Happy 2021 Birthday to One of the Greatest Poets in History, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi

by Robert Wilkinson

It seems this week has produced some extraordinary Spiritual Beings across time! Today is the 814th birthday of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi, a.k.a. Rumi.

Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic whose poetry is admired around the world. From Wikipedia:

Iranians, Turks, Afghans, Tajiks, and other Central Asian Muslims as well as the Muslims of South Asia have greatly appreciated his spiritual legacy in the past seven centuries. Rumi's importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world's languages and transposed into various formats. In 2007, he was described as the "most popular poet in America."

Please check out the Wikipedia entry for Rumi to learn more about his life and teachings. For now, I’ll just give you four poems I believe will show you the genius of this mystic man for the ages.

The first two are from the book “We Are Three,” translated by Coleman Barks

#1793

When you are with everyone but me,
You are with no one.
When you are with no one but me,
You are with everyone.
Instead of being so bound up with everyone,
Be everyone.
When you become that many,
You are nothing. Empty.

#1886

I went to the doctor.
“I feel lost, blind with love. What should I do?”
Give up owning things and being somebody. Quit existing.

I gave these next two to you a while ago, and figured this to be a perfect time to reprint them. As I noted in the original post, as for “Heartache,” I don't endorse seeking it out, but if you are confronted by it, take heart, since the Beloved is at the gate! When we can laugh at heartache, we are truly closer to the Truth than we may think. This is one method to get beyond our tendency to cling to our suffering.

Heartache

Learn from the Prophet an alchemy: Whatever God gives you, be content.

At the very moment you become content in affliction, the door of paradise will open.

If the messenger of heartache comes to you, embrace him like a friend!

A cruelty that comes from the Beloved -- bestow upon it a warm welcome!

Then that heartache can throw off its veil, rain down sugar, and be gentle and heart-ravishing.

Seize the edge of heartache's veil, for she is beautiful but deceptive.

In this lane, I am the whoremonger, I -- I have pulled off the veil from every beautiful face.

They all put on ugly veils so that you will think they are dragons.

But I am fed up with my spirit -- I worship dragons! If you are fed up with your spirit, then hear their calls of welcome!

Heartache can never find me without laughter -- I call the pain the "cure."

Nothing is more blessed than heartache, for its reward has no end.

If you do not show your manliness, you will find nothing. I will be silent, lest a mistake jump from my mouth.

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Divan-i Shams-i Tabrizi, poem 2675, from W. C. Chittick, "The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi," (State University of New York Press, 1983), pp. 293-4.

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Spiritual Windowshoppers

These spiritual windowshoppers,

who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.

They handle a hundred items and put them down,

shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love, and two eyes wet with weeping.

But these walk into a shop,

and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,

in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."

What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,

buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.

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By Jalaluddin Rumi, from the Divani Shamsi Tabrizi, version by Coleman Barks, From "Rumi: Like This"

© Copyright 2021 Robert Wilkinson

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