Rumi's Masnavi - The Mathnawí, which was the burnisher (purifier) of spirits —his return was the day of (my) seeking (an auspicious) commencement (for it).

The Mathnawí, which was the burnisher (purifier) of spirits —his return was the day of (my) seeking (an auspicious) commencement (for it).

The date of beginning this gainful (spiritual) traffic was in the year six hundred and sixty-two.

A nightingale went hence and returned: it became a falcon for hunting these spiritual truths.

May this falcon's resting-place be the fore-arm of the King! May this gate (to the Truth) be open to (all) the people unto everlasting!

The bane of this gate is sensuality and lust; else, draught on draught (of spiritual knowledge) is (to be found) here. 10

Close this mouth that you may see plainly: gullet and mouth are the eye-bandage (which makes you blind) to yonder world.

O mouth, verily thou art the mouth of Hell; and, O world, thou art like the intermediate state.

The everlasting light is beside this low world, the pure milk is beside rivers of blood.

When you take one step in it (the world) without precaution, your milk will be turned to blood through commixture.

Adam took one step in sensual pleasure: separation from his high place in Paradise became a collar on the neck of his (fleshly) soul. 15

The angels were fleeing from him as from a devil: how many tears did he shed for the sake of a single loaf!

Although the sin which he had compassed was (but) a hair, yet that hair had grown in his eyes.

Adam was the eye of the Eternal Light: a hair in the eye is a great mountain.

If Adam had taken counsel in that (matter), he would not have uttered excuses in penitence,

Because when one intellect is joined with another intellect, it prevents evil action and evil speech; 20

(But) when the fleshly soul is associated with another fleshly soul, the partial (individual) intellect becomes idle and useless.

When because of loneliness you fall into despair, you become (bright as) a sun (if you go) under the shadow (protection) of the friend.

Go, seek at once the friend of God: when you have done so, God is your friend.

He who has fixed his gaze upon seclusion (and made it his object), after all ’tis from the friend (of God) that he has learned that (lesson).

One must seclude one's self from strangers, (but) not from the friend: the fur-coat is for winter, not for spring. 25

(If) the intellect is paired with another intellect, light increases and the way becomes plain;

(But if) the fleshly soul makes merry with another fleshly soul, darkness increases, the way becomes hidden.

The friend is thine eye, O huntsman: keep him pure from (unsoiled by) sticks and straws.

Beware! Do not make a dust with thy tongue's broom, do not make a present of rubbish to thine eye.

Since the true believer is a mirror for the true believer, his face is safe from defilement. 30

The friend is a mirror for the soul in sorrow: breathe not on the face of the mirror, O my soul!

Lest it cover its face to (conceal itself from) thee at once, thou must swallow (suppress) thy breath at every moment.

Art thou less than earth? When a plot of earth finds a friend, that is, a springtide, it finds (gains) a hundred thousand flowers.

The tree that is united with a friend, that is, the sweet air (of spring), blossoms from head to foot;

In autumn, when it sees (meets with) a repugnant companion, it withdraws its face and head under the coverlet 35

And says, “A bad comrade is (the means of) stirring up trouble: since he has come, my (best) course is to sleep.

Therefore I will sleep, I will be (like) one of the Men of the Cave (the Seven Sleepers): that prisoner of woe (that sorely distressed one) is better than Decianus.”

Their time of waking was expended by (was at the disposal of) Decianus; their sleep was the capital (fundamental source) of their renown.

Sleep, when it is accompanied by wisdom, is (spiritual) wakefulness; (but) alas for the man awake who consorts with the ignorant!

When the crows pitch their tents on Bahman (January), the nightingales hide themselves and are mute, 40

Because the nightingale is silent without the rose-garden: the absence of the sun kills (the nightingale's) wakefulness.

O sun, thou takest leave of this rose-garden (the earth) in order to illumine (the region) below the earth;

(But) the Sun of Divine knowledge has no motion: its place of rising is naught but the spirit and the intellect;

Especially the perfect Sun which is of yonder (world of Reality): day and night its action is (giving) illumination.

If thou art an Alexander, come to the Sun's rising-place: after that, wheresoever thou goest, thou art possessed of goodly splendour. 45

After that, wheresoever thou goest, ’twill become the place of sunrise: (all) the places of sunrise will be in love with thy place of sunset.

Thy bat-like senses are running towards the sunset; thy pearl-scattering senses are faring towards the sunrise.

The way of (physical) sense-perception is the way of asses, O rider: have shame, O thou that art jostling (vying) with asses!

Besides these five (physical) senses there are five (spiritual) senses: those (latter) are like red gold, while these (physical) senses are like copper.

In the bazaar where the people of the Last Congregation (on the Day of Judgment) are (purchasers), how should they buy the copper sense like (as though it were) the sense of gold? 50

The bodily sense is eating the food of darkness; the spiritual sense is feeding from a Sun.

O thou that hast borne the baggage of thy senses to the Unseen, put forth thy hand, like Moses, from thy bosom.

O thou whose attributes are (those of) the Sun of Divine knowledge, while the sun in heaven is confined to a single attribute,

Now thou becomest the Sun, and now the Sea; now the mountain of Qáf, and now the ‘Anqá.

In thine essence thou art neither this nor that, O thou that art greater than (all) imaginations and more than (all) more! 55