Don't Postpone Your Yes!

[Guest guest]

Muhammed is said to have said,

" Whoever belongs to God, God belongs to. "

Our weak, uneven breathings,

these dissolving personalities,

were breathed out by the eternal

Huuuuuuuu, that never changes!

A drop of water constantly fears

that it may evaporate into the air,

or be absorbed by the ground.

It doesn't want to be used up

in those ways, but when it lets go

and falls into the ocean it came from,

it finds protection from the other deaths.

Its droplet form is gone,

but its watery essence has become

vast and inviolable.

Listen to me, friends, because you

are a drop, and you can honor yourselves

in this way. What could be luckier

than to have the ocean come

to court the drop?

For God's sake, don't postpone your yes!

Give up and become the giver.

(Rumi: Mathnawi, IV: 2619-2622)

-- Version by Barks

One-Handed Basket Weaving

Maypop, 1991

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Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret,

and in exchange gain the Ocean.

Listen, O drop, bestow upon yourself this honor,

and in the arms of the Sea be secure.

Who indeed should be so fortunate?

An Ocean wooing a drop!

In God's name, in God's name, sell and buy at once!

Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls.

-- (Mathnawi, IV: 2619-2622)

Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski

" Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance "

Threshold Books, 1996

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