Rumi’s ghazals are very beautiful stories, filled throughout with love and hope. They are ghazals that offer us deeply heart-pleasing awareness about knowing the Beloved, knowing the lover, and knowing the path of love; not only intellectual and mental awareness, but more importantly an awareness and inner state that we can find within our own hearts, so that love, longing, and eagerness may arise in us for moving toward our beautiful and incomparable Beloved.
The way these reflections are presented is not by translating every word of the ghazals or by discussing their many possible meanings and the intellectual questions related to them. There are many other resources that look at the Shams ghazals from those angles and provide good and valuable information for understanding the outward form and apparent meaning of the ghazals. But reaching an understanding of the outward meaning of the ghazals is only the first step of the path. We must be able to pass beyond it, so that we may reach the essence: finding the feeling and state within the heart. Excessively intellectual fine-point analysis of Rumi’s poetry keeps us on the step of reason, and prevents us from reaching the love that has been entrusted within our heart and soul.
My hope in creating the reflections in this collection is to portray a felt inner atmosphere, so that, as much as possible, we may experience together a beautiful and joyful state of the heart.
In many of the YouTube files in this collection, a section for singing along, or karaoke, has also been placed at the end of the video. This section is based on one of the songs or compositions connected with that same ghazal.
Music and art sometimes speak to our hearts more directly than thought does. Just as when we see the beauty of a flower, a pleasant feeling of beauty settles in our heart without our needing to think about it, hearing a beautiful song can also connect directly with our soul and inner state. For this reason, when a heart-pleasing song is sung based on one of Rumi’s ghazals, singing along with it can bring the state of that ghazal to the heart more directly. Sometimes the joy and longing that are present in the ghazal affect the heart through music and accompaniment with the voice before they are explained in the mind.
For friends who are interested, I suggest that in the YouTube files, if a singing-along or karaoke section appears at the end, you experience that part as well. If you are not familiar with that song or composition, listening once or twice and then singing along can open a doorway into the beautiful state of that ghazal.
I hope you enjoy this companionship with Rumi’s poetry, music, and inner state.
The translations from original Persian language were done by AI. The translates are done gradually being reviewed and corrected. Having said that, please consider some of the translations may not be correct