Life rolls so sweetly lately... and yet I feel such an aching need for hard-core spiritual guidance. Someone to guide me with deep compassion, and someone to even chastise me.
I close myself off to guidance sometimes. I offer my dead heart, I offer dry, hypocritical prayer, I break my vows, and my doubts are hundred-fold. Yet Krishna... ah, Krishna in His mercy accepts my terrible coin.
I pray to be a beggar.
What Is Bounty Without a Beggar?
What is bounty without a beggar? Generosity without a guest?
Be beggar and guest; for beauty is seeking a mirror,
water is crying for a thirsty man.
A beggar shows his blindness and palsy, he does not say,
"Give me bread, O, people! I am a rich man with
granaries and palaces!"
Bring a hundred sacks of gold and God will say, "Bring the heart."
And if you bring a dead heart carried like a coffin on your
shoulders, God will say, "O, cheat! Is this a graveyard?
Bring the live heart! Bring the live heart!"
If you haven't any knowledge and only opinions, have good
opinions about God. This is the way.
If you can only crawl, crawl to Him.
If you cannot pray sincerely, offer your dry, hypocritical,
agnostic prayer; for God in His mercy accepts bad coin.
If you have a hundred doubts of God, make them into ninety
doubts. This is the way.
O, Seeker! Though you have broken your vows a hundred times,
come again! come again! For God has said, "Though you
are on high or in the pit consider me, for I am the Way."
- Excerpt of a poem by Jalaluddin Rumi
3 comments:
thanks, i really needed this just now. perfect timing.
Thanks Bhakti for this post. Honestly, I havent heard about this poet before. I enjoyed it very much. Infact, the writings reminded me little bit of Kahlil Gibran's writings.
Manoj
I am a proud beggar,
I do not accept charity,
proud of my shattered attempts
to be self sufficient.
Stubbornly clothed in tatters,
I am broken by the cold.
I have avoided improvement,
my vows scattered
a thousand times.
Proud shame told me I lost my last chance to come again.
But when I offer my heart,
dry and withered from cold and isolation,
His tears warm and wash me.
I finally accept his charity.
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