Discourses of Rumi

136 V DISCOURSES OF RUMIthey have no hope for health, why would theyendure this?We are a mixture of animal and speech. If wedo not speak outwardly, we still speak inwardly—we are constantly speaking. We are like a river inwhich clay is mixed; the pure water is our speech,while the clay is our animality. But the clay in usis an accident. Do you not see how those pieces ofclay have crumbled and rotted away, whilemankind’s speech, poetry and sciences, both badand good have remained?The ‘man or woman of heart’ is a universe.When you have seen them, you have seen all. “Allgame is in the belly of the wild ass.” All creaturesin this world are contained in the man andwoman of heart.Good and evil, the dervishes may be,Whoever is not so, no dervishes are they.Once you have seen one who is the whole,surely you have seen the whole world. Whoeveryou see after is a mere repetition. That person’sspeech is contained in the words of the whole.Once you have heard their words, every word youhear thereafter is an echo.