When I Die By Rumi (Is This Rumi's Greatest Poem?)

In my personal studies, I believe that the essence of Rumi’s teachings was this idea of “divine love.” Rumi appears to have believed that God is divine love and that instead of teaching faith in God (which is the essence of all Abrahamic religions), Rumi taught the love of God as his core teaching. Love itself was also a kind of expression of God too. We can see this in Rumi’s poem "When I Die," where he says, “When you see my corpse is being carried, don't cry for my leaving, I'm not leaving, I’m arriving at eternal love.” Rumi is arriving at “eternal love,” he is arriving at God. If we can understand the meaning of Rumi’s idea of “divine love,” it is like a key that opens the understanding of his poems. The music you hear is from Noise Library and is called Islamic Flute.

Transcript

When I die,

When my coffin is being taken out,

You must never think I am missing this world.

Don't shed any tears.

Don't lament or feel sorry.

I'm not falling into a monster's abyss.

When you see my corpse is being carried,

Don't cry for my leaving.

I'm not leaving.

I'm arriving at eternal love.

When you leave me in the grave,

Don't say goodbye.

Remember a grave is only a curtain for the paradise behind.

You'll only see me descending into a grave.

Now watch me rise.

How can there be an end when the sun sets or the moon goes down?

It looks like the end.

It seems like a sunset.

But in reality,

It is a dawn.

When the grave locks you up,

That is when your soul is freed.

Have you ever seen a seed fallen to earth not rise with a new life?

Why should you doubt the rise of a seed named human?

Have you ever seen a bucket lowered into a well coming back empty?

Why lament for a soul when it could come back like Joseph from the well?

When for the last time,

You close your mouth,

Your words and soul will belong to the world of no place,

No time.