Discourses of Rumi

FIHI MA FIHI V 117how the spring breeze becomes visible in the treesand grasses, the rose-beds and sweet herbs?Through the swaying of fields and flowers youwitness the beauty of spring. But when you lookupon the breeze itself, you see nothing. This isn’tbecause the beauty of those rose-beds are outsidethe reality of the breeze, for the spring breeze containsimages of swaying rose-beds and sweetherbs, but those images are subtle and invisible.Only through some medium are they revealed outof their subtlety.Likewise in the human being these qualities arehidden and only become manifest through aninward or outward medium; one person throughspeech, another through work, another duringtimes of war or peace. You cannot see theseattributes within yourself—look and you will findnothing there—so you believe yourself empty ofthese infinite attributes. These attributes do notcome forth and change you into something elsefrom what you were. Rather, these qualities arehidden in you, like the water in the sea.Water cannot leave the sea except through thesun’s heat in the form of a cloud; it cannotbecome visible except in a wave. Your wave is a