"Body Intelligence", by Jelaluddin Rumi
- susanalabordeblaj
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
This is the poem that wanted to be read on the last night of 2025, and first morning of 2026. Thanks to all those who participated in today's practice, so grateful for our sangha and for each one of you. Welcome 2026, I'm ready for you!
There are guides who can show you the way.
Use them. But they will not satisfy your longing.
Keep wanting that connection
with all your pulsing energy.
The throbbing vein
will take you further
than any thinking.
...
Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Don't claim them. Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.
Read the full poem:
Body Intelligence
by Rumi
Your intelligence is always with you,
overseeing your body, even though
you may not be aware of its work.
If you start doing something against
your health, your intelligence
will eventually scold you.
If it hadn't been so lovingly close by,
and so constantly monitoring,
how could it rebuke?
You and your intelligence
are like the beauty and the precision
of an astrolabe.
Together, you calculate how near
existence is to the sun!
Your intelligence is marvelously intimate.
It's not in front of you or behind,
or to the left or to the right.
Now try, my friend, to describe how near
is the creator of your intellect!
Intellectual searching will not find
the way to that King!
The movement of your finger
is not separate from your finger.
You go to sleep, or you die,
and there's no intelligent motion.
Then you wake,
and your fingers
fill with meanings.
Now consider the jewel-lights
in your eyes. How do they work?
This visible universe has many weathers
and variations.
But uncle, O uncle,
the universe of the creation-word,
the divine command to Be, that universe
of qualities is beyond any pointing to.
More intelligent than intellect,
and more spiritual than spirit.
No being is unconnected
to that reality, and that connection
cannot be said. There, there's
no separation and no return.
There are guides who can show you the way.
Use them. But they will not satisfy your longing.
Keep wanting that connection
with all your pulsing energy.
The throbbing vein
will take you further
than any thinking.
Muhammad said, "Don't theorize
about essence!" All speculations
are just more layers of covering.
Human beings love coverings!
They think the designs in the curtains
are what's being concealed.
Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Don't claim them. Feel the artistry
moving through, and be silent.
Or say, "I cannot praise You
as You should be praised.
Such words are infinitely
beyond my understanding."
