RUMI

Tao of Spiritual Guides and Teachers

 

RUMI

Jalalul-Din Rumi, poet and Sufi mystic, was born at Balkh in Khorasan (a Persian province on the Afghan-Persian border) in the year 1207 A. D. In 1219, his father, Baha-ul-Din, and the entire family began a 16-year journey to flee the Mongol terror. These nomads had been perpetrating massacres far beyond the borders of Khorasan and had finally reached there -- Jalalul-Dins family moved several times to escape the Mongol terror. They finally settled in Konia, Roman Anatolia, from whence is derived the name Rumi. Rumi's father became a teacher and theologian. After Baha-ul-Din died, Rumi began wandering for nine years with a dervish who initiated him into Sufi (mystical Islamic) teachings. After the dervish died in 1239, Rumi returned to Konia to assume his father's old position.

In 1244 a wild man known to history as Shamsul-Din (or Shams) appeared out of the desert. He was adopted by Rumi, or vice versa, and for several years they were inseparable. Shams was revered by Rumi as the "hidden saint" of the mystical journey. During this time the Maulawi or Mevlevi, disciples and family members of Rumi, consumed with jealousy and who felt cut off from Rumi's wisdom, forced Shams to flee to Damascus. He was brought back by Sultan Walad, Rumi's eldest son. Soon the Sultan was forced to perform the feat a second time; then in 1247 Shams vanished for good, perhaps ambushed by Rumi's disciples, as some stories suggest.

After Sham's disappearance, Rumi formed a similar friendship, though less intense, with his deputy Salahul-Din (approximately 1252-1261), and upon this man's death he formed an association with Hasamul-Din Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Akhi Turk, also one of his disciples.
All of these friendships were formed by Rumi on the basis of Platonic love as taught by Sufi doctrine. After the final disappearance of Shams, Rumi began to turn out poetry copiously and continued for the rest of his life.

Here are but a few examples of his work.

THE HIDDEN
For a while we lived with people,
But we saw no sign in them of the faithfulness we wanted.
It's better to hide completely within
As water hides in metal, as fire hides in a rock.

BOTH WINGS BROKEN
Love draws a dagger and pulls me close.
Lock and key. Bird with both wings.
broken. The love religion is all that's
written here. Who else would say this?
You open me wide open. Or you tie me
Tighter. The ball waits on the field.
to be hit again. You push me into fire
like Abraham. You pull me out like
Muhammad. Which do you like better?
you ask. All the same, if it's your hand,
troubles or peace. Friends become enemies,
faithful faithless. Some knots tighten;
some loosen. Unruly tangle of caution and
rebellion, ropes and uncombed hair, no one
can tell. Then comes the sure attention
of a mother's hand for her hurt child.

Brew says: Sounds like A Journey to the Third Bardo?

 

THE MANY WINES
With others doing inner work. Find the wine most suitable
to you. God has given us
a dark wine so potent that, drinking it, we leave the two
worlds. God has put into hashish
a power to deliver the taster from self-consciousness. God
has made sleep so that it erases
every thought. God made Majnun love Layla so much that just
her dog would cause confusion
in him. Don't think all ecstasies are the same. Jesus was
lost in his love for God. His donkey
was drunk with barley. Drink from the presence of the
saints, not those other jars.
Every object, every being, is a jar full of delight. Be a
connoisseur and taste
with caution. Any wine will get you high. Judge like a
king. Choose the purest,
the ones unadulterated with fear or some urgency about
What's needed. Drink
the wine that moves you as a camel moves when it's been
untied, and is just ambling
about. When the tendency of two friends is toward spirit
toward the heart, they go
like wind and flame, upward together. Stop the mouth of a
jar and put it in the river.
It won't go under because it's trying to breathe with its
companion, air. So someone
who loves the prophets moves, holding a draught of sky
inside. That emptiness keeps
pulling you into the presence of those who love wisdom. But
it's not always easy. We feel
drawn to Moses and drawn to Pharaoh at the same time. Be
glad when you end up with a friend
who mixes with the inner atmosphere of your heart. Pharaoh
found Haman and repeated the
offer Moses made. This man insults your royal dignity! How
could such a reversal happen? It's
like the sky has become earth and the earth sky! A
rose garden has turned into a tomb!
This is how a false advisor sees Moses, as a threat! Haman
and Pharaoh live in the pride of competing egos.

I hear nothing in my ear
but your voice.
Heart has plundered mind
of its eloquence.
Love writes a transparent
calligraphy, so on
the empty page my soul
can read and recollect.

Molana Jalal-e-Din Mohammad Molavi Rumi

-A Brief Sketch-
 
Birth Date: September 29, 1207 A.D.  or 6th Rai'u-'l-avval  604 A.H.
Place: Balkh in the north-eastern provinces of Persia  (present day Afghanistan).
Name Jalal-e-Din Mohammad
Family:  
Full Title Mevlana Jalal-e-Din Mohammad Mevlavi Balkhi Rumi
Father: Baha'u-'d-Din Veled Sultan-'l-Ulema
Mother: Unknown
Grandfather: Jalale-'d-Din Huseyn el Khatibi
Grandmother: Malika'i Jihan - daughter of Khurram-shah King of Khorasan
Brother: Ala'u-'d-Din (2 years older)
Sister: Not known - Married and remained in Balkh
Wife: Gevher Khatun - daughter of Lala Sharafu-'d-Din of Samarqand.
2nd Wife: Unknown
Children:
1. Son - Killed with Shams
2. Daughter - married a local prince and left Qonya (Konya)
3. Son - Muhammad Baha'u-'d-Din Sultan Veled
4. Son - unknownTeachers  

Important Events:
Age 5 His family left his birth-place of Balkh for Baghdad
Age 8 From Baghdad to Mecca and Damascus and finally to Malatia (in Western Euphrates in Turkey)
Age 19 (1226 ad) Married Gevher Khatun and finally moved to Qonya (Konya) in the north-western provinces of Persia (in present day Turkey).
Age 37 On Saturdday, November 28, 1244 A.D. or 26th of Jamadi-ul0akhar 642 A.H., Rumi and Shams met.
Age 39 On March 14, 1246, 21st Shewwal, 643, Shams left Qonya and Rumi for the first time.
Poetry:  
Divan-e-Shams A compendium of poetry in praise of Shams in over 45,000 verses in Farsi (Persian).
Mathnavi Rumi's most famous work in 7 books, and 24,660 couplets, in Farsi and some Arabic. This work is also commonly refered to as the Persian Quoran.
Fihi ma Fihi Introductory discourses on metaphysics,
Death:  
Date: At sunset of December 16, 1273 A.D. 5th Jamadi-u-'l-Akhar 672 A.H. at the age of 66 solar years or 68 Lunar years.
Place: At home in Qonya. 

Books on RUMI

 

The Soul of Rumi : A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems
by Coleman Barks

These fresh, original translations magnificently convey Rumi's insights into the human heart and its longings with his signature passion and daring, focusing on the ecstatic experience of the inseparability of human and divine love. The match between Rumi's sublime poetry and Coleman Barks's poetic art are unequaled, and here this artistic union is raised to new heights. (Amazon Review)

The Illuminated Rumi
by Jalal Al-Din Rumi (Author), Coleman Barks (Translator), Michael Green (Contributor)

Rumi's passionate, playful poems find and celebrate sacred life in everyday existence. They speak across all traditions, to all peoples, and today his relevance and popularity continue to grow. In The Illuminated Rumi, Coleman Barks, widely regarded as the world's premier translator of Rumi's writings, presents some of his most brilliant work, including many new translations. To complement Rumi's universal vision, Michael Green has worked the ancient art of illumination into a new, visually stunning form that joins typography, original art, old masters, photographs, and prints with sacred images from around the world.
The Illuminated Rumi is a truly groundbreaking collaboration that interweaves word and image: a magnificent meeting of ancient tradition and modern interpretation that uniquely captures the spiritual wealth of Rumi's teachings. Coleman Barks's wise and witty commentary, together with Michael Green's art, makes this a classic guide to the life of the soul for a whole new generation of seekers. (Amazon Review)

Rumi: The Book of Love : Poems of Ecstasy and Longing
by Coleman Barks (Author)

The Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Rumi is most beloved for his poems expressing the ecstasies and mysteries of love in all its forms -- erotic, platonic, divine -- and Coleman Barks presents the best of them 'in this delightful and inspiring collection. Rendered with freshness, intensity, and beauty as Barks alone can do, these startling and rich poems range from the "wholeness" one experiences with a true lover, to the grief of a lover's loss, and all the states in between: from the madness of sudden love to the shifting of a romance to deep friendship to the immersion in divine love. Rumi, the ultimate poet of love, explores all "the magnificent regions of the heart," and he opens you to the lover within. Coleman Barks has made this medieval, Persian-born (present-day Afghanistan) poetic and spiritual genius the most popular poet in America today. This seductive volume reveals Rumi's charms and depths more than any other." (Amazon Review)

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Artwork on this Review graciously provided by :
Shahriar Shahriari Site Tirbute to Rumi

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