Rumi

"Do you think I know what I'm doing? That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself? As much as a pen knows what it's writing, or the ball can guess where it's going next."

Rumi

Persians and Afghanis call Rumi "Jelaluddin Balkhi". He was born September 30, 1207, in Balkh, Afganistan, which was then part of the Persian empire. His father, Bahauddin Walad, was a theologian and jurist and a mystic of uncertain lineage. At his father's death Rumi took over the position of sheikh in the dervish learning community in Konya. His life seems to have been a fairly normal one for a religious scholar - teaching, meditating, helping the poor - until in the late fall of 1244 when he met a stranger who put a question to him. That stranger was the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz, who had travelled throughout the Middle East searching and praying for someone who could "endure my company". A voice came, "What will you give in return?" "My head!" "The one you seek is Jelaluddin of Konya."

The question Shams spoke made the learned professor faint to the ground. We cannot be entirely certain of teh question, but according to the most reliable account Shams asked who was greater, Muhammad or Bestami, for Bestami had said, "How great is my glory," whereas Muhammad had acknowledged in his prayer to God, "We do not know You as we should."

Rumi heard the depth out of which the question came and fell to the ground. He was finally able to answer that Muhammad was greater, because Bestami had taken one gulp of the divine and stopped there, whereas for Muhammad the way was always unfolding. There are various versions of this encounter, but whatever the facts, Shams and Rumi became inseparable. Their Friendship is one of the mysteries. They spent months together without any human needs, transported into a region of pure consciousness. This ecstatic connection caused difficulties in the religious community. Rumi's students felt neglected. Sensing the trouble, Shams disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared.

Word came that Shams was in Damascus. Rumi sent his son, Sultan Velad, to Syria to bring his Friend back to Konya. When Rumi and Shams met for the second time, they fell at each other's feet, so that "no one knew who was lover and who the beloved." Shams stayed in Rumi's home and was married to a young girl who had been brought up in the family. Again the long mystical conversation began, and again the jealousies grew.

One the night of December 5, 1248, as Rumi and Shams were talking, Shams was called to the back door. He went out, never to be seen again. Most likely, he was murdered with the connivance of Rumi's son Allaedin; if so Shams gave his head for the privilege of mystical Friendship.

The mystery of the Friend's absence covered Rumi's world. He himself went out searching for Shams and journeyed again to Damascus. It was there that he realised:

"Why should I seek? I am the same as he. His essence speaks though me. I have been looking for myself!"

The union became complete. There was full fana, annihilation in the Friend. Shams was writing the poems. Rumi called the huge collection of his odes and quatrains "The Works of Shams of Tabriz".

For the last twelve years of his life, Rumi dictated the six volumes of his masterwork, the "Mathnawi" to his favourite student Husam. Rumi died on December 17, 1273.

Extracts from "The Essential Rumi", Translated by C Barks & J Moyne ISBN 0 06 250959 4

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