"THE HERE AND NOW OF GOD:
RUMI’S FEAST FOR ALL SOULS”
"In the future...in
the distance...are illusions.
Taste the here
and now of God" -Rumi
a paper prepared for
The Berkshire Group
Rowe Camp, Massachusetts
October 2002
by
The
Rev. Barbara Merritt
First
Unitarian Church
90
Main Street
Worcester, MA 01608
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
I.
THE DREAM OF LEADERSHIP:
In which Rumi offers a cautionary tale to liberal religious leaders, and a
suggestion to "keep your head down."
The Image: The Peacock's Feathers
II. SELL INTELLECT,
BUY BEWILDERMENT:
On the ongoing paradoxical nature of religious knowledge.
The image: The Kingdom of Saba
III.
HELPLESS SEEKERS:
What our hunger and thirst have to tell us about reality. What it means to
not have what you want. The spiritual gifts of imperfection and dissatisfaction.
The image: Majnun and the Camel
IV.
WORTHY OF HOPE, WORTHY OF ACTION,
SUMMONING COURAGE:
Keep moving.
The image: The Merchant and the Voyage
INTRODUCTION
In 1979 I took a three-month sabbatical in India. During that
time, with the help and guidance of a Persian scholar, I studied the Masnavi,
a 1400 page poem written in the 13th century. I was formally introduced to
the mystic Jalala-Din Rumi. I fell in love.
In Rumi, I found a saint, a lover of God, a poet of astonishing
gifts, who had room at the spiritual table for the likes of me. He welcomed
skeptics and cynics, and followers of all religions. He acknowledged the emotional
realities of the fearful, the despairing, the hopeless, the lost. He was a
brilliant philosopher, a man with a stunning intellect, a profound observer
of human nature, a sharp analyst of the mind.
Rumi was an ecstatic devotee of his Master, Shams Tabriz.
Rumi spoke in a language familiar to the religiously orthodox. But his methods
and style were highly unorthodox. In his stories and poems, he used sarcasm
and humor, even occasionally including sexually explicit stories in order
to capture the attention of his audience. He was playful, lyrical and brutally
candid. He seemed to understand and love people as deeply as he loved God.
No wonder, that he has been called "The Shakespeare of Spirituality,”
and one of "the first apostles of religious tolerance".
In The Cloud of Unknowing,
another spiritual classic, written by an anonymous English monk in the 15th
century, the author begins; This book is ONLY for “persons who are really
and wholly determined to follow Christ perfectly." [1]
Rumi's work could be understood to be at the absolute opposite
end of the spectrum. Rumi wrote for the atheist, as well as the disciple.
He wrote for the secularist, and the sensualist and the deluded. He spoke
to those lost in pride and arrogance, and those who couldn't even remember
what they were looking for. He spoke to every man and woman about a love that
is always "pulling us by the ear." He spoke of a love that is present
and available to every soul, right here on earth.
Rumi's invitation is eloquent and compelling. He assures us
that in both our coming towards what is ultimately true, and in our continual
evasions, detours and retreats, we are acceptable.
"Half of any person is wrong and weak and off the path. Half! The other half is dancing and swimming and flying in the invisible joy."(CB)[2]
Rumi was able to accurately name what leads us astray, what
keeps us from being able to claim our spiritual inheritance. At the same time
with evocative and tender instruction, he points us in the direction of "what
we really love".
Why are we human beings so easily blind to abundance, to truth,
to the power of love? Rumi gives hundreds of answers to that question. In
this paper I will be focusing on two answers that seem to me to be especially
significant to Unitarian Universalists. He claims that we are blind because
of our pride and intellect. To put it more distinctly, we can't see God in
the here and now, because all of our attention is directed towards our own
self, our own mind and power. Rumi sees in the midst of this love of leadership
our complacency, our self-involvement, our arrogance, and our poverty. All
these keep us lost and confused and bewildered.
And what saves us? Our being lost and confused and bewildered.
Rumi explains that our confusion and anxiety make us hungry for something
more real, more sustaining, more dependable than our own minds. We become
seekers: wanting what we don't yet have, discovering how much help we need.
There are many themes in Rumi's work that would be especially
difficult for most Unitarian Universalists to relate to: the necessity for
a teacher, the discipline and sacrifice required for spiritual advancement,
the patience, and trust and obedience needed. Not all the spiritual food that
is available at Rumi's abundant feast will feed each guest. Nevertheless,
more and more people, in our own time and culture, are finding inspiration
and hope and comfort at this table. There is sweetness here, and nourishment,
and food for the soul.
–˜–™—
I. THE DREAM
OF LEADERSHIP
The Image: The Peacock's Feathers
The two-colored, double-faced peacock displays himself
for the sake of name and fame. His desire is to catch people; he is ignorant
of the good and evil and of the result and use of that catching. He catches
his prey ignorantly like a trap. What knowledge has the trap concerning the
purpose of its action? What harm comes to the trap, or what benefit, from
catching its prey? I wonder at its idle catching! O brother, you have uplifted
your friends with two hundred marks of affection, and then abandoned them.
This has been your business from the hour of your birth, to catch people with
the trap of love. From that pursuit of people and throng of friends, and vain
glory and self-existence will you get any warp or woof? Try and see! Most
of your life is gone and the day is late, yet you are still busy in pursuit
of people. Go on catching one and releasing another from the trap and pursuing
another, like mean folk. Then again release this one and seek the other! Here’s
a game for headless children. Night comes, and nothing is caught in your trap.
The trap is nothing but a headache and shackle to you.
In reality, you were catching yourself with the trap, for you are imprisoned
and disappointed by your desire. Is any owner of a trap in the world, such
a dolt that, like us, he tries to catch himself? Pursuit of the vulgar is
like hunting pig; the fatigue is infinite, and tis unlawful to eat a morsel
thereof. That which is worth pursuing is Love alone, but how should love be
contained in anyone’s trap? Yet, perhaps you may come and be made love’s prey,
you may discard the trap, and go into the beloved’s trap. Love is saying very
softly into my ear, “To be a prey, is better than to be a hunter. (RN) [3]
–˜–™—
There
are many ways to understand the calling to our liberal religious ministry:
a chance to serve, or the privilege of walking with human beings through their
greatest joy and deepest sorrow. As preachers we have inherited the legacy
of the “learned pulpit.” We are paid to read scripture, theology, poetry,
and great literature. We can immerse ourselves in the secular media. We can
travel the world religions in search of wisdom and insight. In Emerson’s words,
we deal out our “life passed through the fire of thought.” We have people
who listen to us, who pay attention to what we say. Some people even describe
us as “religious.” Rumi speaks to our kind. This 13th century poet
and mystic from another culture, time, and tradition appears to be reading
my mail.
“Abandon the state of being loved by people, and adopt the practice of loving God, O You, who think you are excellent and pre-eminent. O You, who are really more silent than night, how long will you seek a purchase for your words? Your own self is the only pupil that is faithful to you. How long will you set up a show on a public road? You are foot sore with travel, and no desire of yours has been fulfilled.” (RN)[4]
Rumi is trying to wake up his listeners. He asks the teacher, the minister, the one at the front of the room to take a closer look at the dangers of this occupation.
“You wander landscapes in your dreams. You’re still looking for admiration! You love how your customers look at you. You sit at the head of the assembly. When you close your eyes, you see people applauding, as surely as an owl shuts its eyes and sees the forest. You live in an admiration-world, but what do you offer admirers? If you had true spirit gifts to give, you would not think of customers.” (CB)[5]
He accuses us of wanting customers rather than wanting truth. We appear to be “imitating” a holy person. We know the words of religion, but not the music. We might be able to beautifully describe to our listeners the recipe for bread. But too rarely do we ourselves eat the bread, let alone have bread to offer others.
“Though the eloquent imitator speak words finer than a hair, his heart has no knowledge of those words. He has a certain intoxication from his own words, but there is a good distance between him and the wine. He is like a river-bed; it does not drink any water, the water passes through it to the water-drinkers.” (RN)[6]
I strongly suspect that I am not the only minister who has actively sought out flattery, praise, honor and applause. It has always appeared to me to be a good thing to have a congregation that thinks its minister is “wonderful.” This process of “idealization” allows the church to focus only on our strengths, our gifts, our virtues, our esteem in the community. We weave together our integrity, our vision, our good works, our verbal abilities, and hope that no one looks in the direction of our weaknesses, failures, anger, fear, insecurity or defects of character. It is usually considered a benefit of our ministry, a blessing, that being a religious leader allows us to be publicly declared to be of value; respected, and a supporter of good and righteous causes.
But Rumi tries to warn us:
“The touchstone that keeps hidden the quality, is not a touchstone, nor the light of knowledge. The mirror that keeps hidden the defects of the face to flatter every cuckold, is not a true mirror; it is hypocritical. Do not seek such a mirror, so long as you can help it.” (RN)[7]
Actually, this is Rumi being “gentle” with his listeners. “Avoid bad mirrors”…even if your congregation tells you that you are a wonderful person and a gifted minister? Why avoid praise? Read on:
“You take pride in the fact that people, from fear and bondage, have become your flatterers for a few days. When men bow in adoration, they are really cramming poison into your soul. When his adorer turns away from him, he knows that was poisonous and destructive to him. The higher anyone goes, the more foolish he is, for his bones will be worse broken.” (RN)[8]
“The
effect of praise lasts for many days and becomes a source of arrogance and
deception of the soul. But it does not show itself, because praise is sweet.
Pharaoh was made what he was, by an abundance of praise.” (RN)[9]
“The
enemy gives vain words, that he may strip off you skin. Woe to him that tastes
opium from the mouth of enemies. He lays your head at his feet in flattery,
and butcher-like, gives you vain, wheedling words, that he may shed your blood
miserably.” (RN)[10]
“If
the sweetness of pride exalts thee for a moment, yet its latent fear and dread
consume thee.” (RN)[11]
Pride, praise, arrogance, flattery; these are the
enemies of the spirit. Rumi notes that the “Pharoah (and his advisors) ‘lived
in the pride of competing egos.’ If your fortunes rise in the world, ‘watch
out!’ advises Rumi, ‘You will be doing a lot of running around to get hit
on the head in different ways.’” (CB)[12]
“Don’t
feel honored. Feel cautious, careful, and alert. Public attention is a poisoned
wine that delights for a moment; then your head drops over. Eminence burns
like oil fire, hard to control. Your truth comes when you’re flat on the ground,
so keep your head down. Get off the ladder! You are not in some co-partnership
with God!” (CB)[13]
Co-creators? Co-partners? That is not the theological
position this mystic wants us to embrace. He is holding up another kind of
mirror, and he doesn’t seem to mind showing us an unflattering reflection.
For instance, what Unitarian Universalist minister doesn’t appreciate a wonderful
quote? An insightful, well-written article? A graceful line of poetry? We
sprinkle them liberally throughout our sermons. I believe they make us look
scholarly, smart, well-spoken, and well-read. Or do they? Can any of us forgive
Rumi for the following metaphor about our well-meaning efforts to use the
eloquent, inspirational words of others?
“An
old woman wanted to lure a man with strange cosmetics. She made a paste of
pages from the Koran to fill the deep creases on her face and neck with. This
is not about an old woman, dear reader. It’s about you, or anyone who tries
to use books to make themselves attractive. There she is, sticking scripture,
thick with saliva, on her face. Of course, the bits keep falling off. So people
steal inspired words to get compliments. Don’t bother.” (CB)[14]
Welcome to Rumi, a teacher of independent means.
That is, he doesn’t seek our praise, our flattery, our appreciation. He is
trying to grab the attention of his listeners. He offers outrageous images,
and insult, and pointed critiques, hoping that somehow we will hear some truths
that are currently outside of our daily routines and bad habits.
He describes intellectuals as “impoverished.” He
takes us off our masks of respectability and harmless good will. He describes
us as being so interiorly poor that we steal from everyone.
“If
any guest arrive, if I am I, as sure as I am living, I will go for his tattered
cloak when he falls asleep at night. One must become the guest of those who
can confer benefits. You are the disciple and guest of one who, from vileness,
robs you of all you have. I am not strong, how should I make you strong? I
do not give light; no, I make you dark. Since I had no light, how in association,
should others obtain light from me? I am like the half blind healer of eyes.
What should I put in eyes except wool? Such is the state of our poverty and
affliction – may no guest be beguiled by us!” (RN)[15]
“Do
not brag of perfume, for the smell of onions is revealing the secret of your
breath. You are saying, ‘I have eaten rose-sugar,’ while the smell of garlic
is striking your audience and saying, ‘Don’t talk nonsense.’” (RN[16])
Rumi’s message is fairly simple. Our reality is known, sometimes to
our congregations, sometimes even to ourselves, certainly to God.
While we are busy trying to improve the world, and earn approval, and
make a living, and find comfort and solace with our family and friends (all
good and noble endeavors), we ignore the danger close by. Rumi puts it bluntly;
“Your worst enemy is between your two sides.” (RN)[17]
And our intelligence and pride isn’t going to liberate
us.
“How
long will you say, ‘I will conquer a whole world. I will make this world full
of myself ‘? If the world should be filled with snow, from end to end, the
glow of the sun would melt it in a single look. (RN)[18]
“You
strive much, and at last, even you yourself say in weariness that the intellect
is a fetter.” (RN)[19]
“Scholarly
knowing is a vertigo, an exhausted famousness. Listening is better. Being
a teacher is a form of desire, a lightning flash.” (CB)[20]
“Strenuous
intellectual swimming goes nowhere. Lift yourself into the ark with Muhammad
and Jesus and the true human beings, who seem contemptuously “low” to the
“mountains” of intellect. A single flood wave covers that prominence.”(CB)[21]
“True human beings;” that is what Rumi is trying
to cultivate. He wants us to:
“Seek
the applause and renown that does not die away; the splendor of the sun that
does not sink.” (RN)[22]
The way to our true humanity does not go in the
direction of praise and flattery. He wants us to embrace something more spiritually
productive.
“My
mission now is quietness and humility, not self-advertisement.” (CB)[23]
“True human beings” go by way of identifying with
everyone, with every struggling soul.
“Never
say, or think, ‘I am better than…’ That’s what Satan thought about Adam.”
(CB)[24]
And Rumi tells us not to be afraid of failure:
“Be
ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are. You’ve been
stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.” (CB)[25]
It is not that Rumi wants his audience to be silent,
or meek, or self- depreciating or discouraged. He just doesn’t want us to
rely on our own cleverness, or own egotism, our own vanity. Especially since
Rumi himself was the head of the Philosophy Department at the finest university
in Persia, he hopes that we can “escape the mischief of philosophy.” (RN)[26]
“Speak
softly, but do not speak anything except the truth. Do not offer temptation
in the mildness of your address. Do tell the clay-eater that sugar is better.
Do not show injurious softness; do not give him clay to eat.” (RN)[27]
“The
perfect speaker is like one who distributes trays of food, and whose table
is full of every sort of food. So that no guest remains without provisions,
but each one gets his own nourishment. There is food for the elect and for
the vulgar.” (RN)[28]
Everyone is to be fed at Rumi’s feast. But for those
who wish to move beyond delusion, in order to arrive at what is ultimately
real and loving and transformative, Rumi’s nourishment can be life giving.
II. SELL INTELLECT; BUY BEWILDERMENT
The Image: The Kingdom of Saba
The
Kingdom of Saba resembles the great big city which you may hear of from children
in their tales.
"Once there was a city very huge and great, but its size was the
size of a saucer, no more than that. It was very huge, and very broad and
very long, extremely big, as big as an onion. The people of ten cities were
assembled within it, but the whole population amounted to three fellows with
unwashed faces. Within Saba there were numerous people and folk, but the whole
of them amounted to three beggarly fools. One of the three was very far-sighted
(and blind: blind to Solomon and seeing the leg of an ant).) And the second
was very sharp of hearing (and extremely deaf). And the other, the
third, was naked and bare (but the skirts of his clothes were long.)
Know that Hope is the deaf man who has often heard of our dying,
but has not heard of his own death. The blind man is Greed: he sees
other people's faults, hair by hair, and tells them from street to street,
but his blind eyes do not perceive the mote of his own faults, even though
he is a fault finder. The naked man is afraid that his clothes will
be cut off: how should anyone cut off the clothes of a naked man? The worldly
man is destitute and terrified; he possesses nothing, yet he has dread of
thieves. Bare he came, and naked he goes, and all the while his heart is bleeding
with anxiety on account of the thief. At the hour of death, the rich man knows
that he has no gold, the keen-witted man too, knows that he is devoid of talent.
Each one is afraid of someone stealing his time, he fancies that he
possesses a great deal of knowledge. He says, 'They are wasting my time',
but in truth he has no time that is profitable…He knows a hundred thousand
superfluous matters, connected with the sciences, but that unjust man does
not know his own soul…his own essence." (RN)[29]
“There
is a glut of wealth in the city of Saba. Everyone has enough. Even the servants
wear gold belts. Huge grape clusters hang down on every street and brush the
faces of the citizens. No one has to do anything.
You can balance a basket on your head and walk through an orchard, and
it will fill by itself with overripe fruit dropping into it. The lean desert
wolf gets indigestion from the rich food. Everyone is fat and satiated with
all the extra. There are no robbers. There is no energy for crime, or for
gratitude, and no one wonders about the unseen world. The people of Saba feel
bored with just the mention of prophecy. They have no desire of any kind.
Maybe some idle curiosity about miracles, but that's it. This over-richness
is a subtle disease. Those who have it are blind to what's wrong.
The Sabaens say, 'There is no thanksgiving in us,
only weariness with receiving gifts. We're tired of wonder, tired of rest,
tired of excitement. No more orchards, please, no more beauty. The gift of
being does not delight us anymore.'
'But this is the soul-sickness we cure,' say the
prophets, 'Turn toward teachers and prophets who don't live in Saba. They
can help you grow sweet again, and fragrant and wild and fresh and thankful
for any small event. So bring your malaise, your dullness, your callous ingratitude.
As we meet you, the coming together itself will be medicine.'" (CB)[30]
–˜–™—
Rumi arrives with the not-very-good-news that we
don't live in as large a city as we thought we did. We are not as excellent
or as talented as we think we are. In truth, we are deaf, blind, and naked.
We "Sabeans" have lost the ability to acknowledge life's most important
gifts: we don't know what our death has to teach us; we don't understand our
own flaws and faults; we don't know what we possess or what we have been given.
We enjoy no thanksgiving and do not delight in our own being.
It is precisely to the "Sabean," to the
unawakened, to the unaware, that the teachers and prophets come. And while
Rumi describes the human condition in unsentimental ways, he also embraces
the human condition as the perfect ground-bed for spiritual development.
When Rumi wrote, "God has not created in the
earth or in the lofty heaven, anything more religious than the spirit of human
beings," he included "Sabeans," and all who live close by.
(RN)[31]
“Christian,
Jew, Moslem, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has
a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged."
(CB) [32]
Everyone has a seat at the table, and every aspect
of our complex nature is welcome.
"Believer,
unbeliever, cynic, lover, all combine in the spirit form we are." (CB)[33]
Rumi was explicit as to how open he understood his
religious neighborhood to be. He recognized literally everyone as a fellow
traveler.
"All religions, all this singing: one song."
(CB)[34]
And he himself, though steeped richly in the Islamic
and Sufi world, had little use for labels.
"What
is to be done, O Moslems? for I do not recognize myself
I am neither Christian, nor Jew, 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 heavens.
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 this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell;
I am not of Adam, nor of Eve,
I belong to the soul of my beloved." (RN)[35]
He
even included the atheist under the category of those that God especially
loves. He addresses God:
"Someone
claims to have evidence that you do not exist. You're the one who brings the
evidence in, and the evidence itself." (CB)[36]
God
so loves the world that he helps everyone to grasp their own truth. God will
go so far as to provide better evidence to atheists that there is no ultimate
goodness at the heart of the creation.
According
to Rumi, God doesn't worry too much about what we believe:
"You
are thinking devices whereby you may attain unto me: both in quitting and
in seeking me you are helpless. Your anguish is seeking a means of reaching
me, yet I was listening yesterday to the heavy sighs of today." (RN)[37]
The
seeker after truth sets out in a particular direction, with specific goals.
And yet the path we follow does not usually turn out to be the one we imagined.
"God
fixed your heart on a hundred passionate desires, disappointed you, and then
broke your heart. You make a hundred resolutions to journey…God draws you
to some other place." (RN)[38]
There
is no doubt that intelligence and talent and discernment are valued by Rumi
as gifts from God. But when we think that our sharp minds or keen insight
will impress God, or be especially pleasing to God, then we are greatly deluded.
Rumi
compares our circumstances to a man making a journey to King Solomon's palace.
He carries a few precious grains of gold that he possesses in a small highly-carved
intricate box. These few grains of gold are being carried by the envoy as
an expensive gift to offer to King Solomon. But on the way (carefully protecting
and guarding the valuable gift for his host) the traveler suddenly looks up
and notices a change in the landscape.
"When
the envoy reached the open plain belonging to Solomon, he saw that its carpet
was made entirely of solid gold. He rode on gold for the distance of 40 miles,
till gold had no more esteem in his sight. O Thou who has brought intelligence to God as a gift, there
intelligence is less in value than the dust of the road." (RN)[39]
Mystics
have always claimed that intelligence will not bring us close to the ultimate
truth; only love can do that. Additionally, they also state that the mind
is not as faithful a companion as most Unitarian Universalists claim that
it is. Many of us trust our intellectual capacities as one of the greatest
assets we have in this life. Rumi asks us to look again.
“I
have seen things from the deceitfulness of the mind, for by her magic, she
takes away the faculties of discernment. She will offer afresh to you promises
that she has broken thousands of times.” (RN)[40]
[I, who consider myself fairly intelligent, will happily