Muhittin Abdal says

They're always talking about human, human --
     What a human being is, now I know.
They are always discussing heart, the heart --
     What the heart is, now I know.

Within the heart of the believer it was found --
     it wasn't found anywhere outside.
We found it in our own vast selves.
     What faith is, now I know.

This is how they pick the wheat from the chaff,
     and where your words and deeds must speak for you.
This is where the wise ones guide the Path --
     What the essence of this Sufi way is, now I know.

What the pious fearful carry like baggage,
     why they shoot their arrows at the faithful,
What they hide and trumped in nice language --
     What doubt is, now I know.

Given all these attributes, I became a person.
     Through God's vastness I was forgiven everything.
I found absolute oneness with Reality.
     What the guest is, now I know.

I said to my inner self Be humble,
     and the Glorious One showered me in blessings;
There was a sign that seared me in the heart.
     What the proof is, now I know.

Muhittin proclaims the Truth is a spectator.
     God is everywhere if you are willing to see.
What is the hidden, what is the apparent --
     What a human being is, now I know.

Abu Said says

Whatever road we take to You, Joy.
However one is received, Honor.
With whatever eye one beholds You, Beauty.
In whatever language Your Name is spoken, Joy.

Abu Said says

Though burning has become an old habit for this heart,
I dare not think of Your company.
What would a moth mean
to the fire that burns worlds?

Abu Said says

Those who seek annihilation in the Beloved and poverty in life
have no need of religion, knowledge or intellect.
They do not even exist, only the Beloved remains.
This is what the verse, “The poor have Him only,” means.

Abu Said says

This is My Face," said the Beloved,
wearing a basket of roses.
Thick, dark mystery flowing over the shoulder,
"This is my hair!"
A hundred musk incense sticks burning,
"This is My Perfume."
Fires everywhere, the whole creation aflame,
"This is My Passion."

Abu Said says

The sum total of our life is a breath
spent in the company of the Beloved.

Abu Said says

The day Love was illumined,
Lovers learned from You how to burn, Beloved.
The flame was set by the Friend
to give the moth a gate to enter.
Love is a gift from the Beloved to the Lover.

Abu Said says

Sorrow looted this heart,
and Your Love threw it to the winds.
This is how the secret which saints and seers were denied
was whispered to me.

Abu Said says

Rise early at dawn, when our storytelling begins.
In the dead of the night, when all other doors are
locked,
the door for the Lovers to enter opens.
Be wide awake in the dark when Lovers
begin fluttering around the Beloved's window,
like homing pigeons arriving with flaming bodies.

Abu Said says

Piousness and the path of love
are two different roads.
Love is the fire that burns both belief
and non-belief.
Those who practice Love have neither
religion nor caste.

Abu Said says

On Unity's Way:
     no infidelity
          no faith.
Take one step
     away from yourself and --
          behold! -- the Path!
You, soul of the world,
     must choose the road
          of Divine Submission
then sit with anyone you like
     -- even a black snake --
          but not your self!

Abu Said says

Nothing but burning sobs and tears tonight.
No way out and no patience left.
Last night our hearts had a moment together,
I suppose this is how I have to pay for it!

Abu Said says

My Beloved, this torture and pain
I suffer because I am so addicted to Your Beauty.
People ask me whether I prefer Your
company to being in heaven.
Heedless fools, what would heaven itself mean
without the Friend's Presence?

Abu Said says

My Beloved, don't be heartless with me.
Your Presence is my only cure.
How can I be left with neither a heart, nor my Beloved?
Either return my heart, or do not deny me
Your Presence.

Abu Said says

Mansoor, that whale of the Oceans of Love,
had separated his soul from the entanglements of this life.
It was not him who claimed
Ana-al-Haq (I am the truth),
It was the Friend in whom he had lost his self.
It was the Beloved.

Abu Said says

Love came and emptied me of self,
every vein and every pore,
made into a container to be filled by the Beloved.
Of me, only a name is left,
the rest is You my Friend, my Beloved.

Abu Said says

Love came
     flowed like blood
     beneath skin, through veins
emptied me of my self
     filled me
     with the Beloved
till every limb
     every organ was seized
     and occupied
till only
     my name remains.
     the rest is It.

Abu Said says

It is Him manifest in us,
all our struggles and achievements,
from that source.
Humility and meekness are appropriate here.
Before tasting the Presence, one rejects all that is manifest.

Abu Said says

In the school of mind you
learn a lot, and become
a true scholar for many to look up to.
In the school of Love, you become
a child to learn again.

Abu Said says

In my heart Thou dwellest--else with blood I'll drench it;
In mine eye Thou glowest--else with tears I'll quench it.
Only to be one with Thee my soul desireth--
Else from out my body, by hook or crook, I'll wrench it!

Abu Said says

If You order me to spend my life at the gates of monasteries,
or have me running to Mecca,
Your wish is my command.
Glorious will be the day when You
release me from my self.

Abu Said says

If you keep seeking the jewel of understanding,
then you are a mine of understanding in the making.
If you live to reach the Essence one day,
then your life itself is an expression of the Essence.
Know that in the final analysis you are that
which you search for.

Abu Said says

If you do not give up the crowds
you won't find your way to Oneness.
If you do not drop your self
you won't find your true worth.
If you do not offer all you
have to the Beloved,
you will live this life free of that
pain which makes it worth living.

Abu Said says

Detached You are, even from your being,
and this being is nothing but You.
Unmanifest, yet the manifest is naught
but Your shadow.

Moons, galaxies and worlds drunk from this cup.
And the cupbearer is nowhere to be seen!

Abu Said says

Beg for Love.
Consider this burning, and those who
burn, as gifts from the Friend.
Nothing to learn.
Too much has already been said.
When you read a single page from
the silent book of your heart,
you will laugh at all this chattering,
all this pretentious learning.

Abu Said says

A pious one with a hundred beads on your rosary,
or a drunkard in a tavern,
any gift you bring the Beloved will be accepted
as long as you come in longing.
It is this most secret pain,
this bleeding separation,
which will guide you to your Heart of Hearts.

Czeslaw Milosz says

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget -- I kept saying -- that we are all children of the King.

For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef -- they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

Dam Hama Dam Ali Ali