Rumi Quotes That Will Help You Stay Calm and Positive in Life

Rumi Quotes That Will Help You Stay Calm and Positive in Life

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More than a decade later, Rumi’s words and poems still manage to touch our souls. In this article, we will explore Rumi’s inspirational quotes and poems that will help you stay calm and positive.

Everything – strength, joy, and knowledge – comes to us through love. Love burns and devours, love destroys life, and it gives life.

Love is both secretive and revelatory.

This is how it was for Jelalaldin Rumi, the thirteenth-century Persian poet, grandmaster of the Sufi tradition, and founder of the brotherhood of Whirling Dervishes.

Born in what is now Afghanistan, then settling in Konya, in Turkey, shielded from the invading Mongol hordes, he was a venerated teacher, an unrivaled scholar. People from everywhere came to listen to him.

Then one day he met a wandering dervish, a man who was very sensitive to the cold, and older than Rumi was. He spoke in riddles, was insolent and irritable, and his name was Shams al-Din of Tabriz. Love blossomed between the two men. They stayed together, locked away, for forty days and forty nights.

When they went their separate ways, Rumi was no longer the academic whom everyone had known. He danced, laughed, made up poems. He had been illuminated, as though from within. In a lightning flash, he had become a poet.

And for the rest of his days, he forgot his professorial chair and his teaching, and, instead, sang of this metamorphosis to the whole world, with unforgettable elan.

In all he wrote some 50,000 lines of poetry, much of it collected together in The Book of Shams al-Din of Tabriz and the Masnari, two jewels in the world’s history of poetry.

Love is grace, Rumi tells us over and over. It is a fire, it is intoxication, an unceasing turning, a breath from heaven. It is a way for all lost people and a cure for every fever.

And love is limitless, for it excludes nothing and no one. Here, lovers are not alone in the world. Quite the opposite. To love someone is to love the whole world.



Related: 29 Positive Affirmations for Women

Who is Rumi (Jelalaldin Rumi)?

Rumi was an enigmatic Persian poet during the 13th century. He was also a mystic and often considered the most celebrated Sufi teacher of all time.

His work gained popularity because of its deep universal message about peace, desire, love, and passion.

Rumi’s poems and quotes are simple enough to be understood, and his timeless views about life are still applicable even in the 21st century.

Quotes from Rumi

  • “If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?”
  • “These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.”
  • “Inside you, there’s an artist you don’t know about.”
  • “In your light, I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.”
  • “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you love. It will not lead you astray.”
  • “The lamps are different, but the light is the same.”
  • “When you do things from the soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
  • “There is a voice that doesn’t use words, listen.”
  • “Love is the bridge between you and everything.”
  • “Let the beauty of what you love to be what you do.”
  • “You have within you more love than you could ever understand.”
  • “The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.”
  • “Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open.”
  • “You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
  • “Wear gratitude like a cloak, and it will feed every corner of your life.”
  • “My soul is my guide.”
  • “Close your eyes. Fall in love. Stay there.”
  • “As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”
  • “Life is a balance between holding on and letting go.”
  • “Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
  • “Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.”
  • “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
  • “When the world pushes you to your knees, you’re in the perfect position to pray.”
  • “Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.”
  • “We are one. Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
  • “Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.”
  • “Why should I be unhappy? Every parcel of my being is in full bloom.”
  • “My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”
  • “Your soul and mine are the same, we appear and disappear in each other.”
  • “Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot. Seek the path that demands your whole being.”
  • “Know that one day, your pain will become your cure.”
  • “Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.”
  • “I know you’re tired but come, this is the way.”
  • “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
  • “Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
  • “It’s your road, and yours alone others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.”
  • “Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.”
  • “The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.”
  • “Reason is powerless in the expression of love.”
  • “This is a subtle truth. Whatever you love you are.”
  • “If you find me not within you, you will never find me. For I have been with you, from the beginning of me.”
  • “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
  • “Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.”
  • “Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere; they are in each other all along.”
  • “Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be.”
  • “There is a force within that gives you life. Seek that.”
  • “Shine like the universe is yours.”
  • “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
  • “Silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.”
  • “Love is the religion, and the universe is the book.”

Love Poems by Rumi

To all the people who love and do not know how to express it:

Join us in our circle

You are the drop and the ocean. You are kind, you are angry, you are sweetness, you are poison. Do not make me more disheartened. You are the chamber of the Sun, you are the abode of Venus, you are the garden of all hope. Oh, Beloved, let me enter.

Come and join us in our circle, We the lovers, we who admire, so that we can lure you into The lovely garden of desire.

You are water, whirling water, yet still, water trapped within, Come, submerge yourself within us, we who are the flowing stream.

Come, we are all so lost and strayed, and in the direst poverty, and we know of nothing to sing Except the song of unknowing.

Oh, come into our hostelry, And close up the door from within. Where do you come from? And from where, do man’s joy and sorrow begin?

Oh, a cloud of gentle rain, pour down! Gome, let us friends get truly drunk! And you, the king of tricksters, come! Befuddled with a drink we all greet you.

Oh, you, unceasing sun, to me Your particles communicate The luminous essence of God, Are you our God? I do not know.

Intoxicated, I say nought, Bewitched by the magic potion. I cannot differentiate Between my drunk and sober state.

Oh, the master comes, oh master come! Oh master, come again! Do not argue, do not argue, oh moon, oh wandering moon, come!

You are vision, you are hearing, Of the whole world, the Chosen One. You are Joseph who was kidnapped at the gate of the bazaar. Come!

You are the brightness of the day, the joy that burns away sadness, the moon that shines upon the night, the cloud that bears such sweetness. Come!

Oh you, straying heart, just come! Oh you, aching liver, just come! If the path to the gate is closed, Take the way by the wall, but come!

You are our moon upon this earth, our dawn that breaks by night, Our shield in dangerous times, My cloud of honeyed rain.

Oh, sky, without me, do not change, oh moon, without me, do not shine; Oh earth, without me, do not grow, oh time, without me, do not go.

Others give you the name of Love, And me the sultan of that love. Higher than such illusions, Oh, you cannot go, without me.

You are the drop, and the ocean

You are the drop, and the ocean. And, you are kindness, you are anger, you are sweetness, you are poison. Do not make me more disheartened.

You are the chamber of the Sun, you are the abode of Venus, you are the garden of all hope. Oh, Beloved, let me enter.

You are daylight, you are fasting, you are the fruit of misery, you are water, you are the bowl, Oh, give me some water this time.

You are the grain of wheat, the snare, you are the wine, you are the cup, Raw you are, and cooked too you are. Oh, do not leave me quite so raw.

You, the sudden resurrection, You, the everlasting mercy, You, who comes forth bringing fire into the dry wood of my thoughts.

You, the chamberlain of the sun, You, who merit every hope, You, whom we seek, and you who seek, You, the end and the beginning.

Kingdom and sultan you become, Eden and durwan you become, both faith and sin, so you become, Gazelle and lion you become.

Breath and pulse as the one you become, Seen and unseen, so you become, Bitter and sweetness you become, the substance of wine you become.

The skylight of every house, of every garden, roses, without me, you become Myself, while you, without you, you become.

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

You are prime matter, who am I? The looking-glass in your fingers. I become all that you display, The mirror to prove you exist.

Oh master, say what bird I am! Not a partridge, nor a falcon, nor am I good, nor am I foul, nor am I this, nor am I that.

Nor the nightingale in the garden, Nor the great lord of the souk. Oh master, do give me a name, a name by which to call myself.

Neither metal nor wax am I, neither slave nor free man am I. To none have I given my heart, nor have I taken another’s.

Come what may, I no longer hold sway, for to a stranger I belong. And wherever he may entice me Invariably I shall go.

You have branded my heart; it will not err elsewhere. Without others, I can cope; Without you, I cannot.

You are my wine, my joy, my garden, my springtime, my slumber, And, my repose, without you, I can’t cope.

You try to be faithful, and sometimes you’re cruel. And, you are mine. Then, you leave. Without you, I can’t cope.

And when you take the lead, I become your footstep. Your absence leaves a void. Without you, I can’t cope.

You have disturbed my sleep; you have wrecked my image. And, you have set me apart. Without you, I can’t cope.

Thoughts upon Silence

Thoughts upon Silence Rumi devotes a lot of attention to silence, especially at the end of poems, where he gives the words back into the silence they came from (khamush in Persian). It is truly one of the mysteries that flow through him.

No other poet pays such homage to silence. He was once asked, “Isn’t it strange that you talk so much about silence?” He answered, “The radiant one inside me has never said a word.” Here are some closing lines from this collection that include the silence after the poem as an integral part of the poem. They function as bridge links from the poem to the reader’s consciousness following the poem.

Now let the silence speak. As that begins, we will start out.

LEAVES ABOUT TO LET GO

Now the kissing is over. Fold your love in. Hide it like pastry filling. Whisper within with a shy girl’s tenderness.

THE TIME OF DIVULGING

Music begins. Your silence, deepen that.

Were you to put words with this we would not survive the song.

EARSIGHT

Be silent now. Say fewer and fewer praise poems. Let yourself become living poetry.

SOUL HOUSES

I will shorten this poem because the rest of it is being said in the world within our eyes. Do you know this silence? It is not the same as in your room when you have no one to talk to. This is pure silence, not the kind that happens when living dogs are eating a dead one.

PURE SILENCE

Be clear like a mirror reflecting nothing. Be clean of pictures and the worry that comes with images. Gaze into what is not ashamed or afraid of any truth.

Contain all human faces on your own without any judgment of them. Be pure emptiness. What is inside that? you ask. Silence is all I can say.

Lovers have some secrets that they keep.

Spiritual poet Rumi

Rumi was an enigmatic Persian poet during the 13th century. He was also a mystic and often considered the most celebrated Sufi teacher of all time.

His work gained popularity because of its deep universal message about peace, desire, love, and passion.

Rumi’s poems and quotes are simple enough to be understood, and his timeless views about life are still applicable even in the 21st century.

Rumi on Love

A BOWL FALLEN FROM THE RO OF

You that give new life to this planet, you that transcends logic, come. I am only an arrow. Fill your bow with me and let fly.

Because of this love for you, my bowl has fallen from the roof. Put down a ladder and collect the pieces, please.

People ask, but which roof is your roof? I answer, Wherever the soul came from, and wherever it goes at night, my roof is in that direction.

From wherever spring arrives to heal the ground, from wherever searching rises in a human being.

The looking itself is a trace of what we are looking for.

But we have been more like the man who sits on his donkey and asks the donkey where to go.

Be quiet now and wait. It may be that the ocean one, the one we desire so to move into and become, desires us out here on land a little longer, going our sundry roads to the shore.

ANY SPRIG OF AN HERB

Learned theologians do not teach love. Love is nothing but gladness and kindness.

Ideas of right and wrong operate in us until we die. Love does not have those limits.

When you see a scowling face, it is not a lover’s.

A beginner in this way knows nothing of any beginning.

Do not try to be a shepherd. Become the flock.

Someone says this is just a metaphor. But that is not so.

It is as clear and direct as a blind man stubbing his foot against a stone jar.

The doorkeeper should be more careful, says the blind man.

That pitcher is not in the doorway, replies the doorkeeper.

The truth is, you do not know where you are. A master of love is the only sign we need.

There is no better sign than someone stumbling around among the waterpots looking for signs. Every particle of love, any sprig of an herb, speaks of water. Follow the tributaries. Everything we say has water within it. No need to explain this to a thirsty man. He knows what to do.

Inspirational Rumi Quotes

  1. “Ignore those that make you fearful and sad.”
  2. “Knock. And he’ll open the door.”
  3. “What you seek is seeking you.”
  4. “The very center of your heart is where life begins – the most beautiful place on earth.”
  5. “When you let go of who you are, you become who you might be.”
  6. “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
  7. “I found myself.”
  8. “Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.”
  9. “You’ve seen my descent. Now watch my rising.”
  10. “Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.”
  11. “The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself, everything that you want you already are
  12. “Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”
  13. “Your heart knows the way, run in that direction.”
  14. “This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First, let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.”
  15. “Be patient where you sit in the dark, the dawn is coming.”
  16. “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
  17. “The quieter you become the more you can hear.”
  18. “Everyone has been made for some particular work and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”
  19. “Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.”
  20. “Why are you so enchanted by this world, when a mine of gold lies within you?”

Books About Rumi

  1. Rumi: The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing- by Coleman Barks
  2. The Essential Rumi Book by Rumi
  3. The Love Poems of Rumi Book by Rumi


Also Read: 10 Gratitude Exercises to Cultivate Self-Gratitude


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