photo by Prabu Muruganantham

 

THE OPEN ROAD

peace, love & happiness newsletter

April 16, 2020

Spring with Rumi

Guest Editor: Prabu Muruganantham

 

After I read the Walt Whitman issue of the Open Road newsletter last week I suggested the idea of publishing an issue for Rumi’s poetry to Johnny and offered to collaborate with him on it. An hour later I received a reply:

“Okay.
Next week you can be Guest Editor.
Let’s talk about it after you get off from work today.”

I felt a bit nervous to say yes as I don’t have any experience as an editor. Also the guilt that I have not read that much Rumi, despite two copies of The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks sitting in my book shelf for over a year, added to that nervousness. Then I asked myself why my mind immediately went to Rumi upon reading a few lines by Whitman. What could be the thread in my Indian mind that connects a 19th Century American poet with a 13th Century Persian poet? What is common between a transcendentalist and an Islamic mystic? The connection, at least in my mind, lies in their unitive vision of all beings. 

A poet’s eye sees past this world of separateness that we inhabit. A poet’s words capture a few glimpses of their unitive vision. Through the poet, our vision also becomes expansive. It elevates us from our ordinary existence. It is an ecstatic state of blooming, of being born again by breaking open the shells that we have constructed for our selves. Whitman and Rumi’s poetry transport me to this ecstatic state. This is the association in my mind that made me think of one upon reading the other. I thought I will use Johnny’s invitation as an opportunity to expand my vision further. 

One of the first Rumi poems I ever read was “A Just Finishing Candle” . The imagery in this poem is so powerful that it has stayed with me since I first read those lines. Here is the poem:

 

A Just Finishing Candle 

A candle light is made to become entirely flame. 

In that annihilating moment
it has no shadow.

It is nothing but a tongue of light 

describing a refuge.

Look at this
Just-finishing candle stub
as someone who is finally safe 

from virtue and vice, 

the pride and the shame
we claim from those.

The wax of the candle has been completely melted and the candle is this bright tongue of light. It is serene at this annihilating moment. It illuminates the space with its whole life. 

Spring is sprouting with life again. I take walks every day to greet the buds, sprouts, flowers and leaves. A few weeks ago was my birthday, and I wanted to see a long time friend of mine. She is one of the first friends that I made when I migrated to Portland five years ago from India. In our busy world of appointments and schedules, she is someone I can visit whenever I wanted company. I am always welcomed at her abode. She lives by the road side on the nearby hill, but you would easily miss her from a car. I finished my work and started to hike up the hill. 

It was an early spring evening. The sun was going to hide behind the opposite side of the hill. His lights were slowly turning to become crimson. The slats thick cedar trunk was radiating red. Is it the sunlight or the redness of the bark that brings forth this glow? My mind started to ponder. From the depth of my memories rose a few lines of Rumi:

 

The Sunrise Ruby

…I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise. 

Is it still a stone or a world
made of redness? It has no resistance to sunlight.

 This is how Hallaj said, I am God,
and told the truth!

The Ruby and sunrise are one.
Be courageous and discipline yourself. 

Completely become hearing and ear, 

and wear this sun-ruby as earring.

The evening glow was at its zenith when I reached my friend’s abode. She wore her pink and purple gown to greet her guest. Her petal-like fingers waved at me. Magnolia is her name. Every time she greets me her smile is new and the same as freshness. I wondered at her magic. She moved the wind and whispered into my ears:

 

“You too are flowering 

like me, anew
every spring
of the year, 

every day of
the spring
and
every hour
of the day.”

Since then I have been struggling to express this flowering of my being, that she so elegantly whispered into my ears, through words. My words always fall short.

Whenever I attempt to write about it I feel the urge to drop my pen and pick up a flute. This poem by Rumi beautifully expresses my feeling, 

 

Where Everything Is Music 

Don’t worry about saving these songs! 

And if one of the instruments breaks, 

it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place 

where everything is music.

The strumming and flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world’s harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is a sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl 

somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge 

of driftwood along the beach, wanting! 

They derive

from a slow and powerful root
that we can’t see. 

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest, 

and let the spirits fly in and out. 

*

What follows are some thoughts on Rumi from my friends Kim, Johnny, Nancy, Katie and Bill.

Rumi’s Reach

How far does Rumi reach, from all those centuries ago? How does he still bring spring to us with his arresting proposals for a whole new way to see things?     

Twenty five years ago, when I had first met Perrin, who was to become my wife, in our first phone conversation she read me a quote by  Rumi that was on her fridge. The same quotation was on my fridge. What else did we need to know?     

I have a friend in Iran, Alireza, who told me he was in a cab in Tehran when he heard a sentence on the radio that arrested him. “That must be Rumi,” he thought. But then he learned the sentence had been written by Thoreau. Who was this Thoreau? he wondered. And this began a  project that took him seven years–to translate Walden into Farsi so Iranian readers could know about Thoreau, the Rumi of America.      

On my  journeys around Oregon as Poet Laureate, people often asked me, “What difference can poetry make for all our troubles. It’s just a little thing, and our troubles are great.” I tried to answer, but did not feel satisfied, so I sent an email message to Alireza in Iran, and asked him. This is what he wrote me: “The real question should be, ‘What can violence do?’ The answer would be:  ‘Nothing.’ Violence can’t help  us. Only poetry can help us. Poetry is oxygen. It helps us live. A good poem will satisfy your thirst. But a great poem–like that of Rumi–will deepen your thirst. Then the only  remedy will be more poetry. More connection. More life.”

—Kim Stafford

*

Long ago, I had a very short stay in college, but during that brief interlude I managed to find myself in classrooms at Portland State College where Nitya Chaitanya Yati was teaching the Bhagavad Gita and Nazeer El Azma taught a course in Sufism. Times have changed. 

Back then, I read Rumi’s mystical poetry in a translation by A. J. Arberry. Fast forward about 25 years, and, thanks to Coleman Barks, this 13th Century Persian poet was the best-selling poet in America. 

At a reading in Manhattan, Coleman Barks said that back in the day a bunch of people would sit around all day with Rumi. They would play music and dance, and Rumi would periodically recite poems and stories off the top of his head that were written down by scribes. Hanging out with Coleman Barks in a bookstore for an hour and-a-half felt a little bit like that. With his help, this is one of Rumi’s best known poems:

 

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

—Jelaluddin Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks

 

—Johnny Stallings

*

Two Ways of Talking 

We have this way of talking, and we have another.
Apart from what we wish and what we fear may happen, 

we are alive with other life, as clear stones
take form in the mountain. 

Rumi 

“We have this way of talking,” which is inherently practical. We use language to understand and relate with the world around us. Nouns signify and classify; verbs reflect the changing and changeable nature of ourselves as well as all that we perceive and interact with; adjectives and adverbs mirror continuous elaboration. The practical way of talking is a tool, a skill, an approach that serves us well, enabling us to discover many things, meet many needs, satisfy many desires. This way of talking aids in our many activities aimed at obtaining “what we wish” and preventing “what we fear may happen.” 

The education children are given at home and at school is geared toward enhancing their facility in this way of talking, fostering greater flexibility, breadth, and clarity in both comprehension and expression. Our pursuits as adults further develop our skills, particularly in our chosen fields of interest, vocational and recreational. Unfortunately, the specifying nature of this way of talking also leads to difficulties in communication. When we are ignorant of another’s language, whether of a different geographical area or a different field, misunderstandings can easily arise, creating a seedbed for conflict and hostility. 

“This way of talking” is not sufficient expression or reflection of all that we are or all that the world is. So “we have another.” We have exercised it less, explored it less, listened to it less, but it has always continued as an option for us all, and the dynamic practice of a few. This language, the mystical, seeks to express the essential nature of life, the “other life” we are alive with. We all have moments, or more, characterized by utter clarity, where our blinders fall away and no particular thing is so real to us as an all-embracing unity in which all things and our own beingness merge. This expansion of our narrow sense of self brings a release of fear, a sense of completeness which has the dynamic quality of love. Intuitively we know and we know what and how we know. 

But when we as individuals, or collectively, seek to convey that knowledge with our usual way of talking, confusion reigns. Categorizing nouns, acting verbs, and elaborating adjectives and adverbs are inadequate to express unitive reality. Specificity violates the nature of that reality, resulting in fractions between different religions and philosophies. And vagueness provides a context for delusion and illusion in which individuals and groups proffer and seek to acquire powers beyond the normal reach of human faculties, pursuing exotic ways of manipulating “what we wish and what we fear may happen.” 

Honest communication of the “other life we are alive with” requires another way of talking. The mystical has its own integrity and forms of expression where potent symbols are used to awaken another’s intuition of the same vibrant reality. Visual images and music are emphasized, even when words are also used, conveying to the reader far more than their surface meaning. When Rumi tells us “we are alive with other life, as clear stones take form in the mountain,” the inner brightness or encouragement we feel can’t be explained by a mere analysis of the words and symbols he uses. But in answer to his song and his vision, an affirmation arises from the core of our being. It thrills us like the whisper of a great secret or the recovery of a buried treasure. Whenever we hear the musical compositions, see the artistic creations, or read the writings of mystics, we are reminded of this other way of talking, which we all have. The language may be foreign, archaic, obscure, yet somehow it strikes a chord of familiarity in us, as we resonate with their experience. 

This other way of talking does not attempt to manipulate or accomplish; it is simply an outpouring of love and wonder. In our practical words we ask, “What is its purpose and value?” Like a tide, it can carry us beyond the barriers which divide us from each other, which hide our true nature from ourselves. We are reminded that we are more than our wishes and fears and the tangled web of actions they lead us to. We are alive with other life as clear stones take form in the mountain. 

 

—Nancy Yeilding (Originally published in Gurukulam Magazine, 1987)

*

Hi Prabu

Your essay is inspiring and embraces what Rumi continually offers to us across time and landscape. So generous to walk us through your thought process and feelings along the way.   It’s wonderful to make the connection with Whitman and Kim with Thoreau through his Persian friend.

Below is my favorite Rumi poem.  i had forgotten that it even has Spring in the title and first line! When i walk alone in the Magnolia grove in Forest Park the last two lines always come to me.  Have you been there?

This is the high time for standing beneath that attic of purple blossoms.  I wish we could all meet up for a picnic there in its winter garden circle.

My Magnolia suddenly burst out with white blossoms just in time for Easter / Resurrection day. 

 

COME TO THE ORCHARD IN SPRING

Come to the orchard in spring.

There is light and wine and sweethearts

in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.

If you do come, these do not matter.

 

–poem by Rumi, interpreted by Coleman Barks

 

I have stories of Coleman Barks, who came often to Looking Glass Bookstore, in the days when he was publishing his own books. 

Once, he came with a dancer to PCC for a performance of dance, song and poetry. Several of us had dinner together at a Persian Restaurant. We were with a friend from Iran who was writing a book about Darius and Persian history from a cultural perspective. Coleman struggled with the question of his worthiness to be the translator of Rumi’s poems. But Rumi spoke through him, in that ecstatic way that he spoke with Shams, with the beloved between them. That ecstatic conversation is called Sohbet in Fārsī; we don’t really have a comparable word, except maybe “communing.”  When Coleman came over to talk with our friend—(both of these men, burly, bigger than life gentle souls, who were strangers in a strange land)—he asked Coleman, “If Rumi came back and was here now, would you recognize him?”

Coleman bent and kissed his hand.

Here is another Spring poem:

 

Listening

Another year, another Spring!

The fragrance of love arrives.

So dancy, this new light on the ground, and in the tree.

The one who heals us lets whatever hurts the soul

 dissolve to a listening intelligence, where what we most deeply want, union with eternity, grows up around and inside us now!

—Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

 

—Katie Radditz

*

On a long relationship with Rumi

Many years ago, in reading through an anthology of sacred poetry, I was drawn to the poems of Rumi. Though I had read a few of his poems before, I was completely taken by what I read.  The images that he created and the reaction and insight they created for me were very affecting. Thus began a 30 year love affair with Rumi’s stories and poems that continues….

Jelaluddin Rumi was born in 1207 and, following in the footsteps of his father, became the sheik in the dervish learning community in Konya, Turkey. He was considered a great scholar and leader, but his life changed when he met Shams of Tabriz, a wandering sufi mystic. From this mysterious and esoteric friendship came a new depth of spiritual enlightenment. When Shams disappeared Rumi began his transformation from scholar to artist, and his poems and stories that shifted fantastically—from theory to folklore to jokes and ecstatic poetry—began to flow. Rumi describes it himself in a poem:

 

In your light I learn how to love,

In your beauty, how to make poems.

You dance inside my chest,

Where no one sees you,

But sometimes I do,

And that sight becomes this art

 

Reading Rumi’s poems often transports me to a magical, mystical place. They are filled with passion, insight and a connection with the divine which talk about everything from awe, silence, emptiness and love to the everyday infused with the deepest sense of God and wonder.

Often his poems feel like they strike a nerve deep inside consciousness and some new insight or understanding or just the silence of the Self can be seen for a brief moment. And often they express so deeply our yearning to return to God.

How is it possible to describe the indescribable, express the inexpressible, within a few lines of poetry? A sudden image takes you deep inside, to the core of your being. The ecstasy that Rumi experienced comes through in much of that poetry. That longing for union with God was so strong and his experience of that union so deep and ecstatic that it permeated every fiber of his being.

Over the centuries, enlightened masters have tried to give a glimpse of their experience of union, but there are no words that can explain. So students and readers are left with a glimpse of what it might be like to achieve that union.  Rumi’s poems are often a gateway or glimpse into that reality that is unique to his poems.

It’s hard to pick just one or two poems, but I’ll leave with one short favorite:

 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

 

—Bill Hughes