Do You Love Me?

A lover asked his beloved,
Do you love yourself more

than you love me?
The beloved replied,

I have died to myself

and I live for you.
I’ve disappeared from myself

and my attributes.

I am present only for you.

I have forgotten all my learning,

but from knowing you

I have become a scholar.

I have lost all my strength,

but from your power

I am able.

If I love myself

I love you.

If I love you

I love myself.

--- Jalaluddin Rumi

Say I Am You

I am dust particles in sunlight,

I am the round sun.
To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.
I am morning mist,
and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
and surf on the cliff.

Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of stone, a flickering in metal.

Both candle,and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.
I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy, the evolutionary intelligence,
the lift, and the falling away.
What is, and what isn't.
You who know Jelaluddin,
You the one in all, say whoI am.
Say I am You.

Translation by Coleman Barks