Rumi's full name was originally Jalaluddin Muhammad Balkhi. He was born on September 30, 1207, C. E. in Balkh Province, Afghanistan, on the eastern edge of the Persian Empire.
He is popularly known as "Rumi" – a name which comes from Arabic and literally means "Roman." He acquired this name because he spent much of his life in the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia, which had previously conquered the area from the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire. He is also known as Mawlana in Iran and Turkey, which is a term of Arabic origin meaning "our master."
Another word of Arabic origin, Mevlevi – meaning "my master" – is also often used to refer to him. Rumi was a traditional religious teacher until the age of 37 when he met a wandering dervish (a Muslim who attempts to get closer to God by leading a life of poverty) named
Shams Tabrizi, who changed the course of his life. Shams, who soon after became a devotee and intimate friend of Rumi, is credited as his spiritual mentor and is mentioned with great reverence in his poems.
Remembering his first encounter with Shams, Rumi wrote: "What I thought of before as God, I met today in a human being."
Their partnership was short-lived. Three years after they met Shams disappeared. It's rumored Shams was murdered by one of Rumi's jealous followers.
His poems are passionate, spiritual, and intense. He would frequently write about topics such as human desire and the nature of love.
An example of his fine artistry can be seen in his poem Daring Enough to Finish: Rumi believed passionately in the use of music, poetry, and dance as a path for reaching God. Rumi always encouraged tolerance, peace, and compassion. The dance of the whirling dervishes is a form of Sama, or religious ceremony, which originated among Sufis (Muslims who focus on the inner, mystical dimension of Islam). It's still practiced by Sufi dervishes of the Mevlevi Order, which traces itself to Rumi and follows his teachings. In the dance, the dervishes aim to attain perfection and reach God by abandoning their egos and personal desires. They do this by listening to spiritual music, focusing on God, and spinning in circles. Despite having died over 700 years ago, Rumi still has a strong following all over the world – probably because of the universal message of his work. Rumi's influence transcends national borders and ethnic divisions: Iranians, Tajiks, Turks, Greeks, Pashtuns, other Central Asian Muslims, and the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy for the past seven centuries.
His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. Rumi has been described as the "most popular poet" and the "best selling poet" in the United States.
"The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” ~Jalal ad-Din Rumi~
When I heard this poem for the first time, I immediately fell in love with it for the romantic love it expressed. However, today I have a much deeper and complete understanding of this truth. Seeking a lover is really seeking for the love that already exists in you; that all seeking for love is actually a seeking to love Self.
Rumi’s pieces of writing don a spiritual legacy that carries the essence of prophetic guidance. Music, poetry, and dance are the three pillars of his spiritual journey that intensified his passion for writing and gave the world masterpieces to remember.
It’s February-the month of love ..there are so many special days…Rose Day, Propose Day, chocolate day, hug day, kiss day, promise day, valentine's day. I wish they also had a day called “LOVE FOR ALL” day.
With this thought, I am sharing with you all my recent episodes on Rumi’s poems.
Rumi has inspired me in so many ways, and I feel so honored to host this and recite some of his poems and quotes, adding a new dimension to meditation ritual. I recommend listening to this with your heart open, earphones on, holding no judgments. My hope that there is a poem or quote on here that will speak to you. Let your brain turn them over. See where they take you. Rumi believed …we are all interconnected. We are so much more connected to all beings and life forms on this planet than we can mentally understand. Genetically, the most distant person to us on the planet is our 50th cousin. When we look at it as a parabola, the average person may have five first cousins and five 50th cousins. The rest of the seven billion plus living people fall within the fifteenth to the 35th cousin range. We may have at least a billion family members from the first to the fifteenth cousin/uncle/aunt/nephew/niece range.
I always thought I am fortunate to have a family who loves me unconditionally, friends who love me and respect when I need time away from them to spend time with myself, a friend who tore down my walls and smack me awake…children, who unlocked my heart to inexhaustible love, soul partner who celebrates me like love and shows me everything that holds me back. I rarely feel a sense of loneliness. I am always surrounded by friends, family, loved ones. I always saw myself as a lucky person because I always have someone to cry on, to listen to my nonsense, to embrace me when I am at my worst. But when I lost my father, I learned that grief is not something you can hack. There is no listicle that can reassemble your busted heart. But every time I tried to summon; I would suddenly find the haphazard stitches I had been sewing myself up with would tear open with heart-wrenching sobs. I was led on this journey of self-discovery several years ago. I learned meditation, complementary, alternative, and integrative approaches to healing and health. There has not been a single second when I debarred myself from learning. But the more I learned… the more I realized I know so little. But my grueling quest for knowledge has shaped me into what I am today. When I connect the dots, I realize everyone who I met in this lifetime or will meet, every incident that happened to me or will happen…happened for a reason and will happen for a reason. My soul is filled with ever-flowing water of gratitude for my family, friends, soul family members, team members, clients, acquaintances for teaching me life lessons.
I believe we go through any life-changing accidents or dark moments in life only to better appreciate the light once we find it. I believe we go through heartache and loss, but it is only to create space for new people to come into our lives. I believe you truly are exactly where you are supposed to be; even if you may not immediately understand why eventually it all makes sense.
Rumi's wisdom helped me understand the deeper significance of this truth and led me on my journey on self-love.
We all look for completion, the feeling of being whole and fulfill, and it’s not something we can look for from others. We can’t take “someone” to complete ourselves, because it’s never going to work. We can only be fulfilled by being present with ourselves, understand it and “be” with it.
The beginnings of impersonal-ness energize creative actions with infinite impulses of relational wholeness. Judgments are replaced with harmlessness. Detachment fills the empty space of attachments long since exited. Grounded faith, borne of the fresh newness of becoming, washes over the aspirant with boundless joy.
The simple, steady essence of self-love sustains the ongoing work of transformation. The purity of true love and the totality of Life can only be lived in this essence.
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