this being human is a guest house

  

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Set your life on fire.

Seek those who fan your flames.

Who gets up early to discover the moment the light begins?

What was whispered to the rose to break it open last night was whispered to my heart. 

You’ve gotten drunk on so many kinds of wine. 

Taste this. It won’t make you wild.

It’s fire. 

Give up, if you don’t understand by this time that your living is firewood. 

Set your life on fire.

Seek those who fan your flames. 

The lamps are different,

But the Light is the same. 

To change, a person must face the dragon of his appetites with another dragon, the life-energy of the soul. 

What is the body? 

That shadow of a shadow of your love, that somehow contains the entire universe. 

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival. 

A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. 

Welcome and attend them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. 

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. 

Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover, and then are taken off.

That undressing, and the beautiful naked body underneath, is the sweetness that comes after grief.

You haven’t dared yet lose faith - so, can faith grow in you? 

Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. 

If these poems repeat themselves, then so does Spring. 

—Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

this being human is a guest house

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