For some time now, I’ve enjoyed the brief encounters I’ve had with Rumi’s thoughts and poems.  Rumi, by way of introduction, is a 13th century Persian mystic who wrote down bits of wisdom along the way, and we are the joyful recipients of it.

You may be familiar with this quote from “A Great Wagon”–a poem found in Rumi’s Divan, translated by Coleman Barks.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.”

Before I share a section of “Moses and the Shepherd”–for your thinking pleasure–I shall share one other poem that’s always haunted me.  I vaguely remember mentioning “The Guest House” in another post, and so if you’ve already seen it, I encourage you to re-read.  You get something new and fresh from it every time.

The Guest House
By Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

And here is “Moses and the Shepherd.”  A snippet anyway.

Moses heard a shepherd on the road praying, “God, where are you?  I want to help you, to fix your shoes and comb your hair.  I want to wash your clothes and pick the lice off.  I want to bring you milk and kiss your little hands and feet when it’s time for you to go to bed.  I want to sweep your room and keep it neat.  God, my sheep and goats are yours.  All I can say remembering you is aaayyyyy and aaahhhhhhhhhhhh.”

Moses could stand it no longer.  “Who are you talking to?”

“The one who made us and made the earth and made the sky.”

“Don’t talk about shoes and socks with God!  And what’s this with your little hands?  Such blasphemous familiarity sounds like you’re chatting with your uncles.  Only something that grows needs milk.  Only someone with feet needs shoes.  Not God!”

The shepherd repented and tore his clothes and wandered out into the desert.  A sudden revelation came then to Moses:

You have separated me from one of my own.
Did you come as a prophet to unite or to sever?
I have given each being a separate and unique way of seeing and knowing and saying that knowledge.

What seems wrong to you is right for him.
What is poison to one is honey to someone else.
Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship, these mean nothing to me.  I am apart from all that.

Ways of worshiping are not to be ranked as better or worse.  Hindus do Hindu things.  The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.  It’s all praise, and it’s all right.  I am not glorified in acts of worship.  It’s the worshipers!  I don’t hear the words they say.  I look inside at the humility.
That broken-open lowliness is the reality.  Forget phraseology!  I want burning, burning.  Be friends with your burning.  Those who pay attention to ways of behaving and speaking are one sort.  Lovers who burn are another.  Don’t impose a property tax on a burned-out village.  Don’t scold the lover.

The “wrong” way he talks is better than a hundred “right” ways of others.  Inside the Kaaba it doesn’t matter which way you point your prayer rug!
The ocean diver doesn’t need snowshoes!
The love-religion has no code or doctrine.
Only God….

If you want further information on this fascinating man, I’ll point you to the Speaking of Faith episode “The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi,” which I’ve just recently listened to.

Very thought-provoking.  Enjoy!

[Post image: Shepherd by costi at stock.xchng]