"This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief."

"A craftsman pulled a reed from the reedbed,cut holes in it, and called it a human being.Since then, it's been wailing a tender agonyof parting, never mentioning the skillthat gave it life as a flute."

"You were sent to unite people. You were not sent to divide people."

"Let silence take you to the core of life."

"You erased my famine, unpicked my angerYour energy charges my voice, it radiates my heart;Now I am alive with the ore of words pouringFrom my lips like molten lava glittering with joy."

"Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you are already that."

"When your heart becomes the grave of your secret, that desire of your will be gained more quickly."

"When you have indulged a lust, your wing drops off;you become lame, abandoned by a fantasy. People fancy they are enjoying themselves,but they are really tearing out their wingsfor the sake of an illusion."

"My friend, you thought you lost Him;that all your life you've been separated from Him.Filled with wonder, you've always looked outside for Him,and haven't searched within your own house."

"Travel brings power and love back into your life."

"The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: "My Companions are as stars. Whomsoever of them you follow, you will be rightly guided." When a man looks at a star, and finds his way by it, the star does not speak any word to that man. Yet, by merely looking at the star, the man knows the road from roadlessness and reaches his goal."

"I am yours.Don't give myself back to me."

"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd."

"You soak up my soul and mingle me. Each drop of my blood cries out to the earth. We are partners, blended as one."

"Two there are, who are never satisfied; The lover of the world and the lover of Knowledge."

"In the slaughterhouse of love, they kill only the best, none of the weak or deformed. Don't run away from this dying. Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat."

"Woman is the light of God."

"When I am with you, we stay up all night.When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.Praise God for those two insomnias!And the difference between them."

"Beauty surrounds us."

"My Beloved. Know that my beloved in hidden from everyone. Know that she is beyond the belief of all belief. sKnow that in my heart she is as clear as the moon. Know that she is the life in my body and in my soul."

"If you desire healing,let yourself fall illlet yourself fall ill."

"Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love."

"I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all."

"You whispered softly in the ear of my joyous heart.You know what's on my mind, you've heard my thoughts.I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways."

"Say I Am YouI am dust particles in sunlight.I am the round sun.To the bits of dust I say, Stay.To the sun, Keep moving.I am morning mist, and the breathing of evening.I am wind in the top of a grove, and surf on the cliff.Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,I am also the coral reef they founder on.I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.Silence, thought, and voice.The musical air coming through a flute,a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal.Both candle and the moth crazy around it.Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,and the falling away. What is, and what isn't.You who know Jelaluddin, You the one in all,say who I am. Say I am You."

"You are the source of the sun.And I am the willow's shadow. Oh, you have struck me on the head,Wretch that I am, on fire am I."

"You are an ocean in a drop of dew,all the universes in a thin sack of blood.What are these pleasures then,these joys, these worldsthat you keep reaching for,hoping they will make you more alive?"

"Where lowland is, that's where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure."

"You could string a hundred endless days together,My soul would find no comfort from this pain.You laugh at my tale? You may be educatedBut you haven't learned to love till you're insane."

"The morning wind spreads its fresh smell. We must get up and take that in, that wind that lets us live. Breathe before it's gone."

"There are as many ways of loving as there are people, and that wildflower variety is the great beauty of this dimension of existence."

"Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation."

"It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home."

"Knowledge that is acquiredis not like this. Those who have it worry ifaudiences like it or not.It's a bait for popularity.Disputational knowing wants customers.It has no soul...The only real customer is God.Chew quietlyyour sweet sugarcane God-Love, and stayplayfully childish."

"I know you're tired but come, this is the way."

"There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.The hopers would feel slighted if they knew."

"Lovers find secret placesinside this violent worldwhere they make transactions with beauty."

"If the beloved is everywhere,the lover is a veil,but when living itself becomesthe Friend, lovers disappear."

"You're water. We're the millstone.You're wind. We're dust blown up into shapes.You're spirit. We're the opening and closing of our hands. You're the clarity.We're the language that tries to say it.You're joy. We're all the different kinds of laughing."

"Last night you left me and sleptyour own deep sleep. Tonight you turnand turn. I say,'You and I will be togethertill the universe dissolves.'You mumble back things you thought ofwhen you were drunk."

"This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet."

"If I could repeat it,people passing by would be enlightened and go free."

"The angel is free because of his knowledge, the beast because of his ignorance. Between the two remains the son of man to struggle."

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."

"Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it."

"Desire, I desire you more than food and drink. My body my senses my mind hunger for your taste, I can sense your presence in my heart although you belong to all the world, I wait with silent passion for one gesture one glance from you."

"Know the true definition of yourself. That is essential.Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it."

"From "Wetness and Water"How does a part of the world leave the world?How can wetness leave water?Do not try to put out a fireby throwing on more fire.Do not wash a wound with blood.No matter how fast you run,your shadow more than keeps up.Sometimes it's in front.Only full, overhead sundiminishes your shadow.But that shadow has been serving you.What hurts you blesses you.Darkness is your candle.Your boundaries are your quest."

"Inside you there's an artist you don't know about, say yes quickly, if you know, if you've known it from before the beginning of the universe."

"Bitter your acts, bitter am I,Kindness your deeds, kindness am I,Pleasant and gentle, so you are,Fine honeyed lips and sweet talker."