Open Secret

By Coleman Barks (translator), John Moyne (translator),

Book cover of Open Secret: Versions of Rumi

Book description

These quatrains and odes reveal a most human and accessible side of the great poet and mystic. They are the personal records of one man's encounter with the Divine.

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Why read it?

1 author picked Open Secret as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book because it’s all about love, the kind that lies behind everything, even tragedy and devastation. Rumi says that ultimate love IS devastation, and it’s the doorway to freedom. This is my favorite book of Rumi poetry, translated by Coleman Barks.

Many of the short poems are surprising, like Zen koans. But unlike Zen, Rumi is full of love for the ultimate and eternal, the birth and death of all things. And he’s not always “enlightened.” He forgets just like the rest of us and then yearns for a reunion. He’s the most poignantly human of all…

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