An esoteric poem of Mevlana

Woodpecker

Padawan Learner
Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi was a big mystic thinker and poet in 13. Century. I saw a poem of him. Very beautiful and meaningful. I hope google translation makes a true translation.


I died as a stone, borned as a plant.
I died as a plant and I was an animal.
I died as an animal, then I'm human.
So why fear death?
I have never been worse,
Or have I been seen lowering?
One day I will die as a human,
a creature of light,
I'll be the angel of dreams.
But my path will continue,
Everything else will be lost except Allah.
I will be something that no one sees or hears.
It's a star on the stars,
I will shine on birth and death.
 
Very beautiful Woodkeeper. Rumi is a majestic poet. Thanks to share this one with us.
 
Rumi is one of my all-time favorite poets. Reading his verse helped me get through some tough times. I highly recommend The Pocket Rumi, translations by Kabir Helminski, and published for the Shambhala Pocket Classics series, if you're looking for a nice compact collection of his work. I love the Shambhala Pocket Classics books because they're adorably small (3 x 4.5 inches) and easy to carry around, and there's a lot of great works in the series - I Ching, Tao Teh Ching, a few works by Thomas Merton, Buddhist texts, Krishnamurti, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, American poets like Dickinson and Emerson, and many more. I have a few of them in my library and just adore them.

I did a lot of research on various translators when I became interested in Rumi and I suggest avoiding Coleman Barks, whose translations are more watered down interpretations of Rumi's poetry rather than accurate renderings. I recommend Helminski's translations, as well as William Chittick, A. J. Arberry, and Reynold Nicholson (whose complete translation of Rumi's Masnavi in three volumes is considered the best and most scholarly).
 
And for anyone interested in Sufi poetry in general, I also recommend Hafiz, Shabestari, Yunus Emre, and Attar.

:read:
 
I also like that poem, Woodpecker. I found a variant translation of the poem here:

Variant translation: Originally, you were clay. From being mineral, you became vegetable. From vegetable, you became animal, and from animal, man. During these periods man did not know where he was going, but he was being taken on a long journey nonetheless. And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet.
 
Thanks friends. Mevlana lived in my country but unfortunately I don't know much about him. I learned that poem new.

As I learned, Mevlana was one of the important mistics in the inisiated tradition in Anatolia and he told the esoteric knowledges in Koran.
 
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