Discourses of Rumi

214 V DISCOURSES OF RUMIa living blessing. As long as you desire nothingelse, it comes towards you and becomes yourfood. But should your desire fail, you will not beable to eat it, even by force. It hides behind theveil and will not show you its face.(Rumi was telling about the miracles of thesaints. He said:) For someone to fly from here tothe Kaaba in an instant is not so wonderful, eventhough there are such stories of saints havingdone so. But a true miracle is this: that Godshould bring you from a lowly estate to a highestate, that you should travel from ignorance toreason, from the inanimate to life. Just as at firstyou were earth and mineral, God brought you tothe vegetable world. Then you journeyed from thevegetable world to the animal world, from theanimal world to the world of humanity.These are the true miracles. Through these stationsand forms you journeyed, never once thinkingor imagining where you would arrive, bywhich road you would be taken, or how youwould be brought. Even so, you will be broughton to a hundred other worlds. Do not doubt it,and if you are told such stories, believe them.