, let me enter.

Bitter your acts, bitter am I, Kindness your deeds, kindness am I, Pleasant and gentle, so you are, Fine honeyed lips and sweet talker.

There came one and knocked at the door of the Beloved. And a voice answered and said, 'Who is there?' The lover replied, 'It is I.' 'Go hence,' returned the voice; 'there is no room within for thee and me.' Then came the lover a second time and knocked and again the voice demanded, 'Who is there?' He answered, 'It is thou.' 'Enter,' said the voice, 'for I am within.

You are an ocean in a drop of dew, all the universes in a thin sack of blood. What are these pleasures then, these joys, these worlds that you keep reaching for, hoping they will make you more alive?

We can't help being thirsty, moving toward the voice of water.

God picks up the reed-flute world and blows. Each note is a need coming through one of us, a passion, a longing pain. Remember the lips where the wind-breath originated, and let your note be clear. Don't try to end it. Be your note.

And patience flees my heart, And reason flees my mind. Oh, how drunk can I get to be, Without your love's security?

Like This If anyone asks you how the perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting will look, lift your face and say, Like this. When someone mentions the gracefulness of the nightsky, climb up on the roof and dance and say, Like this. If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is, or what "God’s fragrance" means, lean your head toward him or her. Keep your face there close. Like this. When someone quotes the old poetic image about clouds gradually uncovering the moon, slowly loosen knot by knot the strings of your robe. Like this. If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead, don’t try to explain the miracle. Kiss me on the lips. Like this. Like this. When someone asks what it means to "die for love," point here. If someone asks how tall I am, frown and measure with your fingers the space between the creases on your forehead. This tall. The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns. When someone doesn’t believe that, walk back into my house. Like this. When lovers moan, they’re telling our story. Like this. I am a sky where spirits live. Stare into this deepening blue, while the breeze says a secret. Like this. When someone asks what there is to do, light the candle in his hand. Like this. How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob? Huuuuu. How did Jacob’s sight return? Huuuu. A little wind cleans the eyes. Like this. When Shams comes back from Tabriz, he’ll put just his head around the edge of the door to surprise us Like this.

Knowledge that is acquired is not like this. Those who have it worry if audiences like it or not. It's a bait for popularity. Disputational knowing wants customers. It has no soul... The only real customer is God. Chew quietly your sweet sugarcane God-Love, and stay playfully childish.

Love asks us to enjoy our life For nothing good can come of death. Who is alive? I ask. Those who are born of love. Seek us in love itself, Seek love in us ourselves. Sometimes I venerate love, Sometimes it venerates me.

For ages you have come and gone courting this delusion. For ages you have run from the pain and forfeited the ecstasy. So come, return to the root of the root of your own soul. Although you appear in earthly form Your essence is pure Consciousness. You are the fearless guardian of Divine Light. So come, return to the root of the root of your own soul. When you lose all sense of self the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish. Lose yourself completely, Return to the root of the root of your own soul. You descended from Adam, by the pure Word of God, but you turned your sight to the empty show of this world. Alas, how can you be satisfied with so little? So come, return to the root of the root of your own soul. Why are you so enchanted by this world when a mine of gold lies within you? Open your eyes and come --- Return to the root of the root of your own soul. You were born from the rays of God's Majesty when the stars were in their perfect place. How long will you suffer from the blows of a nonexistent hand? So come, return to the root of the root of your own soul. You are a ruby encased in granite. How long will you decieve Us with this outer show? O friend, We can see the truth in your eyes! So come, return to the root of the root of your own soul. After one moment with that glorious Friend you became loving, radiant, and ecstatic. Your eyes were sweet and full of fire. Come, return to the root of the root of your own soul. Shams-e Tabriz, the King of the Tavern has handed you an eternal cup, And God in all His glory is pouring the wine. So come! Drink! Return to the root of the root of your own soul. Soul of all souls, life of all life - you are That. Seen and unseen, moving and unmoving - you are That. The road that leads to the City is endless; Go without head and feet and you'll already be there. What else could you be? - you are That.

Body is not veiled from soul, neither soul from body, Yet no man hath ever seen a soul.

There is a way between voice and presence, where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens; with wandering talk it closes.

Each moment from all sides rushes to us the call to love. We are running to contemplate its vast green field. Do you want to come with us?

O Love, O pure deep Love, be here, be now, Be all – worlds dissolve into your stainless endless radiance, Frail living leaves burn with your brighter than cold stares – Make me your servant, your breath, your core.

All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, And I intend to end up there. This drunkenness began in some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile, I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary. The day is coming when I fly off, But who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home. This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all. We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups. That's fine with us. Every morning We glow and in the evening we glow again.

I was a thorn rushing to be with a rose, vinegar blending with honey… Then I found some dirt to make an ointment that would honor my soul… Love says, “You are right, but don’t claim these changes. Remember, I am wind. You are an ember I ignite.

What the sayer of praise is really praising is himself, by saying implicitly, My eyes are clear." Likewise, someone who criticizes is criticizing himself, saying implicitly, "I can't see very well with my eyes so inflamed.

Without you the instruments would die. One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss. The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself. Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone, that what died last night can be whole today. Why live some soberer way, and feel you ebbing out? I won't do it. Either give me enough wine or leave me alone, now that I know how it is to be with you in constant conversation.

We gather at night to celebrate being human. Sometimes we call out low to the tambourine. Fish drink the sea, but the sea does not get smaller! We eat the clouds and evening light. We are slaves tasting the royal wine.

Someone who does not run toward the allure of love walks a road where nothing lives. But this dove here senses the love hawk floating above, and waits, and will not be driven or scared to safety.

Be helpless, dumbfounded, Unable to say yes or no. Then a stretcher will come from grace to gather us up. We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty. If we say we can, we’re lying. If we say No, we don’t see it, That No will behead us And shut tight our window onto spirit. So let us rather not be sure of anything, Beside ourselves, and only that, so Miraculous beings come running to help. Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute, We shall be saying finally, With tremendous eloquence, Lead us. When we have totally surrendered to that beauty, We shall be a mighty kindness.

The ear participates, and helps arrange marriages; the eye has already made love with what it sees. The eye knows pleasure, delights in the body's shape: the ear hears words that talk about all this. When hearing takes place, character areas change; but when you see, inner areas change. If all you know about fire is what you have heard see if the fire will agree to cook you! Certain energies come only when you burn. If you long for belief, sit down in the fire! When the ear receives subtly; it turns into an eye. But if words do not reach the ear in the chest, nothing happens.

God has allowed some magical reversal to occur, so that you see the scorpion pit as an object of desire, and all the beautiful expanse around it as dangerous and swarming with snakes.

Oh sky, without me, do not change, Oh moon, without me, do not shine; Oh earth, without me, do not grow, Oh time, without me, do not go. Others give you the name of Love, And me the sultan of that love. Higher than such illusions, Oh, you cannot go, without me.

Some Hindus have an elephant to show. No one here has ever seen an elephant. They bring it at night to a dark room. One by one, we go in the dark and come out saying how we experience the animal. One of us happens to touch the trunk. A water-pipe kind of creature. Another, the ear. A strong, always moving back and forth, fan-animal. Another, the leg. I find it still, like a column on a temple. Another touches the curve back. A leathery throne. Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk. A rounded sword made of porcelain. He is proud of his description. Each of us touches one place and understands the whole in that way. The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are how the senses explore the reality of the elephant. If each of us held a candle there, and if we went in together, we could see it.

If we come to sleep we are His drowsy ones And if we come to wake we are in His hands If we come to weeping we are His cloud full of raindrops And if we come to laughing we are His lightning in that moment If we come to anger and battle it is the reflection of His wrath And if we come to peace and pardon it is the reflection of His love Who are we in this complicated world?