Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror up to where you're bravely working. Expecting the worst, you look, and instead, here's the joyful fac… - Rumi

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Engraved portrait of Rumi, facing right

Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror up to where you're bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead, here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.

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About Rumi

Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (جلال‌الدین محمد رومی) Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi (جلال‌الدین محمد بلخى)‎ (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273) was an Afghan philosopher, theologian, poet, teacher, and founder of the Mevlevi (or Mawlawi) order of Sufism; also known as Mevlana (Our Guide), Jalaluddin Rumi, or simply Rumi.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Pen Names: خاموش
Native Name: جلال‌الدین مُحمَّد بلخی
Alternative Names: Jalāluddīn Balkhī Rumī Jalaladdin Rumi Jalāluddīn Muḥammad Balkhī Rūmī Jalāl ad-Dīn ar-Rūmī Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Balkhī Jalāladdīn Rūmī Rūmī Jalal-e Din Rumi Jallal ed-Din Muhammad Balkhy Mawlana Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī Jelaluddin Rumi Mowlana Mawlana Maulana Mevlevi Mawlawi Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi Jalāl-ad-dīn Rūmī Jalâloddin Mohammad Rumi

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Additional quotes by Rumi

This poetry. 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.

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Are you jealous of the ocean’s generosity?
Why would you refuse to give
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Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups!
They swim the huge fluid freedom.

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