Roses From Rumi's Rose Garden

Worldly shapes are deceptive:

Friends! If you pass beyond these deceiving forms

You can see rose gardens behind other rose gardens

When you break up and burn off your own form

You have learnt to surrender to the universal form.

(M 3 / 578-579)

Kill these four birds:

Cut off these four living birds’ heads

Make them immortal and save them from dust

They are duck of greed, peacock of show

Crow of desires and cock of lust

They are four elements living in people’s heads.

(M V / 42-43)