The Rumi quote Paul shared on IOB #8

Rumi comments on the tradition, "I was a hidden treasure and I desired to be known and I created a world in order to be known."



Destroy your house and with the treasure hidden in it you will be able to build thousands of houses.

The treasure lies under it; there is no help for it; hesitate not to pull it down; do not tarry!

For with the coin of that treasure a thousand homes can be built without labour.

At last, with a surety, that house will be destroyed, and the divine treasure will be seen beneath it.

But it will not belong to you, because in truth that prize is the wages for destroying the house.

When one has not done the work, he gets no wages; "Man gets nothing he has not worked for."

Then you will bite your finger, saying, "Alas! That bright moon was hidden under a cloud. I did not do what they told me for my good; Now house and treasure are lost and my hand is empty."

You have taken your house on lease or hired it; 'Tis not your own property to buy and sell. As to the terms of the lease, it is till your death; In that term you have to turn it to use.

If before the end of the term of the lease you omit to derive a profit from the house, then the owner puts you out of it, and pulls it down himself to find the gold-mine.

While you are now smiting your head in deep regret, and now tearing your beard to think of your folly, saying, "Alas! the wind has carried off my dwelling for ever! 'O misery that rests on slaves!"

In that house of mine I saw but forms and pictures; I was enchanted with that house so fleeting!

I was ignorant of the treasure hidden beneath it, otherwise I would have grasped an axe as a perfume.

Ah! If I had administered the justice of the axe, I should now have been quit of sorrow. But I fixed my gaze on outward forms, like an infant I sported with playthings.

Well said the famous Hakim Sanai, "Thou art a child; thy house is full of pictures."

In his divine poem he gives this advice, "Sweep away the dust from thy house!"



Quote from page 204 "Teachings of Rumi" - The Masnavi: Abridged and translated by E.H. Whinfield

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