Teachings of Rumi by Andrew Harvey

"Teachings of Rumi" by Andrew Harvey is a simple, beautifully narrated, and nicely organized book on teachings of Rumi, one of the greatest mystic of Islam. Certainly Andrew Harvey has worked as a smart messenger of Rumi's message with touch of his intelligence in the form of recreation of message to make it understandable to today's reader.





"Teachings of Rumi" is divided into four different "movements" and it can be seen as a beautiful inter-connected "symphony" of mystical teaching. Those four "movements" are "The Call," "Be a Lover," "Ordeal," and "Union." According to Rumi's understanding these "movements" can be seen as stages of journey of soul towards its origin.





The first stage of the journey "The Call" is devoted to the beauty, glory, trails and demands of the stage of "Awakening." In this stage a person has to be committed to prayer and spiritual disciplines, which can deepen their understanding of truth within themselves. Andrew Harvey used the sources like "Aflaki's" - Biographics of Mystics, Letters, Odes, "What Is in It, Is in It" Rumi's Table Talk and Mathnavi. He carefully selected wonderful mystical instructions of Rumi to clarify the stage of awakening in the first phase "The Call."





For example, he uses instructions from Mathnavi:





The Wine and the Cup





The wine of divine grace is limitless


All limits come only from the faults of the cup


Moonlights flood the whole sky from horizon to horizon


How much it can fill your room depends on its windows


Grant a great dignity, my friend, to the cup of your life


Love has designed it to hold His eternal wine





Or from Aflaki, like





The Three Pearls





When God created the pure body of Adam he drew it out of the earth and breathed into it His sacred breath and said to Gabriel, "Take from the sea of My Omnipotence three pearls, place them on a plate of light, and present them to Adam so he can choose one. The three pearls were Reason, Faith and Humility.





Gabriel presented the plate to Adam and told him what God wanted. Adam illumined by the divine light, chose the pearl of Reason. Gabriel wanted to take back the plate with the two pearls it still held to the sea of Omnipotence, but, because of their heaviness, he did not have the strength to lift them. The pearls of Faith and Humility then said to him "We cannot separate ourselves from the holy company of our friend Reason, without him, we cannot establish ourselves firmly or even exist.....





Or from the Table Talk, like





Be Worthy of My Gifts





The Queen of Sheba sent a gift of forty horse-loads of gold to Solomon. When she came to Solomon's country, however, she saw the mountains and fields, and even the dust on the roads, were all pure gold. Day after day she rode on gold until gold lost all meaning or value for her.



When Solomon saw her gifts he laughed out loud, "I never asked for - or wanted - gifts of any kind. All I ask from you is to be worthy of the gifts I'll give you."



All these beautiful narrations selected by Andrew Harvey were thought provoking and certainly lit up the candle of awakening in my heart. There are lots of narrations with underpinning message of awakening which as a reader of the book I enjoyed.



Now I am heading towards the second phase "Be a lover" which is a journey into the heart. Where supreme secrets of love find the reasoning and logic behind his/her power of wisdom.



At this stage the lover understands and reasons behind his/her own creation and celebrates that understanding in his/her heart. In this section Andrew Harvey selected many of those of Rumi's thoughts which vividly describe the pain and agony in lover's mind to reach his/her destiny. Those thoughts of Rumi are very open ended and has lots of room for different interpretations and meanings depending on the background knowledge of the reader. In my understanding the pain of lover that Rumi describes is the pain of detachment of lover from the world to achieve the bigger destiny to be attached with the Creator. In is the process of transformation or losing human soul to be one with the universal soul.



Verses from Odes



It Itself Becomes Sign



The one to whom's unveiled the mystery of love exists no longer, but is annihilated in love. Place before the sun a burning candle, see how its shining disappears before those lights? The candle exists no longer, is transfigured into light. There are no more signs of it; it itself became a sign.



The third stage of movement is "Ordeal" which explores the nature, meaning and price of painful experiences of lover which prepare him/her for the Great Death, the Annihilation-in-love or in other words Ordeals prepare the person to be one with the God by surrendering human attributes to revitalize in God. The following thoughts express that stage:


"You want reality unmasked? Choose death.
Not the death that drags you to the tomb
The death that is a transmutation
So you at last change into the light.

(Odes)

Destruction Precedes Renewal

"A man started to break up the earth with a spade. A fool came and shouted at him: "Why are you ruining the soil?"

"You idiot!" the man cried, "go away and don't bother me! Understand the difference between destruction and growth.

How could this soil become a rose garden or wheat field before it's broken up and ruined and made ugly? How could it become orchards and harvest and leaves and fruit, before it is utterly destroyed and worn down?

Before you pierce an abscess with knife, how can it heal and how can you regain your health?

Until the doctor purifies your tumors with his cures, how can your illness disappear and true healing arrive?

When a tailor cuts up a cloth, piece by piece, does anyone go up to him and strike him and say, "Why have you torn up this beautiful satin; What can I do with scraps of torn-up cloth?"

Each time that builders come to repair an old building, don't they begin by destroying what was there before?

Look at the carpenter or the blacksmith or the butcher; with them too, you'll find destruction precedes renewal. If you don't subject wheat to the grinding millstone, how will bread ever come to decorate your table?" (Mathnavi)

The last movement in this symphony or mystical journey is "Union." It opens up endless possibilities for the seeker; which is celebrated from many different angles. "In Union, the journey to God has become the journey in God." Rumi makes it clear that such a journey has no end in any dimension, and that its mysteries are finally beyond the reach of any human expression or even understanding."

Here Andrew Harvey sums up the book with the collection of those thoughts of Rumi that work as streams of guidance and a sensitive reader can feel that Rumi's words can work as medium of transmission depending upon the gnosis, courage and experience of the reader to be fruitful.

The following thoughts of Rumi shows a glimpse of Andrew Harvey's selection to reflect the last stage of union.

Divine Pride

One day, someone asked Rumi, "We see that certain ancient sages were extremely proud - what does such pride mean?"

He replied, "In people of God, pride is a pride of divine greatness, and not a pride of opinions or passion, nor a presumption that arises from high spiritual rank. When the Imam Dja'far Sadiq, who purified his soul and paid no attention to caliphs and kings, was asked about this pride, he replied, "I myself am not proud. I have abandoned my own existence, the greatness of God has annihilated me and installed itself in place of my pride; the pride I am speaking of springs directly out of the heart of the greatness of God; as for me, in the middle of all this glory, I do not exist." (Aflaki)

This book is definitely worth a read and certainly triggered my thought process. After reading this book many questions arose in my heart about myself. To a certain extent this reading was quite helpful in answering some of the questions I often asked myself, such as, why people who love God go through the agony of pain? or why I feel lonely even when I am in the crowd? etc.