Tag: Coleman Barks

Only Breath

Rekha Sahay5 Comments

 Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system.

I am not from the Eastor the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground,

not natural or ethereal, notcomposed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or in the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a traceof the traceless.

Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner,

only that breath breathing human being.

Rumi ❤   From Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks

Image courtesy- Aneesh.

The Guest House

Rekha Sahay3 Comments

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

 

— Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks