Jal alud’din Rumi, the thirteen-century Persian lawyer-divine and Sufi, widely considered literature's greatest mystical poets, understood very well the uncontrollable and idiosyncratic impact of poetry. Yet one wonders if even he, for all his intuitive grasp of language, humanity and the cosmos foresaw the deep and diverse influence his own work would have on readers throughout the world seven centuries after his death-or the myriad meanings enthusiasts would draw from his sprawling and contradictory poems. In the Islamic world today, Rumi is read for much the same reasons he was revered during his life: for his excellence as a poet; for his rare ability to empathize with humans, animals and plants; for his personal refinement; and, above all else, for his flawless moral center and ability to direct others towards good conduct and union with Allah.
Rumi’s poetry also has been read in the West for centuries and there have been informed references to him in the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and many other eminent writers. But in recent years the popularity of his work in the West has increased to a surprising extent: according to the Christian Science Monitor, Rumi ranked as America's best-selling poet in 1997. His biography, or at least the highlights of his difficult but victorious life, should prove as inspiring as his poetry to his diverse and growing readership.
The key events of Rumi's life-or those that appear to have shaped his poetry to a great extent-seem to have been his insecure childhood spent with his family roaming between countries at the time of the Mongol invasion; his close relationship with his father, the mystic Baha al-Din; his great popularity as an Islamic professor; and his unusually intense spiritual and emotional love for the dervish Shams al-Din of Tabriz.
For Islamic readers, Rumi remains an important commentator on the Koran and a brilliant exponent of Sufi philosophy, the strain of Islam that stresses direct and ecstatic communion with Allah over Aristotelian questioning. Rumi, who was strictly educated in religious law and philosophy, is viewed in the Islamic world as a spiritual descendant of two other great Sufi writers, Sana'i and Attar. He shared with those two writers the goal of eliminating corruption from religious practice and institutions. He also is widely seen as the vindicator of his father, Baha al-Din, an Islamic preacher whose metaphysical and mystical leanings often were greeted with skepticism because of a prevailing bias towards Aristotelian inquiry in his native Khorosan, today known as Afghanistan.
In his work, Rumi tells us over and over that he is attempting to put into language the nature and significance of the invisible universe, a task he freely admits can only be achieved in part. In "The Story of Solomon and the Hoopoe," Rumi writes: "Do thou hear the name of every thing from the knower? Hear the inmost meaning of the mystery of He That Taught the Names. With us, the name of every thing is its outward appearance, with the Creator, the name of every thing is its inward reality."
The best explanation for Rumi's popularity may simply be that he was a very wonderful poet-uniquely capable of transcending "outward appearances" and conjuring up the mystical "inward reality," yet entirely realistic and modest about the limitations of his words-and there are very few such writers in the world. It also must be remembered that the Mathnawi, Rumi's longest work, is a Persian classic and by itself would ensure his literary immortality.
1.
Time bringeth swift to end
The rout men keep;
Death's wolf is nigh to rend
These silly sheep.
See, how in pride they go
With lifted head,
Till Fate with a sudden blow
Smiteth them dead.
2.
Thou who lovest, life a crow,
Winter's chill and winter's snow,
Ever exiled from the vale's
Roses red, and nightingales:
Take this moment to thy heart!
When the moment shall depart,
Long thou 'lt seek it as it flies
With a hundred lamps and eyes.
3.
The heavenly rider passed;
The dust rose in the air;
He sped; but the dust he cast
Yet hangeth there.
Straight forward thy vision be,
And gaze not left or night;
His dust is here, and he
In the Infinite.
4.
Who was he that said
The immortal spirit is dead,
Or how dared he say
Hope's sun hath passed away?
An enemy of the sun,
Standing his roof upon,
Bound up both his eyes
And cried: 'Lo, the sun dies!'
5.
'Who lifteth up the spirit,
Say, who is he?'
'Who gave in the beginning
This life to me.
Who hoodeth, life a falcon's,
Awhile mine eyes,
But presently shall loose me
To hunt my prize.'
6.
As salt resolved in the ocean
I was swallowed in God's sea,
Past faith, past unbelieving,
Past doubt, past certainty.
Suddenly in my bosom
A star shone clear and bright;
All the suns of heaven
Vanished in that star's light.
6.
Flowers every night
Blossom in the sky;
Peace in the Infinite;
At peace am I.
Sighs a hundredfold
From my heart arise;
My heart, dark and cold,
Flames with my sighs.
7.
He that is my souls' repose
Round my heart encircling goes,
Round my heart and soul of bliss
He encircling is.
Laughing from my earthy bed
Like a tree I lift my head,
For the Fount of Living mirth
Washes round my earth.
8.
The breeze of the morn
Scatters musk in its train,
Fragrance borne
From my fair love's lane.
Ere the world wastes,
Sleep no more: arise!
The caravan hastes,
The sweet scent dies.
9.
If life be gone, fresh life to you
God offereth,
A life eternal to renew
This life of death.
The Fount of Immorality
In Love is found;
The come, and in this boundless sea
Of Love be drowned.
10.
Happy was I
In the pearl's heart to lie;
Till, lashed by life's hurricane,
Life a tossed wave I ran.
The secret of the sea
I uttered thunderously;
Like a spent cloud on the shore
I slept, and stirred no more.
11.
He set the world aflame,
And laid me on the same;
A hundred tongues of fire
Lapped round my pyre.
And when the blazing tide
Engulfed me, and I sighed,
Upon my mouth in haste
His hand He placed.
12.
Though every way I try
His whim to satisfy,
His every answering word
Is a pointed sword.
See how the blood drips
From His finger-tips;
Why does He find it good
To wash in my blood?
13.
Remembering Thy lip,
The ruby red I kiss;
Having not that to sip,
My lips press this.
Not to Thy far sky
Reaches my stretched hand,
Wherefore kneeling, I
Embrace the land.
14.
I sought a soul in the sea
And found a coral there;
Beneath the foam for me
An ocean was all laid bare.
Into my heart's night
Along a narrow way
I groped; and lo! the light,
An infinite land of day.
The Odes
"Granite and Wineglass"
You are granite.
I am an empty wineglass.
You know what happens when we touch!
You laugh like the sun coming up laughs
at a star that disappears into it.
Love opens my chest, and thought
returns to its confines.
Patient and rational considerations leave.
Only passion stays, whimpering and feverish.
Some men fall down in the road like dregs thrown out.
Then, totally reckless, the next morning
they gallop out with new purposes. Love
is the reality, and poetry is the drum
that calls us to that. Don't keep complaining
about loneliness! Let the fear-language of that theme
crack open and float away. Let the priest come down
from his tower, and not go back up!
I don't get tired of you. Don't grow weary
of being compassionate toward me!
All this thirst equipment
must surely be tired of me,
the waterjar, the water carrier.
I have a thirsty fish in me
that can never find enough
of what it's thirsty for!
Show me the way to the ocean!
Break these half-measures,
these small containers.
All this fantasy
and grief.
Let my house be drowned in the wave
that rose last night in the courtyard
hidden in the center of my chest.
Joseph fell like the moon into my well.
The harvest I expected was washed away.
But no matter.
A fire has risen above my tombstone hat.
I don't want learning, or dignity,
or respectability.
I want this music and this dawn
and the warmth of your cheek against mine.
The grief-armies assemble,
but I'm not going with them.
This is how it always is
when I finish a poem.
A great silence comes over me,
and I wonder why I ever thought
to use language.
He set the world aflame,
And laid me on the same;
A hundred tongues of fire
Lapped round my pyre.
And when the blazing tide
Engulfed me, and I sighed,
Upon my mouth in haste
His hand He placed.
I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.
He said, ‘You’re not mad enough.
You don’t belong in this house.’
I went wild and had to be tied up.
He said, ‘Still not wild enough
to stay with us!’
I broke through another layer
into joyfulness.
He said, ‘Its not enough.’
I died.
He said, ‘You are a clever little man,
full of fantasy and doubting.’
I plucked out my feathers and became a fool.
He said, ‘Now you are the candle
for this assembly.’
But I’m no candle. Look!
I’m scattered smoke
He said, ‘You are the Sheikh, the guide.’
But I’m not a teacher. I have no power.
He said, ‘You already have wings.
I cannot give you wings.’
But I wanted his wings.
I felt like some flightless chicken.
Then new events said to me,
‘Don’t move. A sublime generosity is
coming towards you.’
And old love said, ‘Stay with me.’
I said, ‘I will.’
You are the fountain of the sun’s light.
I am a willow shadow on the ground.
You make my raggedness silky.
The soul at dawn is like darkened water
that slowly begins to say Thank you, thank you.
Then at sunset, again, Venus gradually
Changes into the moon and then the whole nightsky.
This comes of smiling back
at your smile.
The chess master says nothing,
other than moving the silent chess piece.
That I am part of the ploys
of this game makes me
amazingly happy.
Source: http://www.poetseers.org/the_poetseers/rumi/
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