Rumi read by Coleman Barks

[forrest]

YouTube - Rumi read by Coleman Barks

YouTube - Rumi - Poet of the Heart

[forrest]

YouTube - The Seven Symphonies of Extraordinary Love - A Trailer

[Gaston]

The problem with Rumi is that it's just pretty, puzzling words without perspective. I have a Sufi friend who's helped me with some of it, but my questions were plainly becoming uncomfortable to him so I quit the quizzing. It isn't that he's hiding anything - he's more vehemently anti-Islamist than the most rabid of Republicans. I just sensed that I was being intrusive.

Even the translation has beautiful words, though, and I can only guess how it reads in Arabic. I think that far too often we conflate the culture with the faith, although I don't think you can successfully separate the two.

[forrest]

The problem with Rumi is that it's just pretty, puzzling words without perspective. I have a Sufi friend who's helped me with some of it, but my questions were plainly becoming uncomfortable to him so I quit the quizzing. It isn't that he's hiding anything - he's more vehemently anti-Islamist than the most rabid of Republicans. I just sensed that I was being intrusive.

Even the translation has beautiful words, though, and I can only guess how it reads in Arabic. I think that far too often we conflate the culture with the faith, although I don't think you can successfully separate the two.

It's realizing that our race is Human being! We need to merge our Soul with the physical body!

[forrest]

[forrest]

Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both. ~ Abraham Flexner

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends. ~Abraham Lincoln

What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood. ~Aldous Huxley

There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Benjamin Franklin

War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures. ~Congressman Ron Paul

All forms of violence, especially war, are totally unacceptable as means to settle disputes between and among nations, groups and persons. ~Dalai Lama

The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. ~Dick Cheney

About the quote: Speaking to the Discovery Institute after the first Gulf War, on 8/14/1992, when he was Secretary of Defense.