Beautiful Silence Endless Talking
If your name is Omar nobody in the town of Kash
will sell you a loaf of bread, at any price.
You go to a bakery shop and say, “Hello, my name is Omar.
I’d like some bread.” The baker will reply, “Try the shop
down the street. One loaf of his bread is better than fifty of mine.”
But if you have healed your eyesight of all duality,
You can answer, “There is no other bakery!”
The illumination of that would blind the baker
and change your name.
As it is, the bakers a Kash nod, and with tones of voice
they know, send you on wild-goose chase around town.
Once you have said your name is “Omar” in one shop,
you may as well quit trying to buy bread in Kash.
You’re not only seeing double. You’re seeing ten-fold!
And you’ll never get fed.
You move from nook to nook in the ruins of a monastery,
thinking, The next prayer-place is the place I’m looking for.
Let your eyes see God everywhere. Give up fears
and expectations. The friend, the Beloved, your soul,
is a river with the trees and buds of the world
reflected in it. And it’s no illusion!
The reflections are real, real images, through which
God is made real to you. The River Water
is an orchard that fills your basket.
But not all flowings are the same. Different donkeys
take different loads and different persuasive sticks.
One principle does not apply to all rivers.
For example, inside this river there is a moon
which is not a reflection!
From the riverbottom the Moon speaks,
………………………………………………………….“I travel
in continuous conversation with the river as it goes.
whatever is above and seemingly outside this river
is actually in it. It all belongs to the Friend.”
Merge with it, in here or out there, as you please,
because this is the river of rivers
and the beautiful silence of Endless Talking.
by Rumi
from We Are Three
Coleman Barks, 1987
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