This blog includes excerpts from my book entitled The Lover's Gaze: Rumi's Guide for Lovers and Spiritual Seekers. In it I try to provide balanced (not too literal, yet not diverging from the original Persian) translations and commentary on the poetry and practical philosophy of Rumi, the Persian Sufi Mystic and Poet. The translations in this blog are copyrighted. If you wish to use them send me an email and I will need to verify usage then send you a formal email of permission of usage.
The Companion or the Friend (Doost, Yar) is another frequently used metaphor for Divine being in Rumi's Poetry. Many of his stories and verses of other Sufi mystics depict the quest for the Companion. There is companionship at multiple levels, frienship at various degrees. Here, not only between the Moon and Mars here, but also, if you look solely within the Moon, it shines by the light of its Companion, The Light bestowing Sun and of course, God "is the Light of the Heavens and of Earth".
Rumi sometimes refers to the Divine creator as the Painter who has created the world as a painting of His creation.
