Moulana Jalaluddin Mowlawi, known to the West
as Rumi, is known to be the messenger of love, the Divine
love that pulsates in the vein of creation and created beings,
the love that is the cause of creation according to the revelation
from Allah. In the Hadith Qudsi known as the "Hidden
Treasure", when Prophet David (pbuh) asks Allah about
the purpose of the creation, Allah reveals this purpose saying,
“I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known,
I created the creation in order to be known”. So
according to this Hadith Qudsi the purpose of creation is
to know God and love is the medium.
We hear a similar message to this in the first
commandment of Christianity which, according to various Gospels,
Jesus (pbuh) said is the highest law:
“You shall love your Lord your God with your whole
heart, with your whole soul, and with your entire mind.”
It is this love that Sufi Masters experience, talk about and
write about, of which Moulana reached the pinnacle, and became
the loci and the reflection of it.
Abdul Rahman Jami the Persian Sufi poet of the
15th century has said about Moulana:

How do I describe that Excellency
He
is not a prophet yet he has the book
And another saying:
The book of Masnavi of Moulana
Is
like the Qur’an in Persian language
Many such comparisons have been made between the Qur’an
and the book of Masnavi, such as the deeper understanding
of the many layered stories and their format. It is also believed
that in the same way that the opening 7 verses of the Qur’an,
the Sura Fateha, encapsulates all the chapters of the Qur’an,
the opening 18 verses of the Masnavi also encompasses the
roughly twenty five thousand verses that follow. These comparisons
indicate the height of the station of Moulana’s words.
In order to serve the purpose of this article, I am using
almost word by word translations of Moulana’s words,
which have become hard to find, since the time of the late
Nicholson, may he rest in peace. Unfortunately these days,
the translations of Moulana Rumi’s poetry have a little
of Moulana and a lot of the translators and the writers, and
I think that people would be best served by the accuracy of
Moulana Rumi’s own words and meanings. I may add that
Moulana knew this would happen and has forewarned us in the
6th verse of the opening of the Masnavi.
He opens the Masnavi by saying:
Listen to this reed how it tells the tales
Bemoaning
its separation it wails
In this opening verse Moulana starts by likening himself
to the reed that is going to tell us the stories of the pain
of separation while playing the divine melody of love, the
melody of “Alastu bi Rabbikum”.
Alastu bi Rabbikum comes from a verse
in the Qur'an (7:172) where the commentary indicates that
on the Primordial Day, before the advent of our earthly lives,
when the soul of every human being was summoned into the Divine
Presence, and God made Himself known to collective humanity
and asked the question: “Alastu bi Rabbikum?”,
which means "Am I not your Lord?" And they answered
“Bala Shahidna”, “Yes, verily we
testify to that”.
It seems that all of Moulana's poetry and its melody is about
the remembrance and realisation of this original melody of
Alastu bi Rabbikum.
As Moulana says:
Since He said in my soul’s ear the secret of the
Alast
The
longing for Him does not leave my heart
But this realisation, which is the purpose of
our life, is not an easy task and not easily accessible, therefore
we make it to fit our own understanding and perception. As
he says in the 6th verse of the opening of the Masnavi:
Every one became my companion through his own perception
None
tried to know my inner secrets and notion
And immediately follows it with:
My secret is not distant from my outcry
But
eyes and ears do not possess the light
What is this light that the ordinary eyes and
ears do not possess in order to find out the secrets? For
the answer we go to Moulana himself, since he says he has
revealed everything in this book, sometimes through explanation,
sometimes through allusions, sometimes only hinting. Why so?
He explains that by saying:
The secrets are hidden in between the lines
If
I say it any more clearly, it would disrupt the order of the
world
In other words, if every one knew the truth, hardly anyone
would go after the affairs of the world. This is why the enlightened
people are always only a few, compared to the masses. The
Qur’an also refers to this by repeatedly saying 'only
a few would know', or ‘only a few would perceive’
or ‘only a few would think’ etc.
So going back to

My secret is not distant from my outcry
But
eyes and ears do not possess the light
Wanting to know what is veiling us from the
light of hearing and seeing, we go to Moulana again. He says:
The blinkers covering people’s eyes are nothing
but the secondaries
Who
ever did not go beyond the secondary is not one of the companions
So the eyes which Moulana is talking about are
the eyes that could see the Reality and not be veiled by people,
the material world, and above all by the self, which is the
biggest obstacle. We need to acquire the eyes that could see
the primary beyond the secondaries. He says:
I want the eyes that would know the King
So
that it could recognise Him in every different clothing
How does one acquire these eyes? He guides us
to journey on the Sufi path.

Sufis possess a Surmeh, go and seek that
So
that your eyes of narrow stream become an ocean
What is this veil that is with us all the time and gives
us a different account of the reality? An account that we
believe is true. What is self, and how does it prevent us
from realising the Truth and the Reality?
Sufi Psychology can help us to tap into this.
We know from psychology that people who fall within the standard
of abnormality, psychotic or neurotic, their concept of reality
is quite distorted and unreal compared to normal people. But
psychology stops there, whereas Sufi psychology goes further
and expands it, so that we realise that similarly, the concept
of reality of so called normal people is considered quite
limited and distorted by the people who have gone through
the journey of spiritual awakening.
When Moulana tells us to go and take the journey
of the Sufi path, so that our power of seeing widens, he is
pointing to this widening of sight and insight, since an enlightened
person could see and perceive things that are not available
to most people. Enlightened people, are capable of seeing
the unseen, in various degrees, according to the level of
their enlightenment.
Therefore we need to understand there are different
kinds of seeing, and realise how limited our ego-senses are
and not take that for the absolute reality. We need to be
mindful that what we think and see is not all that there is,
and there is another kind of seeing which requires journeying
on the Sufi path and going beyond the senses of the self.
I would like to look at this subject of the eyes, the sight
and insight from another angle, since in the ocean of the
Masnavi which ever way we search we discover different pearls.
It is only when we put the pearls together that we can see
the whole of the necklace.
Let’s now choose one of Moulana's most
famous and loved poems, “ghazals” from
the Divani Shamsi Tabriz. The opening verse is:
I was dead, I became alive, I was tears, I became laughter
The
sovereignty of love appeared, and I became ever lasting sovereign
It is as if with such a start, from being dead
and becoming alive, being tears and becoming laughter, reaching
the sovereignty of love and transforming to everlasting sovereign
- all in one verse - he is telling us; Now do you want to
take this journey with me? And since the real source who is
inviting us is He, the Hu, Hazrate Haqq Himself who speaks
through the tongue of Moulana; we say “Yes”. And
when we ask how? We hear the same answer that Ibn Arabi heard
in one of his intimate conversations, when he asked Allah
“How could one get close to You?” And Allah responded,
“Through an attribute that I do not possess”,
meaning ubudiyyat, which means servant-hood.
This is why Moulana spends the next ten verses of the poem,
from verses 3 to 12, describing and painting pictures of various
aspects of the stages of his servant-hood that he went through.
He points to the steps of the Sufi path in general and his
path with Shams in particular, interwoven together, displaying
the willingness in carrying out orders, putting one’s
head on the altar, the ubudiyyat and the servant-hood
that is necessary in order to open the way for the majesty
and sovereignty of love to enter.
As we read these verses, it is important to
keep in mind what a high status Moulana had in the community
when he met Shams and took on this journey. He was a revered
Islamic scholar, theologian and jurist, to name just a few,
and people would travel from all over to hear his teachings.
We need to keep in mind how much he stood to lose.
I will quote only a few verses of this section
to give you a taste.

He said, you are not mad enough, you are not suited for
this house
I
went and became mad, I became bound in shackles

He said you are not slain, not drenched with joy
Before
his life-giving face, I became slain and cast myself down

He said you are a sheikh and headman, you are a leader
and guide
I
am not a sheikh, I am not a leader, I have become slave to
your command
These are only a few of the many verses where,
in each of them, he describes a different aspect of his ubudiyyat
and servant-hood.
It is only through paying close attention that we can realise
what he is teaching us by his example. Just enjoying the beauty
of the poetry is not enough, as that is not the true purpose
of his work and his being here. Having gone through these
stages of crushing his nafs, he then comes to the next stage
and he explains that in verse 13, as he says:
My heart felt the glow of the soul, my heart opened up
and split
My
heart weaved a new satin, I became enemy of this old ragged
one
This is a very important verse. After submitting the ego-self
willingly, comes this crucial point that the light of the
soul splits open his heart and weaves a new fabric made of
atlas, which is soft silky satin. It is at this point
that he realises or sees what a shabby fabric the old one
was, and becomes the enemy of the old ragged one.
When this new fabric was put on him, he realised how bad
the other one was that he was holding on to. Here he is pointing
to the stages of transcendence, since only after arriving
at each level of the ladder of transcendence, one gets to
see the reality of the level before, through the light that
is given accordingly. Again that light that Moulana is after
and everything is dependent on that light.
The stages of the spiritual journey are to prepare
us to become what Moulana calls “noor pazir”,
meaning receptive to the light. The light is not absent, that
we would need to find it in order to reach the Reality. The
Reality, the Light, has always been there, but our eyes can
not see because we are veiled from it. This is why Moulana,
as some one who has gone through these stages, says in a prayer
to God:
From now on we only ask You for the eyes and nothing else
So
that sticks and straws may not conceal the sea from us
And later in the 20th verse of this poem he
reaches a further stage and says:
I am from you O illustrious moon, look at me and yourself
Because
of your laughter, I became a flower field of laughter
The verse reflects the station of the soul that
has become the mirror of God, and the more clear the mirror
is, the more true the reflection of the one who is looking
in the mirror. We know that the highest level of transformation
of the self (nafs) is to become cleared of our distortions
of the Commanding self, and the Blaming self and to reach
the stage of self at Peace and become that mirror which reflects
Allah. Moulana comes out of the heart of Islam. The path of
Sufism is based on the transformation of the self. So Moulana
says in this verse;
Looking at me is looking at Yourself. I am that mirror. You
looked at me (pleased) with laughter, and I became the whole
flower field of laughter.
This verse correlates with the Qur’anic verse when
Allah is pleased with His servant and says:
"O you human being that has attained to inner peace!
Return to your Sustainer, well pleased and pleasing Him. Enter
with My true servants. Enter My paradise." 89:27-30
Now we put these esoteric descriptions of poetry
together. When the heart splits open and puts on this new
fabric of satin, and looks in the mirror, who is the one who
is looking in the mirror? This is when the one who is looking
in the mirror, laughing with satisfaction at what he sees,
says (to use the language of the Qur’an) "Return
to My paradise", not the paradise but My paradise, and
it is that laughter of satisfaction that resonates in his
entire being.
I think one of the reasons that Moulana’s words and
poetry are so alive after 800 years and will continue to be
so - if the authenticity of them is protected and not compromised
- is because they transmit the message of Divine love and
servant-hood, the inner and the outer, the apparent and the
hidden aspect of the rope which takes man to God.
As Moulana foretold 800 years ago:

Why is it that the resting place of my body has become
the place of worship by people of the world?
Because
day and night, every where in this place is filled with His
presence.
This message of love and servant-hood or abd-hood
is like a two pronged sword that cuts through the obstacle
of nafs or ego/self, and opens the way for Love, and has the
force and will of Allah behind it. And He has given Moulana
the words for it, as he says:
I am the word of Haqq and subsistent through Him
I
am the food of the soul of the soul, and the ruby of purity
I am the light of the sun, fallen upon you
Yet
I am not separated from the sun
Looking at Moulana’s life from beginning to end and
particularly his relationship with Shams, it would be difficult
not to see how he was chosen, prepared and delivered for this
purpose. Other Sufi Masters and Poets have also walked this
path, but it seems that Allah has made such a display of Moulana’s
personal journey for us, so that we can relate to it, in order
to be able to see and hear from Moulana himself, what happens
when one walks on the path of Shari’ah and
Tariqah and reaches Haqiqah and dissolves
the old shabby fabric of self.
The mesmerising quality of his words, that moves
people and that talks to their inner hearts, is only due to
the scent of the Beloved.
I am His cup and His wine jug, I am the dispenser of the
scent of His perfume
Come
to me so that you could receive the scent of His perfumed
quality

What ever you have heard from us, you have heard it from
God
Since
all that we are saying is His sayings.
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