Fihi Ma Fihi, Majlis No. 56 :-

Rumi said: You are now experiencing happiness. Why? Because the mind is a delicate thing, and like a snare it was properly set to catch its prey. If you are unhappy, then that snare is torn and useless.

Therefore, it is best not to be excessive in love or hatred towards others, since both of these leave the snare broken and torn. Moderation is best. By excessive love, I mean love for other than God. How can love for God ever be excessive? It is inconceivable—the greater our love for God, the better.

Yet, when our love for someone else becomes excessive, we strive for them to experience only good fortune, but that is impossible, and so the mind becomes disturbed. Similarly, when enmity is excessive, we wish that person only bad luck and misfortune, but the wheel of heaven is ever turning, and everyone’s circumstances are also revolving. One moment they are lucky, the next unlucky, and this seems unfair and disturbing to the mind.

But love for God is latent in all people, Magians, Jews or Christians, and in all things that have being. How can anyone not love Him who is the source of their existence? Therefore, love is latent in everyone, but circumstances veil that love. When those circumstances change, that love becomes manifest.

Yet, why do I speak of only things that have being? Non-being is also churning in the hope and expectation of being granted existence. Non-beings are like four people standing before a king, each one hoping the king will grant them special rank, and yet each one ashamed before the other three, because their own desires contradict each other. So they stand, ranging in their expectation of finding existence through God, yet each desiring to be the first, and therefore embarrassed before one another. If non-beings are in such a circumstance, how should those in existence be?

“There is nothing that does not proclaim His praise.”

This is not remarkable. What is remarkable is that even no-thing proclaims

His praise.

Both faith and unbelief are seeking Thee And shouting Thy undivided Unity.

This house is built out of forgetfulness. All bodies and forms in this world are sustained through forgetfulness. Even our full-grown bodies grew by forgetting. But remembrance of God cannot exist without forgetfulness, for something must be forgotten before there can be remembrance. Therefore, faith and unbelief are one and the same, since one does not exist without the other. They are indivisible, and God is one. God is alone and has no partner.

Someone said: “Sayed Burhan al-Din discourses very well, yet he quotes Sanai too frequently.”

Rumi answered: What you say is true: the sun is excellent, yet it gives light. Is that a fault? Using Sanai’s words casts light on his discourse. The sun casts light on things, and through that light it is possible to see. The purpose of light is to see. After all, this sun in our heaven illuminates things that have no use. But the real sun shows things that are of use. This worldly sun is a reflection and a metaphor. That real sun is the true sun. Do you yearn for the real sun and seek the light of knowledge? Then be expectant of understanding and learning something from every teacher and every friend.

We know of that other sun, apart from our physical sun, from which the realities and inner truths are revealed. Yet this partial knowledge that draws you, and through which you feel pleasure, is but a branch of that great knowledge and a ray of it. This ray is calling you to the original sun.

“Those—they are called from a far place.”

You try to draw that knowledge towards yourself, but it answers you, “I cannot be contained in your world, it is impossible, and you have stayed away so long because it is difficult to reach me.” Now, what is impossible is impossible, but what is difficult is not impossible. So, strive to attain that great knowledge, but do not expect to contain it here. The wealthy ones, out of their love for God’s wealth, collect penny by penny, grain by grain. But the ray of wealth says, “I am calling to you from infinite wealth. Why do

you try drawing me piece by piece? I cannot be contained in pieces. Listen, and follow me to unlimited riches.”

In short, the beginning depends upon the end—may the end be praiseworthy! What is a praiseworthy end? That the tree whose roots are fixed firm in the spiritual garden, whose branches, boughs and fruits suspend over another land, and whose fruits have scattered—that in the end those fruits should be carried back into that garden of its original roots. But if the roots of a tree belong to this world, although outwardly proclaiming praises of God, all its fruits should be carried back to this world. And if both

roots and fruit are in the spiritual garden, then that is “Light upon Light.”

Rumi said: You are now experiencing happiness. Why? Because the mind is a delicate thing, and like a snare it was properly set to catch its prey. If you are unhappy, then that snare is torn and useless.

Therefore, it is best not to be excessive in love or hatred towards others, since both of these leave the snare broken and torn. Moderation is best. By excessive love, I mean love for other than God. How can love for God ever be excessive? It is inconceivable—the greater our love for God, the better.

Yet, when our love for someone else becomes excessive, we strive for them to experience only good fortune, but that is impossible, and so the mind becomes disturbed. Similarly, when enmity is excessive, we wish that person only bad luck and misfortune, but the wheel of heaven is ever turning, and everyone’s circumstances are also revolving. One moment they are lucky, the next unlucky, and this seems unfair and disturbing to the mind.

But love for God is latent in all people, Magians, Jews or Christians, and in all things that have being. How can anyone not love Him who is the source of their existence? Therefore, love is latent in everyone, but circumstances veil that love. When those circumstances change, that love becomes manifest.

Yet, why do I speak of only things that have being? Non-being is also churning in the hope and expectation of being granted existence. Non-beings are like four people standing before a king, each one hoping the king will grant them special rank, and yet each one ashamed before the other three, because their own desires contradict each other. So they stand, ranging in their expectation of finding existence through God, yet each desiring to be the first, and therefore embarrassed before one another. If non-beings are in such a circumstance, how should those in existence be?

“There is nothing that does not proclaim His praise.”

This is not remarkable. What is remarkable is that even no-thing proclaims

His praise.

Both faith and unbelief are seeking Thee And shouting Thy undivided Unity.

This house is built out of forgetfulness. All bodies and forms in this world are sustained through forgetfulness. Even our full-grown bodies grew by forgetting. But remembrance of God cannot exist without forgetfulness, for something must be forgotten before there can be remembrance. Therefore, faith and unbelief are one and the same, since one does not exist without the other. They are indivisible, and God is one. God is alone and has no partner.

Someone said: “Sayed Burhan al-Din discourses very well, yet he quotes Sanai too frequently.”

Rumi answered: What you say is true: the sun is excellent, yet it gives light. Is that a fault? Using Sanai’s words casts light on his discourse. The sun casts light on things, and through that light it is possible to see. The purpose of light is to see. After all, this sun in our heaven illuminates things that have no use. But the real sun shows things that are of use. This worldly sun is a reflection and a metaphor. That real sun is the true sun. Do you yearn for the real sun and seek the light of knowledge? Then be expectant of understanding and learning something from every teacher and every friend.

We know of that other sun, apart from our physical sun, from which the realities and inner truths are revealed. Yet this partial knowledge that draws you, and through which you feel pleasure, is but a branch of that great knowledge and a ray of it. This ray is calling you to the original sun.

“Those—they are called from a far place.”

You try to draw that knowledge towards yourself, but it answers you, “I cannot be contained in your world, it is impossible, and you have stayed away so long because it is difficult to reach me.” Now, what is impossible is impossible, but what is difficult is not impossible. So, strive to attain that great knowledge, but do not expect to contain it here. The wealthy ones, out of their love for God’s wealth, collect penny by penny, grain by grain. But the ray of wealth says, “I am calling to you from infinite wealth. Why do

you try drawing me piece by piece? I cannot be contained in pieces. Listen, and follow me to unlimited riches.”

In short, the beginning depends upon the end—may the end be praiseworthy! What is a praiseworthy end? That the tree whose roots are fixed firm in the spiritual garden, whose branches, boughs and fruits suspend over another land, and whose fruits have scattered—that in the end those fruits should be carried back into that garden of its original roots. But if the roots of a tree belong to this world, although outwardly proclaiming praises of God, all its fruits should be carried back to this world. And if both

roots and fruit are in the spiritual garden, then that is “Light upon Light.”