the four elements

The four elements are four sturdy pillars,
through which the roof of the heavens is kept in place.

Mathnawi / Chittick

source: this world is all war

The heart's mirror has no limits

The saints have polished their breasts until cleansed of greed, cupidity, avarice, and hatred.
Without doubt the pure mirror is the heart acting as a receptacle for infinite pictures.
The Moses-like saint possesses within his breast, in his heart's mirror, the infinite, formless Form of the Unseen.
What does it matter if that Form is not contained by the heavens, the divine Throne, the Footstool, or the Fish supporting the earth?
These things are all delimited and defined, but the heart's mirror has no limits - Know that!
Here the intellect must remain silent, or else lead us astray.
For the heart is with Him - indeed, the heart is He.

-- Mathnawi I, 3484-89
Translation by William C. Chittick
"The Sufi Path of Love"
State University of New York Press, Albany, 1983

with thanks to Sunlight
...

the shaykh-Love

Whatever purifies you is the correct road -- I will 
not try to define it.
Be silent and hold fast to the shaykh-Love -- for 
in the two worlds, he is your leader. 

From Sunlight: "What is the Way?"

sunlight - gazal

All that He is to me -- Ghazal 2251

excerpt (Chittick version):

When I go to a banquet at the time of joy, He is 

the saki, minstrel and cup. 
When I write letters to my friends, He is paper, 
pen, and inkwell. 
When I awaken, He is my new awareness; when 
I go to bed, He enters my dreams. 
When I seek a rhyme for my poetry, He eases 
the way for my mind. 
He stands above whatever form you can picture, 
like painter and pen. 
No matter how much higher you look, He is 
still higher than that "higher" of yours. 
Go, abandon speaking and books--much better 
it is to let Him be your book. 
Be silent! For all six directions are His light; 
and when you pass beyond the directions, He Himself is the 
Ruler. 
I have preferred Thy Pleasure over my own; 
Thy secret is mine, so I keep it hidden. 
Marvellous sun of Tabriz! Like the sun, he is 
exceedingly worthy of himself. 

sexism in Rumi

From sunlight, this ode with a frankly sexist message in the last two lines:

Once again we have left our heart, intellect, and
spirit behind - the Friend has come into the midst and we
have disappeared.
We have turned back from annihilation and become
woven into subsistence; we have found the Traceless and
thrown away all traces.
Stirring up dust from the ocean and smoke from
the nine spheres, we have discarded Time, the earth, and
the heavens.
Beware, the drunkards have come! Clear the way! - no
I said that wrong, for we have been delivered from the way and
the travelers.
The spirit's fire has lifted its head from the body's
earth; the heart began to shout, and like a shout, we rose up.
Let us speak less, for if we speak, few understand. Pour
more wine, for we have entered the ranks of the self-deniers!
Existence is for women - the work of men is nonexistence.
Thanks be to God, for we have risen as champions in nonexistence!

Ghazal (Ode) 1601
Translation by Professor William C. Chittick