The Sweet Taste of Grief

I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow

and called out: "It tastes sweet, does it not?"

"You have caught me",  grief answered, 

"and you have ruined my business.

How can I sell sorrow,

when you know it's a blessing?"

*

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Painting by Cesare Laurenti

Woman is a Ray of God

The Prophet said that women hold dominion

Over sages and over men of heart,

But that fools, again, hold the upper hand over women,

Because fools are violent and exceedingly forward.

They have no tenderness or gentleness or amity,

Because the animal nature sways their temperament.

Love and tenderness are qualities of humanity,

Passion and lust are qualities of animality.

Woman is a ray of God, not a mere mistress,

The Creator’s self, as it were, not a mere creature!

- Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Rumi looked upon women as the most perfect example of God’s creative power on earth. In Masnavi-I Ma'navi (spiritual couplets), his monumental mystical work, Rumi calls woman, “a ray of God”. “She is not just the earthly beloved, She is creative, not created”. Rumi is one of those rare spiritual masters who, like Jesus, had female disciples. (Masnavi, I:2437)