Selected verses by Rumi

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing 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.” 

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.
Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them.” 

“Run from what's comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I'll be mad.” 


“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.” 

My heart is so small
it's almost invisible.
How can You place 
such big sorrows in it?
"Look," He answered,
"your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world.

Your eyelashes will write on my heart
the poem that could never come from the pen of a poet.” 

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,and I intend to end up there.

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.
Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.” 
― Rumi