Rumi Quotes on Truth
Rumi's understanding of truth, reflected in the quotes gathered here, is mystical rather than doctrinal: truth is something the soul reaches through direct insight, not through book-learning or dispute. His one securely sourced line on the subject states the principle plainly: seek truth from thought, not in mouldy books, and look for the moon in the sky, not in its reflection in a pool. Several of the most widely circulated sayings on this page, including the image of a field out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing and the claim that the lamps are different but the Light is the same, express the same conviction that ultimate truth lies beyond divisions and beyond the letter; these are marked as attributed, since their precise wording is not firmly sourced. For Rumi, truth is the one Light glimpsed directly by the awakened heart.
Quotes
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Attributed to Rumi:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”
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Attributed to Rumi:
“What you seek is seeking you.”
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Attributed to Rumi:
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
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Attributed to Rumi:
“The lamps are different, but the Light is the same.”
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“Seek truth from thought, not in mouldy books. Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pool.”
Pebbles, Pearls and Gems of the Orient(1882) | "Knowledge and Wisdom", no. 121 -
“'Twere better that the spirit which wears not true love as a garment Had not been; its being is but shame.”
A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 248, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Nicholson)