The Essential Rumi

  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