People are distracted by objects of desire,
and afterward repent of the lust they've indulged,
because they have indulged with a phantom
and are left even farther from Reality than before.
Your desire for the illusory could be a wing,
by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality.
When you have indulged in lust, your wing drops off;
you become lame, abandoned by a fantasy.
Preserve the wing and don't indulge in such lust,
so that the wing of desire may bear you to Paradise.
People fancy they are enjoying themselves,
but they are really tearing out their wings
for the sake of an illusion.
Friday, September 7, 2007
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2 comments:
do you think so? i've been debating this one. is pleasure the same as desire? is pleasure a distraction from reality, or the gateway to god? what is the difference between lust and pleasure and desire and fantasy and reality. i don't know.
to me...it's a conundrum. oftentimes it IS the objects of desire that lead my soul to some form of enlightenment...and on the other hand indulging in too many "lusty" affairs definitely contribute to me losing my ability to live consciously. i find that Rumi offers a lot of dichotomy in his writings...thus being the reason his writing is so resounding and timeless.
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