Original Poem "One Thing You Must Do"
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omarjave...@gmail.com
Dec 25, 2020, 5:21:56 PM12/25/20
to Dar-al-Masnavi
BismillahirRahmanirRahim
Selam Aleykum Friends
I have always been quite taken by this poem from Mevlana, but looking through my translation of the Masnavi Sharif, I cannot find the original language. I'm hoping for some help. Thank you!
“THE ONE THING YOU MUST DO
There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human being come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.
You say, "But look, I'm using the dagger. It's not lying idle." Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve for that. You say, "But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and the rest." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself.
Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don't, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You'll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.”
― Rumi, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
There is one thing in this world you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about, but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.
It's as if a king has sent you to some country to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human being come to this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person. If you don't do it, it's as though a priceless Indian sword were used to slice rotten meat. It's a golden bowl being used to cook turnips, when one filing from the bowl could buy a hundred suitable pots. It's like a knife of the finest tempering nailed into a wall to hang things on.
You say, "But look, I'm using the dagger. It's not lying idle." Do you hear how ludicrous that sounds? For a penny an iron nail could be bought to serve for that. You say, "But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy and logic and astronomy and medicine and the rest." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself.
Remember the deep root of your being, the presence of your lord. Give yourself to the one who already owns your breath and your moments. If you don't, you will be like the man who takes a precious dagger and hammers it into his kitchen wall for a peg to hold his dipper gourd. You'll be wasting valuable keenness and forgetting your dignity and purpose.”
― Rumi, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
Ibrahim Gamard
Dec 25, 2020, 5:41:41 PM12/25/20
to Dar-al-Masnavi
Dear Omar,
Salām,
That is from Rumi's Discourses (Fīhi mā fīhi), Discourse 4 (as Barks documented in his References section at the back of "The Soul of Rumi"). It is Barks' paraphrase of the translation from Persian by British scholar, A.J. Arberry ("Discourses of Rumi," pp. 26-28).
Scan attached.
Ibrahim
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