Discourses of Rumi

FIHI MA FIHI V 29Well, for whose sake but your own do you studythese? If it is law, it is so nobody can steal a loaffrom you, strip you of your clothes, or kill you—in short, it is for your own security. If it is astronomy,the phases of the spheres and their influenceupon the earth, whether they are light or heavy,portending tranquility or danger, all these thingsare concerned with your own situation, servingyour own ends. If it is medicine, it is related toyour own health and also serves you. When youconsider this matter well, the root of all yourstudies is yourself. All these lofty tasks are butbranches of you.If these subjects are filled with so many marvelsand worlds of knowledge without end, considerwhat worlds you pass through who are the root!If your branches have their laws, their medicines,their histories, think of what transpires withinyou who are the source; what spiritual laws andmedicines affect your inward future and fate,what histories portray your struggles of the heart!For Soul there is other food besides this food ofsleeping and eating, but you have forgotten thatother food. Night and day you nourish only yourbody. Now, this body is like a horse, and this