The pen broke, and the page was torn.

Do you see this man who has fallen asleep while we were talking? That  slumber is not a sign of heedlessness, but safety and security. Like a caravan travelling along a difficult and dangerous road on a dark night, they drive on in fear, lest harm should befall them. But as soon as the voice of a dog, or cock, reaches their ears and they and a village, they are carefree. They stretch out their legs and sleep sweetly. On the road, where not a sound or murmur would disturb them, they cannot sleep out of fear. But in the village they and security, and with all the barking of dogs and crowing of cocks, still they are happy and fall asleep.  

Our words also derive from community and security, they are the sayings of prophets and saints. When soul hears the words of those familiar friends, it feels secure and is delivered from any fear, for upon these words is wafted a scent of hope and felicity.  

Just as those travelers on that dark night think that every moment thieves are mingling with their caravan, so they desire to hear the words of their fellow travelers and to recognize them by their words. Once they hear their friends speak they feel secure. The same is true with you. Because your essence is subtle, glances are not enough for us, but if you speak we will then hear that familiar friend of our spirits and feel secure and at peace. So speak!  

A certain mouse inhabiting a cornfield is invisible, being so small, but once it makes a sound, then people know it by means of its sound. And so, people are utterly immersed in the cornfield of this world, and your essence, being extremely subtle, is invisible. So speak, that they may recognize you.  When we long to see a certain place, our heart goes first to experience the conditions there. Then our heart returns and draws our body along. Now all the men and women of this world are like bodies in relation to the saints and the prophets, who are the heart of this world. These beings of the heart first journeyed to the other world, leaving their human attributes of flesh and skin. They surveyed the depths and heights of that world, and traversed all the stages, until they knew the way. Then they came back and summoned mankind, saying, “Come to that original world! For this world is a bleak and empty ruin compared to that garden we have discovered.”  

From this you should realize that the heart is always attached to its beloved, and has no need to traverse the stages, no need to fear highwaymen, no need of the mule’s packsaddle. It is the wretched body that is tied to these things.  

I said to my heart,

“How is it you are barred from the service

Of He whose name you bless?”

My heart replied,

“You misread the signs.

I am constantly in His service,

You are the one astray.”

Wherever you are, no matter what may happen, always strive to be a lover, a passionate lover. Once love has become your property you will be a lover eternally, in the grave, at the resurrection, or in Paradise, for ever and ever. When you have sown wheat, wheat will surely grow, stocks of wheat will fill the shed, loaves of wheat will fill the oven.

When Majnun wanted to write a letter to Laila, he took a pen in his hand and wrote:

Your name is on my tongue, Your image is within my sight, Your memory

fills my heart, Where, then, can I write?

Your image dwells in my sight, Your name never leaves my tongue,

Your memory occupies the depths of my soul, so where am I to write, see-

ing that You are here in all these places? 

The pen broke, and the page was torn.

Many are those whose heart is full of such reality, but they cannot express the words in terms of speech. This is not surprising, and is no limit to that love. On the contrary, the root of the matter is the heart, yearning, and passion. A child is in love with milk, and from milk it derives succor and strength, yet the child cannot explain milk or describe it, saying, “What pleasure I and in drinking milk, and how weak and anguished I would be without it.” The child has no words for it, yet still it desires milk. Most grown people, on the other hand, even though they might describe milk in a thousand ways, still they and no such pleasure or delight in milk like they did as children.

Discourse 44, FI HI MA FIHI Discourses of Rumi


Image courtesy: http://uneviedartiste.blogspot.com/