Greater Balkh was at that time a major center of Persian culture and Sufism had developed there for several centuries. He was born either in Wakhsh, a village on the Vakhsh River in present-day Tajikistan, or in the city of Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan. Rumi was born to native Persian-speaking parents, originally from the Balkh, in present-day Afghanistan. Part of Exploring Wisdom Traditions with Kids: Rumi includes understanding the context of the poetвЂ™s life. Why explore Rumi? Because Rumi offers so much that is universal from a remove of eight centuries. He liberates people from religion to be truly spiritual. It gives us a view of right-living beyond strictures and dogmatic ideas of morality.

He shows us that being joyful, being humble, celebrating life, are universals. Rumi shows us that the divinity we seek, the union, the at-home-ness, is already inside. At the same time, heвЂ™s friendly and encouraging. He loves to traffic in homely metaphors, and he definitely does have вЂњdesigns on your understandingвЂќ (or whatever it was that Keats said was preeminently resistible to him). вЂњ Rumi really was a sweetheart, and his poetry does have a certain self-help aura. One writer, writing for the Paris Review, summed it up well. Rumi can be hard to understand, simply because his religiosity is expressed as love. And a good starting place are the books вЂњThe Illuminated RumiвЂќ, and вЂњThe Essential RumiвЂќ.ДЄfter you have perused these and other texts, you might want to learn a bit about RumiвЂ™s history. So what can you take away from this poetry? More importantly, what can your kids take away? There is much more to explore. вЂ• Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi Exploring Wisdom Traditions with Kids: Rumi вЂ“ Analysis вЂњMy soul is from elsewhere, IвЂ™m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.вЂќ Vanish, And HeвЂ™ll make you shine like the sunД«ecome nothing, And HeвЂ™ll turn you into everything.вЂќ вЂњDonвЂ™t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. вЂ• Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi, The Illuminated Rumi Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.вЂќ вЂњYesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.вЂќ вЂњThe wound is the place where the Light enters you.вЂќ вЂњYour task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.вЂќ Exploring Wisdom Traditions with Kids: Rumi вЂ“ Some Verses. Or being embraced by the love of the universe. You could call it a union with all existence. This universal mystical experience speaks to anyone who has ever sought it. It transcends the time and place of its writing. There is something about the way he describes the religious experience. Whether you are used to his verse or not, Rumi can continue to inspire. If you are interested in exploring wisdom traditions with kids, from around the world, Rumi is essential. To many in the west, Rumi presents an approachable side of Islam. As a bridge between mystical Islam and the rest of the world, too, he is very important.

As a poet, and as an example of a mystic, he is irreplaceable. It is hard to imagine a world without Rumi.

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