Rumi's Masnavi - Though my body, like (other) bodies, is laid to rest, the Eight Paradises have blossomed in my heart.”

Though my body, like (other) bodies, is laid to rest, the Eight Paradises have blossomed in my heart.”

When the spirit is lying at rest amidst roses and eglantines, what does it matter if the body is (buried) in that dung?

What should the spirit (thus) laid asleep know of the body, (or care) whether it (the body) is in a rose-garden or an ashpit?

(For) in the bright (celestial) world the spirit is crying, “Oh, would that my people knew!” 1740

If the spirit shall not live without this body, then for whom shall Heaven be the palace (of everlasting abode)?

If thy spirit shall not live without the body, for whom is the blessing (promised in the words) in Heaven is your provision?

Explaining the banefulness of the fat and sweet things of the World and how they hinder one from (receiving) the Food of God, as he (the Prophet) hath said—“Hunger is the Food of God with which He revives the bodies of the true (witnesses to Him),” i.e. in hunger the Food of God is (forthcoming); and he hath said, “I pass the night with my Lord and He gives me food and drink”; and God hath said, “being provided for, rejoicing.”

(If) you are delivered from this provision of gross scraps, you will fall to (eating) dainty viands and noble food.

(Even) if you are eating a hundred pounds' weight of His viands, you will depart pure and light as a peri;

For they will not make you a prisoner of (incapacitated by) wind and dysentery and crucify you with gripes. 1745

(In the case of material food) if you eat (too) little, you will remain hungry like the crow; and if you eat your fill, you will suffer from eructation.