My heart has opened to every form. It is a pasture for gazelles, a cloister for Christians, a temple for idols, the Ka’ba of the pilgrims, the tablet of the Torah and the book of the Koran. I practice the religion of Love; in whichever directions its caravans advance, the religion of Love will be my religion and my faith.
Ibn El Arabi – 12th century Sufi mystic
You bewilder us
with your grace.
All evils
transform into
goodness.
You are the master alchemist.
You light the fire of love
in earth and sky
in heart and soul
of every being.
Through your love
existence and nonexistence merge.
All opposites unite.
All that is profane
becomes sacred again
“That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty, He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful.”
~ Rumi
Look how desire has changed in you,
how light and colorless it is,
with the world growing new marvels
…because of your changing.
Your soul has become an invisible bee.
We don’t see it working,
but there’s the full honeycomb.
Your body’s height, six feet or so,
but your soul rises through nine levels of sky.
A barrel corked with earth
and a raw wooden spile
keeps the oldest vineyard’s wine inside.
When I see you,
it is not so much your physical form,
but the company of two riders,
your pure-fire devotion and your love
for the one who teaches you.
Then the sun and moon on foot behind those.
~Rumi
From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it
Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for
Today I have found you
and those who laughed
and scorned me yesterday
are sorry that they were not looking
as I did
I am bewildered by the magnificence
of your beauty
and wish to see you
with a hundred eyes
My heart has burned with passion
and has searched forever
for this wondrous beauty
that I now behold
I am ashamed
to call this love human
and afraid of God
to call it divine
Your fragrant breath
like the morning breeze
has come to the stillness of the garden
You have breathed new life into me
I have become your sunshine
and also your shadow
My soul is screaming in ecstasy
Every fibre of my being
is in love with you
Your effulgence
has lit a fire in my heart
for me
the earth and sky
My arrow of love
has arrived at the target
I am in the house of mercy
and my heart
is a place of prayer
Rumi
Let us fall in love again
and scatter gold dust all over the world.
Let us become a new spring
and feel the breeze drift in the heavens’ scent.
Let us dress the earth in green,
and like the sap of a young tree
let the grace from within sustain us.
Let us carve gems out of our stony hearts
and let them light our path to Love.
The glance of Love is crystal clear
and we are blessed by its light.
Rumi
This is a day that is like no other. This is a moment in which you can make great things happen.
This is a world full of challenge and opportunity. This is a life that’s overflowing with possibilities.
This is your chance to make a real, positive difference. This is the time that is yours to fully live.
This is reality, and it is filled with promise. This is when you can begin to make your most treasured dreams real.
This is the place where your choices have brought you. This is your first step toward the best you can imagine.
This moment, this world, this life that you’re in can be whatever you decide to make of it. This is your reminder to make it great.
— Ralph Marston
The smallest changes can make the biggest difference. Because the smallest changes are the ones you can repeat over and over again.
The once-in-a-lifetime events are indeed impressive, and they certainly command your attention. Yet the routine, once-a-day actions can have a far greater impact because they are done again and again.
Every few seconds, for example, you take a breath of air, and rarely do you ever even think about doing it. Yet this small, regularly repeated action literally sustains your life and makes all your other activities possible.
When you want to make it big, think small. Find the small, easily accomplished actions that will steadily take you to your most ambitious goals.
The biggest problems will almost always yield to the smallest changes. Because the smallest changes can be overwhelmingly relentless, like tiny drops of rain wearing away the most massive boulder.
When you seek a big result, start with the small changes. They are the ones that will most reliably get you there.
Ralph Marston
Everyone has to make his exit some day;
that movement should not be a moment of angish;
one should depart gracefully,
With a smile and a bow.
Baba
Author - Richard F Holmes 