Rumi Daily Quotes

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.

You left ground and sky weeping, mind and soul full of grief. No one can take your place in existence, or in absence. Both mourn, the angels, the prophets, and this sadness I feel has taken from me the taste of language, so that I cannot say the flavor of my being apart.

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 you want money more than anything, you will be bought and sold. If you have a greed for food, you will become a loaf of bread. This is a subtle truth. Whatever you love, you are.

Be loyal to your daily practice. Keep working. And keep knocking on the door. As you'll remember, it is said in one of Rumi's most pithy moments that the door we're knocking on opens from the inside.

Then you pray the prayer that is the essence of every ritual: God, I have no hope. I am torn to shreds. You are my first and my last and only refuge. Don’t do daily prayers like a bird pecking, moving its head up and down. Prayer is an egg. Hatch out the total helplessness inside. —RUMI

Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck we could have. It is a total waking-up. (from Buoyancy)

PRAYER IS AN EGG On Resurrection Day God will say, "What did you do with the strength and energy your food gave you on earth? How did you use your eyes? What did you make with your five senses while they were dimming and playing out? I gave you hands and feet as tools for preparing the ground for planting. Did you, in the health I gave, do the plowing?" You will not be able to stand when you hear those questions. You will bend double, and finally acknowledge the glory. God will say, "Lift your head and answer the questions." Your head will rise a little, then slump again. "Look at me! Tell what you've done." You try, but you fall back flat as a snake. "I want every detail. Say!" Eventually you will be able to get to a sitting position. "Be plain and clear. I have given you such gifts. What did you do with them?" You turn to the right looking to the prophet for help, as though to say, I am stuck in the mud of my life. Help me out of this! They will answer, those kings, "The time for helping is past. The plow stands there in the field. You should have used it. "Then you turn to the left, where your family is, and they will say, "Don't look at us! This conversation is between you and your creator." Then you pray the prayer that is the essence of every ritual: God, I have no hope. I am torn to shreds. You are my first and last and only refuge. Don't do daily prayers like a bird pecking, moving its head up and down. Prayer is an egg. Hatch out the total helplessness inside.

Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck we could have. It is a total waking-up.

When your heart becomes the grave of your secret, that desire of your will be gained more quickly.

The lover's ailment is separate from all other ailments: love is the astrolabe of the mysteries of God.

Never give from the depths of your well, but from your overflow. —RUMI

My guide, my soul, your only sadness is when I am not walking with you.

Listen to presences inside poems. Let them take you where they will. Follow those private hints, and never leave the premises.

If God said, Rumi, pay homage to everything that has helped you enter my arms, there would not be one experience of my life, not one thought, not one feeling, not any act, I would not bow to. Jalaludin Rumi (1207-1273)

Where Ibn al-Arabi had written for the intellectual, Rumi was summoning all human beings to live beyond themselves, and to transcend the routines of daily life. The Mathnawi celebrated the Sufi lifestyle which can make everyone an indomitable hero of a battle waged perpetually in the cosmos and within the soul. The Mongol invasions had led to a mystical movement, which helped people come to terms with the catastrophe they had experienced at the deeper levels of the psyche, and Rumi was its greatest luminary and exemplar.

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.

Butchers enjoy the mindless chewing of lambs. Likewise the appetites work for a shadow king. Do the soul work instead. Feed daily on wisdom. Expand your heart. Rest the appetites. They are bandits on the road. They stop your spirit and steal valuables. The most vital thing about you is your soul intelligence. The rest is a mask for that. Don't lose touch with it. Sensual wantings sometimes block and blur that intelligence as surely as wine or hashish can. Arrogance too is drunken, making you think things true that aren't.

Be courageous and discipline yourself. Work. Keep digging your well. Don't think about getting off from work. Submit to a daily practice. Your loyalty to that is a ring on the door. Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who's there.

Past and future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire. Rumi

Through your loving, existence and nonexistence merge. All opposites unite. All that is profane becomes sacred again. Rumi

A certain dervish tells a dream in the night-talking. "I saw the sheikhs who are connected to Khidr. I asked them where I might get some daily food without being bothered about earning it, so I could continue my devotions uninterrupted. 'Come to the mountains and eat wild fruit. Our benedictions have made its bitterness sweet. That way your days will be free. 'I did as they said, and from the fruit came a gift of speech that made my words exciting and spiritually transporting, valuable to many. "This is dangerous,' I thought. 'Lord of the world, give me another, more hidden gift.' I escaped. The beautiful speech left, and a joy came that I have never known. I burst open like a pomegranate. 'If heaven is nothing but this feeling, I have no further wish.

In our own daily lives, we always seek to identify with others and it matters to us what they think. While it is always good to care about the good of society and other people, it is also vital that we are able to stand alone and be autonomous in our thoughts, words and ideals.

The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.” —RUMI

Don't complain about autumn. Walk with grief like a good friend. Listen to what he says. Sometimes the cold and dark of a cave give the opening we most want.

To give an example of the Sufi approach to teachings, a conservative Islamic theologian might say that a Muslim who does not perform the five cycles of daily prayers will suffer punishment in the hereafter. A Sufi teacher, on the other hand, will liken prayers to attendance at celestial banquets. A practitioner who fails to pray is missing out on the joy of the feast. That loss is the punishment.

Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.—RUMI This month is all about simplicity. When you are committed to simplifying your life, your priorities, desires, and deep needs rise to the surface. When life is cluttered with things and busyness, you become blind to your needs. The complex demands of the day-to-day grind overshadow the more important, simple needs of your life. Sometimes you may hold on to possessions, relationships, people, and ideas long after their expiration date. It’s okay—necessary even—to let the things, people, and feelings that you no longer need fall away. When you remove the old to make way for the new, you are simply acknowledging what is and what isn’t in your life. Simplifying gives you the necessary space to breathe in deeply. It feeds your soul and creativity, and it allows you to lead an empowered life.

A human being is essentially a spirit-eye. Whatever you really see, you are that.

How Sisyphus and his myth of pointless endeavor chimes with me now is as a tale of recognition of the cyclical nature of all things, even and perhaps especially enlightenment. This commitment must be renewed daily; it is never permanently arrived at. The poet Rumi has a line: “Tomorrow you will awake frightened and alone.” When I heard that recited, I thought, “Fuck. I will an’ all; I always do.” Each morning, a new commitment is required to hand over my will, to relinquish my own ideas as to how my life should be, knowing that method always leads to trouble. Bill Hicks said, “The world is like a ride in an amusement park. It has thrills and spills and it is very brightly colored, and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have remembered and they come back to us. They say, ‘Hey … don’t be afraid, this is just a ride,’ and we … kill those people!” Rumi, Kierkegaard, and perhaps Bill himself have left clues and codes for us to help us to disentangle from the pain material, sensorial fixation. All prophecies stripped of acculturation and geographic ornamentation seem only to be saying, “Journey within; look behind your feelings, beyond your pain; fashion your world from what you find there.” What we inhabit now is a world built upon the feelings and fears that the prophets are telling us to overcome

We can only hope to catch a glimpse of people's inner light through their actions and words, and even then it remains an enigma, but the perfect mystic's inner light cannot be contained within him for he does not follow the patterns trod by other men.

Our body and soul are one, yet how amazing that our body may not necessarily know our soul!

Imagine someone saying to God, “I did this evil act just to test You!

While you soar in prosperity, seize the chance to be generous.

When totally immersed in pursuits that you love, illness and pain won't distract you.

The master told his pupils, I will never ask you to bring me precious gifts but I will ask you to become worthy of receiving gifts.

When a person walks by draped with priceless robes and jewels, you may wonder, does silk increase one's intelligence?

When you focus on their outward form, you will see only differences between the Muslim, the Christian, and the Jew. Why not zoom in on the inner light that they all share?

If you're in doubt choosing between two actions, remember this is an example of free will, and if you later regret your choice, it may nevertheless steer you in the right direction.

How useless to know the value of all things but to know nothing of one's own worth.

Love is reckless and carefree; small, trifling minds seek profit, but true lovers lavish everything on love and never expect benefits in return.