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

Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighbourhood of despair.Even when all doors remain closed, God wil open up a new path only for you. Be thankful! It is easy to be thankful when all is well. A Sufi is thankful not only for what he has been given but also for all that has been denied.

Don't Worry Be Happy

We are here in a wood of little beeches: And the leaves are like black lace Against a sky of nacre. One bough of clear promise Across the moon. It is in this wise that God speaketh unto me. He layeth hands of healing upon my flesh, Stilling it in an eternal peace, Until my soul reaches out myriad and infinite hands Toward him, And is eased of its hunger. And I know that this passes: This implacable fury and torment of men, As a thing insensate and vain: And the stillness hath said unto me, Over the tumult of sounds and shaken flame, Out of the terrible beauty of wrath, I alone am eternal. One bough of clear promise Across the moon

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

We cannot hunt for love. We can only surrender and become love’s prey.

God begets love.

There came one and knocked at the door of the Beloved.And a voice answered and said, 'Who is there?'The lover replied, 'It is I.''Go hence,' returned the voice;'there is no room within for thee and me.'Then came the lover a second time and knocked and again the voice demanded,'Who is there?'He answered, 'It is thou.''Enter,' said the voice, 'for I am within.

When no one is looking,I swallow deserts and cloudsand chew on mountainsknowing they are sweet bones!When no one is lookingand I want to kiss God,I just lift my own hand to my mouth.

They will become Godly when they will have God in their hearts.

Close your eyes. Meditate on your love. This is God.

He knows all my thoughts. He knows all I’ve ever done and He loves me all the same. What is our purpose, you ask. It is to love like God.

Writing poems is simply an excuse to remember You.

One sip of this wine and you will go mad with drunkenness. You will drop your masks and tear your clothes — destroying everything that separates you from the Lover. Once you taste the fruit of this vine, you will be kicked out of the city of yourself. You will forget the world. You will forget yourself. I tell you: you will become a madman who wanders the streets looking for the Lover once you drink this Wine of Love.

Having drunk the dregs of Your Love, I am intoxicated beyond recognition. Now, I only pray for the nearness of You so I may advance in my annihilation.

The lover drinksand the cup-bearer pours.The lover thinksbut the cup-bearer knows:love begets love.Since this wine is love,then this cup is love,then this tavern is love,then this life is love.

I am humbled by the grace of God.I am humbled by the beauty of this universe.Humbled by others' kindness.Humbled by life.I drop down to my knees and give thanks.

If you want to find God, then all you need to do is love.

Put down your stones. Why are you breaking the window when God has left the door wide open? If you are afraid, lover, follow me. I will guide the way.

It is not enough that you look for Him.You must hunt for God each and every dayas if your life depends on it.Because it does.

It is wonderful, this whole business of tickling and kissing God every night.

How can you be a lover of loveand not be a lover of God?It is impossible.

Do not be frightened, friend. Let us dance our way to God.

I spent all nightweaving a poem for you to wear. You look so beautifulwhen you wear my light.

Not a believer in the mosque am I,Nor a disbeliever with his rites am I.I am not the pure amongst the impure,I am neither Moses nor Pharaoh.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not in the holy books am I,Nor do I dwell in bhang or wine,Nor do I live in a drunken haze,Nor in sleep or waking known.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not in happiness or in sorrow am I found.I am neither pure nor mired in filthy ground.Not of water nor of land,Nor am I in air or fire to be found.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Not an Arab nor Lahori,Not a Hindi or Nagouri,Nor a Muslim or Peshawari,Not a Buddhist or a Christian.Bulleh, I know not who I am.Secrets of religion have I not unravelled,I am not of Eve and Adam.Neither still nor moving on,I have not chosen my own name!Bulleh, I know not who I am.From first to last, I searched myself.None other did I succeed in knowing.Not some great thinker am I.Who is standing in my shoes, alone?Bulleh, I know not who I am.

The first time I heard you laugh, I only wanted to say funny things so you would always be laughing. You know what happens to chocolate when you leave it out in the sun? I’m that unfortunate chocolate and you, you are the laughing sun. For this reason, I am offering myself to you not as a martyr or some selfless fool, but as a self-indulgent moth who actively pursues the light without much fear for the flame. The moth who revels in the heat and declares: Burn me.

You have no choice. You must leave your ego on the doorstep before you enter love.

This is a day of celebration!Today, we are divorcing the pastand marrying the present.Dance,and you will find Godin every room.Today, we are divorcing resentmentand marrying forgiveness.Sing,and God will find you in every tune.Today, we are divorcing indifferenceand marrying love.Drink, and play that tambourine against your thighs.We have so much celebrating to do!

You know how it goes:at some point in your life, you fell in love with someone and had a glimpse of God.Then you abandoned life and loverand started celebratingyour love for God.

I see them and they see me but the lovers — we recognise one another: there is light in our eyes.

Forget your voice, sing!Forget your feet, dance!Forget your life, live!Forget yourself and be!

To live in love is my life’s purpose.

Music does not need language of words for it has movements of dance to do its translation.

When the melody plays, footsteps move, heart sings and spirit begin to dance.

World seems like a void of silence every time footsteps are deprived of dancing shoes.

Dance resides within us all. Some find it when joy conquers sorrow, others express it through celebration of movements; and then there are those... whose existence is dance,

I will speak of love until you go mad and join me in my mad worship of love.

I don’t mind losing in this game of love, if it means You will be the winner.

May we always see life through love-coloured glasses.

Polish the mirror of your heart until it reflects every person's light.

You’ll only know the answers once you love.

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?

You must be more alive than life.You must see darkness danceand hear silence sing.You must be more awake than lightfor we aren’t born sleepingand we shouldn’t live sleeping.Only then will death’s slumberbecome sweet.

To Be One With The One Is Not For Everyone

But what else are secrets for if not discovery? That is their nature. Only time stands between a mystery and its rightful master.

Learning how to learn involves examining assumptions. Mulla Nasrudin tales very often fulfil this funcition.

Show a man too many camels' bones,or show them to him too often,and he will not be able to recognize a camel when he comes across a live one.

It is axiomatic that the attempt to become a Sufi through a desire for personal power as normally understood will not succeed.

Study the assumptions behind your actions. Then study the assumptions behind your assumptions.

The institution of teachership is there for this reason, that the learner must learn how to learn.

The Sufis,' runs the saying, 'understand with their hearts what the most learned scholars cannot understand with their minds

When a belief becomes more than an instrument, you are lost. You remain lost until you learn what 'belief' is really for.

I have made You the companion of my heart.But my body is available to those who desire its company,And my body is friendly toward its guest,But the Beloved of my heart is the guest of my soul.

Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed.

There can be no spirituality, according to the Sufi masters, without psychology, psychological insight and sociological balance.

Sufis are those who have expunged from their minds the human tendencies of envy and enmity.

RemedyYour medicine is in you, and you do not observe it. Your ailment is from yourself, and you do not register it.Hazrat Ali

Do we find ourself or does our self get demolished?

When Fortune knocks, open the door,' they say. But why should one make fortune knock, by keeping the door shut?

The dance had distilled her and she had become one with the essence of all that is.

Real generosity is anonymous to the extent that a man should be prepared even to be considered ungenerous rather than explain it to others.

They say: 'Seek wisdom while you have the strength, or you may lose the strength without gaining wisdom.

The person that you feel yourself to be, according to the Sufis, is a false person, which has no true reality.

He who knows himself, knows his Lord' means, among other things, that self-deception prevents knowledge.

Words have to die if humans are to live.

Study institutions may become visible when the head is more emptied of imaginings.

Do not try to be humble: learn humility.

If your desire for 'good' is based on greed, it is not good, but greed.

To copy a virtue in another is more copying than it is virtue. Try to learn what that virtue is based upon.

If you seek a teacher, try to become a real student. If you want to be a student, try to find a real teacher.

If you cannot laugh frequently and genuinely, you have no soul.

The man who knows must discharge a function. The one who does not, cannot arrogate one to himself; he can only try to do so.

You have come a long way, and you do not know it. You have a long way to go, and you do know what that means.

Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?

One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.

The Sufis are unanimous that a Guide (Sheikh) is absolutely essential, though never available on demand: 'the Sufis are not merchants'.

If the path has been laid down, why the successive appearance of different teachers? Why would anyone reinvent the wheel, if everything were as cosy and sequential as primitive longing so easily convinces us?

The human being, whether he realises it or not, is trusting someone or something every moment of the day.

116. "I have heard that on the day the world was born,the bird of love was released to fly.It searched all the three worldsbut could not find a fit resting place.So it turned and entered the inmost heart,favoured it and never flew elsewhere.The three worlds asked it then,'Why are you attached to the human heart?''Suffering," it replied, "is the only hope for humans.Where there is sorrow, there I dwell.'Where there is grief in the world, love has its dwelling.

He had found riches beyond worldly imagination. He had found the never ending well of love.

We are highly susceptible to self destruction when we aren’t doing what we really want with our lives.

Ultimately though, we are not responsible for another's happiness. The unhappy person almost always suffers from self-inflicted pain.

The intelligence of the heart bypasses the intellect in the head which works on assumptions and requires a lot of thinking and confusion and makes a person tired and weak. But, the heart intelligence is not only direct and to the point, it also gives you energy, vitality and strength.

If you don't know how to take care of your own needs, when you try to give to others, you are giving from a bankrupt account.

My life is on loan, like money borrowed from a bank. God is the lender, and He retains the right to call in the loan any time. Though I am responsible for taking care of it, I do not own this life; it is borrowed. Why should I fear its loss or the loss of anything else in this world when I must surrender it all anyway?

Similitude of the heart is like that of a telephone operator between man and God.

There is a Persian proverb: 'To test that which has been tested is ignorance.' To try to test something without the means of testing is even worse.

Love is an involuntary gift that manifests unplanned.

An educated man believing in a this-that vile sky-god rewarding him-her, but punishing your enemies with hell and fire, is uneducated.

Only the search for truth is valid, the desire for wisdom the motive. The method is assimilation, not study.

If you are 'humble', it may help you in ordinary life. If you are not, you will get nowhere in higher things.

The secret of Sufism is that it has no secret at all'.

No practice exists in isolation.

Not to be greedy is, paradoxically, the highest form of looking after one's true interests.

Exercise power by means of kindness, and you may be causing more damage than you could by cruelty. Neither approach is correct.

Materialism, attachment to things of the world, includes pride. Many religious people suffer from pride: taking pleasure or even delight in being good, or religious.

Saying of the ProphetMonkishnessNo monkery in Islam.

Then Gai told me about the famous cup of the heart, which I should now begin to empty. The Sufis compare our spiritual heart, the seat of God within us, with a cup into which the love of God flows. This cup, however, needs to be emptied before it can be filled with Divine love. This emptying is a long process that requires courage, strength of character, determination, and, above all, sincerity. It is a process of reining in and eventually extinguishing the ego, of letting go of material needs, bad and unhealthy habits and emotional attachments in order to make room for God. Sufis often likened it to the process of dying and being born again. ‘Die before you die’ is a famous Sufi saying. This was the essence of every spiritual path, Gai told me.

The most complete gift of God is a life based on knowledge.

The true saint goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in social intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment.

When people have a hard task to do - one which stretches them - they become less concerned with trivial matters.

The Sufi Islam practiced in northern India is quite different from the Shi'a Islam practiced in Lebannon, which in turn is different from the Sunni Islam practiced in Pakistan. Even within a single branch of Islam there are customs and practices that vary by region and across time. Thus, the Islam of seventh-century Arabia is different from the Wahhabism that exists today in Saudi Arabia.

When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of stress and anxiety;if I sit in my own place of patience,what I need flows to me, and without pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me,is looking for me and attracting me.There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.

The major barrier to understanding is wishful thinking and following that which pleases one.

Careful preparation is necessary before people can perceive something which is there all the time.

We seek the fire of the spark that is already within us.

EPITAPH OF JALALUDIN RUMIWhen we are dead, seek not our tomb in the earth, but find it in the hearts of men.

A book, for the Sufis, is an instrument as much as it is something to give information....The key is the teacher.

That which is given free is never knowledge. It may be information....but knowledge does not come in that manner.

To say "yes" to the Sufi way is to say "no" to imagined escapes.

Three things cannot be retrieved:The arrow once sped from the bowThe word spoken in hasteThe missed opportunity. Ali, the Lion of Islam.

Feeling important is a vice, not a virtue, however concealed as participation in something noble.

With enough information, it is almost impossible "not" to predict people's action.

I searched for my Beloved in the strangest of places, until the day I realized I couldn't take my eyes off Her.

Greed harms you: generosity helps you. This is why is has been said: 'Greed is the mother of incapacity'.

No one is born beneath this dance. This dance gives birth to you.

It is the message, not the man, which is important to the Sufis.

You must empty out the dirty water before you fill the pitcher with clean.

The sufis believe that they can experience something more complete.

The Sufi way is through knowledge and practice, not through intellect and talk.

But one may say something and yet not be able to do it. Try, for instance, lifting yourself up by the bootstraps.

Self-mortification, far from producing liberation from material things, is far more likely to cause either an unhinged mind, delusions or a masochistic taste for more suffering, experienced, of course, as joy.

The feet and their tappingWrite many a lovely coupletThe body dances to your rhythm O lordAfter all, you are the master and I a puppet

Khusrau darya prem ka, ulti wa ki dhaar, Jo utra so doob gaya, jo dooba so paar. English Translation. Oh Khusrau, the river of love Runs in strange directions. One who jumps into it drowns, And one who drowns, gets across.

With faith one attains and realises peace and harmony. With doubt one destroys and gains freedom to move ontowards.