I always like to include some meditations in this series from Mala of the Heart: 108 Sacred Poems, edited by Ravi Nathwani and Kate Vogt. Tonight’s is by Rumi.

Are you jealous of the ocean’s generosity?
Why would you refuse to give
this joy to anyone?
Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups.
They swim the huge fluid freedom.

I invite you to think — meditate — ruminate, as it were — on this lovely text. What are some ways you find its message applicable in our own lives?

***

Rumi (Jalāludin Muhammad Rumi) — 1207-1273, Persia (Afghanistan) — was born in Balkh on the eastern edge of the Persian Empire and at age eight settled in Turkey with his family, where Rumi eventually succeeded his father as head of a dervish school. At age thirty-seven Rumi met the whirling dervish Shams-e Tabrīzī, whose divine presence awakened Rumi’s own love for the divine. Rumi thus abandoned his scholarly position and began writing poetry, using metaphors to express his experience of mystical union and his intense longing and search for the divine. Rumi reached across cultural and social boundaries, and it is said that his funeral was attended by Persians, Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Greeks.

Biographical information respectfully quoted from Mala of the Heart: 108 Sacred Poems, edited by Ravi Nathwani and Kate Vogt.