The Lover’s Malady

This translation from the first book of Rumi's spiritual couplets extracts the essence of his perception of the malady of the Lover. He portrays it in a story where a King falls in love with a Handmaiden and brings her to his palace to love, only to find she is getting sicker by the day. After much introspection and praying for Divine grace for help, a non-worldly physician comes and discovers

The Lover’s Malady

He realized, her sickness was of heart
Her body was fine; she fell sick from love

Love is apparent, from desperation of heart
Nothing compares to the ailment of Love

The malady of the lover, is of a different sort
Love is the compass, through the secrets of God

No matter the reason that kindles our Love
It will finally lead, to the transcendent realm

Try as I may to explain it away
Still I am chagrined when I arrive at Love

[Whatever I say to try to explain and describe love]
[When I come to love, I am chagrined of it]

Expressive words, are insightful to us
Yet speechless love is clearest of all

As the pen rushed forth, eager to write
When it came upon love, it broke apart

Thrashing to explain, the mind is mired in mud

Love and the Lover, explainable only through Love


Note: The He, is the divinely sent physician , the "I" later in the poem is Rumi teaching us that love is to be felt, not described and explained intellectually. he uses the metaphor of love being an ailment, not a bad one, but one of a different kind/sort/type. That Love is an astrolabe (used to help find a ships position within the starry firmament and thus navigate it to its goal), a "compass" that helps us navigate through the divine secrets and mysteries.

We may think that love is petty or too mundane and that the true love is divine love: maybe. But Rumi reminds us that any type of love is "good" and no matter the reason that kindled your love, this will gradually lead you onward to experience more refined, subtle and elevated levels of experiencing love, ultimately to the "other realm" the spirtual, transcendent world.

"I have been explaining away" but in reality, "however hard I try" , I am embarrassed at the failure of trying to explain something that cannot be intellectually contained and described in its totality. So yes, explanations and elucidations are all well and good, but, the direct experience of Love is the clearest of all enunciations. Direct experience of the Divine is the clearest way to experience that Love of the Divine, of Uniting with the Beloved.

Many pens have made fervent but futile attempts to write about this communion. And Rumi uses this powerful imagery of the pen, rushing to try to explain Love and as soon as it arrives at that word and tries its hardest to explain it, it splits in two, it shatters, breaks part.

He likens the intellect to a donkey who is mired in mud and thrashes in an effort to get out and the harder it struggles the more mired it gets, until it has to lay there for the night, in the mud and sleep.


Ultimately, it is the experience of Love that can only explain Love and the state of the Lover.

Be a Lover

ترک معشوقی کن و کن عاشقی
Let go of everything associated with being the beloved, be a lover

ای گمان برده که خوب و فایقی
You think highly of yourself -  that you can overcome anything  

ای که در معنی ز شب خامش‌تری
As far as inner meaning is concerned you are quieter than the night

گفت خود را چند جویی مشتری
For how long are you going to try to sell yourself?

سر بجنبانند پیشت بهر تو
They nod their heads when they are in your presence

رفت در سودای ایشان دهر تو
They forget about you when they are away

تو مرا گویی حسد اندر مپیچ

چه حسد آرد کسی از فوت هیچ

هست تعلیم خسان ای چشم‌شوخ

هم‌چو نقش خرد کردن بر کلوخ

خویش را تعلیم کن عشق و نظر

که آن بود چون نقش فی جرم الحجر

نفس تو با تست شاگرد وفا

غیر فانی شد کجا جویی کجا

تا کنی مر غیر را حبر و سنی

خویش را بدخو و خالی می‌کنی

متصل چون شد دلت با آن عدن

هین بگو مهراس از خالی شدن

امر قل زین آمدش کای راستین

The Tale of the Flute

Listen to how this flute complains 

Telling us tales of separations,

“Ever since I was cut from the reedbed  

 men and women have moaned from my cry

I seek one whose heart is torn with separation

So I can tell them the tale of the pain of longing.

Whoever is left far from their source

Will seek again the day of reunion 

I empathized with many groups

I paired with the happy and the sad

Each befriended me from their angle

But none sought out the secret within me

You will find my secret not far from my cry

Yet they haven’t that light, the ear and eye

Body and soul can’t be hidden long from each other

Yet people have no command over this inner vision

The sound of the flute is not from wind, but fire

May those without this fire; cease to exist!

It is the fire of love that fell in the flute

It is the bubbling of love that fell into wine

The flute’s a companion to those parted with a friend

Whose veils have cut asunder our own veils

Who has seen poison and antidote in one, like the flute?

Who has seen a companion and eager friend like the flute?

The flute tells a tale of a much bloodied way

Tells us stories of insane love 

The confidant of this awareness is no-awareness

the tongue’s best customer is the ear

In our sorrow; the days go by

The days are coupled with painful longing

Tell the passing days, “Go, I have no fear!”

stay with me– besides whom there is none pure 

Rumi thanksgiving part 2

this is part of a story about a clan of rabbits and the kind of the jungle, the lion.
Rumi begins by defining power as our attempt or our trying to give thanks for the blessings we have received. Even the attempt, the trying is defined by him as power.
سعی شکر نعمتش قدرت بود
Trying to give thanks
for blessings bestowed
is considered power
جبر تو انکار آن نعمت بود
If you consider them inevitable
You will negate them
شکر قدرت قدرتت افزون کند
Giving thanks for power,
Will increase your power
جبر نعمت از کفت بیرون کند
Thinking you are entitled
the blessings slip away


Rumi gives us an example of a blessing: power. The ability to do something to have some station in life, wherever that maybe, however high or low.
He says giving thanks for your blessings will increase them, not giving thanks will dissolve them.

A thanksgiving supplication

We begin our thanksgiving with a supplication and an exchange of secrets between Rumi and God as he describes it in the Masnavi.
ای خدا جان را تو بنما آن مقام
Oh Lord grant my life essence that stature
کاندرو بیحرف میروید کلام
So it can grow speech without words
تا که سازد جان پاک از سر قدم
So the pure untainted life essence
Can one again start its dance
سوی عرصهی دور و پنهای عدم
Towards the far and unbounded field of Nonbeing
عرصهای بس با گشاد و با فضا
fields unbounded and spacious
وین خیال و هست یابد زو نوا
That grant the musical waves of thought and being
تنگتر آمد خیالات از عدم
Narrower still than Nonbeing are thoughts
زان سبب باشد خیال اسباب غم
Thus thoughts become the means of sorrow
باز هستی تنگتر بود از خیال
From thoughts narrower still is this material world
زان شود در وی قمر همچون هلال
Which makes a crescent out of the moon
باز هستی جهان حس و رنگ
Tighter still is this prison
تنگتر آمد که زندانیست تنگ
the world of senses and colors
علت تنگیست ترکیب و عدد
Number and mixture cause this tightness
جانب ترکیب حسها میکشد
The senses pull you to the mixtures
زان سوی حس عالم توحید دان
Beyond the senses resides the realm of Unity
گر یکی خواهی بدان جانب بران
Drive there if you seek the One
امر کن یک فعل بود و نون و کاف
The command "be!" is one verb and an "e" and "b"
در سخن افتاد و معنی بود صاف
Falters and falls in speech
But it's meaning is smooth and clear
این سخن پایان ندارد باز گرد
Return : this is an unending discourse
تا چه شد احوال گرگ اندر نبرد
Let's return to the story of the wolf in battle

The Men of God -- from Foroughi Bastami

Another famoud Persian Poet writes about the characteristics of the men of God.

فروغی بسطامی

مردان خدا پردهٔ پندار دریدند
The men of God rent the veil of thought
یعنی همه جا غیر خدا یار ندیدند
which means they saw noone but God anywhere

هر دست که دادند از آن دست گرفتند
They received from the same hand they gave
هر نکته که گفتند همان نکته شنیدند
they heard back whatever points they had made to others

یک طایفه را بهر مکافات سرشتند
they chose one crowd to be punished
یک سلسله را بهر ملاقات گزیدند
and another to reach communion

یک فرقه به عشرت در کاشانه گشادند
one group are happy and having a great time
یک زمره به حسرت سر انگشت گزیدند
another crowd are biting their fingers in envy and regret

جمعی به در پیر خرابات خرابند
one group are smashed behind the winehouse
قومی به بر شیخ مناجات مریدند
another are praying, followers of the spiritual guide

یک جمع نکوشیده رسیدند به مقصد
one group reached their destination without effort
یک قوم دویدند و به مقصد نرسیدند
another crowd ran long and did not arrive

فریاد که در رهگذر آدم خاکی
Hear my shout hear my cry: in this passageway on earth
بس دانه فشاندند و بسی دام تنیدند
many have poured seeds and many have laid traps

همت طلب از باطن پیران سحرخیز
seek motivation from the hearts of those early rising wise ones
زیرا که یکی را ز دو عالم طلبیدند
for they sought to uncover one or two secrets of the two worlds

زنهار مزن دست به دامان گروهی
beware -- don't fall in with that group
کز حق ببریدند و به باطل گرویدند
who broke apart from Truth and joined False

چون خلق درآیند به بازار حقیقت
when the people come to the market of Truth
ترسم نفروشند متاعی که خریدند
i fear they will not sell the food they had bought

کوتاه نظر غافل از آن سرو بلند است
that myopic one who looks only at his feet can't see the tall pine
کاین جامه به اندازهٔ هر کس نبریدند
for they didn't cut this cloth to fit everyone's size

مرغان نظرباز سبک‌سیر فروغی
those keen light-flying birds of light
از دام گه خاک بر افلاک پریدند
flew away from the traps of dust into the blue heavens

Hear The Voice of Love, eloquently speaking -- Hafez Ode 178

We have a guest appearance by Hafez, in his ode 178, entitled as above.

To extend the colloquial religious connotation, Mahram, is a word used to denote those who are in our intimate trusted circle; our circle of trust, those who can know our secrets, though whom we trust our secrets. "Mahram e Del" Are those who are are close to our heart (del). "Haram" is the variation of the English Harem; but the meaning of the word itself is a protected domain, a protected area , a sacred area, "holy ground" is the closest English equivalent.

هر که شد محرم دل در حرم یار بماند
Whoever gains the status of a one trusted by the heart
will remain safe on the holy ground of Love
وان که این کار ندانست در انکار بماند
And those who do not know how to accomplish this
will forever remain in the realm of rejection

اگر از پرده برون شد دل من عیب مکن
Don't find fault with me for showing my Love
If my heart springs out from behind the curtain
شکر ایزد که نه در پرده پندار بماند
thank the Lord it did not remain behind
that veil forever just continuing to think about love

صوفیان واستدند از گرو می همه رخت
دلق ما بود که در خانه خمار بماند

محتسب شیخ شد و فسق خود از یاد ببرد
قصه ماست که در هر سر بازار بماند

هر می لعل کز آن دست بلورین ستدیم
آب حسرت شد و در چشم گهربار بماند

جز دل من کز ازل تا به ابد عاشق رفت
جاودان کس نشنیدیم که در کار بماند

گشت بیمار که چون چشم تو گردد نرگس
شیوه تو نشدش حاصل و بیمار بماند

از صدای سخن عشق ندیدم خوشتر
Have you ever heard a better legacy in this whirling dome
یادگاری که در این گنبد دوار بماند
than the voice of Love, eloquently speaking

داشتم دلقی و صد عیب مرا می‌پوشید
خرقه رهن می و مطرب شد و زنار بماند

بر جمال تو چنان صورت چین حیران شد
که حدیثش همه جا در در و دیوار بماند

به تماشاگه زلفش دل حافظ روزی
شد که بازآید و جاوید گرفتار بماند

Hafez uses the metaphor of the "circling dome" to refer to the sky and the world as a whole.
The sound of Love, speaking -- that utterance is the sweetest legacy we can leave in this world.