Rumi, from the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, a Collection of Ghazals

With every ghazal
where I praise you
through the veil of poetry,
my heart praises you
a thousand times more
behind that veil.

What is my heart, who am I,
and what is this praise?
It is your fragrance that makes my soul
like a flower garden.

Come, O Shams of Tabriz,
honored on all horizons,
you are a rare moon
with incomparable form!

Flying Free (see note below on “death before dying”, meditation practice)

When you die, you perceive the world of the soul.
When you return to life, you know how to live.

Whoever dies and come back again like Indris
teaches about heavenly realms
and knows of the unseen.

Come, tell us by which path you left the world
and by which hidden way you came back again.

It’s a path by which all souls,
town after town, fly at night
and why cages are empty of birds at night.

When a bird’s feet are tied, it cannot fly very far.
Endlessly circling, it cannot reach the sky
and remains without faith.

If it’s ties are cut by dying, it flies up and away.
It will see the truth and the secret of everything.

— Says Rumi

Note: Death Before Dying — Visionary Meditation Practice: “die while living” or “death before dying”: used by Sants and Sufi poets espousing the view that rising above body-consciousness or soul travel during meditation practice is a preparation or rehearsal for the afterlife. Hazrat Sultan Bahu: “Let us die before dying, O Bahu, only then is the Lord attained.”