To wisely live your life, you don’t need to know much.
Just remember two main rules for the beginning:

• You better starve, than eat whatever;
• And better be alone, than with whoever.

Scholars really have nothing to teach you. But from the soft touch of the eyelashes of a woman you will know all there is to know about happiness. You can seduce a man who has a wife. You can seduce a man who has a lover. But you can not seduce a man who has a beloved woman. Sacrifice yourself and all for the beloved. Sacrifice that which is most dear to you. To give oneself does not mean to sell oneself. Never be cunning, endowing with love. Sacrifice your life, be courageous, and don’t ruin the heart!

Realise this: one day your soul will depart from your body and you will be drawn behind the curtain that floats between us and the unknown. While you wait for that moment, be happy, because you don’t know where you came from and you don’t know where you will be going.

Don’t pursue happiness! Life is as short as a sigh. The dust of people that were once famous turn with the reddish clay on the wheel you are looking at. The universe is a fata morgana; life is a dream.

Drink wine. This is life eternal. This is all that youth will give you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. Be happy for this moment. Dead yesterdays and unborn tomorrows, why fret about it, if today be sweet. This moment is your life. One thing at least is certain – This Life flies. One thing is certain and the rest is Lies. The Flower that once has blown forever dies. Don’t waste this breath, if your heart isn’t crazy, since “the rest of your life” won’t last forever.

How sad, a heart that does not know how to love, that does not know what it is to be drunk with love. If you are not in love, how can you enjoy the blinding light of the sun, the soft light of the moon? It’s too bad if a heart lacks fire, and is deprived of the light of a heart ablaze. The day on which you are without passionate love is the most wasted day of your life. When you have planted the rose of Love into your heart your life has not been in vain.

As far as you can avoid it, do not give grief to anyone. Never inflict your rage on another. If you hope for eternal rest, feel the pain yourself; but don’t hurt others. When you are so full of sorrow that you can’t walk, can’t cry anymore, think about the green foliage that sparkles after the rain. When the daylight exhausts you, when you hope a final night will cover the world, think about the awakening of a young child.

How much more of the mosque, of prayer and fasting? Better go drunk and begging round the taverns. Khayyam, drink wine, for soon this clay of yours will make a cup, bowl, one day a jar. When once you hear the roses are in bloom, then is the time, my love, to pour the wine. Houris and palaces and Heaven and Hell… these are but fairy-tales, forget them all.

Beyond the earth, beyond the farthest skies I try to find Heaven and Hell. Then I hear a solemn voice that says: “Heaven and hell are inside.” Poor soul, you will never know anything of real importance. You will not uncover even one of life’s secrets. Although all religions promise paradise, take care to create your own paradise here and now on earth.

You’ve seen the world, and all you’ve seen is nothing; and everything, as well, that you have said and heard is nothing. You’ve sprinted everywhere between here and the horizon; it is nothing. And all the possessions you’ve treasured up at home are nothing.

I have not asked for life. But I try to accept whatever life brings without surprise. And I shall depart again without having questioned anyone about my strange stay here on earth.

“There was a water-drop, it joined the sea,
A speck of dust, it was fused with earth;
what of your entering and leaving this world?
A fly appeared, and disappeared.”

***

~Omar Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and poet.

Excerpts from Omar Khayyam’s sayings.

©Excellence Reporter 2020