A poem from my friend Dida

I look into the river
I can see your face as my own mirror
Can I give you my hand
To push you to our homeland
Which you keep hiding?
Souls flow with the river
Butterflies seeking our laughs in the fields
Hunting the perfect lyrics
Throwing the tenderness into the lines
Touching hearts,
Reflection for new world,
Where peace come from inside..

Mos u brengos, por prite mëngjesin

‘’A nuk është mëngjesi afër?’’ (Kur’an 11:8)
Mëngjesi i të burgosurve dhe pikëlluarve filloi të shfaqet. Shih sa bukur agon, sa mirë i çel dyert e errëta drita e saj. Arabët thonë: ‘’ Kur të shohësh se litari është tërhequr tepër, dije se do të këputet.’’ Sa më tepër të shtohet ngushtësia, aq më afër e ke rrugëdaljen. Allahu xh.sh. thotë në Kur’anin Famëlartë:
‘’E kush i frikësohet Allahut, Ai atij ia lehtëson punën’’
Lexo fjalët e poetit, sa bukur i ka thurur:

Disa sy fletën, e disa s’i zuri gjumi
Për çështjet, që do bëhen apo do ngelin

Lëshoji brenga nga truri, aq sa ke mundësi
Të mbash mërzi sa s’mundesh është çmenduri.

Ti beson në Një Zot që nga dora s’të lëshon dot
Ashtu si s’të harroi dje, s’të harron as sot.

Fjalë tjetër poetike:
Lëri përcaktimet të rrjedhin e mos u përpjek t‘i frenosh
Kur në mbrëmje sytë t’i mbyllësh, trurin nga të këqijat ta çlirosh.

Sa çel e mbyll sytë, çështja mund të ndryshojë
Allahu prej një gjendjeje në tjetër, shpesh ndodh ta shndërrojë.

The Questioning

Now, this minute, you are listening to me. You accept some part of what I say because you have heard similar things before, but some you only half accept, and concerning other things you hesitate. No one hears this rejection or acceptance, or the debate going on within you. Even though you are listening, no sound or voice comes to your ear from within you. If you search inwardly, you will find no instrument of speech.

This coming of yours, to visit me, is itself a question without a throat or tongue, namely,
“Show me a way, and explain what you have shown.” My sitting with you, whether silent or speaking, is an answer to your hidden questions. When you wait upon the king, that is a question addressed to the king and an answer. Every day the king questions his servants without tongue: “How do you stand? How do you eat? How do you look?” If anyone has a wry look within them, their answer inevitably comes out awry and they cannot give a straight answer. In the same way someone who stammers, however much they wish to speak straight, is unable to do so. A goldsmith who rubs gold against a stone is questioning the gold, and gold answers, “This is I. I am pure.” Or, “I am alloyed.”


Hunger is a questioning of nature: “There is a crack in the body’s house. Give a brick. Give clay.” Eating is an answer: “Take.” Not eating is also an answer: “Wait until later. The brick is not yet dry.” The physician comes and takes our pulse. That is a question—the throbbing of the vein is the answer. Examining the urine is an unspoken question and answer. To cast a seed into the ground is a question: “Will you give fruit?” The growing ofthe tree is an answer without a tongue. Because the answer is wordless, the question must be wordless, too.


A king read three letters from the same man, but did not answer. The subject wrote a complaint, saying, “Three times now I have petitioned your majesty. Let your majesty atleast say whether my petition has been accepted or rejected.” The king wrote on the back of the letter, “Do you not know that refusing an answer is an answer itself, and that the answer to a fool is silence?”


A tree’s not growing is a refusal to answer, and is an answer itself. Every motion people make is a question. Whatever happens to them, whether sorrow or joy, is an answer. If they hear a pleasant answer, they show their thanks. Thanks is expressed by asking the same kind of question again. If they hear an unpleasant answer, they quickly ask God’s forgiveness and do not repeat that kind of question.


Someone said, “Why did you kill your mother?” The other answered, “I saw her sleeping with a strange man.” The first person said, “You should have killed the stranger.” The second one said, “Then I would be killing someone every day.”


Therefore, whatever happens to you, correct your own self, then you will not have to fight with someone every day. If others say, “Everything is from God,” we reply: Then to reproach one’s own self and to let the world be is also from God.


This is like the story of a boy who shook down apricots from a tree and ate them. The owner of the orchard caught him and said, “Aren’t you afraid of God’s punishment?” The boy said, “Why should I be afraid? The tree belongs to God, and I am God’s servant. God’s servant ate God’s fruit!” The owner said, “Wait and see what answer I shall give you. Fetch a rope, tie him to this tree and beat him until the answer is made clear!” The boy said, “Aren’t you afraid of God’s punishment?” The owner answered, “Why should I be afraid? You are God’s servant, and this is God’s stick. I am beating God’s servant with God’s stick!”


The moral is that this world is like an echo—whatever you say, whether good or evil, you hear the same from the mountain. If you think, “I spoke beautifully and the mountain gave an ugly answer,” this is impossible. When the nightingale sings in the mountain, does the mountain return the voice of a raven or a donkey? Know for certain then that you have spoken like a donkey!


Speak sweetly when crossing the mountain pass,
Why do you bray like an ass?
The azure sky sends back the note,
Of sweetness from your own throat.



from Signs of the Unseen - J.R.

You are that very thought,..those bones and nerves are something other

Rumi was asked the meaning of the following lines:

When love attains its ultimate goal
Desire turns to dislike.

Rumi explained: Dislike is a narrow world compared to friendship. That is why people run from hatred to find friendship. But the world of friendship is itself narrow next to the Source of both friendship and dislike. Friendship and enmity, unbelief and faith—these are all opposites that lead to duality. Yet a world exists where there is no duality but only pure unity, and when we reach that world we are beyond friendship and dislike. There is no room for two in that world.
When we arrive there, we leave duality behind. The world of freedom we loved and struggled for is narrow next to that state where no opposites exist. Therefore, we no longer desire it, and are repulsed by it.

When Mansur al-Hallaj reached his utmost friendship with God, he became his own enemy and gave away his life. He said, “I am God,” meaning, “I have passed away. God alone remains.” This is extreme humility. Your saying, “Thou art God, and I am Your servant,” is arrogance, for you have affirmed your own existence, and created dualism. To say, “He is God,” is still duality, for until “I” exists “He” is impossible. Therefore it was God alone who said, “I am God,” since Mansur had passed away.

The world of imagination is greater than facts and concepts, for all concepts are born of imagination. Yet imagination itself is narrow compared to that world from which imagination is born. This is the limit of explanations, for that reality cannot be made known by words and expressions.

Someone asked: “Then what is the use of expressions and words?”

Rumi answered: Words set you searching. They are not the objects of your quest. If that were the case, there would be no need for all this spiritual struggle and self-sacrifice. Words are like glimpsing something far away. You follow in its trail to see it better, but this doesn’t mean the trail is what you are seeking. Speech is inwardly the same—it excites you to seek the meaning, even though the words are never the reality.

The other day someone said, “I have studied many sciences and mastered many ideas, yet I still do not know what essence in the human being exists forever. I have searched, but I have not discovered it.”

If such things were knowable through words alone, you would never need to pass away from your self and suffer such pains. But if you did not endure the struggle of losing your temporary self, how could you ever know that essence which will remain?

A boy says, “I have heard about the Kaaba, but no matter how far I look I can not see it. I will go up to the roof and search from there.” When he gets to the roof and stretches out his neck, he still can not see the Kaaba, so he rejects that any Kaaba exists. To see the Kaaba takes more than that. It is impossible to see it from the place where one abides.

In the same way, during winter, you hunt for a fur jacket with all your soul, but when summer arrives you fling it away and forget about it. You sought the coat for the warmth. You were in love with warmth. In winter you can not find warmth and therefore need the medium of the coat, but once the summer sun starts to shine, you fling the fur jacket away.

“When heaven is rent asunder,” and “When earth is shaken with a mighty shaking,” are references to yourself. They mean that you have experienced the pleasure of being gathered together, but the day is coming when you will experience the pleasure of being torn apart. Then you will behold the expanse of the other world and be delivered from this present narrowness. For instance, if someone is held down by four nails for a long time, they start to feel comfortable with this condition, and forget the pleasure of being free. After they escape the four nails, then they realize the torment they had been in. Similarly, children are swaddled and put to rest in a cradle, and they are perfectly at ease with their hands bound. But if a grown person were cribbed in a cradle, it would be torment and prison.

Some feel pleasure when roses bloom and push forth their heads from the bud. Some feel pleasure when the petals of the rose become scattered by the wind and rejoin their origin. Therefore, some people want friendship, passion, unbelief and faith all to dissolve and return to their source. For these are walls of form cause narrowness and duality, while the other world is broadness and absolute unity.

These words of themselves have no power. How can they be powerful? They are merely words. In fact, in themselves they can become a cause of weakness. Yet they inspire some to truth. Words are a veil. How can two or three letters combined together cause life and excitement?

When people come to visit and you greet them politely, and welcome them, they are happy and feel affection. If you receive them with two or three words of abuse, those two or three words cause them anger and pain. Now what connection is there between stringing together a few words and an increase in affection, or provocation of anger? God appointed these veils so that no one’s gaze can fall upon Its beauty and perfection. Weak veils are appropriate to weak eyes.

Bread in reality is not the cause of life, but God has made it appear to be the cause of life and strength. After all, bread has no human life of itself, so how can it create strength? If it had any life at all, it would have kept itself alive.

from Signs of the Unseen - The Discourses of Jalaluddin Rumi