Cassandra Smith’s Reviews > The Essential Rumi > Status Update

“Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes
with both hands. The cure for pain is in the pain.”

“If you can’t do this work yourself, don’t worry.
You don’t even have to make a decision,
one way or another. The Friend, who knows
a lot more than you do, will bring difficulties,
and grief, and sickness,
as medicine, as happiness,
as the essence of the moment when you’re beaten,
when you hear Checkmate, and can finally say
with Hallaj’s voice,
I trust you to kill me.”