3 Review(s)

Rumi's Little Book of Love and LaughterROWDY, ECSTATIC, AND SOMETIMES STERN, THESE TEACHING STORIES AND FABLES REVEAL NEW AND VERY HUMAN PROPERTIES IN RUMI'S VISION. "The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along." – Rumi Included here are the notorious "Latin parts" that Reynold Nicholson felt were too unseemly to appear in English in his 1920s translation. For Rumi, anything that human beings do – however compulsive – affords a glimpse into the inner life. 'Rumi's Little Book of Love and Laughter' contains more than 40 fables or teaching stories that deal with love, laughter, death, betrayal, and the soul. The stories are exuberant, earthy, and bursting with vitality – much like a painting by Hieronymus Bosch or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The characters are guilty, lecherous, tricky, ribald, and finally possessors of opened souls. Barks writes: "These teaching stories are a kind of scrimshaw – intricately carved, busy figures, confused and threatening, and weirdly funny.Rumi's Little Book of Life: The Garden of the Soul, the Heart, and the SpiritWhat is it about this 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic that continues to captivate the world? Rumi's Little Book of Life is a beautiful collection of 196 poems by Rumi, previously unavailable in English. Translated by native Persian speakers, Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin, this collection will appeal to Rumi lovers everywhere. This collection of mystical poetry focuses on one of life's core issues: coming to grips with the inner life. During the course of life, each of us is engaged on an inner journey. Rumi's Little Book of Life is a guidebook for that journey. The poetry is a companion for those who consciously enter the inner world to explore the gardens within-out of the everyday "world of dust"-through an ascending hierarchy that restores one's soul to the heart; the heart of the spirit; and in finding spirit, transcends all. Divided into three sections – soul, heart and spirit, this book more than answers her question. From playful to pastoral, from majestic metaphysical poetry to paeans to love, they show that Rumi's God lay not in the mosque or temple, but within the soul.