Mathnawi Quotes

“Water says to the dirty, „Come here“
The dirty one says, „I am so ashamed“.
Water says,
„How will your shame be washed away without me?“
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 1366-67”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“Let the Jesus of your Spirit ride the donkey;
Don‘t make your Jesus carry the donkey.
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 1853-5”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“Since in order to speak, one must first listen,
learn to speak by listening.
Rumi, Mathnawi I: 1627”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The Sufi's book is not of ink and letters;
it is nothing but a heart white as snow.
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 159”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The state of emancipation toward which we are journeying can be described as freedom from the fear of loss. It is understood that Life flows to us from an unstinting Source of grace that will never lessen its giving as long as we are open to receiving. The people and things that are so precious to us are embodiments of qualities, and these qualities are derived from this beneficent Source. What we are so afraid of losing are qualities that we have invested in the particular forms we are attached to. We have confused these qualities with the forms we have discovered them in. Their beauty is like the beauty of sunlight that falls upon a brick wall:

„Sunlight fell upon the wall;
the wall received a borrowed splendor.
Why set your heart on a piece of earth, simple one?
Seek out the source which shines forever.“
Rumi, Mathnawi II: 708-09

The wall may crumble or be torn down, but the sun will always return to shine. To be spiritually mature is to be free of the fear of loss, knowing that we are connected to the Source of all generosity. (p. 161)”
― Kabir Edmund Helminski, Living Presence: A Sufi Way to Mindfulness & the Essential Self

“The glow of the Mathnawî’s inspiration has never been extinguished in Bosnia, even as its people were forced to endure trying hardships, ranging from Austro-Hungarian occupation, the Serb- dominated Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the monstrous bloodletting of the Second World War, the communist’s hindrance of religion, and most recently the ferocious atrocities of the 1990s.”
― Emin Lelic, Reading Rumi in Sarajevo