A gem from Rumi...

quite literally :)
In this the month of sacrifice, of putting others above ourselves, in letting dharma win over pettiness, in elevating our spirits from its lower self to the higher, in suffering for good, in enduring for wisdom and understanding....this poem teaches a most beautiful lesson on what it means to be selfless and detached.
In light of tonight's Ruhi section on kindness, on achieveing unity, in understanding what it means to let one's heart burn with loving-kindness for everyone that might pass one's way, I share this Ruby with you, so you may drink in its beauty as I do and savor the full potence of its meaning as it sinks in word by word....

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The Ruby

At breakfast tea a beloved asked her lover,

"Who do you love more, yourself or me?"

"From my head to my foot I have become you.

Nothing remains of me but my name.

You have your wish. Only you exist.

I've disappeared like a drop of vinegar in the ocean of honey."

A stone has become a ruby,

is filled with the qualities of the sun.

No stoniness remains in it.

If it loves itself, it is loving the sun.

And if it loves the sun, it loves itself.

There is no difference between these two loves.

Before the stone becomes the ruby it is its own enemy.

Not one but two exist.

The stone is dark and blind to daylight.

If it loves itself, it is unfaithful: it intensely resists the sun.

If it says "I," it is all darkness.

A pharaoh claims divinity and is brought down.

Hallaj says the same and is saved.

One I is cursed, another I is blessed.

One I is a stone, another a crystal.

One an enemy of the light, the other a reflector of it.

In its inmost consciousness, not through a doctrine,

it is one with the light.

Work on your stony qualities

and become resplendent like the ruby.

Practice self-denial and accept difficulty.

Always see infinite life in letting the self die.

Your stoniness will decrease; your ruby nature will grow.

The signs of self-existence will leave your body,

and ecstasy will take you over.

Become all hearing like an ear and gain a ruby earring.

Dig a well in the earth of this body,

or even before the well is dug,

let God draw the water up.

Be always at work scraping the dirt from the well.

To everyone who suffers,

perseverance brings good fortune.

The Prophet has said that each prostration of prayer

is a knock on heaven's door.

When anyone continues to knock,

felicity shows its smiling face.

The light which shines in the eye

is really the light of the heart.

The light which fills the heart

is the light of God, which is pure

and separate from the light of intellect and sense.

- Rumi

(translated by Kabir Helminski)

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