Rumi: The Beloved Is You

My Favorite Collection of Deeply Passionate, Whimsical, Spiritual and Profound Poems and Quotes

By: Shahram Shiva

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

NOTE: This is a new release and lacks proper reviews at this time. If you enjoy Mr. Shiva’s authentic and beautiful interpretations and translations of Rumi please consider offering a review.

RUMI: THE BELOVED IS YOU by longtime Rumi translator and author, Shahram Shiva, offers the reader a uniquely compiled collection of the most powerful and memorable poems and quotes of Rumi. This very special selection presents a cross section of the best examples from various themes that Rumi chose to express his teachings and share his unique spiritual growth process.

Rumi: The Beloved is You includes exceptional quotes, quatrains and odes. Shahram Shiva has been sharing Rumi with the world for more than 30 years. He began translating Rumi quite extemporaneously, “like it was an old habit,” in New York City when he was in his early 20’s. He is the founder of Rumi Network and one of the original popularizers of Rumi. The Rumi we love today is based on the last 25 years of Rumi’s life. During that period came an outpouring of many thousands of incredibly concise and thoughtful poems on varied topics.

Rumi: The Beloved is You represents some of Shahram Shiva’s all-time favorite poems and quotes. Rumi’s poems cover practically every possible theme. These themes include, deeply philosophical and mystical thoughts, drunken revelries, anti-authoritarian outbursts, light-hearted historical tales, simple life teachings, passionate love stories and more. Rumi was so prolific and adapt at creating verse that he was able to speak poetry at will.

Rumi: The Beloved is You categorizes the poems and quotes in 5 sections.

1. Rumi’s Most Loved Mystical and Spiritual Poems.
2. The Power of Love. The Passionate Poems.
3. The Cult of the Tavern. The Drunken Poems.
4. The Ascended Master. The Anti-Establishment Poems.
5. Deep Rumi, For Mystics in Training Only.

Exceptional

I am mesmerized by Rumi. His writing is beyond poetry. It is the mind and language of the divine mind.

Hard Listen

It’s hard to listen to poetry read by a computer. The poems run together, unless one pays very close attention, since the inflections don’t provide the subtle space for delineation. Alternating voices, say from male to female, on alternate poems would make this a much improved listen. The content is there, just not the delivery.

AI Narrator was not my favorite

The worst part of this otherwise wonderful book was the AI generated narrator. I found the lack of emotion in the voice to be robotic and somewhat distracting from the beautiful poetry of both Rumi and Shiram Shiva.