The essential Rumi, my free verses and a question.

A few years ago, I had asked a colleague about what book she was reading and she mentioned, Forty rules of Love. A few days after that, I had the interest to buy a book, so I went to this shop in lahore called Readings. After searching through the shelves, I found a book which caught my eye, The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks. I bought it, came back home and tried to read it later on in the evening, I simply couldn't. Two, three years passed on like that and this book was still on my book shelf, in between medical textbooks. Three years after buying it, I picked it up again with the intent of understanding it. If this is what Rumi wrote then there has to be some meaning to it, but the meaning varies from reader to reader, this time I tried to read it with the intent of understanding it, and then I started to annotate on what came to my mind. Then I started my housejob, I kept the book in my car so that I'd read it whenever I get the chance, but it stayed in the car, then I placed it in the trunk and almost forgot about it. A few months later, I had to give my car for repairs and I had no idea where I placed that book. When my housejob finished and I had the desire to read, my mind went to this book, I couldn't find it and I didn't remember where I had placed it either. A few days ago, I found it collecting dust along with old newspapers. I immediately rescued it, and shuffled through the pages and read what I had written. Indeed, it all down to what you feel and understand, it is subjective. 

I'll share one of those annotations.

A life goes on about its own journey

Through different routes they have travelled, some walked others have swam

For each soul there is a craving, a craving but it is not the same

Distances covered at pace of their own, to the same destination we march

A different taste to satisfy a different tongue, but we all eat

A life carries many secrets, in a body there is a universe

Purity is what is needed for the eyes to see

That the treasure is not lost too far away.

There is a certain emptiness inside, something that is always cast aside by the worries of the modern world but it is like that dull ache, which will keep you awake late at night, yet you are unable to pinpoint it out. It is vague since the importance is not chalked out, most of us never understand the importance, we are simply too lost running after things, and we fail to see what can make our lives more purposeful; the question that stands here is simple this, what do we consider as purposeful.