"The Pocket Rumi" by Rumi, edited by Kabir Helminski

Rumi (1207 - 1273), a now much quoted poet, is also an Islamic saint. In The Pocket Rumi, a good amount of his poems and verses are published, and out of these many referenced Christianity: Jesus and even the Virgin Mother. Not in a negative light at all. I do feel it is of importance to note Rumi's Persian and Islamic background. The prophet Muhammad is also mentioned very frequently in his work, which drew me to a closer understanding and appreciation of Islam, without having to open the Koran. 

Frankly, it doesn't sit well that a lot of his poetry is not something we might call common humanity or shared human values.

Tell me, what historical struggle, what coming together of societal conditions, what political events urges a person such as Rumi towards love? Rumi doesn't believe in good and evil, in the moral sense, but he cannot deny his striving towards goodness. It's in his work, this combining of goodness and love and also, quite differently than the Christian messiah, equality between the material and immaterial possessions of the rich and poor. He looks down on no man, not thieves, not the wearers of gold, not the drunkard, not the mad... but urges all to come together, to open up to one another in understanding, especially in the worst of times. 

Perhaps it is in the structure that the power and magic lies? That this is not sermon, but poetry, but art? Verses, like song. Not defining, but advising. 

Two stuck with me:

Whoever sees you and doesn't smile,
whose jaw doesn't drop with awe,
whose qualities fail to increase in a
thousand ways,
can only be the mortar and bricks of
a prison.

- 

Wings of Desire:

People are distracted by objects of desire,
and afterwards repent of the lust they've 
indulged,
because they have indulged with a phantom
and are left even farther from Reality 
then before. 
Your desire for the illusory is a wing,
by means of which a seeker might 
ascend to Reality.
When you have indulged a lust, your
wing drops off ;
you become lame and that fantasy flees.
Preserve the wing and don't indulge 
such lust,
so that the wing of desire may bear you
to Paradise. 
People fancy they are enjoying
themselves, 
but they are really tearing out 
their wings
for the sake of an illusion.