Rumi — When Was I Less by Dying?

I died a mineral, and became a plant.

I died a plant and rose an animal.

I died an animal and I was man.

Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?

Yet once more I shall die as man, to soar

With the blessed angels; but even from angelhood

I must pass on. All except God perishes.

When I have sacrificed my angel soul,

I shall become that which no mind ever conceived.

O, let me not exist! for Non-Existence proclaims,

”To Him we shall return.”

Rumi

quoted from:

Aldous Huxley

The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West