
Sweet Rumi, and Prophet Gibran, lend me your hearts!
Let me not be corrupted by hate, nor the enmity of wounded
Pride; the mouldering coal of anger that inflames my myocardia,
And obstructs the outlets of my infectious affection
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Let me not be a hypocrite – I have promised to give,
So let me give – give, even when I feel only the indifference
And inattention of those I give to – when I offer of myself to
The point of exhaustion only to be met with distant stares
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It makes this wounded child want to repair into a Grinch,
A burglarizing old Saturn, and declareth thus: “I have
Given, and been denied loving gratitude, so wherefore
Shouldst I give?”
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Abide not that Reuben! Take that Reuben –
Slap him in the face – and sayeth unto him:
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“Give, Reuben – give until you have donated the very bones
From your back; give of your skin – give until you are so itchy
And inflamed, your tender layers excoriated by blazing sands,
You can barely stand for the pain of how much you give
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“By all means cherish those that receive your love,
And return it too, for they heal you and remind you
What it is to be whole – to be the middle ground
Betwixt Heaven and Earth
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“But cherish even more those who neither take your love,
Nor return it, or if they do, give back only in outward displays
Of silent mockery, or glut the ears of your heart with poisoning
Words; those who take your love as but a trifling snack, and, after
Eating it all to surfeit, with no trace of gratitude, have the temerity
To ask “What’s for dessert?” – those to whom you give your most
Precious things only to have them to converted into missiles of
Unkindness to slay and destroy, like the golden statue of a
Glorious saint or king melted down to make metal for bullets or
Swords –
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“If those that love you are your healers, then those emperors
And empresses of ingratitude are your teachers: they show you
How to steel your love and keep it pure – to persevere in a love
That cannot be deterred – to make your love the king of all beasts;
To dine on your obstacles as invigorating meats
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“Evolution thrives on adaptation – so make your love such a one
As this – a love that refuses to give up – that always find a way
To survive – if at first your love does not succeed, endure, and
Search out the forms it needs to take on in order to be the
Emancipating skeleton key, the hidden jigsaw puzzle piece
That connects every heart.”
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“But the blackness of my anger is so hard,” you say,
“I am depleted, duped, dead – how much longer must
I go on refining the steel of my love against the adamantine
Point of other’s disdain, apathy, and hatred?
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“Because I have met those that would love me;
That would crucify me with their kindness –
That can clearly see all I strive to do for the world,
And see that it is good.
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“Why would I consent to being a pillar of odium
When I do not have to cast myself so bloody upon
Embattled plains? Why would I submit myself to
Aching disinterest, of knocking flint against flint to
Try and rouse love in an unwelcome heart when I could
Receive love elsewhere ready-made?”
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“Why would you, indeed?” said Rumi. “Take the easy way
And all will later be hardness; take the hard way, and, as you
Now know, much else will become easier thereby – better yet,
Unite them both, and be indifferent, accepting, and loving of
Either.
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“No one said you had to make a choice, because how can we
Ever just make one choice about anything? In selecting one thing,
We also create the anti-matter of all we failed to select, and, by
Opting not choose one thing, we are still kept in the pall of
Non-choice’s shadow. One may choose The Path of Happiness
And still find sadness pursuing them like a silent cat – one may
Choose to renounce the world, only to find that the world still
Pursues them in their renunciation, and nothing has been
Renounced at all. One will always find many things one did
Not choose, so why place such great esteem in choices after
All?
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“Instead of worrying about what to choose, be mindful of what
You do with what chooses you – be kind to those things you do
Not choose – you’ll have to learn to live with everything eventually
Anyway, so why not make things easier and harder for yourself –
Isn’t that what you’ll do anyway?”
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“So, this is what I get,” thought I, “More of the hollow philosophy
I went into the desert to get away from: survive – live – die – or
Do not die; choice against choicelessness – self-control verses
Recklessness – egotism verses selflessness – virtue and sin in
Psycho-sexual union breeding more babies of ambiguity to
Keep the world going on and on and on.”
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“I hear you, brother,” said Rumi, tugging me by the hand,
And pulling me further into those golden desert sands, “I
Hear your cries, your confusion, your incertitudes, and
Desolating and uplifting attitudes. I hear your thoughts
And all the sly silky nothings that slink between those
Thoughts. I hear them all as clearly as I hear a jukebox
That spurs on a barbaric barroom brawl.
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“You want what we all want: you want to love and
Be loved – to feel that confusion is something you
Can overcome – that there is a direction, a purpose,
A motion in life you can eternally trust in – and
Even though you rebel against all linear things,
You still wish the course of life wouldn’t always
Be so frustratingly pinball quantum.
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“Think of your friends, Rube. Those who are your friends
May later becomes your enemies, and, by becoming your
Enemies, may prove better friends in giving you things to
Strive against.
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“How often have those you loved only proven to be stepping
Stones towards those you would love mightier later? How many
Dashed hopes have unleashed greater joys from the corpses of
Those they lost?
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“The problem is the question of Finality – of Certainty.
The desire to have things so, and to have them always be
So: to have an eternal day, and be done with night – to
Have an eternal summer and be done with the savage
Ineluctability of winter – to have just enough love and
No more than you can manage – to have just enough
Solitude, but not enough that all your hopes are ravaged –
This golden mean – this constant ratio – this middle income
Of truth and light – of sustainable joy somehow always able
To vivify itself with an insurance policy against discontentment’s
Canker
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“But we live in a seasonal world – an excessive world –
A world that will always take things too far, and, in the
Process, take you too far along with it:
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“So why not smile and shout when you are happy,
And wail and cry when you are sad – and then reverse
Them, and dance and sing when your are unhappy
And cry with mightiness when your joy stabs you mindlessly
In the heart?
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“Either way you experience –
Either way you keep on going –
Because there is no true stillness in this world;
But, like the ball in the pinball machine, you will
Always find yourself rocketing between one point
Of light, and a pair of pincers always ready to strike
You back.
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“Like Homer’s Odysseus, you must choose between Scylla
And Charybdis, knowing that, in this union of sea monsters,
There is no real choice at all; between this rock and a hard
Place, you will feel the hardness of hardness, the softness of
Softness; the softness of hardness, and the hardness of softness;
And you will find joy and sorrow in them both; wisdom and ignorance
In them in equal measure.
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“So what does it matter? It doesn’t matter which way you sail –
The point is that you sail. The point is that you have the courage
To be freely buffeted by the winds, lapped by the tonguing foamy
Surges of Neptune’s inconstant lover’s broil. Stay at home, and the
Sea will only seek you out – go to sea and seek out, and you will be
Sought by land just the same, if that be not the crux of all your
Seeking.
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“Feeling stable, you long for change – feeling only surging
Tides of change, you long for the certitude of land to give
You a supply of paradise’s incorruptible currency.
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“Again, the point is neither in choosing change or changelessness,
Finding both in neither, and neither in the above – the point is in
The motion – in the desiring, the end of desiring, and then the returning
Of desiring all over again.
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“That is the point:
Motion – stillness – love.”
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“I carry no assumptions about anything,” said I,
In return, throwing a bolt of lightning against the
Sand to make it into a glass to mirror us both.
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“I know that one cannot choose happiness anymore
Than one can opt to completely outdo the conniving
Machinations of suffering. I choose neither an easy
Love nor or a hard love, for there is no love to choose,
Love being all there is.
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“But I am human. I ask questions. I look to the future
And I speculate – I hold up and comparatively weigh
All the possible journeys I make. No one will ever truly
Know if they are the in process of experiencing the best
Of all possible worlds; but still – still there is the desire
That with every action and new direction one takes, that,
In the motion of that direction, we take it and make it in
The best possible way – that we leave no stone of potential
Wisdom, knowledge, joy, difficulty, or obstruction unturned,
Unfulfilled – that we do not lay to waste all those gifts that
Are made to us – that we make sure our cup runs over –
That we do not cease to drink wine until the vineyard has
Completely run dry.
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“Who would do otherwise? In drinking milk from the tits
Of the world, who wouldn’t suck at and lust against every
Sacred udder they can find – who would be content to see
The dizziest of dizzy heights without being quest-proud in
Their vertigiousness to see them?
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“But I don’t know really know what I’m saying anymore.”
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“Then say nothing,” said Rumi to me, sweetly, “say nothing
And be sweet; say nothing and sing instead; say nothing and
Be ceaselessly still and silent and unceasingly without silence
And stillness in your dizzying quest for life and quest to seek
Repose therefrom.”
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Then we took one another by the hand
And carried on walking through the sands.
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