Stay empty and held between those fingers, where “where” gets drunk with Nowhere.

The Prophet has said
that a true seeker must be completely empty like a lute
to make the sweet music of “Lord, Lord.”

When the emptiness starts to get filled with something,
the One who plays the lute puts it down
and picks up another.

There is nothing more subtle and delightful
than to make that music.

                               Stay empty and held
between those fingers, where “where”
gets drunk with Nowhere.

                               This man was empty,
and the tears came.  His habitual stubbornness
dissolved.  This is the way with many seekers.
They moan in prayer, and the perfumed smoke of that
floats into Heaven, and the angels say, “Answer
this prayer.  This worshiper has only You and
nothing else to depend on.  Why do you go first
to the prayers of those less devoted?

                               God says,
“By deferring My Generosity I am helping him.
His need dragged him by the hair into My Presence.
If I satisfy that, he’ll go back to being absorbed
in some idle amusement.  Listen how passionate he is!
That torn-open cry is the way he should live.”

Nightingales are put in cages
because their songs give pleasure.
Whoever heard of keeping a crow?

When two people, one decrepit and the other young
and handsome, come into a bakery where the baker
is an admirer of young men, and both of them
ask for bread, the baker will immediately
give what he has on hand to the old man.

But to the other he will say, “Sit down and wait a while.
There’s fresh bread baking in the house.  Almost ready!”

And when the hot bread is brought, the baker will say,
“Don’t leave.  The halvah is coming.”

So he finds ways of detaining the young man with,
“Ah, there’s something important I want to tell you about.
Stay.  I’ll be back in a moment.  Something very important!”

This is how it is when true devotees
suffer disappointment
in the good they want to do,
or the bad they want to avoid.

Excerpt from Rumi’s Mathnawi, Volume VI
Verses 4167-4275, 4280,4302-19, 4324-26
“The Essential Rumi”