We have fallen into the place where everything is music… Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out.

We have fallen into the place where everything is music… Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out.

Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi

Where Everything Is Music

Theme: The Musical Arts

WHERE EVERYTHING IS MUSIC

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.
This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.
Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see.
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.

Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (born September 30, 1207, in Balkh, present-day Afghanistan – died December 17, 1273, in Konya, present-day Turkey) is revered as one of the world’s greatest poets, mystics, and spiritual teachers. Known in the West simply as Rumi, he was born into a family of scholars and mystics who fled westward during the Mongol invasions, eventually settling in Konya, then part of the Seljuk Empire. Under the guidance of his father, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Walad, Rumi was trained in Islamic theology, jurisprudence, and the contemplative disciplines of the Sufi path. His early years reflected the classical model of a scholar-saint—rooted in devotion, study, and service to his community.

Rumi’s life was transformed by his meeting with the wandering mystic Shams of Tabriz around 1244. Their profound spiritual companionship awakened in Rumi a passion that transcended formal learning and opened him to the depths of divine love. When Shams mysteriously disappeared, Rumi’s grief became the flame that illuminated his poetry and devotion. From this crucible emerged the Mathnawī, often called the “Persian Qur’an,” a six-volume masterpiece that weaves stories, parables, and reflections into a vision of love as the animating force of all creation. His shorter lyric poems, collected in the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, sing of longing, union, loss, and the ecstatic dance between the soul and the Beloved.

Rumi’s teachings centered on the transforming power of divine love, the unity underlying all faiths, and the inward journey from self-centeredness to God-centeredness. He taught that every experience—joy and sorrow, presence and absence—serves as a mirror reflecting the divine mystery. After his passing, his followers established the Mevlevi Order, known for its sacred whirling as a form of remembrance (dhikr). Across eight centuries, Rumi’s voice has transcended language, culture, and creed, inviting seekers into the stillness of the heart where the human and divine meet in love."
Rumi's spiritual journey led him to develop a unique approach to Sufism that emphasized love, tolerance, and the pursuit of enlightenment. He created a fusion of traditional Islamic beliefs with mysticism, nurturing a school of thought that flourished in his followers. They established a sect known to the Western world as the 'Whirling Dervishes', a term derived from their mesmerizing practice of whirling as a form of physical meditation. The proper name for this branch is the Mevlevi order, dedicated to preserving and promoting Rumi's teachings.

In addition to being a mystic, Rumi was an accomplished scholar and theologian who left behind an impressive literary legacy. His best-known work, the Mathnawi or Masnavi, is a six-volume poetic epic that explores themes of love, divine mystery, and human connection to the spiritual world. Rumi's poetic style is marked by profound emotion and philosophical depth, weaving metaphors and allegory to create timeless pieces that continue to inspire readers today. Rumi's influence reaches far beyond his time, as his teachings on love, compassion, and unity continue to touch the hearts of millions, transcending barriers of religion, culture, and era.

(1207-1273) Islam
Where Everything Is Music

Rūmī Jalāl al-Dīn. Rumi: Selected Poems. Translated by Coleman Barks, Penguin, 2004. [Mevlana Jalalu'ddin Rumi].

Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi

Theme: The Musical Arts

Jalalu’ddin Mevlana Rumi

Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (Jalalu’ddin Mevlana Rumi) was born on September 30, 1207 C. E. in Balkh Province, Afghanistan, then on the eastern edge of the Persian Empire. Rumi descended from a long line of Islamic jurists, theologians, and mystics, including his father, who was known by followers of Rumi as “Sultan of the Scholars.” When Rumi was still a young man, his father led their family more than 2,000 miles west to avoid the invasion of Genghis Khan’s armies. They settled in present-day Turkey, where Rumi lived and wrote most of his life…

In 1244, Rumi met Shams Tabriz, a dervish “God-man” who had taken a vow of poverty. Their meeting is considered a central event in Rumi’s life. Though accounts of their meeting differ, one story claims that Rumi was teaching by a fountain, and Shams walked up through the crowd of students and pushed Rumi’s books into the water, including his father’s spiritual diary. “You must now live what you have been reading about,” Shams told Rumi. Rumi believed both his real life and his real poetry began when he met Shams. “What I had thought of before as God,” Rumi said, “I met today in a human being.”

Shams and Rumi were close friends for about four years. Over the course of that time, Shams was repeatedly driven away by Rumi’s jealous disciples, including one of Rumi’s sons, Ala al-Din. In December of 1248, Shams again disappeared; it is believed that he was either driven away or killed. Rumi left the madrasah in search of his friend, travelling to Damascus and elsewhere. Eventually, Rumi made peace with his loss, returning to his home believing Shams to be a part of him: “His essence speaks through me.”

–Poets.org website [Jalal al-Din Rumi].

Hazrat Inayat Khan

“The original words of Rumi are so deep, so perfect, so touching, that when one man repeats them hundreds and thousands of people are moved to tears. They cannot help penetrating the heart. This shows how much Rumi himself was moved to have been able to pour out such living words.”

–Hazrat Inayat Khan

“Man is drawn in two opposite directions by the power of harmony: towards the Infinite and towards manifestation. He is less conscious of the former than of the latter, and by facing towards one direction he loses sight of the other. The Infinite, being the essential spirit of all, finally attracts all to itself. The Sufi gives the greatest importance to harmony with the Infinite, which he realizes by resignation to the will of God, the Beloved.

A really musical soul is someone who has forgotten himself in music; just as a real poet is someone who forgets himself in poetry, and a worldly soul is someone who has lost himself in the world. And godly is the soul who has forgotten himself in God. All the great musicians, Beethoven, Wagner, and many others who have left to the world a work, which will always be treasured, would not have been able to do so if they had not forgotten themselves in their work. They altogether lost their idea of their own being, and in that way they deepened and became one with the thing they had come to give to the world. The key to perfection is to be found in forgetting the self.”

–Hazrat Inayat Khan [The Sufi Teachings of Hazrat Inayat Kahn, Volume II].

“The sound of air finds expression in all wind instruments made of wood, brass and bamboo; it has a tendency to kindle the fire of the heart, as Rumi writes in his Masnavi about the flute. Krishna is always portrayed in Indian art with a flute. The air sound overpowers all other sounds, for it is living, and in every aspect its influence produces ecstasy.

–Hazrat Inayat Khan [The Sufi Teachings of Hazrat Inayat Kahn, Volume II].

Coleman Barks

In his introduction to his translation of Rumi’s The Shams, Coleman Barks has written: “Rumi is one of the great souls, and one of the great spiritual teachers. He shows us our glory. He wants us to be more alive, to wake up… He wants us to see our beauty, in the mirror and in each other.”

–Coleman Barks [Quoted in Jalal al-Din Rumi (Poets.org website)].

Where Everything Is Music

Resources

Related Quotes