Knowledge is to understand
To understand who you are.
If you know not who you are
What's the use of learning?

The aim in learning is
To understand God's Truth.
Because without knowledge
It is wasted hard labour.

Do not say: I know it all,
I am obedient to my God.
If you know not who God is
That is sheer idle talk.

Twenty-eight syllables
You read from end to end.
You name the first `alpha''
What can it possibly mean?

Yunus Emre says also
Let me receive what I need.
The best possible thing
Is to find perfect peace.

Yunus Emre (?1238-?1320)

Friendship is like the breeze,
You can't hold it,
Smell it,
Taste it,
Or know when it's coming,
But you can always feel it,
And you'll always know it's there,
It may come and then go,
But you can know it'll always be back.

- Terri Fanning -

I WANT A COUNRY

i want a country
let the sky be blue, the bough green, the cornfield yellow
let it be a land of birds and flowers

i want a country
let there be no pain in the head, no yearning in the heart
let there be an end to brothers' quarrels

i want a country
let there be no rich and poor, no you and me
on winter days let everyone have hose and home

i want a country
let living be like loving fromthe heart
if there must be complaint, let it be of death

                Cahit Sitki Taranci- translated by Bernard Lewis

Silent Ship ( Sessiz Gemi )
If the day has arrived at last to weigh anchor from time,
A ship departs from this harbor towards an unknown clime.
As if it has no passengers, silently it makes way:
No hand is waved nor handkerchief as it sails away.
This journey is distress for those left behind on the quay,
their tearful eyes scan the black horizons day after day.
Desperate hearts: This will neither be the last ship to go
nor the final bereavement of a life filled with sorrow.
In this world, the beloved and the lover wait in vain
Not knowing that the loved ones will never come back again.
Those who sailed away are surely happy with their sojourn:
Years went by since that voyage, yet not one soul will return.
YAHYA KEMAL BEYATLI

To My True Love

I’ve waited a lifetime for you
I’ve searched the whole world over,
Looking for your love.
Some days I never thought I’d find you

And I wanted to give up
So many other faces, so many wrong embraces

Trying to find one heart that felt like home to me.

None of them could ever compare to you love,
You are my strength, my joy.
You give me comfort from the storm
You make me smile on cloudy days
You keep me safe and warm.

I would be so lost without you,
Your love is so pure and true
Your heart, so beautiful and kind
Because you’ve walked that long, lonely road
That made you who you are (mine!).

SURRENDER OF LOVE

What is this sorrow and separation

For someone seeking union with the Beloved,

In the eyes of such a person, what is the distance

For a being who knows the Friend is very near?



If you become one with the Friend

You must give up the world,

Let's see what preparation you have to make,

To make way along this path.



If you can reach this love,

If you surrender your life,

Surrender your soul to love,

If you witness the Friend without veils

And renounce your existence,

What is this illusion of existence?


Knowledge veils the eye,

The hereafter belongs to this world's reckoning,

Here we have love's book,

What is that page being read?


O wake up from the dream of the world,

Discover the traps of the nafs

Which are your worthless desires,

Move up to the station of the Friend,

Is there any state better than that?



You say you find the truth with your eyes,

Abandon these claims of mere appearance

And come to the realm of meaning,

The sun gives its light everywhere by day,

What does this oil lamp burn at night?



Yunus seems to belong to Him,

God permeates both worlds,

If you travel to the Friend

Come closer to me, what are

The houris and mansions of paradise?

VUSLATI OLAN KİŞİ BY YUNUS EMRE TRANSLATED BY FARUK DİLAVER

14-10-2006 05:02 PM liz.

Life
Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.

Bertrand Russell

thank you for your poem.Really nice.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.