Poetic Power

Herewith a brief quote from Jalaluddin Rumi, the Persian mystic poet:

God’s mirror: the front is the heart, its back the world.

I don’t know where it fits into Rumi’s work; I have it from Idries Shah’s Caravan of Dreams, p.80. What strikes me about it here is the amazing poetic power it shows in rendering the very fundamental nature of our being here in this dimension. In a way the heart is blind—and the world is infinitely diverse. And it is the heart that truly mirrors; the back of the mirror is just coarse brown paper, a rectangle of wooden framing, and in our day some staples to hold the paper in place. The heart is the mirror. But, to take another quote from Rumi, this one from the Divani Shamsi Tabriz XII:

The moment your entered this world of form, an escape ladder was put out for you.

That ladder? Could it be the heart? As concerns heart, I’ve noted things about it on this blog before (link).

The Angel Beckons

The title is my own and chosen for its context here, today. See the last post to understand it. The following is, again, from Rumi’s Divani Shamsi Tabriz XII.

Every form you see has its archetype in the placeless world;
If the form perished, no matter, since its original is everlasting.
Every fair shape you have seen, every deep saying you have heard,
Be not cast down that it perished; for that is not so.
Whereas the spring-head is undying, its branch gives water continually.
Since neither can cease, why are you lamenting?
Conceive the Soul as a fountain, and these created things as rivers:
While the fountain flows, the rivers run from it.
Put grief out of your head and keep quaffing this river water;
Do not think of the water failing; for this water is without end.
From the moment you came into the world of being,
A ladder was placed before you that you might escape.
First you were mineral, later you turned to plant,
Then you became animal: how should this be a secret to you?
Afterwards you were made man, with knowledge, reason, faith;
Behold the body, which is a portion of the dust-pit, how perfect it has grown!
When you have travelled on from man, you will doubtless become an angel;
After that you are done with this earth: your station is in heaven.
Pass again even from angelhood: enter that ocean,
That your drop may become a sea which is a hundred seas of ‘Oman.
Leave this ‘Son,’ say ever ‘One’ with all your soul;
If your body has aged, what matter, when the soul is young?

Jalal’ud-Din Rumi (1207-1273) was a Sufi mystic who lived most of his life in a region which is now Turkey. This poem was written in Farsi and the translation is by R.A. Nicholson.

The Wider Context of Prayer

The poem by Rumi presented in the last post holds the mystic’s view of reality in a grand context, not least cosmological: “For to-night the teeming world gives birth to the world everlasting.” It presents an upward-trending vector—from dust to spirit and on beyond—call it evolutionary, if you like. Rumi suggests that we are slumbering, asleep—and that this sleep is due to the nature of this dimension (“A heavy slumber fell upon thee from the circling spheres.”) To set out on the quest right here and now, we must awaken and stay watchful. And that, I propose, is the wider context of prayer. We find the same linkage in the New Testament: “Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36); and “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41). In these contexts prayer is not petition but something else—attention directed at something. But at what? Not the sensory environment but something beyond it. It is presented as a technique—in Matthew emphasizing the resistance (temptation, the weakness of the flesh) in Luke and in Rumi (“O soul, seek the Beloved, O friend, seek the Friend” “the Son of Man”) pointing to the goal.

Brought into the humdrum world of immediate experience, these teachings suggest that participation in the cosmic process laid down by the Creator involves an effort of attention to a reality that is not immediately perceived. Prayer, which is initially triggered in us by very ordinary if sharply felt needs, may with practice become a watchful consciousness, a contemplation of a range of reality we may only at first access by means of symbols. The practice of watchfulness, however, will persuade the determined person that the attention directed in one direction is also answered from there—but as with all experiential matters, you have to taste it before you know it.

Rumi speaks of this experience as we reach the end of the poem. “Mine eye,” he says, “is from that source and from another universe; here a world and there a world: I am seated on the threshold.” I like that word, threshold. In this blog I call it the borderzone.

From Rumi’s Divani Shamsi Tabriz (XXXVI)

O lovers, O lovers, it is time to abandon the world;
The drum of departure reaches my spiritual ear from Heaven.
Behold, the driver has risen and made ready the files of camels,
And begged us to acquit him of blame: why, O travelers, are you asleep ?
These sounds before and behind are the din of departure and of the camel-bells;
With each moment a soul and a spirit is setting off into the Void.
From these stars like inverted candles, from these blue awnings of the sky
There has come forth a wondrous people, that the mysteries may be revealed.
A heavy slumber fell upon thee from the circling spheres:
Alas for this life so light, beware of this slumber so heavy!
O soul, seek the Beloved, O friend, seek the Friend,
O watchman, be wakeful: it behooves not a watchman to sleep.
On every side is clamor and tumult, in every street are candles and torches,
For to-night the teeming world gives birth to the world everlasting.
Thou wert dust and art spirit, thou wert ignorant and art wise;
He who has led thee thus far will lead thee further also.
How pleasant are the pains he makes thee suffer while he gently draws thee to himself!
His flames are as water. Do not frown upon him.
To dwell in the soul is his task, to break vows of penitence is his task;
By his manifold artifice these atoms are trembling at their core.
O ridiculous puppet that leapest out of thy hole, as if to say, ‘I am the lord of the land,’
How long wilt thou leap? Abase thyself, or they will bend thee like a bow.
Thou didst sow the seed of deceit, thou didst indulge in derision,
Thou didst regard God as nothing: see now, O miscreant!
O ass, thou wert best with straw; thou art a caldron: thou wert best black;
Thou wert best at the bottom of a well, O disgrace of thy house and family!
In me there is Another by whom these eyes sparkle;
If water scalds, it is by fire; understand this.
I have no stone in my hand, I have no quarrel with anyone,
I deal harshly with none, because I am sweet as a garden of roses.
Mine eye, then, is from that source and from another universe;
Here a world and there a world: I am seated on the threshold.
On the threshold are they alone whose eloquence is mute;
It is enough to utter this intimation: say no more, draw back thy tongue.

Jalal’ud-Din Rumi (1207-1273) was a Sufi mystic from the region which is now Turkey. This poem was written in Farsi and the translation is by R.A. Nicholson.