Rumi and his resting place (1207-1273)

1. If you have lost heart in the Path of LoveFlee to me without delay I am a fortress invincible (Rumi)

2. Rumi and his resting place(1207-1273)

3. Why study Rumi? Some popular facts… • In 1997 Rumi was the best selling poet in US • Quoted in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey • Celebrities like Mary Stuart Masterson & Jessica Parker make yoga with Rumi’s reading • Robin Becker’s dance company performed a program called Dances from Rumi • The acoustic band Three Fish derived its name from Rumi’s tale • 2007 is announced as the year of Rumi by UNESCO

4. Rumi: The Family Tree • Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi • 1207 Balkh (Afghanistan) – 1273 Konya (Turkey) • Parents: Bahauddin Valad – Mu’mina Khatun • Alaaddin Chalabi & Jalaluddin Rumi • 1st Marriage with Gawhar Khatun: Sultan Valad & Alaaddin Chalabi • 2nd Marriage with Karra Khatun: Amir Chalabi & Malika Khatun

5. The People in his Life • Bahauddin Valad… the father. • Sayyid Burhanaddin… the successor of the father. • Shams-i Tabrizi… the master or the friend. • Salahuddin-i Zarqubi… the goldsmith. • Husameddin Chalabi… the student. • Sultan Valad… the son.

6. Bahauddin, the father and the first teacher I was saying “O God, I am in love with you and seeking for You. Wherever will I see you? In the world, beyond the world?” God moved me with the thought that the four walls of your body and the space that contains you are aware of you and live through you, but do not see you. Though they do not see you, neither from within nor from without, yet every atom of you is filled with the evidences of you. Likewise, you will not see Me within or without the world, but the atoms of the world all have something of Me. Your atoms thrive through Me and find joy in Me. How could you not see Me?(Maarif)

7. Bahauddin Valad: the father • Dream and King of Clerics (Sultan al-Ulama) • Islamic Law and Spiritual Matters • Rumi and His Father: Qibla • Occupation: Preacher > Maarif • From Balkh to Konya • Mongol Invasion? Fahr al-Razi? • Longing to find a more cosmopolitan urban • Bahauddin died in 1231 when Rumi was 24years old.

8. Sayyid Burhanaddin: the successor of the father • Attain your father’s legacy full-share and sun-like you’ll scatter light worldwide • Whatever is opposed to the self brings us near (to God) and whatever agrees with the self makes us more distant. When you act contrary to your carnal self, Almighty God is at peace with you; when you make peace with the self, you are at war with God. • 5 years fasting, 4 years Law education in Syria • Two books: Maarif & Maqalat • Rumi quotes Burhan: Stories, poems, many Quranic verses and their explanations

9. Shams-i Tabrizi • Shams Tabriz, my heart is pregnant with you when will I see a child born by your fortune (D) • My thoughts and reflections are inspired by you As though I were your phrases and expressions. • Strange childhood and a man of wonder • Faqih and faqir / Scholar and Sufi • His writings called Maqalat-i Shams • Shams came Konya in 1244, Sh: over 60, R: 37 • The first meeting with Rumi at the inn of sugar sellers: Bayazid versus the Prophet ?

10. Shams quotes Sanai for Rumi: Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself Such knowledge is far worse than ignorance. • Shams describes Rumi: “At times his extensive knowledge would come before him and get in the way.” • Again Shams: “You want to discover through learning; but it requires going and doing.” • Sama – Whirling / Poetry

11. Shams disappears after 2 years to Damascus • Sultan Valad in Damascus & Shams is back • My sun and moon has come, my ears and eyes have come / those limbs of argent, that mine of gold has come! / let aberration fill my head and light my eyes / if there is anything else you like, that too has come. • Rumi, from learning and teaching to absorption • Shams disappears again forever… • Rumi from absorption to perfection…

12. Was Shams the master or Rumi? • Rumi writes for Shams: Whether I go east or west or climb the sky there is no sign of life until I see sign of you  I was ascete of a country I held the pulpit fate made my heart fall in love and follow after you (divan)

13. Shams writes for Rumi • I first came to Mawlana with the understanding that I would not be his master. God has not yet brought into being on this earth one could be Mawlana’s master; he would not be mortal. But nor am I one to be a disciple. It is no longer in me. Now I come for friendship, for relief. (Maqalat) • Seeing your face, by God, is a blessing. Anyone wishing to see the Prophet sent by God should look on Mawlana when he is at ease, true to himself, and not when he is standing on ceremony… Happy the one who finds Mawlana! Who am I? One who found him. Happy am I!

14. Who is Rumi? • Muslim - Sunni - Hanefi - Maturidi - Sufi / Servant of God / Lover of God - Scholar, writer, story teller, poet • His Characteristics - Inclusive: The Christian craftsman - Forgiving: The prostitute - Humble: The Christian priest

15. Rumi’s Writings • The Discourses of Rumi 1. Fihi Ma fih (What is in it is in it.) - 71 talks and lectures in the style of oral speech - Recorded by his pupils - Signs of the Unseen, trans. by Wheeler Tackston 2. Majalis-i Seb’a (The Seven Sermons) - His lectures on questions of faith and ethics on ceremonial occasions. It is in formal style. - No English translation yet.

16. 3. Maktubat (The Letters) - Letters to his students and relatives concerning their religious and daily issues - 147 letters; dictated by Rumi • Rumi’s Poems: 1. Divan-i Kabir (The great collection of poems) - It is also called Divan-i Shams due to its last couplet - 21.366 couplets about love, spiritual joy - Rumi dictated the most of them in ecstasy and whirling

17. 2. Masnavi - Masnavi adopts its name from verse form aabbcc. etc. - 25,618 couplets - Rumi wrote first 18 couplets and dictated the rest - He told many stories from his own and borrowed some from Arabic, Persian, Jewish sources, Qur’an, and Hadith - Nicholson says that Rumi “borrows much but owes little; he makes his own everything that comes to had.” RUMI’S LEGACY: - 60.000 lines in Persian = 120.000 lines in English; more than Homer, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare

18. Rumi in his thoughts: Seeing things as they are • If everythingthat appears to us were just as it appears, the Prophet, who was endowed with such penetrating vision, both illuminated and illuminating, would never have cried out, “Oh Lord, show us things as they are.” (F 5/18) • People look at secondary causes and think that they are the origin of everything happens. But it has been revealed to the saints that secondary causes are no more than a veil. (F 68-80) • Pass beyond form, escape from names! Flee titles and names toward meaning! (M 4/1285)

19. Beyond the Seen • The earth has the external shape of dust, but inside are the luminous Attributes of God. Its outward has fallen into war with its inward; its inward is like a pearl and its outward a stone. (M) • The picture drives its movements only from the Painter’s brush, the compass’ foot revolves around its point. (D) • Light is the First Cause and every secondary cause is its shadow. (D) • We are all darkness and God is light; this house receives its brightness from the Sun (D)

20. Man • I look at my inmost consciousness and see a universe hidden, Adam and Eve not yet arisen from world. (M) • God created us in His own form: Our description has taken instruction from His description. (M) • Form comes into existence from Formless, just as smoke is born from fire. (M) • Adam’s lapse was a borrowed thing, so he repented at once. But Iblis’ sin was innate, so he could not find the way to precious repentance.

21. Man’s purpose… • If man were human through his form, Muhammad and Abu Jahl would be the same. The painting on the wall is the likeness of a man. Look at that form. What does it lack? That splendid painting lacks a spirit. Go, seek that precious pearl. (M) • Oh Brother! You are your thought: The rest of you is bones and fibers. If you think of roses, you are a rosegarden; but if you think of thorns, you are fuel for the furnace. (M)

22. And his return… • Since the unbelievers are of the same kind as hell, they are happy in the hellish prison of this world. Since the prophets are of the same kind as Paradise, they have gone to the paradise of the spirit and the heart. (M) • Their origin was from fire: in the end they returned to their origin… That group was born from fire: Parts travel to their wholes… The mother seeks her child, principles seek out their derivatives… Without doubt every kind takes pleasure in its own kind. The part takes pleasure in its whole - look! (M)

23. Love • Every breast without the Beloved is a body without head. The man far from Love’s snare is a bird without wings. What does he know of the universe? For he knows nothing of Those Who know. (D) • If you have not been a lover, count not your life as lived, for on the Day of Reckoning it will not be counted. Any time that passes without love will be shamefaced before God. • God said to Love, “If not for your beauty, how should I pay attention to the mirror of existence?”

24. What is Love? • Someone asked What is Love? I replied:Ask not about these meanings! When you become like me, then you’ll know. When it calls you, you’ll recite its tale. (D) • Oh you who have listened to the talk of Love, behold Love! What are the words in the ears compared to vision in the eyes? (D) • What is Love? Perfect thirst. So let me explain the Water of Life. (D)

25. The world as maintained by Love. God’s wisdom in His destiny and decree has made us lovers of one another. That foreordainment has paired all parts of the world and set them in love with their mates. Each part of the world desires its mate, just like amber and straw

26. Heaven says to the earth, Hello You draw me like iron to a magnet! The female desires the male so that they may perfect each other’s work God placed desire within man and woman so that the world might find substance through their union. He places desire in each part for another part and their union gives birth to offspring. (D)

27. Rumi: The Lover I am like Majnun in my poor heart, which is without limbs, because I have no strength to contest the love of God. Every day and night, I continue in my efforts to free myself from the bonds of the chain of love; a chain which keeps me imprisoned. When the dream of the Beloved begins, I find my self in blood. Because I am not fully conscious, I am afraid in that I may paint Him, with the blood of my heart.

28. In fact, You, O Beloved, must ask the fairies; they know how I have burned through the night. Everyone has gone to sleep, but I, the one who has given his heart to You, do not know sleep like them. Throughout the night, my eyes look at the sky, counting the stars. His love so profoundly took my sleep that I do not really believe, it will ever come back.

29. Whirling Do you know what whirling is? It is hearing the voices of spirits Saying “yes” to God’s question “Am I not your Lord?” It is deliverance from ego and reunion with the Lord. Do you know what the whirling is? It is seeing the Friend’s states, hearing the secrets of God from across the curtains of the unseen. Do you know what the whirling is? It is escaping one’s existence, continuously tasting the everlasting existence in the absolute nonexistence. Do you know what the whirling is? It is making one’s head a ball in front of the Friend’s kicks of love and running to the Friend without head and feet.

30. Do you know what the whirling is? It is knowing Jacob’s sorrow And remedy, it is smelling the smell of the reunion with Joseph from Joseph’s shirt. Do you know what the whirling is? It is swallowing Pharaoh’s spells just like Moses’s staff every moment. Do you know what the whirling is? It is a secret from the Prophetic Tradition: “There is a moment for me with God where no archangel or no prophet can come in between God and me.” It is reaching that place without any means where no angel can fit. Do you know what the whirling is? It is, like Shams-i Tabrizi, opening the eyes of the heart and seeing the sacred lights.