Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Love is a Stranger by Rumi

Rumi, Live Is a Stranger, Transl. by Kabir Helminski, Shambhala Publications, Boston & London 2000



Rumi was also a 13th century writer (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273).  He was a Sufi mystic, born in Persia but in what is now Tajikistan, Afganistan.


I’d read a few of Rumi’s poems before but didn’t know anything about him.  Like everything else I’m reading this term, there is so much more I want to know about that time period: what was going on everywhere else at the time, more about sufiism, more about Persia and Afganistan at the time, more about Islam.  Rumi’s poetry reminded me of Sappho – maybe because both wrote so passionately about love and the beloved.  It’s hard for me to analyze and dissect these poems – their strength for me lies in the emotions I feel when reading them, in the power of the words - and so I want to save certain pieces I loved, so I can come back and savour them later.  I can see this being a book I’ll want to come back to and read in the future.

Rumi speaks often of love as being as a unifying force, of two souls combining. 
In I AM NOT (on page 56) he says:
I have put duality away
And seen the two worlds as one.

THE RUINS OF MY HEART (page 49)
[…]
My soul spills into yours and is blended
Because my soul has absorbed your fragrance,
I cherish it.

Every drop of blood I spill
informs the earth,
“I merge with my Beloved when I participate in love.”
[…]

He often includes imagery of wine and drunkenness, perhaps to show how love intoxicates the lover, how love infuses you and affects your thoughts, body and reason.  Many of his poems mention his beloved, Shamsi Tabriz.  At the end of  SWEEP THE DUST OFF THE SEA, on page 34

The Sun of Tabriz keeps me
drunk and languishing in this state

THE INNER GARMENT OF LOVE (pg 69)
[…]
Be drunk with love,
for love is all that exists.
Where is intimacy found
If not in the give and take of love.

Love for Rumi seems to be his way through the world, to spirituality, to fulfillment.  It’s not all sweetness & light and angels singing.  Many of his poems mention fire, burning, conflict, suffering, piercing.

DIDN’T I SAY? (Pg 22)
[…]
Didn’t I say, “They will waylay you and make you cold,
I am the fire and your warm desire.”
[…]


EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION (pg 41)
[…]
Those glances of love were arrows,
piercing and killing all reason
[…]
Hundreds of thousands of full moons
Are dedicated to the all night fever of His love
[…]
All perceptions are riding on lame donkeys,
While He is an arrow travelling through space.
[…]

In SONG OF THE REED (pg 50)
[…]
I want a heart torn open with longing
to share the pain of this love.
[…]
It is the fire of love that inspires the flute.
It is the ferment of love that completes the wine.
[…]

THE INNER GARMENT OF LOVE (pg 69)
[…]
If they ask what Love is,
Say: the sacrifice of will.
If you have not left your will behind,
You have no will at all.
[…]
Between the mirror and the heart
Is this single difference:
The heart conceals secrets,
While the mirror does not.

Rumi contrasts love and reason in some of his poems with reason proving the lesser faculty.

THE PULL OF LOVE (pg 31)
 […]
Though reason is learned and has its honours,
It pawned its cap and robe for a cup of love.
[…]

He describes reason as something very black and white, cold, demanding - not as a quality that brings purpose, depth and joy to life.

LOVE IS RECKLESS (pg 53)
Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong, consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone
Hard surfaced and straightforward.

Having died to self-interest,
She risks everything and asks for nothing.
Love gambles away every gift God bestows.
[…]
Religion seeks grace and favour,
But those who gamble these away are God’s favourites,
For they neither put God to the test
Nor knock at the door of gain and loss.

LOVE IS A STRANGER (pg 18)
[…]
Reason, do not envy my mouth.
[…]
 whether you have raised a flag or a pen,
the night is gone and day has arrived,
and the sleeper shall see what he has dreamed.

He seems to suggest that reason tries to control love, to control the body and the person.  I’m not sure where Rumi thinks reason lives.  One of his line talks about covering “my reason, my head and my feet” suggesting Rumi doesn’t associate reason with the brain, certainly not with the heart as Mencius did.

WHAT A MAN CAN SAY (pg 28)
In the name of friendship
Don’t repeat to my Beloved
All that I said last night,
Out of my mind;
But if, by God, she hears it,
She’ll understand what a man can say
In the dark, loud or quiet, rough or soft,
When reason is not at home.
[…]

THE HOUSE OF LOVE (pg 67)
[…]
But you build up thought
like a massive wooden door.
Set fire to the wood.
Silence the noise of the heart.
Hold your harmful tongue.


While Rumi seems to fully support Love, this doesn’t apply to all passions (greed, envy etc).

EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION (pg 42)
[…]
If night never came, people would waste themselves
Pursuing all that they desire.
They would give their own bodies to be consumed
For the sake of their desires and greed,
But night appears, a treasure of Mercy,
To save them from desires for a short while.
[…]

When it comes to love though, moderation does not seem to be what Rumi recommends.

EMPTY THE GLASS OF YOUR DESIRE (pg 74)
Join yourself to friends
And know the joy of the soul.
Enter the neighbourhood of ruin
With those who drink to the dregs.

Empty the glass of your desire
So that you won’t be disgraced.
Stop looking for something out there
And begin seeing within.
[…]
When the earth is this wide,
Why are you asleep in a prison?
Think of nothing but the source of thought.
Feed the soul; let the body fast.

Love is not without its suffering but for Rumi even this has purpose. Love and spirituality are joined together in Rumi’s poetry.  For Rumi, Love seems to be transcendent and his words make you feel that even if it hurts and changes and doesn’t give you a “fairytale” ending, Love is a path worth pursuing because of its transcendent power:

THE GUEST HOUSE (pg 44)
[…]
Whatever sorrow takes away or causes the heart to shed,
it puts something better in its place –
especially for one who is certain
that sorrow is the servant of the intuitive.
[…]

WHEN A MAN AND WOMAN BECOME ONE (pg 55)
[…]
The garden of love is green without limit
and yields many fruits other than sorrow or joy.

TO TAKE A STEP WITHOUT FEET (pg 59)
This is love: to fly towards  a secret sky,
To cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
[…]

LOVE IS A STRANGER (pg 18)
[…]
Love is a stranger with a strange language
[…]

ON THE DEATHBED (pg 23)
[…]
On this path, Love is the emerald,
the beautiful green that wards off dragons.
 […]

A WORLD WITH NO BOUNDARIES (pg 61)
With every breath the sound
Of love surrounds us,
And we are bound for the depths
Of space, without distraction.

We’ve been in orbit before
And know the angels there.
Let’s go there again, Master,
For that is our land.
[…]
out beyond duality
we have a home, and it is Majesty
[…]


These following lines don’t really demonstrate anything related to reason or passion but they are just phrases that I liked and wanted to remember.

ELEGY FOR SANA’I (pg 68)
[…]
he valued the whole world at a single barleycorn.
[…]


WORDS OF ALI WHEN HE REFUSED TO KILL AN OPPONENT WHO SPAT IN HIS FACE (pg 82)
[…]
I am not chaff but a mountain of patience.
[…]

EXPANSION AND CONTRACTION (pg 43)
[…] the eyes of the wise see to the end […]

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