Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, nor HinduBuddhist, Sufi or Zen. Not any religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal or
composed of elements at all. I do not exist,
am not an entity in this world or the next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is the placeless, a trace
of the traceless. Neither body or soul.
I belong to the Beloved, have seen the two
Worlds as one and that one call to and know,
First, last, outer, inner, only that
Breath, breathing Human being.
The Essential Rumi
Translations by
Coleman Barks
With John Moyne
