Jahane Rumi In search of the unsearchable: O, my soul! where would you find your house?

25May/090

In the company of lovers

I am drunk and you are insane
tell me, who will lead us home?
How many times have I asked you not to drink so much
for I see no sober soul in town.
Come to the tavern my dearest and taste the wine of love
for the soul is joyous only in the company of lovers.
The tavern of love is your livelihood
your income and expenses, the wine.
Be careful, not to trust a sober soul
with even one drop of this wine.
Go on playing your lute, my drunken gypsy but tell me,
between the two of us, who is more drunk?
As I left my house a Sufi approached me,
in his glance I saw a hundred gardens.
He swayed from side to side like a ship without an anchor,
while a hundred reasonable men watched on enviously.
Where are you from? I asked him.
He replied, "Half from Turkistan and half from Farghaneh,
half from water and clay and half from soul and heart,
half from the edge of the sea and half from the depths of the coean."

Rumi -- Ghazal (Ode) 2398
Translated by Azima Melita Kolin
and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Hidden Music
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001

16Feb/091

A call from the unseen

A baby pigeon on the edge of the nest
hears the call and begins his flight.
How can the soul of the seeker not fly when a message arrives saying,
"You have been trapped in life like a bird with no wings,
in a cage with no doors or windows
come, come back to me!"
How can the soul not rip open its coverings,
and soar to the sky.

3Sep/080

The sway of the Bauls:Oblivious minstrels of soul

Out of the Quagmire

"By Ratnadeep Banerji "The sway of the Bauls:Oblivious minstrels of soul" - Organiser - New Delhi, India
Weekly issue: August 17, 2008

Baul etymologically arises from Sanskrit batul or byakul that literally means divinely inane or fervently eager

The Charyapadas (Buddhist hymns) which gave rise to Bengali bear references to the precepts of Baul. It is conjectured that around 6th century AD, Mahaprabhu Chaitanya, culled this esoteric coterie of Bauls as a formal community though the word ‘Baul’ appeared in Bengali texts around 15th century.

Bauls are essentially mystic minstrels hailing from the hinterland of West Bengal and Bangladesh. Baul is not just a music tradition but it’s also a syncretic religious sect out of Vaishnavite Hindus, Sufi Muslims and Hindu tantric sect of the Kartabhajas as well as Tantric Buddhist schools like Sahajia.

6Apr/082

A Few Words on the Soul

Thanks to my friend Fawad, I have been introduced to the fine poetry of , Wislawa Szymborska (b. 1923) also the 1996 Polish Nobel Laureate.

A Few Words on the Soul

We have a soul at times.

No one's got it non-stop,

for keeps.

Day after day,

year after year

may pass without it.

Sometimes

it will settle for awhile

only in childhood's fears and raptures

Sometimes only in astonishment

that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand

in uphill tasks,

like moving furniture,

or lifting luggage,

or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out

whenever meat needs chopping

or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations

it participates in one,

if even that,

since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,

it slips off-duty.

It's picky,

it doesn't like seeing us in crowds.

our hustling for a dubious advantage

and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow

aren't two different feelings for it.

It attends us

only when the two are joined.

We can count on it

when we're sure of nothing

and curious about everything.

Among the material objects

it favors clocks with pendulums

and mirrors, which keep on working

even when no one is looking.

It won't say where it comes from

or when it's taking off again,

though it's clearly expecting such questions.

We need it

but apparently

it needs us

for some reason too.

(Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

15Dec/074

Prince Charles on “East and West: Parables of the Soul”

Prince Charles was recently in Konya, Turkey on a state visit that coincides with Rumi's 800th birth anniversary. Commenting on the appeal of Rumi globally, he said: "Is it perhaps the depth of yearning of the heart which we all feel and which he [Rumi]understands and describes so well."

When asked what he thought of the shrine he added: "Fascinating, fascinating, there's never enough time."

He also made a speech there which is an amazing read. I am posting a few excepts here.

God's purpose for man is to acquire a seeing eye and an understanding heart.

In an age of increasing ignorance, intolerance and mis-understanding it is perhaps worth reflecting on the one element that has the potential to unite us all beyond the World-Wide Web or globalization. That element lies in the mystery of the heart. Is it not strange that at a time in history when every taboo has seemingly been broken; every sacred cow slaughtered, that the very idea of mysticism itself the practice of the mystery of the heart seems to have become of far less significance?

And yet have not the founders of the World's greatest religions all spoken in one way or another of the need to enter the temple of the heart? Why? Because, surely, is it not the mystery within, when once unlocked, that is able to inspire the kind of inner understanding which can break asunder the law of cause and effect that so undermines our attempts at reconciliation?

Therefore, what better occasion and what better place than here, near the resting place of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, to re-dedicate ourselves to the purpose of re-acquiring and understanding heart

Full text here