Discourses of Rumi

FIHI MA FIHI V 149“Don’t listen to these things,” the Bedouinanswered. “There are many envious people in theworld. When they see others living a life of easeand abundance, they envy them and want to sendthem wandering away to deprive them of theirfortune.”So it is with many people. When anyone out ofpure compassion offers them a piece of advice,they see it as envy. But if there are roots in a person,in the end they will turn their face to thetruth. If, since the day of the Primordial Covenanta drop has been sprinkled upon them, in the endthat drop will deliver them out of all confusionand misery. Come then! How long will you beremote from us and estranged? How long lockedup in confusion and sadness? And what shouldwe say to people who have never heard storieslike this before, even from their own teacher?Since greatness never graced their forebears,They cannot bear to hear the great onespraised.Although facing the truth is not attractive atfirst, the longer one follows it the sweeter itbecomes. This is the opposite of outward forms