Concern not yourself with the thief-like ego

Rumi-Jalal-ud-Din
Rumi Jalal ud Din
Rumi-Jalal-ud-Din

Jalâl ud Dîn Rumi

Desire for the world has deprived man of the Object of his desire.
Now some men have followed the intellect to such an extent that they have become totally angels and sheer light. They are the prophets and saints.
In some men sensuality has dominated their intellects, so that they have totally assumed the properties of animals.
And some men have remained struggling. They are that group who feel inside themselves a suffering, a pain, a distress, a longing. They are not satisfied with their lives. These are the believers. The saints are waiting to bring the believers into their own houses and make them like themselves. And the satans are also waiting to drag them down toward themselves to the lowest of the low.
What sort of Beloved is He? As long as a single hair of love for yourself remains, He will not show His Face… You must be completely repelled by yourself and the world and be your own self’s enemy… So when our religion resides in a person’s heart, it stays right there until it takes his heart to God and separates it from everything unworthy.

Oh lover of the King! Know that your way is to seek the pleasure of that Generous Lord. When you seek the Beloved’s desire and pleasure, seeking your own desire is forbidden.
All the hopes, desires, loves, and affections that people have for different things – fathers, mothers, friends, heavens, the earth, gardens, palaces, sciences, works, food, drink – the saint knows that these are desires for God and all those things are veils. When men leave this world and see the King without these veils, then they will know that all were veils and coverings, that the object of their desire was in reality that One Thing… They will see all things face to face.

In a human being is such a love, a pain, an itch, a desire that, even if he were to possess a hundred thousand worlds, he would not rest or find peace. People work variously at all sorts of callings, crafts, and professions, and they learn astrology and medicine, and so forth, but they are not at peace because what they are seeking cannot be found. The beloved is called dilaram because the heart finds peace through the beloved. How then can it find peace through anything else?
The intellect and the ego are very necessary for the manifestation of good and evil. Day and night in this abode of dust these two necessary beings are in war and altercation. The {ego} always desires the necessities of the household – reputation, bread, food, and position. The ego sometimes displays humility and sometimes seeks leadership to remedy its plight.
Concern yourself not with the thief-like ego and its business. Whatever is not God’s work is nothing, nothing!

Excerpted from onelittleangel.com. The 811th birth anniversary of Persian saint Jalâl ud Dîn Rumi falls on September 30.