Poem By Rumi: Boil Nicely Now

This is a reading of the poem "Boil nicely now" by Sufi poet and philosopher Rumi. It's a poem that speaks of strength and courage amid affliction or hardships. Look at the chickpea in the pot, how it leaps up when it feels the fire. While boiling, it continually rises to the top and cries, “Why are you setting the fire under me? Since you bought me, why are you turning me upside down?“ The housewife keeps hitting it with the ladle. “No!” she says, “boil nicely now, and don’t leap away from the one who makes the fire. It’s not because you are hateful to me that I boil you, but so that you might gain flavor, and become nutritious and mingle with essential spirit. This affliction is not because you are despised. When you were green and fresh, you were drinking water in the garden; that water-drinking was for the sake of this fire.”