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Selected Poems of Rumi ~ Dover Thrift
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Selected Poetry of Rumi ...day#262~Poem#25
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XXV.
THE BIRDS OF SOLOMON 1
The eloquence of courtly birds is a mere echo: where is the speech of the birds of Solomon? 2
How wilt thou know their cries, when thou hast never seen Solomon for a single moment?
Far beyond East and West are spread the wings of the bird whose note thrills them that hear it:
From the Footstool of God to the earth and from the earth to the Divine Throne it moves in glory and majesty.
The bird that goes without this Solomon is a bat in love with darkness.
Make thyself familiar with Solomon, O miscreant bat, lest thou remain in darkness for ever.
Go but one ell in that direction, and like the ell thou wilt become the standard of measurement.3
Even by hopping lamely and limply in that direction thou wilt be freed from all lameness and limpness.
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1Math. II, 3758. Solomon was taught the bird language (Qur‘ān XXVII, 16). Here he represents the Perfect Man, i.e. the Ṣūfī murshid.
2 All artificial eloquence, such as court poets display in their panegyrics, is meaningless in comparison with the mystic utterances of those whom God has inspired.
3Cf. the saying of Kharraqānī, “I attained to God as soon as I set foot on the first step of the ladder.” The Perfect Man is the ideal of creation and the criterion by which the true value of everything is to be judged.
Rumi, Jalalu’l-Din. Selected Poems of Rumi (Dover Thrift Editions) (Kindle Locations 790-807). Dover Publications. Kindle Edition.
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Selected Poetry of Rumi ...day#263~Poem#26
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XXVI
THE CARNAL SOUL 1
Your self (nafs) is the mother of all idols: the material idol is a snake, but the spiritual idol is a dragon.
’Tis easy to break an idol, very easy; to regard the self as easy to subdue is folly, folly.
O son, if you would know the form of the self, read the description of Hell with its seven gates.2
From the self at every moment issues an act of deceit; and in each of those deceits a hundred Pharaohs and their hosts are drowned.
1Math. I, 772.
2The nafs is Hell or a part of Hell; in essence it is one with the Devil. Therefore Hell, being the nature of the nafs-i ammārah (the soul that commands us to sin), is really subjective. The seven gates or limbos of Hell typify the vices which lead to perdition (muhlikāt).
Rumi, Jalalu’l-Din. Selected Poems of Rumi (Dover Thrift Editions) (Kindle Locations 807-817). Dover Publications. Kindle Edition.
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XXVII. THE BEAUTY OF Death 1
He who deems to be lovely as Joseph gives up his soul in ransom for it; he who deems it to be like the wolf turns back from the path of salvation.
Every one’s death is of the same quality as himself, my lad: to the enemy of God an enemy, to the friend of God a friend.2
In the eyes of the Turcoman the mirror is fair; in the eyes of the Ethiopian it is dark as an Ethiopian.
Your fear of death is really fear of yourself: see what it is from which you are fleeing!
’Tis your own ugly face, not the visage of Death: your spirit is like the tree, and death like the leaf.
It has grown from you, whether it be good or evil: all your hidden thoughts, foul or fair, are born from yourself.
If you are wounded by thorns, you planted them; and if you are clad in satin and silk, you were the spinner.
Know that the act is not of the same complexion as its result; a service rendered is not homogeneous with the fragment given in return.
The labourer’s wage is dissimilar to his work: the latter is the accident, while the former is the substance.3
The latter is wholly toil and effort and sweat, the former is wholly silver and gold and viands.
When the worshipper has sown a prostration or genuflexion here, it becomes the Garden of the Blest hereafter.
When praise of God has flown from his mouth, the Lord of the Daybreak fashions it into a fruit of Paradise.
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1Math. Ill, 3438. Cf. No. VI. The comparison with Joseph and the wolf alludes to Qur’ān XII, 13 seqq.
2Death, whether physical (iḍṭirārī) or mystical (ikhtiyārī), is like a mirror in which every one sees the image of himself: if his nature be good and his actions righteous, he will be in love with death; otherwise he will loathe it and flee in terror from the reflection of his own wickedness. What he dreads so much is really something conceived and produced by himself.
3Human action is both a cause and an effect. Man, in so far as he acts freely, incurs retribution hereafter; but this, though from one point of view a direct consequence of the action with which it corresponds in quality, may also be regarded as the final cause and eternal form of the action, pre-existent in God’s Knowledge, like the idea of a house in the mind of the architect. Viewed in this way, retribution is a Divine manifestation of the idea immanent in all that appears under the form of human action or, in other words, a transformation of the appearance with its underlying reality. Hence there can be no true similarity between them: they differ as accident and substance. See further, Math. II, 938 – 1000 with the commentary ad loc.
Rumi, Jalalu’l-Din. Selected Poems of Rumi (Dover Thrift Editions) (Kindle Locations 813-836). Dover Publications. Kindle Edition.
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Selected Poetry of Rumi ...day#265~Poem#28
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XXVIII.
A PRAYER FOR GOOD BEHAVIOUR1
Let us beseech God to help us to self-control (adab): he who lacks self-control is deprived of the grace of the Lord.2
The undisciplined man does not corrupt himself alone: he sets the whole world afire. Whatever befalls thee of gloom and sorrow is the result of thy irreverence and insolence.
Any one behaving with irreverence in the path of the Friend is a brigand who robs men: he is no man.3
Through discipline Heaven was filled with light, through discipline the Angels became immaculate and holy.4
By reason of irreverence the sun is eclipsed, and insolence caused ‘Azāzīl to be turned back from the door.5
1Math. I, 78.
2Adab may be defined as the character, feelings, and manners which are the fruit of self-discipline and spiritual culture; like St. Paul’s “it doth not behave itself unseemly.”
3He has not mastered his passions and therefore does not deserve the name of “man.”
4Cf. Wordsworth’s lines in the Ode to Duty: ‘Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong, And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.”
5Eclipse is a Divine chastisement inflicted on the sun whenever it presumed to deviate from its appointed course. ‘Azāzīl was the name of Iblīs before his fall.
Rumi, Jalalu’l-Din. Selected Poems of Rumi (Dover Thrift Editions) (Kindle Locations 844-864). Dover Publications. Kindle Edition.
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Selected Poetry of Rumi ...day#272~Poem#35
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XXXV. FINE FEATHERS1
“Needs must I tear them out,” the peacock cried, “These gorgeous plumes which only tempt my pride.”
Of all his talents let the fool beware: Mad for the bait, he never sees the snare.
Harness to fear of God thy strength and skill, Else there’s no bane so deadly as free-will.
1Math. V, 648. Human powers and capacities, unless devoted to the service of God, breed false confidence and bring disaster. The moral, however, is not that we must deliberately throw away the weapons without which the victory over ourselves cannot be won, but that we should beware of relying on them and taking credit for any success they enable us to achieve.
Selected Poetry of Rumi ...day#261~Poem#24
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XXIV.
THE BLIND FOLLOWER 1
The parrot looking in the mirror sees
Itself, but not its teacher hid behind,
And learns the speech of Man, the while it thinks
A bird of its own sort is talking to it.2
So the disciple full of egoism
Sees nothing in the Shaykh except himself.
The Universal Reason eloquent
Behind the mirror of the Shaykh’s discourse—
The Spirit which is the mystery of Man
He cannot see. Words mimicked, learned by rote,
’Tis all. A parrot he, no bosom-friend!
1Math. V, 1430.
2Parrots in the East are trained to talk by means of a mirror, behind which is a curtain. Allegorically the “mirror” is the holy man, who serves as a medium between the “parrot,” i.e. the disciple, and God, the invisible Speaker and Teacher.
Rumi, Jalalu’l-Din. Selected Poems of Rumi (Dover Thrift Editions) (Kindle Locations 769-790). Dover Publications. Kindle Edition.