The religions of the world are luminous in their individuality, and they have valuable social and soulmaking functions. Surely someday we will quit killing each other over their different strategies. — Coleman Barks Copy Share Image
I think we all have a core that's ecstatic, that knows and that looks up in wonder. We all know that there are marvelous… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
The mystics always say that the experience they're talking about is ineffable, that you can't say it. Rumi was asked one time why he… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
[Rumi] is trying to get us to feel the vastness of our true identity... like the sense you might get walking into a cathedral... — Coleman Barks Copy Share
“ In the front yard lives the oldest thing around, a white oak That I used to say is my love for the world,… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
“…the work of the (Muslim Sufi) dervish community was to open the heart, explore the mystery of union, to fiercely search for and try… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
Just being sentient and in a body with the sun coming up is a state of rapture. — Coleman Barks Copy Share
It's such a foolish thing to argue about names, when what we're doing is all one thing. — Coleman Barks Copy Share
I had been a kind of natural mystic my whole life, growing up there in Tennessee next to the river. Somehow, that was important… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
If you teach three university courses a day, you need something to turn your mind off. — Coleman Barks Copy Share
If you think there's an important difference between being a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist, then… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
What I deeply want... is for Rumi to become vitally present for readers, part of what John Keats called our soul-making, that process that… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
Longing becomes more poignant if in the distance you can't tell whether your friend is going away or coming back. The pushing away pulls… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
I think my life is tremendously interesting, and surely, other people do too. — Coleman Barks Copy Share
Ramana Maharshi and Rumi would agree: the joy of being human is in uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried in the… — Coleman Barks Copy Share
