A few of my favorite poems from the Rumi Daylight: A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance.

“God created pain and sorrow

That happiness might show itself by contrast.

For hidden things are made manifest

By means of their opposites

Since God has no opposite, (s)He is hidden.”

 

“No mirror ever became iron again;

No bread ever became wheat;

No ripened grape ever became sour fruit.

Mature yourself and be secure

From a change for the worse. Become the Light.”

 

“Within the human being is a jungle.

You, born of the Divine Breath, be aware.

Wolves and pigs by the thousands are withing,

The fair and the foul.

What dominates within is what you are.

If your gold outweighs your copper,

You will be known as gold. Whatever you most are

Is the form in which you will resurrect.”

 

“Nothing shows up false without the true

The fool took false coin

Hoping it might be gold.

If there were no genuine coin in the world,

How would it be possible to pass fakes?

Unless there is Truth,

How could there be lies?

Falsity gets its value from the existence of truth.

Some want the wrong in hope that it will be right.”

 

“Fools honor the mosque

Yet seek to destroy those in whose heart God lives.

That mosque is of the world of things;

This heart is real.

The true mosque is nothing but the heart of spiritual kings.

The mosque that is the inner awareness of the saints

Is the place of worship for all:

God is there.”

 

“Before the Infinite

All that is finite is nothingness:

Everything is passing away,

Except the face of God.”

 

“No one has shown the beginning or end of the Infinite.

God said, “If the sea were to become ink…”

Still God’s word could not be written out.

Through all the orchards and forests were pens,

Still we would be no closer to defining it.

Ink and pens pass away,

Yet this Infinite Word is everlasting.”