Coleman Barks

I think we all have a core that's ecstatic, that knows and that looks up in wonder. We all know that there…

— Coleman Barks

The mystics always say that the experience they're talking about is ineffable, that you can't say it. Rumi was asked one time…

— Coleman Barks

[Rumi] is trying to get us to feel the vastness of our true identity... like the sense you might get walking into…

— Coleman Barks

“ In the front yard lives the oldest thing around, a white oak That I used to say is my love for…

— Coleman Barks

“…the work of the (Muslim Sufi) dervish community was to open the heart, explore the mystery of union, to fiercely search for…

— Coleman Barks

Just being sentient and in a body with the sun coming up is a state of rapture.

— Coleman Barks

It's such a foolish thing to argue about names, when what we're doing is all one thing.

— Coleman Barks

I had been a kind of natural mystic my whole life, growing up there in Tennessee next to the river. Somehow, that…

— Coleman Barks

If you teach three university courses a day, you need something to turn your mind off.

— Coleman Barks

If you think there's an important difference between being a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or a Muslim or a…

— Coleman Barks

What I deeply want... is for Rumi to become vitally present for readers, part of what John Keats called our soul-making, that…

— Coleman Barks

Longing becomes more poignant if in the distance you can't tell whether your friend is going away or coming back. The pushing…

— Coleman Barks

I think my life is tremendously interesting, and surely, other people do too.

— Coleman Barks

It's a beautiful lucid dream that has language that I can fiddle with.

— Coleman Barks

Ramana Maharshi and Rumi would agree: the joy of being human is in uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried…

— Coleman Barks

I like to walk around my neighborhood, late in the afternoon. I sometimes wind up at the wonderful, old Shell station that's…

— Coleman Barks

“From 'A Bowl Fallen From the Roof' Be quiet now and wait. It may be that the ocean one, the one we…

— Coleman Barks

Anything you grab hold of on the bank breaks with the river's pressure. When you do things from your soul, the river…

— Coleman Barks

When you meet a new friend, the world has more light in it, doesn't it? Things become more spontaneous, and more full…

— Coleman Barks

There's some sort of exchange that goes on between human beings that is one of the highest things we do.

— Coleman Barks

“Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that…

— Coleman Barks

The religions of the world are luminous in their individuality, and they have valuable social and soulmaking functions. Surely someday we will…

— Coleman Barks

These poems need to be released from their cages,

— Coleman Barks

I had never heard of Rumi until Robert Bly handed me this book and he said, ah, “These poems need to be…

— Coleman Barks