Prabhjeet Kaur

“A story has come down about Rumi: a woman asks if he would say something to her young boy about his eating too much of a particular kind of white-sugar candy. Rumi tells her to come back in two weeks. She does, and he tells her again to come in two weeks. She does, and he advises the child to cut down on sweets.

"Why did you not say this a month ago?"
"Because I had to see if I could resist having that candy for two weeks. I couldn't. Then I tried again and was successful. Only now can I tell him to try not to have so much.”
― Coleman Barks, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems

“WHAT WAS TOLD, THAT

What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest.

What was told the cypress that made it strong and straight, what was

whispered the jasmine so it is what it is, whatever made sugarcane sweet, whatever

was said to the inhabitants of the town of Chigil in Turkestan that makes them

so handsome, whatever lets the pomegranate flower blush like a human face, that is

being said to me now. I blush. Whatever put eloquence in language, that's happening here.

The great warehouse doors open; I fill with gratitude, chewing a piece of sugarcane,

in love with the one to whom every that belongs!”
― Coleman Barks, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems

“I could not have known
what love is if I had never

felt this longing. Anything
done to excess becomes

boring, except this overflow
that moves toward you.”
― Rumi, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems