In my search for the critical issues in health, I find myself turning to the wisdom of ancient masters. The Sufi poet, mystic and philosopher Rumi is becoming one of my favorite authors to gain this wisdom.
If you haven’t read Rumi, I will share some of my favorites, but I encourage you to explore his works.
The first wisdoms detail who we are. He deeply believed that we are spiritual beings with a human experience. He also reinforces our power and unity/wholeness with each other.
On wisdom:
You are not a drop in the ocean, you are an ocean in a drop.
Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make sense anymore. Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.
On growth:
Your task is not to seek for love, but to merely seek and find all the barriers within yourself against it.
Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside of you.
Yesterday, I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise, so I am changing myself.
The wound is the place where the Light enters you.
Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.
Maybe you are searching in the branches, for what only appears in the roots.
You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.
You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?
These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.
On death:
I died as a mineral and became a plant;
I died as a plant and rose to an animal;
I died as an animal and I was a man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as a man to soar with angels blest.
But even from an angel I must pass on: all except God must perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel soul,
I shall become a hat no other man ever conceived.
On faith and joy:
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.
Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.
My soul is from elsewhere. I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
Whatever lifts the corners of your mouth, trust that.
There is a voice that doesn’t use words, listen.
What you seek is seeking you.
On love:
Love is the bridge between you and everything.
Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.
Only from the heart can you touch the sky.
Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.
Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.
He also said that we should live life as if everything is rigged in our favor.
I think that if we believe in what Rumi shares with us that we are conscious, powerful creators who have forgotten our power. Forgotten that our life on earth is not about only overcoming fear, achieving ego-based awards, having more Twitter followers, but to wake up to who we really are. Enjoy the miracles that surround us.
Once we have an inkling of this power and quiet our thoughts enough to be in touch with the omnipresent quiet internal voice of our soul, we find ourselves. Our path becomes clear.
Peaceful. Joyful. Whole. Powerful. Creative. Fulfilled.
Healthy and happy.
Almost heaven.