Today's Beautiful Gem: "You and He aren't apart-- you're one!"
by the Turkish poet Yunus Emre (1241-1321), translator unknown.

        While I was navigating the other day, I took a dive. When you dive in
the ocean, you come up with shells most of the time. However, occasionally
you come up with pearls too. Who but He knows? He smiled and I got pearls.
I want to share some of them with you. I'll first give one stanza and then
proceed to give a few more stanzas.

"God permeates the whole wide world
Yet His truth is revealed to none
You better seek Him in yourself
You and He aren't apart-- you're one!"

If you think this is an English rendering of one of aadishankara's shlokas,
you may be right probably. The ideas are similar to his. This was penned
by Yunus Emre, the great Turkish poet. About Emre, Rumi once remarked thus:
"Whenever I arrived at a new spiritual height, there I found the footsteps
left by the Turkish mystic-- and I could never surpass him!" Emre wrote in
his native Turkish and they are sung in many lands even today.

"Come, let us all be friends for once,
Let us make life easy on us,
Let us be lovers and loved ones,
The earth shall be left to no one.

"You built me a bridge to cross, thin as hair;
Out of your traps I'm to choose my own snare;
How can a man pass through a hair-thin bridge?
He falls or clings on or flies off the ridge!

"I am before, I am after
The soul for all souls all the way.
I'm the one with a helping hand
Ready for those gone wild, astray.

"To countless lovers I have been
A guide for faith and religion.
I am sacrilege in men's hearts
Also the true faith and Islam's way!

"I make men love peace and unite;
Putting down the black words on white,
I wrote the four holy books right
I'm the Koran for those who pray.

"It's not Yunus who says all this:
It speaks its own realities:
To doubt this would be blasphemous:
'I'm before-- I'm after,' I say."

Note: The poem collection of Yunus Emre is available on the net.

Om shaantiH Peace! - J. K. Mohana Rao

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