Become This Human Consciousness Fragments of Rumi Designed by Brent Payton Find more posters like this at br3nt.com Copyright “Become This Human Consciousness” © 2023 by Brent Payton is licensed under AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Thank You! Thanks to the authors of these quotes and the makers of the tools used to create these posters such as MiKTeX, LuaLATEX, and GNU Make. Compiled August 29, 2025 from “rumi.tex” Disclaimer Last updated: April 12, 2023 Interpretation and Definitions action of contract, negligence or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Service or the contents of the Service. The Company reserves the right to make additions, deletions, or modifications to the contents on the Service at any time without prior notice. This Disclaimer has been created with the help of the Free Disclaimer Generator. 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Contact Us If you have any questions about this Disclaimer, You can contact Us by email: brent@brentpayton.com About Rumi Born Jalāl al-Dīn Mu�ammad Rūmī (Persian: ‫)یمور دمحم نیدلالالج‬1 in the town of Vakhsh (present-day Tajikistan) while his father, the eminent Sufi scholar Baha-ud-Din Walad, was traveling. After his father’s death, the family moved westward, eventually settling in Konya, then the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum (modern-day Turkey). Konya became Rumi’s lifelong home and the cultural hub where he taught. Spiritual turning point In 1244 - 1247, Rumi encountered the wandering dervish Shams-i-Tabrīzī. Their intense, unconventional friendship sparked a profound inner crisis for Rumi, pushing him beyond scholarly study into ecstatic mysticism. Shams disappeared (likely murdered) in 1247; the loss deepened Rumi’s yearning and fueled his poetic outpourings, which he framed as dialogues with the “Beloved” (God). Teaching and influcence Rumi founded the Mawlānā order (later known as the Mevlevi or “Whirling Dervishes”), institutionalizing his emphasis on music, poetry, and dance as pathways to divine remembrance. His works were originally written in Persian but 1 Wikipedia 1 quickly spread across the Islamic world, influencing Turkish, Arabic, Urdu, and later European literature. Western translators (most famously Coleman Barks) popularized Rumi in the 20th century, often emphasizing the universal love aspect while sometimes downplaying the explicitly Islamic context. Recent scholarship urges readers to retain that context to appreciate the full theological depth. Legacy Rumi remains a central figure in Sufi mysticism, revered as a saint-poet whose verses bridge the personal and the cosmic. His poetry is quoted in diverse settings, from academic conferences to pop-culture playlists, demonstrating its enduring resonance. Contemporary scholars note both the timeless spiritual insights and the historical particularities (e.g., his reliance on Qur’anic imagery) that make his work a rich site for inter-religious dialogue and literary study. In sum, Rumi’s life was a journey from a scholarly upbringing in Konya to an ecstatic, poetic articulation of divine love, leaving a corpus that continues to inspire seekers across cultures while inviting careful, context-aware reading. About This Collection As someone who has created many posters of inspirational quotes and phrases, some of the best being from Rumi, I was inspired to devote an entire collection to this author. To accomplish this, I read “The Essential Rumi” by Coleman Barks (HarperCollins, 2010) and highlighted my favorite passages for inclusion here. I have chosen to include only fragments of Rumi’s verse in the hopes that you will be enticed to read an entire book of his wisdom. Also, as this is a collection of posters, I had to be selective about what text to include in the interest of readability. 3 Learn something then from wheat. How a seed goes down in the ground, breaks open, and rises new. Likewise, sunlight and rain enter us and become this human consciousness that is returning to God. Rumi, Town and Country br3nt.com Love’s secret is always lifting its head out from under the covers, “Here I am!”. Rumi, I Have Five Things to Say br3nt.com Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself. Rumi, Be Melting Snow br3nt.com There is a light seed grain inside. You fill it with yourself, or it dies. Rumi, Where Are We? br3nt.com Don’t try to put out a fire by throwing on more fire! Don’t wash a wound with blood! No matter how fast you run, your shadow more than keeps up. Sometimes, it’s in front! Rumi, Enough Words? br3nt.com Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into color. Do it now. Rumi, Quietness br3nt.com But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanation, so everyone will understand the passage, We have opened you. Rumi, Unfold Your Own Myth br3nt.com The lordly wind loves the weakness and the lowness of grasses. Never brag of being strong. Rumi, The Grasses br3nt.com Break your pitcher against a rock. We don’t need any longer to haul pieces of the ocean around. Rumi, The Center of the Fire br3nt.com Awe is the salve that will heal our eyes. Rumi, Muhammad and the Huge Eater br3nt.com What is the body? Endurance. What is love? Gratitude. What is hidden in our chests? Laughter. What else? Compassion. Rumi, All Rivers at Once br3nt.com To praise is to praise how one surrenders to the emptiness. Rumi, Buoyancy br3nt.com We are tasting the taste of this minute of eternity. We are pain and what cures pain, both. We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours. Rumi, Music Master br3nt.com This dance is the joy of existence. Rumi, We Three br3nt.com An empty mirror and your worst destructive habits, when they are held up to each other, that’s when the real making begins. That’s what art and crafting are. Rumi, Childhood Friends br3nt.com The way you make love is the way God will be with you. Rumi, Breadmaking br3nt.com Every object and being in the universe is a jar overfilled with wisdom and beauty. Rumi, The Gift of Water br3nt.com The cure for the pain is in the pain. Good and bad are mixed. If you don’t have both, you don’t belong with us. Rumi, There’s Nothing Ahead br3nt.com A saint is a theater where the qualities of God can be seen. Rumi, Sheikh Kharraqani and His Wretched Wife br3nt.com World-power means nothing. Only the unsayable, jeweled inner life matters. Rumi, Polishing the Mirror br3nt.com There are many winds full of anger, and lust and greed. They move the rubbish around, but the solid mountain of our true nature stays where it’s always been. Rumi, Ali in Battle br3nt.com If you want to expound on love, take your intellect out and let it lie down in the mud. It’s no help. Rumi, The King and the Handmaiden and the Doctor br3nt.com The whole world is a form for truth. Rumi, Green Ears br3nt.com Don’t feed both sides of yourself equally. The spirit and the body carry different loads and require different attentions. Rumi, A Basket of Fresh Bread br3nt.com We are the night ocean filled with glints of light. We are the space between the fish and the moon, while we sit here together. Rumi, The Private Banquet br3nt.com There is no early and late for us. The only way to measure a lover is by the grandeur of the beloved. Rumi, Judge a Moth by the Beauty of its Candle br3nt.com Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us. We taste only sacredness. Rumi, On the Turn br3nt.com Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free. Rumi, On the Turn br3nt.com You have escaped the cage. Your wings are stretched out. Now, fly. Rumi, An Understanding of the Question br3nt.com All beauty is God’s beauty. Rumi, Shuttles br3nt.com I make medicine out of your pain. Rumi, Drum br3nt.com Never think that you are worthless. God has paid an enormous amount for you, and the gifts keep arriving. Rumi, A Two-Headed Thing br3nt.com This body-existence is a jug. Understanding is the water. The five senses are cracks Where water drains out. Rumi, We Leave off the Endings br3nt.com Give me your demons. I’ll take them to the sea. Rumi, How We Move in Grace br3nt.com I pray that I can put down what I carry. Rumi, Through the Low Gate br3nt.com You need not look any longer. You have lain down inside me. Rumi, Camel The King’s br3nt.com Lead- Tears are worth more than money. Tears are blood distilled into water. Rumi, A Dying Dog br3nt.com Drunkenly asleep, tenderly awake, clouded with grief, laughing like lightning, angry at war, quiet with gratitude, we are nothing. Rumi, Down One Strong br3nt.com Brushstroke