Category: The Jewelled Garden

Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi (1165-1240 CE) was a scholar, philosopher, mystic and poet who has had an immeasurable influence on Sufi development through the centuries, and in his time was called Continue Reading →

Surdas or Sur was a blind Hindu poet and mystic of the 16th century.  Very little is know of his life, and it is likely that much of the large Continue Reading →

Recently we posted a humourous story about Mullah Nasruddin and a mirror.  Here from Mahmud Shabistari’s response to the seventh inquiry in the Garden of Mystery  is a much more Continue Reading →

Here is another poem from the mystic weaver Kabir.  The paradoxical image of the absurdly thirsty fish is often repeated in one way or another, but how many succeed in Continue Reading →

For more about the Sufi poet Saadi of Shiraz, see this earlier post. The Throne of the Heart I sit on the throne of the heart; That is the style Continue Reading →

Nuradin abd ar Rahman Jami (1414 – 1492 CE) was a Persian poet, mystic, scholar, historian and theologian born in Jam, Khorosan, now in modern-day Afghanistan.  He studied in Herat Continue Reading →

The following passage is from the Great Learning, a text associated with Confucius (551  – 479 BCE) and his students, although the exact authorship is difficult to ascribe.  Its declaration Continue Reading →

There verses are translated from the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture of the Sikhs, which is revered as a living Teacher by its devotees.  The scripture includes verses from Continue Reading →

Here is a fragment of a longer poem by Fakhruddin Iraqi.  For more about this thirteenth century Persian mystic, see this earlier post. Iraqi spoke these lines after attentively caring Continue Reading →

The great earth burdens me with a body, causes me to toil in life, eases me in old age, and rests me in death.  That which makes my life good, Continue Reading →