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A Year with Rumi: Daily Readings

Coleman Barks has played a central role in making the Sufi mystic Rumi the most popular poet in the world. A Year with Rumi brings together 365 of Barks's elegant and beautiful translations of Rumi's greatest poems, including fifteen never-before-published poems.

Barks includes an Introduction that sets Rumi in his context and an Afterword musing on poetry of the mysterious and the sacred. Join Coleman Barks and Rumi for a year-long journey into the mystical and sacred within and without. Join them in recognizing and embracing the divine in the sublime, in the ordinary, and in us all.

Jalalud'din Rumi, born in 1207 in what is now known as Afghanistan, is one of the world’s most revered mystical poets.  During his lifetime he produced a prolific range of inspiring and devotional poetry which encapsulates the sufi's experience of  union with the divine.  These timeless classics have enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, as Rumi has become one of our most popular poets.

Hardcover: 432 pages
Publisher: HarperOne (October 31, 2006)

Out Beyond Ideas of Wrongdoing and Rightdoing

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.  I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

- Rumi
  translated by Coleman Barks
  with John Moyne

Is your heart really in it?

If your heart is clenched in anger, clouded over with sadness, or encased in layers of protection against your worst fears, how can you fully express yourself? If your heart’s not really in it, you’re just going through the motions and doing what you must to survive, or doing nothing while waiting for motivation to magically appear at your door. You must find a path into your heart to explore what’s keeping it closed and seek ways to open it. The more heart you bring to any endeavor, the more you can feel the fulfillment of true self expression.

~ A.G.R

 "If only the true and useful things were recorded, our huge historical libraries would be reduced to very narrow dimensions – but we would know  more, and know it better."        ~ Voltaire

Last Night As I Was Sleeping by Antonio Machado

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

Antonio Machado y Ruiz (1875 – 1939) was a Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98.

Translation by Robert Bly

Quote of the Week Elbert Hubbard

"Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed. There's so little competition."

~ Elbert Hubbard

Elbert Green Hubbard (1856–1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist and philosopher. He was an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement and is, perhaps, most famous for his essay A Message to Garcia.

Nature's Beauty

S-l-o-w Learner: What I Still Don’t Know

S-l-o-w Learner is a series based on the premise that I seem to require more time than most to learn basic life lessons.

I used to hate not knowing. That’s why the process of learning has always been so painful for me. By its very nature learning is intended to shift us from not knowing to knowing. But if you've hated not knowing, as I have, then you’re constantly tensing up against the learning process, even while striving to alleviate the stress of not knowing. Just as you reach the next level of knowing, you also bump up against the next level of not knowing. There is never any relief.

So I finally realized the secret: learn to love not knowing, and see not knowing as a wonderful gift. That way each test, each challenge, each awkward performance becomes another opportunity to discover what I still don’t know. And still not knowing becomes a welcome state because at least I know what I still don’t know.

~ A.G.R

The Right-To-Laugh Party Humanifesto Declared and Absurdified by Swami Beyondananda

We believe that every human has the right to laugh, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unless of course happiness is a warm gun, in which case some restrictions may apply.

We have the right and duty to laugh at our leaders, particularly those times when their actions are either seriously foolish or foolishly serious. We have the right to help them laugh with each other and at themselves, and if they are incapable of doing that, we have the right to laugh them out of power.

We have the right to laugh at the obscene foolishness of spending so much of our precious livelihood on weapons of deadlihood, and at the utter absurdity of doing the same things that haven't worked in the past and expecting them to work now and in the future.

We propose creating the office of Supreme Court Jester to encourage citizens to use the light of laughter to illuminate the shadow, especially in those poorly lit corridors of power.

We seek to extend this Right-to-Laugh all across the globe, especially places where things just aren't funny.

We propose that the United Nations and all levels of government begin each session with the Hokey Pokey. You put your whole self in - that is commitment. You pull your whole self out - that is detachment. You turn yourself around - and that is transformation and that's what it s all about.

We believe the problem is serious. But the solution is humorous. It's a scientific fact. The best way to overcome gravity is with levity. So all those who want to take a vow of levity please rise! Put your hand on your jocular vein, and recite the Right to Laugh Pledge: All for fun and fun for all.

Congratulations! You have now joined farces with the Pro-Laugh movement to raise the laugh force and increase the laugh expectancy on this amazing planet.

May we all wake up laughing, and leave laughter in our wake. For surely, the Farce is with us!

OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER

Although we are enthusiastically pro-laugh, we are pro-choice as well. We respect each and every individual s right to not laugh. If you want to be miserable, go right ahead. Whatever makes you happy.

All for fun and fun for all!

One big party, everyone is invited.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Steve Bhaerman is an internationally known author, humorist, and workshop leader who writes and performs as Swami Beyondananda, the “Cosmic Comic.” Swami’s comedy has been called “irreverently uplifting” and has been described both as “comedy disguised as wisdom” and “wisdom disguised as comedy.”

Click here for more from the Swami.

Quote of the Week Albert Einstein

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

~ Albert Einstein

The Second Book of the Tao by Stephen Mitchell

The most widely translated book in world literature after the Bible, Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living. Following the phenomenal success of his own version of the Tao Te Ching, renowned scholar and translator Stephen Mitchell has composed The Second Book of the Tao. Drawn from the work of Lao-tzu's disciple Chuang- tzu and Confucius's grandson Tzu-ssu, The Second Book of the Tao collects the freshest, most profound teachings from these two great students of the Tao to offer Western readers a path into reality that has nothing to do with east or west, but everything to do with truth. With his own illuminating commentary alongside each adaptation, explicating and complementing the text, Mitchell makes the ancient teachings at once modern, relevant, and timeless.

Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 5, 2010)

What is the Empty Space? by Casey Kochmer

Take some clay. Feel it in your hands. Now spin it upon a potter's wheel. What is shaped? A bowl comes out. However, the bowl is defined by an empty space, a space enclosed by the bowl's very form. The empty space holds the water, fulfilling the purpose of the bowl. The actual physical form of the bowl is reflected by the empty space it projects. The final use and form of the bowl is determined in the moment of artistry used to spin out the shape.

In this example the bowl is made from clay. The clay forms the body, but the actual bowl projects out as more than a clay shell; it must include the "empty space" in its definition. In fact a bowl is more about the "empty space" than the materials comprising the bowl.

In living, we each have a physical form which is mirrored by an empty space. The process of shaping this space is the very definition of a person's free will.

Free will is the ability to express the very nature of the empty space. Free will is the whim of the moment, the place before the dream, the moment of shaping.

In part, our initial empty space is formed by parents, elders, teachers, culture, our bodies and tendencies of the mind. Yet each person has an incredible degree of freedom to shape their own empty space. At certain times this process is more dramatic than others, such as being a teenager or experiencing a mid-life crisis. These moments stand out as a time to question earlier frameworks that shaped our forms. These times can be difficult due to the twisting around of our core shape and beliefs: a time when our very nature is in flux. Often a person reshapes their empty space without the benefit of outside perspective, adding to the frustration and chances of something "breaking". A person never truly breaks in this sense, but radically changing one's own empty space then reflects out to form a vastly different person after the experience.

We are the light of our own empty space.

Source: A Personal Tao

Quote of the Week

"We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses."

~ Carl Jung

Quote of the Week Thich Nhat Hanh

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh