Jalal-ad-Din-Muhammad Rumi, commonly known as Rumi (1207-1273), was a Persian poet, sage, and master, as well as a Sufi theologian and mystic born in city of Balkh (in present day known as Afghanistan), which at the time was the core of a Persian culture. His main work was an extensive poem “Masnavi”, a series of 6 books. Four thousand verses-long each, which consists of many traditional tales.
He believed that art, poetry, music and dance is a way that people can reach and pray to God. The main idea behind Rumi’s thought, as well as many other Sufi mystics, is a concept of Tawhid – a union with the beloved one (our primal root) from who we have been cut off and since then we strive to search for him/it in order to restore a primary unity.
According do Rumi, our life is a journey and everyone who heads towards the truth, followed by pure love it his/her heart, will finally abandon the illusions of his/her egos and arrive at the Perfect. He believed that many scholars consider as an example of inter-cultural philosophy and are able to cross ethnical, national, and religious boundaries and instruct us on how to find inner peace and harmony, break of the chains of hostility and prejudices, in order to build a global community based on peace and mutual respect.
Here is a short excerpt from Rumi’s opus magnum that give a glimpse of how inspiring and powerful his poetry and thought is:
“Wealth has no permanence: it comes in the morning, / and at night it is scattered to the winds. / Physical beauty too has no importance, / for a rosy face is made pale by the scratch of a single thorn”; “You are not a drop in a ocean / You are entire ocean in a drop”; “How often are treasures unearthed beneath the comfort of your house? / Treasures are rather always found lying among old ruins”; “Two there are who are never satisfied / the lover of the world and the lover of knowledge”; “Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our hearth”.
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