Shams remained in Konya with Rumi for, some reports say, seven months, while others claim a longer sojourn of eighteen. He became the object of jealousy of Rumi’s disciples whose study and disciplines had been thrown into utter confusion by the arrival of the mystical stranger.
Then just as unaccountably as he had arrived, Shams left, and Rumi, refusing to accept his dereliction, wrote to him in Tabriz and sent emissaries and missives to summon him and tempt him to return. Finally, Rumi sent his son Sultan Walad, and Shams returned with him the following year. Rumi had extracted from his followers and family the confession that their resentment of him had been a supreme error. The promises of acceptance were easily made and just as easily broken. Shams came back into Rumi’s life and then, as before, disappeared. One story claims that he was poisoned by Rumi’s followers, who regretted his influence on their teacher. They regarded him as the nobility of Russia would regard Rasputin and his mystical influence over their empress. Rumi, it is said, refused to accept that Shams was dead. There was no body and no funeral, no lamentation of the death, just an absence where there had been a presence. He even went to Tabriz, and to several other places, looking for the one who had transformed his consciousness, if indeed there was such a division between the knower and the known.
Had Rumi learned that the absence of the body of Shams was in itself a test? His declarations of the pain of separation, the yearning to have the “beloved” return, are succeeded in his verse by the realization or at least assertion that the spirit of the beloved is one with the spirit of the lover, the “you” is the “I.”
And so began the phase of Rumi’s life that gave the world his poetic works and earned him the reputation of one of the greatest poets of his tradition. According to his son and biographer, Sultan Walad, the appearance and disappearance of Shams transformed Rumi and took him to a higher stage of Sufi enlightenment. His reasoning and logic and his philosophical discourse were replaced by the manifestations of mystical ecstasy, with dancing and whirling and lyrical pronunciation of longing.
The lyrical impulse, over the next twelve years, translated itself into the composition of the Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, a compilation of ghazals, or lyrics of love and devotion.
The spell, the ecstasy in this period of Rumi’s life, in which the lyrical muse enabled the composition of this extensive work of love, gave way to a quieter synthesis.
Rumi now set out to express in poetry the insights that had unsettled his life and put him on the path to realization and God. He wrote his magnum opus, the Mathnawi, in the next twelve years, a book of 25,700 verses, which he dictated to Husam-ud-din Chalapi, his disciple, who had, in a more sober way, replaced Shams in his life and to whom he addressed the work—not with the passion with which Shams had gripped him but with the more philosophical purpose of turning the power of expression to the service of truth.
If the Mathnawi is indeed the “Koran in Pahlavi,” as it has been famously labeled, then it conveys that second hidden layer of meaning that the Sufi reads in the encrypted Divine Word. Its message is essentially that of those who went before him, the surrender to the Reality that infuses all things and is beyond them, and at the same time identical with them.
Revelation, an act of grace from the beloved, and the epiphany, are the only paths to the truth. The rest is ritual and duty. Logic and the intellect are shackles whose bonds must be transcended or broken, through sudden realization. The metaphors of intoxication, ecstasy, the sensual grip of love, the swoon, the madness, the dissolution are all expressions of this mystical realization of the state beyond mere reason.
As in the teachings of the Buddha, the Mathnawi at times enjoins us to detach ourselves from the world without the Hindu ascetic’s disdain for it. It is the path to transformation through which the elements become the servants and slaves of the spirit, pain becomes ecstasy, and the slave becomes one with the master. The Mathnawi aims at a music of consciousness, or perhaps even a music beyond consciousness.
Rumi died in 1273. By his own testimony he says his poetic gifts are in the service of love, which is man’s connection to God. The Mathnawi is, despite its success in our own times as something of a pop phenomenon, essentially the religious text of Sufism. Its constant, relentless use of the concepts, conceits and imagery of the Sufi tradition can be translated into English and into a modern idiom, but without their religious context they are stripped of meaning.
The “love” that Rumi speaks of is not the romantic yearning of a Keats, or the ingredient of some American pop lyric. It is the transcendence of earthly relationships. The “ecstasy” is not orgasm, the “madness” not the dementia of the psychotic; “intoxication” is not that brought about by ethanol or marijuana. The beloved is not the man or woman who obsesses you, but the spirit of the eternal manifest in your guide to God.
The Verses
Selected from the Mathnawi,
Diwan-e Shams-e, and
The Discourses
THE WORD
Zuleika had a secret, every word
Or phrase she spoke in secret ways referred
To her beloved Yusuf. If she said,
“The moon is out tonight,” she meant instead
To say she loved him. When she said, “Aloe”
Or “Spice” or “bread,” her confidantes would know
That it was code for Yusuf; every phrase
A tribute to his beauty and his ways.
You could say, and by now you may have guessed,
That Zuleika lived a life that was obsessed
With Yusuf; she had turned the very gift
Of speech to magic, making meanings drift
And making words say what they never meant.
The blandest phrases turned to sentiment
And thoughts and praise of Yusuf. When she cursed
Aloud she meant she wanted time reversed
To once again the hour they last met
When parting made her words turn to regret.
His was the name that every morning burst
From her lips and quenched her every thirst
His name would warm Zuleika in the cold.
And just so, all believers should be told,
That when you seek salvation for your soul
You merge into the ocean of the whole
So lover and beloved are the same
Your Zuleika is merely Yusuf ’s name
And even though your linguist thinks it odd
All pronouncements are one—the word is “God.”
The syllable that permeates all things
Exploding stars and songs the robin sings.
GOING TO MECCA
O pilgrim who visit the Holy Land
I’ll show you heaven in a grain of sand
Why traverse deserts, why confront the storm
If within you resides the formless form
Of the Beloved? If he’s in your heart
Your pilgrimage has ended where you start.
So, from that garden did you bring a rose?
You saw the house of God, now just suppose
Arriving at a house unoccupied
Will leave the pilgrims’ thirst unsatisfied
Remember Hajji wherever you roam
His love will have to make your heart his home.
THE WALL
A man could hear beyond a boundary wall
The murmur of a stream. He heard the call
Of running water. Now he longed to quench
His thirst. His hands began to grope and wrench
Loose the wall’s topmost stones which he then threw
Into the stream, first one by one, then two
By two—The sound the stones made as they sank
Into the water were like wine—he drank
With gratitude, a sort of substitute
For water of the stream. It was a flute
To his ears, or like thunder bringing rain
To make the desert verdant again
This sound of stones on water wove a spell
That seemed to free the damned from chains of hell
And every stone he dislodged brought him near
The stream of longing. Its message was clear
That God has said prostrate yourself and pray
Break down the walls and barriers so you may
Come to Him as the thirsty come to drink
Beyond the wall, so now approach the brink
Of His eternal stream whose waters speak
And give the seekers nourishment they seek.
VULTURES
The reason is the human’s carrion bird
The questions that it poses are absurd
It feeds on logic, to it ecstasy
Is the main danger and the enemy.
The saintly reason is more like the wings
Of Gabriel who soars above all things
So leave the carrion bird to pick the dead
And soar with me in ecstasy instead.
Come fly with me, I’ll take you to a height
Beyond ten thousand vultures in full flight.
RENEWAL FROM THE FALL
Without grinding wheat there can be no bread
No alchemy can turn gold into lead
The surgeon has to use the knife and score
The skin in order to effect a cure
To make a coat the tailor cuts the cloth
A sheep to slaughter makes the festive broth
The builder has to dig the ruins to build
Anything new. The garden’s only filled
With roses when the gardener digs the weeds
And turns the soil to plant the new year’s seeds
And so my friend, to be remade and whole
Prepare to desecrate your very soul.
THE DANCE
A host of angels dancing in a storm
Define the dance which never takes a form
Who is that bride brought to her love today?
The moon has fetched its gold piled on a tray
Your destiny will shoot its arrows now
The ship will cut the waters with its prow
From shores of the Divine arrives the drift
Of truths that cause the human heart to lift
So when your soul departs you must not mourn
Your soul has merely gone to be reborn
The spirit that vast oceans can’t contain
Is evident in every human stain.
LOVERS
Lovers and love live for eternity
All else is borrowed, brother, leave it be
Don’t be in thrall to passing shows that fade
Embrace the thing that is of spirit made
Love gives you wings to fly up to that place
Beyond the hundred veils of airy space
To be born you must first renounce each breath
And on the journey turn towards that death
That blinds you to the world and to the “I”
That tells you, you are eternity’s sigh.
BY HIS WILL
Only by His will do atoms move
The beat of every wing He must approve
No one can explain this and none should try
The infinite can never answer “why?”
Even though we strive to know the “how?”
Through science, before Him we have to bow
And give ourselves, our lives and will to God
With no thought of a blessing or reward
In these our lives, my friend, nor in the next
Does this simple truth leave your mind perplexed?
Then know that contentment is part of bliss
Don’t ask for love, and yet accept a kiss.
O Sufi, do not long for paradise
Be content with His love, this earth, these skies.
QUATRAINS
My friend, in friendship as you nearer drew
My faith in love’s religion stronger grew
How is it that your creation can see
The worlds you made and still they can’t see you?
*
Know only that which makes the unknown known
Before the sands of fleeting life are blown
What you think you’ve grasped is but a void
The bird in hand is that one which has flown
*
The Muslim and the unbeliever share
This world of joy, this world of shame and care
Beyond, there is a place without Islam
Or disbelief—Come, let me take you there.
GROWING UP
How soon the infant weaned forgets the breast
How soon the fledgling flown forgets the nest
The seed that takes its nurture from the ground
Worships the sun as soon as it has found
The power streaming down from heaven’s light.
So should the Sufi cast away that night.
Because you came here blazing like a star
A lamp of heaven. Now know who you are!
THE BRIGHTER
No candle can withstand the blazing sun
Love is but dissolution in the One
So come dissolve, come completely resign
Leaving no trace as you become the Sign.
TWO WINES
Let carnal souls drink of the wines of hell
The wine of heaven, an infinite well
Is for the souls with divine intellect
To take them to the place of no regret
The donkey’s allegiance is to his gut
His heart’s desire is to eat and rut
Issah drank from the fount of the divine
Inviting all who thirst to share the wine
Which is proportion’s elixir itself
O traveller, don’t leave it on the shelf
But choose that wine the divine vessel holds
Its nasha through all holy texts unfolds
Promising in heaven, heaven’s grace
And on earth the reason’s measured pace.
CAUSE AND EFFECT
The branch exists only to bear the fruit
The knowledge of which resides in the root
Would a gardener plant and tend the vine
Without the promise of the grape and wine?
Before this truth let all your reason pause
What you thought was effect, is but the cause.
FORM
How futile form and harmony
If ears don’t hear or eyes don’t see.
REACH OUT
Reach out for the world
through every sense
Colors, music, sex,
wine and incense
The five ladders on
which a man attains
The heights of pleasure
and sensual planes
The inner senses,
hidden in the heart
Will carry man
to those planes apart
Yet on that journey
expect suffering
And pain that very
ecstasy may bring
To the body while
enriching the soul
And thus enriching,
make the body whole.
DESTROY TO BUILD
Destroy the house to find the treasure chest
Then, when the treasure’s found, you may invest
In building there a palace even more
Sumptuous than the one there was before.
Raze the fort from which the devil gloats
Build it anew with towers, ramparts, moats
His powers won’t bend to your earthly wish
Spiritual power was sent to astonish
You and me with the wonder of His ways
From purple dawn to sunset’s orange haze.
PHARAOH THE RICH
God granted Pharaoh every luxury
And all that could be wished for, so that he
Never felt the pinch of suffering
/> Or need. He lacked no earthly thing,
Which made him proud and negligent and vain
The attributes of those who don’t feel pain.
So Pharaoh never turned his face in prayer
Behaving as though God was never there.
Now God has granted every soul some grief
So that we may call for His relief
And invite the Healer into our pain
To cure the heart and wipe the mark of Cain.
While pharaohs have the cravings of their lust
Satisfied with their empires of dust.
THE FURNACE
My soul’s a furnace happy with the fire
That burns within—its nature is desire
For Love. My friend, if you don’t wish to burn
In that same fire—you have a lot to learn.
LOVE IS SURRENDER
O youth in love, fall at her feet
Without your beloved, you are incomplete
God’s fabric comes from Adam and Eve
As intertwined as threads of the weave.
LOGIC AND DESIRE
Logic will bargain through twists and bends
Desire is careless of where it all ends.
THE BLASPHEMERS
You kept company, O Rumi, with blasphemers who
swore
Their cursing
God’s house
meant
they hadn’t shut the door.
TODAY
Tomorrow is a hope—the dreamer’s way
The Sufi lives the moment, rejoices in today!
PRAYER AND PRIDE
Do not be proud of saying prayers, they can never be
What you, Son of Man, mistake for intimacy