Shams Quotes

The silent colossal National Lie that is the support and confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and inequalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples - that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at. ~ Mark Twain

Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water. ~ Shams-i Tabrizi

The universe is a complete unique entity. Everything and everyone is bound together with some invisible strings. Do not break anyone's heart; do not look down on weaker than you. One's sorrow at the other side of the world can make the entire world suffer; one's happiness can make the entire world smile. ~ Shams Tabrizi

If the human being is a proud and honorable creature, he shouldn't forget to act that way, even if he falls, even if the whole world is against him, even if he ends as a slave. ~ Shams Tabrizi

FORM IS ECSTATIC

There is a shimmering excitement in being sentient and shaped. The

caravan master sees his camels lost in it, nose to tail, as he himself is,

his friend, and the stranger coming toward them. A gardener watches the

sky break into song, cloud wobbly with what it is. Bud, thorn, the same.

Wind, water, wandering this essential state. Fire, ground, gone. That's

how it is with the outside. Form is ecstatic. Now imagine the inner:

soul, intelligence, the secret worlds!
And don't think the garden loses its

ecstasy in winter. It's quiet, but the roots are down there rioutous.

If someone bumps you in the street, don't be angry. Everyone careens

about in this surprise. Respond in kind. Let the knots untie, turbans

be given away. Someone drunk on this could drink a donkeyload a night.

Believer, unbeliever, cynic, lover, all combine in the spirit-form we are,

but no one yet is awake like Shams. ~ Rumi

In endeavor itself there is a certain dynamic entertainment, affording an illusion of useful purpose. With achievement the illusion is dispelled. Man's greatest accomplishment is to produce change. The only good in life is study, because study is an endeavor that never reaches fulfillment. It busies a man to the end of his days, and it aims at the only true reality in all this world of shams and deceits. ~ Rafael Sabatini

He is like light and wisdom is his Gabriel. ~ Franklin D. Lewis

When a sincere woman begins to dance, the seven heavens, the earth, and all creatures begin to dance. ~ Shams Tabrizi

This world is like a mountain. Your echo depends on you. If you scream good things, the world will give it back. If you scream bad things, the world will give it back. Even if someone says badly about you, speak well about him. Change your heart to change the world. ~ Shams Tabrizi

Writing it was the best part, but clicking the enter button was the most difficult. ~ Ali Shams

Most of conflicts and tensions are due to language. Don't pay so much attention to the words. In love's country, language doesn't have its place. Love's mute. ~ Shams Tabrizi

The sharia is like a candle," said Shams of Tabriz. "It provides us with much valuable light. But let us not forget that a candle helps us to go from one place to another in the dark. If we forget where we are headed and instead concentrate on the candle, what good is it? ~ Elif Shafak

If you are insulted, if you are accused, if they gossip about you, don't say anything bad. Don't be the one who sees the shame, be the one who corrects it. ~ Shams Tabrizi

You think you cannot live anymore. You think that the light of your soul has been put out and that you will stay in the dark forever. But when you are engulfed by such solid darkness, when you have both eyes closed to the world, a third eye opens in your heart. And only then do you come to realize that eyesight conflicts with inner knowledge. No eye sees so clear and sharp as the eye of love. After grief comes another season, another valley, another you. And the lover who is nowhere to be found, you start to see everywhere.
You see him in the drop of water that falls into the ocean, in the high tide that follows the waxing of the moon, or in the morning wind that spreads its fresh smell; you see him in the geomancy symbols in the sand, in the tiny particles of rock glittering under the sun, in the smile of a newborn baby, or in your throbbing vein. How can you say Shams is gone when he is everywhere and in everything? ~ Elif Shafak

When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals? ~ Mark Twain

But the story didn't end there. Almost 800 years later, the spirits of Shams & Rumi are still alive today,whirling amid us somewhere ... ~ Elif Shafak

There are more fake guides, teachers in the world than stars. The real guide is the one who makes you see your inner beauty, not the one who wants to be admired and followed. ~ Shams Tabrizi

We can only learn and advance with contradictions.
The faithful inside should meet the doubtful. The doubtful should meet the faithful. Human slowly advances and becomes mature when he accepts his contradictions. ~ Shams-i Tabrizi

Being the companion of the folk of this world is fire. There must be an Abraham if the fire is not going to burn [you]. ~ Shams Tabrizi

If a person claims that he really loves someone, evidence is asked from him. And that evidence is the giving away of possessions, the granting of favors. Just as when Mevlana claimed that he loved me, when I came he granted me thousands of favors and protected me. I regard these all as a grace from God. ~ Shams Tabrizi

Whoever lives as he sees fit will not die as he sees fit. ~ Shams Tabrizi

It is never late to ask yourself "Am I ready to change my life, am I ready to change myself?". However old we are, whatever we went through, it is always possible to reborn. If each day is a copy of the last one, what a pity! Every breath is a chance to reborn. But to reborn into a new life, you have to die before dying. ~ Shams Tabrizi

Wherever you go, east, west, north or south, think of it as a journey into yourself! The one who travels into itself travels the world. ~ Shams Tabrizi

For despite what some people say, love is not a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away. In many ways the twenty-first century is not that different from the thirteenth century. Both will be recorded in history as times of unprecedented religious clashes, cultural misunderstandings, and a general sense of insecurity and fear of the Other. At times like these, the need for love is greater than ever. Because love is the very essence and purpose of life. As Rumi reminds us, it hits everybody, including those who shun love - even those who use the word "romantic" as a sign of disapproval. ~ Elif Shafak

You who seek God, apart, apart The thing you seek, thou art, thou art. If you want to seek the Beloved's face. Polish the mirror, gaze into that space. These words were written by Rumi as a tribute for his master guru Shams of Tabriz. ~ Wayne W. Dyer

Interpreting dreams for Iranians was just as much a sacrament as reading coffee cups was for Turks ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The yachts' berth was next to the Yas Marina Circuit, where Formula 1 would come into town once a year. At night, when the lights on its orbicular architecture switched on, the circuit would radiate like a constellation of stars ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

The Drunken Gnat

You are the soul of the soul,
a door that opens into existence.

When separation makes us angry,
you strike with a sword.

When union becomes vague,
you feed it with a vast nothing.

Old civilizations start to flourish again.
The March sun warms the world with singing.

Tambourine and harp, branches covered with buds.
Is anyone sober enough to speak with the king?

No one. All right. Remember how a gnat
once got drunk and walked into the ear
of a terrible tyrant, then from there
into his brain and killed him?

Grape-wine can do that to a gnat.
What will the wine of infinity do for us?

A cave dog watched over the sleepers.
If a dog can be a shepherd,
what could the spirit-lion of a human being become?

Sparks from a fire lift in the sky
and turn to stars.

Shams is now a depth of truth
that rises every morning in the east. ~ Rumi

The sudden and total disappearance of Mawlana aroused resentment among his disciples and students, some of them becoming highly critical of Hazrat Shams, even threatening him. They believed Hazrat Shams had ruined their spiritual circle and prevented them from listening to Mawlana's sermons. In March of 1246 he left Konya and went to Syria without warning. After he left, Mawlana was grief stricken, secluding himself even more rather than engaging with his disciples and students. He was without a doubt furious with them. Realising the error of their ways, they repeatedly repented before Mawlana. Some months later, news arrived that Hazrat Shams had been seen in Damascus and a letter was sent to him with apologising for the behaviour of these disciples. Hazrat Sultan Walad and a search party were sent to Damascus to invite him back and in April 1247, he made his return. During the return journey, he invited Hazrat Sultan Walad to ride on horseback although he declined, choosing instead to walk alongside him, explaining that as a servant, he could not ride in the presence of such a king. Hazrat Shams was received back with joyous celebration with sama ceremonies being held for several days, and all those that had shown him resentment tearfully asked for his forgiveness. He reserved special praise for Hazrat Sultan Walad for his selflessness, which greatly pleased Mawlana. As he originally had no intention to return to Konya, he most likely would not have returned if Hazrat Sulta ~ Shams Tabrizi

The summary of the advice of all prophets is this;
Find yourself a mirror. ~ Shams Tabrizi

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision. ~ Aldous Huxley

QUALITIES

There is a sun-star rising outside form.
I am lost in that other. It's sweet not

to look at two worlds, to melt in meaning
as honey melts in milk. No one tires of

following the soul. I don't recall now what
happens on the manifest plane. I stroll

with those I have always wanted to know,
fresh and graceful as a water lily, or a rose.

The body is a boat; I am waves swaying against it. Whenever it anchors somewhere, I smash

it loose, or smash it to pieces. If I get
lazy and cold, flames come from my ocean and

surround me. I laugh inside them like gold purifying itself. A certain melody makes

the snake put his head down on a line in the dirt....Here is my head, brother: What

next! Weary of form, I come into qualities.
Each says, "I am a blue-green sea. Dive

into me!" I am Alexander at the outermost
extension of empire, turning all my armies

in toward the meaning of armies, Shams. ~ Rumi

Rumi and Shams taught us how to see the world with new eyes, how to find our place in the order of things, and how to extricate the true self trapped under layers of noise. ~ Jamila Hammad

The greatest of all historical shams is believing you can not do something you can. ~ Erik Petersen - Love And Rage

Pilgrims from all over the world were making their way to the place deemed the pearl of the Middle East. The city was reminiscent of a modern-day Persepolis. Its buildings, like towering pillars, tested the sky's limit. The evenly paved roads belched with the smell of new tarmac, as if a million masons woke up every morning and by hand lay asphalt one grain at a time. People of all colors, ethnicities, creed and social statuses came bearing money, knowledge or experience in order to build their legacies in the new kingdom, sprouting out of the desert.
Dubai had arrived. ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Everything for you stems from a physical need. Most of you think with either your belly or what's below it ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Nothing kills the soul that commands to evil (Nafs al Ammarra) like seeing the beauty of the heart. ~ Shams Tabrizi

MAULANA'S LAST LETTER TO SHAMS

Sometimes I wonder, sweetest love, if you
Were a mere dream in along winter night,
A dream of spring-days, and of golden light
Which sheds its rays upon a frozen heart;
A dream of wine that fills the drunken eye.

And so I wonder, sweetest love, if I
Should drink this ruby wine, or rather weep;
Each tear a bezel with your face engraved,
A rosary to memorize your name...

There are so many ways to call you back-
Yes, even if you only were a dream. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi

For it is when calm clouds gather that thunder is made ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

That word, confidence, was like butter on a hot stove for Darien, what he considered the most attractive quality in a woman. ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

The work of fate is a mystery ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Death, one way or another, would breathe life into a new order of balance today. ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Better, Josef, far better, to have the courage to change your convictions. Duty and faithfulness are shams, curtains to hide behind. Self-liberation means a sacred no, even to duty. ~ Irvin D. Yalom

And for the whole system to be healthy, all parts of it must enjoy equal freedoms. And the most fundamental of all those freedoms is this: that persons must be free to read, write, say, and think what they will. Without that, all other freedoms are not merely meaningless, they are shams. ~ David Weber

Love liberates us from all primal urges ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

The sword of Zulfiqar is a perfect fusion of power and function ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Love is a travel. All travelers whether they want or not are changed. No one can travel into love and remain the same. ~ Shams Tabrizi

You are my shams. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi

The past is a fog on our minds. The future? A complete dream. We can't neither guess the future, neither change the past. ~ Shams Tabrizi

An evil brute grows strong and now is on the verge of crossing over from the island to the world you know. His name is Hubal, and his strength grows as your world's lightness folds. ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

It is not the artistic aptitudes that are secondary sexual characters as some shams and shamans have said; it is the other way around: sex is but the ancilla of art. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

You can be everything in life but the important thing is to be a good person. ~ Shams Tabrizi

The timepiece had been a birthday gift from Arian, his nineteen-year-old cousin in Tehran. It was plastered with pastoral steel and had the Faravahar hieroglyph sketched on it. This ancient pictogram was the symbol of a guardian angel. A remnant of a primeval daemon designed to protect the Persians. The clock's circumference was decorated with the flowers of life and in the middle there was a scripture written in cuneiform that read Good Deeds, Good Thoughts & Good Words. ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Don't search for heaven and hell in the future. Both are now present. Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven. Whenever we fight, hate, we are in hell. ~ Shams Tabrizi

The only response to stupidity and ignorance was silence ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

When everyone is trying to be something, be nothing. Range with emptiness. Human should be like a pot. As the pot is hold by its emptiness inside, human is hold by the awareness of his nothingness. ~ Shams Tabrizi

It is easy to love perfection. The difficulty consists in loving the human with his good and bad. We mostly know as much as we love. Only loving God but not its creatures, you can never really know, neither really love. ~ Shams Tabrizi

Intellect takes you to the door, but it doesn't take you into the house. ~ Shams-i Tabrizi

Was he talking about the Love of God or the love between a woman and a man? Could he be referring to us? Was there such a thing as 'us'?

Unaware of my thoughts, Shams continued.
"I don't care about haram or halal. I'd rather extinguish the fire in hell and burn heaven, so that people could start loving God for no other reason than love. ~ Elif Shafak

You have to live with the people in hypocrisy for them to stay happy with you. ~ Shams Tabrizi

Rumi and Shams bring to our lives the simple truth that we are not alone, that God really does care. And God's joyous love for each of us is rivaled only by Her divine sense of humor. ~ Jamila Hammad

Forty is a most beautiful age for both men and women. Did you know that in mystic thought forty symbolizes the ascent from one level to a higher one and spiritual awakening? When we mourn we mourn for forty days. When a baby is born it takes
forty days for him to get ready to start life on earth. And when we are in love we need to wait for forty days to be sure of our feelings.
The Flood of Noah lasted forty days, and while the waters destroyed life, they also washed all impurity away and enabled human beings to make a new, fresh start. In Islamic mysticism there are forty degrees between man and God. Likewise, there are four basic stages of consciousness and ten degrees in each, making forty levels in total. Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days and nights. Muhammad was forty years old when he received the call to become a prophet. Buddha meditated under a linden tree for forty days. Not to mention the forty rules of Shams.
You receive a new mission at forty, a new lease on life! You have reached a most auspicious number. Congratulations! And don't worry about getting old. There are no wrinkles or gray hair strong enough to defy the power of forty! ~ Elif Shafak

A Mystic And A Drunk

The Universe turns on an axis.
Let my soul circle around a table
like a beggar, like a planet
rolling in the vast, totally helpless and free.

The knight and the castle move jaggedly
about the chessboard, but they're actually
centered on the king. They circle.

If love is your center, a ring
gets put on your finger.

Something inside the moth
is made of fire.

A mystic touches the annihilating tip
of pure nothing.

A drunkard thinks peeing is absolution.
Lord, take these impurities from me.

The lord replies, First, understand
the nature of impurity. If your key is bent,
the lock will not open.

I fall silent.
King Shams has come.
Always when I close, he opens. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi

When you oppose the shaykh, it's like the slave who kills himself over a quarrel with his master. Hey, why are you killing yourself over a quarrel?He says, So my master will suffer loss. ~ Shams Tabrizi

If you look around, you can find a face of God in each thing, because He is not hidden in a church, in a mosque, or a synagogue, but everywhere. As there is no one who lives after seeing him, there is also no one dying after seeing him. Who finds Him, stays forever with him. ~ Shams Tabrizi

We are nothing more than a dot amongst the billions of organisms on the Hillis plot ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Shams is a trumpet note of light
that starts the atoms spinning,
a wind that comes at dawn
tasting of bread and salt.
Move to the edge and over. Fly with the wings
he gives, and if you get tired, lie down,
but keep opening inside your soul. ~ Rumi

These displays made it clear that the truly dedicated homemaker matched her comforter to her pillow shams to her washcloths to her bedskirt to her toothbrush holder. ~ Christina Bartolomeo

The impetus he had gained from the whimsical seraph known as Syoshant had been short-lived ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

I don't want to pass because I can't stand insincerities and shams. I am just as much Negro as any of the others identified with the race. ~ Fredi Washington

Infinitesimal Dust

What is the light in the center of the darkness
inside your soul? A royal radiance
or a fantasy like the way the full moon
comes up sometimes in daylight?

But this is the sun itself,
Shams and a truth prior to the soul.

Human beings cannot endure such clarity.
We make statues, apply paint,
and use words with hidden allusions.

When the eye that has seen Shams
turns to look somewhere else,
what does it see?

In the love-ocean clothes are an embarrassment.
Don't look to be famous here,
and don't expect payment.

An east wind bringing infinitesimal dust
from Tabriz is the most I expect. ~ Rumi

Painfully delicate and surprisingly strong, silk resembles love. I told Shams how the silkworms destroy the silk they produce as they emerge from their cocoons. This is why the farmers have to make a choice between the silk and the silkworm. More often than not, they kill the silkworm while it is inside the cocoon in order to pull the silk out intact. It takes the lives of hundreds of silkworms to produce one silk scarf. … But eventually, for the silk to survive, the silkworm had to die. ~ Elif Shafak

Eshgham, a term of endearment meaning my love ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

The spirit is the mirror; the body is the rust.
(Divan-i-Shamsi Tabriz) ~ Idries Shah

These little black circular shapes were a result of him being a carrier of a parasite known as Toxoplasma gondii ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

The movement of descent and discovery begins at the moment you consciously become dissatisfied with life. Contrary to most professional opinion, this gnawing dissatisfaction with life is not a sign of "mental illness," nor an indication of poor social adjustment, nor a character disorder. For concealed within this basic unhappiness with life and existence is the embryo of a growing intelligence, a special intelligence usually buried under the immense weight of social shams. A person who is beginning to sense the suffering of life is, at the same time, beginning to awaken to deeper realities, truer realities. For suffering smashes to pieces the complacency of our normal fictions about reality, and forces us to become alive in a special sense - to see carefully, to feel deeply, to touch ourselves and our worlds in ways we have heretofore avoided. It has been said, and truly I think, that suffering is the first grace. In a special sense, suffering is almost a time of rejoicing, for it marks the birth of creative insight.

But only in a special sense. Some people cling to their suffering as a mother to its child, carrying it as a burden they dare not set down. They do not face suffering with awareness, but rather clutch at their suffering, secretly transfixed with the spasms of martyrdom. Suffering should neither be denied awareness, avoided, despised, not glorified, clung to, dramatized. The emergence of suffering is not so much good as it is a good sign, an indicatio ~ Ken Wilber

Be sure that someday you'll praise and thank God for your unanswered prayers that once you had wept for them. ~ Shams Tabrizi

Shams was the wind that would blow the scholar's turban off from Rumi's head, and turn a quiet academic into an enthusiastic lover of God. ~ Cihan Okuyucu

There is nothing of permanent value (putting aside a few human affections) nothing that satisfies quiet reflection
except the sense of having worked according to one's capacity and light to make things clear and get rid of cant and shams of all sorts. ~ Thomas Huxley

The messiah arrives when it is already too late. He arrives when doomsday has already struck ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Winning Expo 2020 marked the city's coronation and the world could no longer deny Dubai its rightful status as one of the era's more illustrious cities. The people who flocked there were looking for some sort of magic to occur in their lives, and life on the beach under these concrete gazebos offered many blessings. Some found riches. Some found religion. Some found love. And some, most importantly of all, found themselves. ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

There are no such things as accidents. Only fate redesigned. ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

The Post-Dispatch will serve no party but the people; be no organ of Republicanism, but the organ of truth; will follow no causes bit its conclusions; will not support the Administration, but criticize it; will oppose all frauds and shams wherever or whatever they are; will advocate principles and ideas rather than prejudices and partisanship. ~ Joseph Pulitzer

The life we live is just a colourful and deposit toy.
Some of us take it so seriously and fight and cry for it.
Some of us break and throw it.
Either we give extreme importance, either not enough.
Better to stay far from extremes. ~ Shams Tabrizi

When I was a child, I saw God,
I saw angels;
I watched the mysteries of higher and lower worlds. I thought all men saw the same. At last I realized that they did not see..... ~ Shams Of Tabriz

A good man complains of no one; he does not look to faults. ~ Shams Tabrizi

You learn by reading but understand by LOVE. ~ Shams Tabrizi

God has set apart His people from before the foundation of the world to be His chosen and peculiar inheritance. We are sanctified in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit when he subdues our corruptions, imparts to us grace, and leads us onward in the divine walk and life of faith. Christian men are not to be used for anything but God. They are a set-apart people; they are vessels of mercy, they are not for the devil's use, not for their own use, not for the world's use, but for their Master's use. He has made them on purpose to be used entirely, solely and wholly for Him. O Christian people, be holy, for Christ is holy. Do not pollute that holy Name wherewith you are named. Let your family life, your personal life, your business life, be as holy as Christ your Lord would have it to be. Shall saints be shams when sinners are so real? ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Dubai, with all of its glitz and glamour rose in the heart of the desert. ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

Satan was accustomed to say that our race lived a life of continuous and uninterrupted self-deception. It duped itself from cradle to grave with shams and delusions which it mistook for realities, and this made its entire life a sham. Of the score of fine qualities which it imagined it had and was vain of, it really possessed hardly one. It regarded itself as gold, and was only brass. ~ Mark Twain

The no-booze rule is one of several shams perpetuated by certain religious groups, presumably to keep their flocks in line. After all, what's a shepherd to do with drunk sheep?
So take your medicine, but leave the booze on the shelf. We have a label to keep, and it's not Jack Daniels. Don't mourn for me. Just tell me what to do rather than teach me what to be. Slam another pill, pop that one last sedative ... you'll find me in the kitchen, washing my glass. ~ Chila Woychik

The words we use for the Creator are a reflect of ourselves. If we think of God as fear and shame, we are scared and have something to be ashamed of ... But if we see love, compassion and kindness, it is because we possess these qualities. ~ Shams Tabrizi

A strange sound was heard . It was not inside or outside . It was not from left or right, nor from front or behind. It was not from above or below. It was not a physical sound. You may ask where it comes from.
It comes from the direction in which you search . You may ask which direction to face . Face that way from which the King comes. That direction from where the parched fish remains alive by getting water.That direction which ripens the fruit...even unbelievers would give up unbelief On hearing it. ~ Shams-i-Tabriz

If our houses, or clothes, our household furniture and utensils are not works of art, they are either wretched makeshifts, or, what is worse, degrading shams of better things. ~ William Morris

Surrendering is not a weakness. At the contrary it is strength. The surrender stops living in boiling water and starts living in a secure place. ~ Shams Tabrizi

I like to hope that Rumi's poems, even in translation, carry the essence of the transforming friendship of Rumi and Shams, that the sun can reappear, whole and radiant in any one of us at any moment. ~ Rumi

Leadership was not an act of bravery but rather forbearance and the strength to move forward with humility in the belief of what is righteous ~ Soroosh Shahrivar

The whole universe is sum up in the Human Being. Devil is not a monster waiting to trap us, He is a voice inside. Look for Your Devil in Yourself, not in the Others. Don't forget that the one who knows his Devil, knows his God. ~ Shams Tabrizi