WEEK 6.1 – A TRIBUTE TO RUMI

“Instead of looking out into the world from a window, in class tonight imagine looking inward through a mirror. Yoga is a mirror to look at ourselves from within. Yoga teaches us how to listen to our body and feel it from the inside. Allow your mat to be your canvas and yoga to be your art.” – David Scott

“Be where you are tonight and not where the ego is telling you that you should be.” – David Scott

“Be at least as interested in what goes on inside you as what happens outside. If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.” – Eckhart Tolle

“Life is a balance of holding on and letting go. Yoga teaches us this subtle dance of life. Learning when to try with more effort and when to surrender and let go, is the knowledge of yoga we gain on our mat through practice.” – David Scott

“The soul has been given its own ears to hear things mind does not understand.” – Rumi

Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are. – Jason Crandell

Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), (816 years ago – 2023) was a 13th-century Persian poet, Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan (Iran). Sufism is a branch of Islam primarily concerned with developing the spirituality, or more precisely the inner character, of a Muslim.

We would all love one another if we truly took time to understand one another. Rumi was unique because he brought so many cultures and religions together. At his funeral procession was an eclectic spectrum of world religions, with Muslims, Christians and Jewish believers, all walking together in a celebration of how his life’s work touched each one of them, somehow drawing humanity together as one.

Sometimes not getting what you want is a brilliant stroke of luck. . “Whatever you lost through fate, be certain that it saved you from pain.” – Rumi

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi

“Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.” – Rumi

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

“I have been a seeker and I still am, but I stopped asking the books and the stars. I started listening to the teaching of my Soul.” – Rumi

“It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.” – Rumi

“Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.” – Rumi

“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.” – Rumi

“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.” – Rumi

“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?” – Rumi

“There is a voice that doesn’t use words, listen.” – Rumi

“The message behind the words is the voice of the heart.” – Rumi

“I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within.” – Rumi

“Love is the bridge between you and everything.” – Rumi (Fear is what stops us from crossing it – David Scott)

“We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.” – Rumi

“Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction.” – Rumi

“What you seek is seeking you.” – Rumi

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” – Rumi

“Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wild flowers will come up where you are.” – Rumi

“The lion is most handsome when looking for food.” – Rumi

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.” – Rumi

“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” – Rumi

“Life is balance of holding on and letting go.” – Rumi

“If light is in your heart, you will find your way home.” – Rumi

“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.” – Rumi

“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.” – Rumi

“Be an empty page, untouched by words.” – Rumi

“What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.” – Rumi

“Look at the moon in the sky, not the one in the lake.” – Rumi

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?” – Rumi

“Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?” – Rumi

“The soul has been given its own ears to hear things mind does not understand.” – Rumi

“Inside any deep asking is the answering.” – Rumi

“Wisdom tells us we are not worthy; love tells us we are. My life flows between the two.” – Rumi

“The time has come to turn your heart into a temple of fire.” – Rumi

“Open your hands if you want to be held.” – Rumi

“The world is a mountain, in which your words are echoed back to you.” – Rumi

“When you seek love with all your heart you shall find its echo in the universe.” – Rumi

“When you lose all sense of self, the bonds of a thousand chains will vanish.” – Rumi

“Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths..” – Rumi

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.” – Rumi

“The lion is most handsome when looking for food.” – Rumi (The wounded deer leaps highest)

“The very center of your heart is where life begins – the most beautiful place on earth.” – Rumi

“Don’t you know yet? It is your light that lights the worlds.” – Rumi

“What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.” – Rumi

“The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are” – Rumi

“This is a subtle truth. Whatever you love you are.” – Rumi

“What is planted in each person’s soul will sprout.” – Rumi

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.” – Rumi

“When you feel a peaceful joy, that’s when you are near truth.” – Rumi

“I learned that every mortal will taste death. But only some will taste life.” – Rumi

“If you want money more than anything, you’ll be bought and sold your whole life.” – Rumi

“Why struggle to open a door between us when the whole wall is an illusion?” – Rumi

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.” – Rumi

“Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart.” – Rumi

“Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you.” – Rumi

“Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.” – Rumi

“In order to understand the dance one must be still. And in order to truly understand stillness one must dance.” – Rumi

“Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and twice as beautiful as you’d ever imagined.” – Rumi

“If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.” – Rumi

“I was dead, then alive.

Weeping, then laughing.

The power of love came into me,

and I became fierce like a lion,

then tender like the evening star.” – Rumi

“Doing as others told me, I was blind.

Coming when others called me, I was lost.

Then I left everyone, myself as well.

Then I found everyone, myself as well.” – Rumi

“I died to the mineral state and became a plant,

I died to the vegetal state and reached animality,

I died to the animal state and became a man,

Then what should I fear? I have never become less from dying.

At the next charge (forward) I will die to human nature,

So that I may lift up (my) head and wings (and soar) among the angels,

And I must (also) jump from the river of (the state of) the angel,

Everything perishes except His Face,

Once again I will become sacrificed from (the state of) the angel,

I will become that which cannot come into the imagination,

Then I will become non-existent; non-existence says to me (in tones) like an organ,

Truly, to Him is our return.” – Rumi

“I’ve been looking for a long, long time,

for this thing called love,

I’ve ridden comets across the sky,

and I’ve looked below and above.

Then one day I looked inside myself,

and this is what I found,

a golden sun residing there,

beaming forth God’s light and sound.” – Rumi