A Light Within His Light | Rumi Poem

In this poem by Rumi, the voice speaks of dissolving through many forms and roles, revealing how the self keeps changing as awareness deepens. It speaks of a light within all these shifting identities, a presence that watches the journey unfold from within.

Mawlana Jalaluddin Mohammad Balkhi, popularly known as "Rumi", is a 13th-century Sufi poet. Today, he is recognised as one of the greatest poets who ever lived, due in part to how his words seem to speak to the Divine.

Photo by N.K.
Translation by Coleman Barks.

Transcript

I circled a while with each of the intelligences,

The nine fathers that control the levels of spirit growth.

I revolved for years with the stars,

Through each astrological sign.

I disappeared into the kingdom of nearness.

I saw what I have seen,

Receiving nourishment as a child lives in the womb.

Personalities are born once,

A mystic many times.

Wearing the body robe,

I have been busy in the market,

Weighing and arguing prices.

Sometimes,

I have torn the robe off with my own hands and thrown it away.

I have spent long nights in monasteries and I have slept with those who claim to believe nothing on the porches of pagodas,

Just traveling through.

When someone feels jealous,

I am inside the hurt and the need to possess.

When anyone is sick,

I feel feverish and dizzy.

I am cloud and rain being released,

Then the meadow as it soaks in.

I wash the grains of mortality from the cloth around the dervish.

I am the rose of eternity,

Not made of water and fire,

Not of the wandering wind or even earth.

I play with those.

I am not charms of the breeze,

But a light within his light.

If you see me,

Be careful.

Tell no one what you have seen.

Reviews

My soul was imprinted with this very instruction many moons ago, “tell no one what you have seen”. Took my breathe away to hear it again now.