Life of Rumi

Reason is powerless in the expression of Love. Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover. The way of our prophets is the way of Truth. If you want to live, die in Love; die in Love if you want to remain alive.

I silently moaned so that for a hundred centuries to come,

The world will echo in the sound of my hayhâ1 hayhâ and hayhât, a corruption of the same term in Persian means 'alas' or 'woe to me!'

It will turn on the axis of my hayhât

(Divan, 562:7)

The name Mowlana Jalaluddin Rumi stands for Love and ecstatic flight into the infinite. Rumi is one of the great spiritual masters and poetical geniuses of mankind and was the founder of the Mawlawi Sufi order, a leading mystical brotherhood of Islam.

Rumi was born in Wakhsh (Tajikistan) under the administration of Balkh in 30 September 1207 to a family of learned theologians. Escaping the Mongol invasion and destruction, Rumi and his family traveled extensively in the Muslim lands, performed pilgrimage to Mecca and finally settled in Konya, Anatolia, then part of Seljuk Empire. When his father Bahaduddin Valad passed away, Rumi succeeded his father in 1231 as professor in religious sciences. Rumi 24 years old, was an already accomplished scholar in religious and positive sciences.

He was introduced into the mystical path by a wandering dervish, Shamsuddin of Tabriz. His love and his bereavement for the death of Shams found their expression in a surge of music, dance and lyric poems, `Divani Shamsi Tabrizi'. Rumi is the author of six volume didactic epic work, the `Mathnawi', called as the 'Koran in Persian' by Jami, and discourses, `Fihi ma Fihi', written to introduce his disciples into metaphysics.

If there is any general idea underlying Rumi's poetry, it is the absolute love of God. His influence on thought, literature and all forms of aesthetic expression in the world of Islam cannot be overrated.

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi died on December 17, 1273. Men of five faiths followed his bier. That night was named Sebul Arus (Night of Union). Ever since, the Mawlawi dervishes have kept that date as a festival.

The day I've died, my pall is moving on -

But do not think my heart is still on earth!

Don't weep and pity me: "Oh woe, how awful!"

You fall in devil's snare - woe, that is awful!

Don't cry "Woe, parted!" at my burial -

For me this is the time of joyful meeting!

Don't say "Farewell!" when I'm put in the grave -

A curtain is it for eternal bliss.

You saw "descending" - now look at the rising!

Is setting dangerous for sun and moon?

To you it looks like setting, but it's rising;

The coffin seems a jail, yet it means freedom.

Which seed fell in the earth that did not grow there?

Why do you doubt the fate of human seed?

What bucket came not filled from out the cistern?

Why should the Yusaf "Soul" then fear this well?

Close here your mouth and open it on that side.

So that your hymns may sound in Where- no-place!

Schimmel, Annemarie. Look! This Is Love: Poems of Rumi.

Boston, Mass.: Shambhala Publications, 1991.

Wirling Dervishes

As waves upon my head the circling curl,

So in the sacred dance weave ye and whirl.

Dance then, O heart, a whirling circle be.

Burn in this flame - is not the candle He?

The Mawlawi rites samâ symbolise the divine love and mystical ecstasy; they aim at union with the Divine. The music and the dance are designed to induce a meditative state on the love of God.

what is samâ? A message from the fairy, hidden in your heart;

with their letter comes serenity to the estranged heart.

The tree of wisdom comes to bloom with this breeze;

The inner pores of existence open to this tune.

When the spiritual cock crows, the dawn arrives;

When Mars beats his drum victory is ours.

The essence of the soul was fighting the barrel of the body;

When it hears the sound of the daf it matures and calms down.

A wondrous sweetness is sensed in the body;

It is the sugar that the flute and the flute-player bring to the listener.

(Divan, 1734:1-5)

Translated by Fatemeh Keshavarz,

'Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi',

University of South Carolina Press, 1998.

Whoever has heard of me, let him prepare to come and see me; whoever desires me, let him search for me. He will find me - then let him choose none other than I.

Shamsuddin of Tabrizi

What is to be done, O Moslems? for I do not recognize myself.

I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.

I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;

I am not of Nature's mint, nor of the circling' heaven.

I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;

I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.

I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqsin

I am not of the kingdom of 'Iraqian, nor of the country of Khorasan

I am not of the this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell

I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwan.

My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless ;

'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.

I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;

One I seek, One I know J One I see, One I call.

He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward;

I know none other except 'Ya Hu' and 'Ya man Hu.'

I am intoxicated with Love's cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken ;

I have no business save carouse and revelry.

If once in my life I spent a moment without thee,

From that time and from that hour I repent of my life.

If once in this world I win a moment with thee,

I will trample on both worlds, I will dance in triumph for ever.

O Shamsi Tabriz, I am so drunken in this world,

That except of drunkenness and revelry I have no tale to tell.

From Divan-i Shams

Mathnawi and Divan on a CD

Rumi's Works

From the Introduction to "The Sufi Path of Love",

William Chittick, Albany, 1983.

Rumi's major works are the Diwan-i Shams-i Tabriz-i (The Works of Shams of Tabriz - named in honor of Rumi's great friend and inspiration, the dervish Shams), comprising some 40,000 verses, and the Mathnawi of about 25,000 verses. Additionally, three collections of his talks and letters have been preserved.

The Diwan is made up of some 3,230 ghazals totaling 35,000 verses; 44 tarjiat, poems composed of two or more ghazals, a total of 1,700 verses; and 2,000 rubaiyat, or "quatrains". Its creation spanned a period of almost thirty years, from sometime after the arrival of Shams in Konya (Turkey), until Rumi's death. This is an important point, for it is often forgotten that much of the Diwan was composed concurrently with the Mathnawi, during the last twelve or fourteen years of Rumi's life.

The Mathnawi comprises six books of poetry in a didactic style (designed or intended to teach; intended to convey instruction and information as well as for pleasure and entertainment). Whereas the Diwan contains Rumi's individual ghazals and other miscellaneous poems arranged according to the rhyme scheme, the Mathnawi represents a single work which was composed in its present order.

Biographers state that Rumi began the Mathnawi at the suggestion of his then-favorite disciple, Husam al-Din Chalabi, who knew that many of Rumi's devotees also studied carefully the didactic poetry of Sanai-i and Attar, two masters who had preceded Rumi. Such works present Sufi teachings in a form readily accessible and easily memorized, and are better suited to the warmth and fellowship of Sufi circles than the classical textbooks labored over by savants.

When Chalabi presented Rumi with the idea that he should write a work in the style of Sanai-i and Attar, to complement his other poetry, the story is told that Rumi responded by taking down from his turban a slip of paper containing the first eighteen lines of the Mathnawi. From then on Rumi and Chalabi met regularly, Rumi composing and dictating, and Chalabi writing and editing. This work began around 1260 A.D. and continued with certain delays until Rumi's death in 1273. The sixth book of the work breaks off in the middle of a story, indicating that Rumi apparently died before completing it.

Like the Sufi teaching collections before it, the Mathnawi is a rambling collection of anecdotes and tales derived from a great variety of sources -- from the Koran, from folktales, from jokes, and from ecstatic experience. Each story is told to illustrate some point, and its moral is discussed in detail. The subject matter of the anecdotes and more particularly of the digressions, runs the whole of Islamic wisdom, with particular emphasis upon the inward or Sufi interpretation. In contrast to the Diwan, the Mathnawi is relatively sober. It represents a reasoned and measured attempt to explain the various dimensions of spiritual life and practice to disciples intent upon following the Way. More generally, it is aimed at anyone who has time to sit down and ponder the meaning of life and existence.

Rumi dedicated the Mathnawi to Husam Chalabi, claiming that he was the only one who understood the vast and secret order of that work.

Rumi was born on the Eastern shores of the Persian Empire in 1207 (in the city of Balkh in what is now Afghanistan), and finally settled in the town of Konya, in what is now Turkey. His life story reads like a fairy tale. A genius theologian, a pillar of Islam, a brilliant sober scholar, meets a wandering wild darvish by the name of Shams of Tabriz, and almost overnight is transformed into an enraptured lover of God. It seems that the universe brought these two opposing characters together to remind us for eternity that it is never what you expect when it comes to mysticism. It is impossible to know where your next inspiration may come from, or who will become the conduit for your transformation. For Rumi the life of mystics is a "gathering of lovers, where there is no high or low, smart or ignorant, no proper schooling required." Rumi and his spiritual friend Shams left an undying legacy of the way-of-the-heart triumphing over intellect and logic.

Excerpt from Shahram Shiva's book

Hush Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi (Jain Publishing, 1999)

The Growing Phenomenon of Rumi

Rumi, the 13th century Persian mystic poet, has been called the greatest mystical poet of any age. His Spiritual and literary influence is so pervasive in the East that his name is often prefaced by the reverential term "Moulana" (Our Master). During a period of 25 years, he composed over 70,000 verses of poetry -- poetry of divine love, mystic passion and ecstatic illumination. Scholars of his work today believe that Rumi is one of the greatest poets of all time, and that his work is comparable to that of Dante and Shakespeare.

One reason for Rumi's popularity is that "Rumi is able to verbalize the highly personal and often confusing world of personal/spiritual growth and mysticism in a very forward and direct fashion. He does not offend anyone, and he includes everyone. The world of Rumi is neither the world of a Sufi, nor the world of a Hindu, nor a Jew; it is the highest state of the human being, an ensaan-e kaamel, which means a complete human. And a complete human is not bound by cultural limitations; he touches every one of us. Today Rumi's poems can be heard in churches, synagogues, Zen monasteries, as well as in the downtown New York art/performance/music scene." says Shahram Shiva. The new age author Andrew Harvey says Rumi is "not only a supreme poet, but also an essential guide to the new mystical renaissance that is struggling to be born today. He is the spiritual inspiration for the 21st century."

Rumi's work has been translated into many of the world's languages including Russian, German, French, Italian and Spanish, and is appearing in a growing number of formats including concerts, workshops, readings, dance performances and other artistic creations.

Why Rumi? Here are 12 Reasons

- Non-Intellectual:

They found Rumi to cater to their hearts, emotions and instincts rather than intellects.

2- Levels:

They found many levels in Rumi's poetry. The more they learned about Rumi,

the more they appreciated his depth and were encouraged to dig deeper.

3- Unity:

They found the sense of unity and universal siblinghood in Rumi's poetry to be very attractive.

4- Friend:

They found him to be a friend.

5- Personal:

Reading Rumi for them is a personal process. They associate themselves with him.

6- Grace Descending:

Every time a Rumi poem was recited they felt Grace descending.

7- Longing:

They associated with the sense of longing in Rumi's poems.
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8- Love Affair:

Rumi was like a lover to some of the participants.

9- Religious Bridge:

They found Rumi to form a religious bridge for the Moslems in this country.

Through Rumi some Moslems found a new acceptance in the U.S.

0- They Don't Even Like Poetry:

Some expressed that they don't even like poetry but they love reading Rumi poems.

1- Participate in the Process:

They found Rumi extremely expressive and found themselves participating in Rumi's own process.

2- ...

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