The Grief of The Dead

“The Prince of mankind (Mohammed) said truly that no one who has

passed away from this world

Feels sorrow and regret for having died;  nay, but he feels a hundred regrets

for having missed the opportunity,

Saying to himself. “Why did I not make death my object- death which

is the store-house of all fortunes and riches,

And why, through seeing double, did I fasten my lifelong gaze upon

those phantoms that vanished at the fated hour?”

The grief of the dead is not on account of death; it is because they

dwelt on the phenomenal forms of existence.

And never perceived that all this foam is moved and fed by the Sea.

When the sea has cast the foam-flakes on the shore, go to the graveyard 

and behold them!

Say to them, “Where is your swirling onrush now?” and hear them answer

mutely, “Ask this question of the Sea, not of us.” 

How should the foam fly without the wave? How should the dust rise

to the zenith without the wind?

Since you have seen the dust, see the wind; since you have seen the

foam, see the Ocean of Creative Energy.

Come, see it, for insight is the only thing in you that avails: the rest of 

you is a piece of fat and flesh, a woof and wrap ( of bones and sinews).

Dissolve your whole body into Vision: become seeing, seeing, seeing!

One sight discerns but a yard or two of the road; another survey the

temporal and spiritual worlds and beholds the Face of their King.”

— Rumi