Observe how each particle moves.
See how they all just got here.
Of a trip.
Notice how everyone wants a different meal.
Watch the stars fade when the sun rises
And how all the streams flow into the ocean.
Watch chefs preparing special dishes.
For everyone, depending on what they need.
Look at this mug that can hold the ocean.
Look at those who see the face.
Look through the eyes of your friends
In the water that is
Totally jewelry.
Rumi is expressing consciousness. Rumi understands that life is diverse; it is a plethora of realities and experiences. There are metaphors everywhere that point to my multiplicity. I mentally take note of them, but ignore them. It is fascinating to see myself focused on only one standard of living, the linear standard, which has a beginning and an end; all other lives are out of focus.
For me the distance is short, the road is bumpy and the joy is limited. In fact, everything seems limited; there just aren’t enough things to go around, or so I think. I have been taught that I have a chance in this method of existence and I must do well to make my mark and be what I was born to be, but I forget what I was born to be and allow someone else to remember it for me. I get lost in the forest of judgment and my only purpose is to survive and I make it as difficult as I can.
Rumi talks about diversity in his work Special Plates. Each particle or consciousness has its own plate, its own food, and it moves at a different vibration. Physical consciousness shares a plate of diversity to expand. The water, the stars and all the planets vibrate and move with me, but they express that movement in incredibly different ways.
It all depends on my perception, my belief and then they become real to me. My five senses judge what is true or false in the standard backyard, which I call physical life. Everything else I reject and throw into the basement of mental illusions, but in that basement the particles continue to move and flow. Consciousness is always in action, regardless of my awareness of it.
That basement door is opening. I am opening it. Now is the time. The conscious particles that have been spinning around waiting for me to open that door are entering my consciousness and I am expanding. The chef of conscience who prepares food for life is living through me and adding dessert to my table. I feel my presence expanded in the ant, in a rose bush and a palm tree full of nectar. I swim in a crucible of consciousness and hear the tones of beauty bubbling through it.
The face of a star reflects my face as I dream of bouncing off the moon just as the sun rises. The stream of consciousness within me becomes an ocean. It is another world full of items to think about. It is a special plate and a cup that contains water filled with friends and the jewels of eternity. The special dish is a dish for everyone.