Rumi Poems

Maybe you are searching among branches

for what only appears in the roots.
— Rumi


You think of yourself
as a citizen of the universe.
You think you belong
to this world of dust and matter.
Out of this dust
you have created a personal image,
and have forgotten
about the essence of your true origin”
~ Rumi,


“For ages you have come and gone
courting this delusion.
For ages you have run from the pain
and forfeited the ecstasy.
So come, return to the root of the root
of your own soul.
~ Rumi

I have lived on the lip of insanity,
wanting to know reasons,
knocking on a door.
It opens.
I've been knocking from the inside."
— Rumi

I know

there is no other way
than to abandon myself
to your embrace.
— Rumi

At night, I open the window

and ask the moon to come and
press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.
Close the language-door
and open the love-window.
The moon won’t use the door,
only the window.
— Rumi

You have become my greater self;

how can smallness limit me?
You’ve taken on my being,
how shall I not take on yours?
Forever, you have claimed me
that forever I may know you’re mine.
— Rumi

If someone asks, “But what is love?”

Answer, “Dissolving the will.
— Rumi

Close your eyes,

fall in love,
stay there.
— Rumi

I’ve been looking for a long, long time,

for this thing called love,
I’ve ridden comets across the sky,
and I’ve looked below and above.
Then one day I looked inside myself,
and this is what I found,
A golden sun residing there,
beaming forth God’s light and sound.
— Rumi

In fact, my soul and yours are the same.

You appear in me, I appear in you.
We hide in each other.
— Rumi

Put your thoughts to sleep,

do not let them cast a shadow
over the moon of your heart.
Let go of thinking.
— Rumi

Whatever I was looking for was always you.

— Rumi

Why are you so enchanted by this world

when a mine of gold lies within you?
— Rumi

A lover asked his beloved,

Do you love yourself more than you love me?

The beloved replied,

I have died to myself and I live for you.

I've disappeared from myself and my attributes.

I am present only for you.

I have forgotten all my learnings,

But from knowing you I have become a scholar.

I have lost all my strength,

But from your power I am able.

If I love myself I love you.

If I love you I love myself.

~ Rumi

I am hopelessly in love with you,
no point giving me advice.
I have drunk love’s poison,
no point taking any remedy.
They want to chain my feet
but what’s the point
when it is my heart that’s gone mad.
— Rumi

I am in love with love

and love is in love with me.
My body is in love with the soul
and the soul is in love with my body.
I opened my arms to love
and love embraced me like a lover.
— Rumi

This world is a watery shadow of ocean-love.

The sea of lights cannot be contained
in single human beings, so leave fragments,
and be the mountain.
- Ocean Love, translated by Coleman Barks.
Beyond a hundred steps of wisdom,
I will be free from good and bad.
Behind the veils, I will find
such splendor, such beauty
that I will fall in love
with myself.
— Rumi

Lovers drink wine all day and night
and tear the veils of the mind.
When drunk with love’s wine,
body, heart and soul
become one.
— Rumi

On my quest

I feel so confused and restless
Set on fire, my heart explodes
with the pain of separation.
In this struggle, I am caught forever
unless I go beyond this
‘You’ and ‘I’.
— Rumi

Stop the noise,

and you will hear His voice
in the silence.
— Rumi

The birds have flown to freedom,

the cage lies empty.
Your happy songs bring to me
the scent of heaven.
Please keep singing.
— Rumi

The time has come to turn your heart

into a temple of fire.
Your essence is gold hidden in dust.
To reveal its splendor
you need to burn the fire of love.
— Rumi

When I die
when my coffin
is being taken out
you must never think
I am missing this world

don’t shed any tears

don’t lament or
feel sorry
I’m not falling
into a monster’s abyss

when you see

my corpse is being carried
don’t cry for my leaving
I’m not leaving
I’m arriving at eternal love

when you leave me

in the grave
don’t say goodbye
remember a grave is
only a curtain
for the paradise behind

you’ll only see me

descending into a grave
now watch me rise
how can there be an end
when the sun sets or
the moon goes down

it looks like the end

it seems like a sunset
but in reality it is a dawn
when the grave locks you up
that is when your soul is freed

have you ever seen

a seed fallen to earth
not rise with a new life
why should you doubt the rise
of a seed named human

have you ever seen

a bucket lowered into a well
coming back empty
why lament for a soul
when it can come back
like Joseph from the well

when for the last time

you close your mouth
your words and soul
will belong to the world of
no place no time.

Last night

I begged the Wise One to tell me
the secret of the world.
Gently, gently, he whispered,
“Be quiet,
the secret cannot be spoken,
It is wrapped in silence.

— Rumi

Love is a mirror, it reflects

only your essence,
if you have the courage
to look in its face.
— Rumi

It’s good to leave each day behind,

like flowing water, free of sadness.
Yesterday is gone and its tale told.
Today new seeds are growing.
— Rumi

When water is still like a mirror

it can behold the Moon.
— Rumi

Be thirsty heart,

seek forever without rest.
Let this soundless longing
hidden deep inside you
be the source
of every word you say.
— Rumi

Each moment from all sides rushes to us the call to love.

— Rumi

There is a morning inside you

waiting to burst open into light.
— Rumi

There is hope after despair and many suns after darkness.

— Rumi

The rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorns.

— Rumi

Inside, you are sweet beyond telling.

— Rumi

Nothing can nourish the soul but light.

— Rumi

My heart is your student; it studies love,

And, like the night, waits at the gates of dawn.
Where I go, I follow where love’s face leads
Because oil flows to the flame that it feeds.
— Rumi

Sit, be still, and listen.
— Rumi

Actually, your soul and mine are the same.

We appear and disappear with each other.
— Rumi

If you find me not within you, you will never find me.

For, I have been with you, from the beginning of me.
— Rumi

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Rumi

“I am so small I can barely be seen.

How can this great love be inside of me?

Look at your eyes, they are small but they see

enormous things.”

- Rumi

“Those beautiful words we said to one another

are hidden in the secret heart of heaven.
One day like the rain, they will pour
our love story all over the world.”

- Rumi

My soul is naked.

It wears the transparent garment of Love.
— Rumi

Once you have met a true human being,

let him not disappear from the horizon of your Heart.
— Rumi

Your task is not to seek for love,

but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself
that you have built against it.
— Rumi

Love’s glory is not a small thing.

— Rumi

I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.

— Hafez

Be silent.

Only the Hand of God
can remove the burdens of your heart.
— Rumi

Your longing for me is my message to you.

All your attempts to reach me
are in reality my attempts to reach you.
— Rumi

Open your hands if you want to be held.

— Rumi

Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes.
Because for those who love with heart and soul,
there is no such thing as separation!
— Rumi

Go my friend

bestow your love
even on your enemies
if you touch their hearts
what do you think will happen.
— Rumi

Make peace with the universe.

Take joy in it.
It will turn to gold.
Resurrection will be now.
Every moment, a new beauty.
— Rumi

The minute I heard my first love story,

I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.
— Rumi

Try something different.

Surrender.
— Rumi

I am yours.

Don’t give myself back to me.
— Rumi

People want you to be happy. Don’t keep serving them your pain!

If you could untie your wings and free your soul of jealousy,
you and everyone around you would fly up like doves.
— Rumi

Mistakes are the entrance of discovery.

— Rumi

Lose yourself.

Lose yourself.
Escape from this earthly form.
For this body is a chain and you are its prisoner.
— Rumi

Love’s glory is not a small thing.

— Rumi

When I look at him I see myself

And when I look at myself , I see him.
— Rumi

Some nights stay up till dawn,

as the moon sometimes does for the sun.
Be a full bucket pulled up the dark way
of a well, then lifted out into light.
— Rumi (via atom-storm)

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

— Rumi 

The Ache and Confusion

Near the end you saw rose and thorn together,
evening and morning light commingling.

You have broken many shapes and stirred

their colors into the mud.

Now you sit in a garden not doing a thing,

smiling. You have felt the ache

and confusion of a hangover, yet

you take again the wine that’s handed you.

Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy,

absentminded. Someone sober
will worry about things going badly.
Let the lover be.

-Rumi

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

— Rumi.

Be empty of worrying.

Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison

When the door is so wide open?
— Rumi

People want you to be happy.

Don’t keep serving them your pain!

If you could untie your wings

and free your soul of jealousy,

you and everyone around you

would fly up like doves.

— Rumi.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
— Rumi.

silence is the language of god,

all else is poor translation.
— Rumi

You suppose you are the trouble

But you are the cure
You suppose that you are the lock on the door
But you are the key that opens it
It’s too bad that you want to be someone else
You don’t see your own face, your own beauty
Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours.
— Rumi

i was dead

i came alive
i was tears
i became laughter

all because of love

when it arrived
my temporal life
from then on
changed to eternal

love said to me

you are not
crazy enough
you don’t
fit this house

i went and

became crazy
crazy enough
to be in chains

love said

you are not
intoxicated enough
you don’t
fit the group

i went and

got drunk
drunk enough
to overflow
with light-headedness

love said

you are still
too clever
filled with
imagination and skepticism

i went and

became gullible
and in fright
pulled away
from it all

love said

you are a candle
attracting everyone
gathering every one
around you

i am no more

a candle spreading light
i gather no more crowds
and like smoke
i am all scattered now

love said

you are a teacher
you are a head
and for everyone
you are a leader

i am no more

not a teacher
not a leader
just a servant
to your wishes

love said

you already have
your own wings
i will not give you
more feathers

and then my heart

pulled itself apart
and filled to the brim
with a new light
overflowed with fresh life

now even the heavens

are thankful that
because of love
i have become
the giver of light

RUMI

What hurts you, blesses you.

Darkness is your candle.
— Rumi (via chai-fountain)

Some Kiss We Want

There is some kiss we want
with our whole lives, the touch

of spirit on the body. Seawater

begs the pearl to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately

it needs some wild darling!

At night, I open the window and ask

the moon to come and press its
face against mine.

Breathe into me. Close

the language-door and open the love-window
The moon won’t use the door,
only the window.

-Rumi,

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.

-Rumi

“I am smiling at myself today

There’s no wish left in this heart

Or perhaps there is no heart left

Free from all desire

I sit quietly like Earth

My silent cry echoes like thunder

Throughout the universe

I am not worried about it

I know it will be heard by no one

Except me”