Get Yourself A Beloved
The real fortune and highway of success
lies in the business
that comes to you after utter defeat.
Give up the business that has no reality:
pay attention, old donkey, get yourself a Beloved.
May none but the Beloved
be your master and captain!
Not the old man
of the rolling sky, Father Time,
but the Beloved of right guidance.
What is required is self-surrender,
not long toil:
it’s useless to rush about in error.
From now on I won’t seek
the way to the highest heaven:
I will seek the Beloved,
I will seek the Beloved, the Beloved,
the Beloved!
The Beloved
is the ladder to Heaven:
By whom is the arrow made to fly ?
By the bow.
~ Rumi
Mathnawi VI: 4119-4121; 4123-4125
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”
Threshold Books, 1996
Art by Reza Sepahdari
