Today’s reading is from Rumi, the 13th century mystic
EVERY night Thou dost free our spirits from the body’s snare and erase all Impressions
on the tablets (of memory).
Our spirits are set free every night from this cage. They are done with audience and talk
and tale.
At night, prisoners forget their prison. At night, governors forget their power.
There is no sorrow, no thought of gain or loss, no idea of this person or that person.
Such is the state of the mystic, even when he is not asleep.
God saith, “Thou wouldst deem them awake whilst they slept.”
He is asleep, day and night, to the affairs of this world, like a pen in the hand of the
Lord.
God hath shown forth some part of his state, inasmuch as the vulgar too are carried away
by sleep·
Their spurts gone into the Wilderness that is beyond words.
Their souls and bodies at rest.
