Sufi Stories and Poetry

shirleytwofeathers

Meadowsounds

We’ve come again to that knee of seacoast
no ocean can reach.

Tie together all human intellects.
They won’t stretch to here.

The sky bares its neck so beautifully,
but gets no kiss. Only a taste.

This is the food that everyone wants,
wandering the wilderness, “Please give us
your manna and quail.”

We’re here again with the beloved.
This air, a shout. These meadowsounds,
an astonishing myth.

We’ve come into the presence of the one
who was never apart from us.

When the waterbag is filling, you know
the water carrier’s here!

The bag leans lovingly against our shoulder.
“Without you I have no knowledge,
no way to touch anyone.”

When someone chews sugarcane,
he’s wanting this sweetness.

Inside this globe the soul roars like thunder.
And now silence, my strict tutor.

I won’t try to talk about Shams.
Language cannot touch that presence.

~Rumi

Notes On The Tavern

Coleman Barks talks about the  Sufi symbolism and imagery of wine, drinking, and the tavern.

In the tavern are many wines – the wine of delight in color and form and taste, the wine of the intellect’s agility, the fine port of stories, and the Cabernet of soul singing. Being human means entering this place where entrancing varieties of desire are served. The grapeskin of ego breaks and a pouring begins.

Fermentation is one of the oldest symbols for human transformation. When grapes combine their juice and are closed up together for a time in a dark place, the results are spectacular. This is what lets two drunks meet so that they don’t know who is who. Pronouns no longer apply in the tavern’s mud-world of excited confusion and half-articulated wantings.

But after some time in the tavern, a point comes, a memory of elsewhere, a longing for the source, and the drunks must set off from the tavern and begin the return. The Qur’an says, “We are all returning.” The tavern is a kind of glorious hell that human beings enjoy and suffer and then push off from in their search for truth.

The tavern is a dangerous region where sometimes disguises are necessary, but never hide your heart, Rumi urges. Keep open there. A breaking apart, a crying out into the street, begins in the tavern, and the human soul turns to find its way home.

~The Essential Rumi

The Sufi Greeting

The ancient Sufi’s believed that the only way to really know someone is to connect at the soul level. This greeting was their way of doing that.

Done in Silence with complete focus on each other.

  • Approach each other, looking into the eyes, with open hands – Nothing to hide.
  • Touch palms together, still looking directly into the eyes.
  • Think: “I greet you with perfect love and trust.”
  • Holding arms 90° from body, palms touching (eyes locked)
  • Think: “I crucify the ego.”
  • Make a triangle with thumbs and forefingers, and “look in the eyes of God.”
  • The right hand grasps the left hand of your partner, and presses it into the heart.
  • Think: “I cherish you and connect with you in my heart.”
  • Big inhale and raise/stretch arms above the head, sending energy to the universe and rejoicing with the love.
  • Embrace, heart to heart, with right arm passing over left shoulder of partner, left arm around the back.
  • Be grateful feel the joy of the true communion of human/divine spirit.

~Roving Reiki Master as taught by Mari Hall, RM

Osho Talks About Sufism

Excerpted from Osho’s series, Sufis: The People of the Path

Once a learned Mohammedan came to me and asked, “You are not a Mohammedan, then why do you speak on Sufism?’ I told him, ‘I am not a Mohammedan, obviously, but I am a Sufi all the same.’

A Sufi need not be a Mohammedan. A Sufi can exist anywhere, in any form—because Sufism is the essential core of all religions. It has nothing to do with Islam in particular. Sufism can exist without Islam; Islam cannot exist without Sufism. Without Sufism, Islam is a corpse. Only with Sufism does it become alive.

Whenever a religion is alive it is because of Sufism. Sufism simply means a love affair with God, with the ultimate, a love affair with the whole. It means that one is ready to dissolve into the whole, that one is ready to invite the whole to come into one’s heart. It knows no formality. It is not confined by any dogma, doctrine, creed or church. Christ is a Sufi, so is Mohammed. Krishna is a Sufi, so is Buddha. This is the first thing I would like you to remember: that Sufism is the innermost core—as Zen is, as Hassidism is. These are only different names of the same ultimate relationship with God.

The relationship is dangerous. It is dangerous because the closer you come to God, the more and more you evaporate. And when you have come really close you are no more. It is dangerous because it is suicidal…but the suicide is beautiful. To die in God is the only way to live really. Until you die, until you die voluntarily into love, you live an existence which is simply mediocre; you vegetate, you don’t have any meaning. No poetry arises in your heart, no dance, no celebration; you simply grope in the darkness. You live at the minimum, you don’t overflow with ecstasy.

That overflow happens only when you are not. You are the hindrance. Sufism is the art of removing the hindrance between you and you, between the self and the self, between the part and the whole.

A few things about this word ‘Sufi’. An ancient Persian dictionary has this for the entry ‘Sufi’…the definition given goes in rhyme: Sufi chist—Sufi, Sufist. Who is a Sufi? A Sufi is a Sufi. This is a beautiful definition. The phenomenon is indefinable. ‘A Sufi is a Sufi.’ It says nothing and yet it says well. It says that the Sufi cannot be defined; there is no other word to define it, there is no other synonym, there is no possibility of defining it linguistically, there is no other indefinable phenomenon. You can live it and you can know it, but through the mind, through the intellect, it is not possible. You can become a Sufi—that is the only way to know what it is. You can taste the reality yourself, it is available. You need not go into a dictionary, you can go into existence.

If you are not ready to have a bite of Sufism you can at least taste it.

And that’s what I am going to make available to you—a little taste. And once you have tasted even a drop of the nectar called Sufism you will become more thirsty for more. For the first time you will start feeling a great appetite for God.

These talks cannot explain to you what Sufism is—because I am not a philosopher. I am not a theologian either. And I am not really talking on Sufism, I will be talking Sufism. If you are ready, if you are ready to go into this adventure, then you will attain to a taste of it. It is something that will start happening in your heart. It is something like a bud opening. You will start feeling a certain sensation in the heart—as if something is becoming alert, awake there; as if the heart has been asleep for long and now it is the first glimmer of the morning—and there you will have the taste.

Sufism is a special kind of magic, a rare kind of magic. It can be transferred only from person to person, not from a book. It cannot be transferred by scriptures. It is also just like Zen—a transmission beyond words. The Sufis have a special word for it—they call it silsila. What Hindus call parampara they call silsila. Silsila means a transfer from one heart to another heart, from one person to another person It is a very, very personal religion.

You cannot have it without being related to an enlightened Master—there is no other way. You can read all the literature that exists on Sufism and you will be lost in a jungle of words. Unless you find a guide, unless you fall in love with a guide, you will not have the taste.

~Osho World

A Smuggling Story

Once upon a time, Mullah came up with a successful way of making a living: smuggling. Each week, he crossed the border between Persia and Greece with two donkeys, each loaded with a large bale of straw.

As he crossed the border in each direction, the customs officials went through everything, but could find only straw. And yet Mullah was getting richer and richer, and everyone knew it. Week by week, the customs officials became more desperate to find something, but always failed.

Many years later, Mullah retired to Egypt. One of the former customs officials looked him up and asked, “Mullah, we know that you were smuggling something all those years ago, between Persia and Greece. Now that you are safely out of harm’s way, can’t you tell me what it was?”

“Yes, my friend,” said Mullah, “now that you are also free of your responsibilities, I can tell you. I was smuggling donkeys.”

~Neil Douglas-Klotz

On Gambling

Coleman Barks talks about Rumi’s poems that describe gambling everything for love:

To a frog that’s never left his pond the ocean seems like a gamble. Look what he’s giving up: security, mastery of his world, recognition! The ocean frog just shakes his head. “I can’t really explain what it’s like where I live, but someday I’ll take you there.”

~The Essential Rumi

Find Something Inspiring
Sufi Wisdom
“Put down your glass, it is time to dance. If you want to get drunk all you need is to drink love. Put down your pipe and do away with these childish toys. If you want to get high all you need is to breathe love. Now, can I have this dance?” ― Kamand Kojouri
Be Merry


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