Published by Threshold Books
Excerpted from Rumi’s Sun
In the Name of Our Most Compassionate and Most Merciful Source
Open Your Eyes
It is as if the Resurrection has opened now, and the Unseen universe has been revealed. Yes, I swear that the Unseen is apparent, the veil has been removed, but for those whose eyes are open.
From What Level Are You Listening
When someone says, “That sofa is high,” this “height” is not according to the ceiling but according to the floor.
I have openly told this to Mevlana: “When I speak to them, if they can’t understand my words, then you tell it to them.” Do I have a command from God to speak to them in such low metaphors?
I am talking about the origin and foundation of the work—it seems so difficult to them. But when as a metaphor I speak about another origin, I cover the words; I speak in such a veiled way that in the end every word hides another.
About the subject of the Truth, Mevlana never speaks in a veiled way, because I dove very deeply with him—I have openly told him about everything in a clear way. When Mevlana begins to speak, people accept it, ask his forgiveness, and bow their heads like dervishes.
Coming Close to the Essence
Muhammad said, “O Christian! You couldn’t know Jesus; at least know me. Then you will have known me, and him as well!”
Now, they know Muhammad as the Seal of the Prophets.
They ask about his sayings . . . whether he was too shy to say, “Whoever knows my self knows my Lord,” and so instead he said, “He who knows himself knows his Lord.”
Without awareness, people interpret his words. The perceptive said to themselves, “We know this poor, dirty, disobedient, and dark little nafs of ours, but can one obtain the ability to know God from this?” Those who have reached the secret, understood what he said.
Pulling Back from the Fire
I said, “What right do I have to eat, drink, and sleep? Did God Most High create me only for that? Until He speaks with me without any mediator, until I ask Him and He tells me what this eating and sleeping is—did I come to this universe to eat and drink blindly?
If the work is like this, and I can speak and communicate face to face with Him, then I eat and drink because I understand how I came here, where I am going, where my safety lies, and what my end will be. So I live freely, without worries.”
“How could this be understood with the intellect?” I asked, and I turned my face to Him.
It’s like when a mother has but a single child in the whole universe, a very good and beautiful baby, who puts his hand into the fire. Just as the mother would jump to grab her baby, the fragrance of the Truth pulled me away from the fire.
Aspiration
One of the beautiful names of God is the One Who Seeks (Murid). And in the end, this seeker will have a wish (murad). And another one of His names is Aspirant (Talib ). He should have someone for whom he aspires (matlub).
Someone asked, “Is it like this for everyone? At least in the beginning, I was also an aspirant.”
I said, “Everyone is not an aspirant. If a light from that aspiration were to fall upon the people of the world, nobody would be able to endure it, they would all burn and be utterly destroyed.”
One of these aspirants is the Prophet Moses. He looked for a trace of God on the mountain—he passed beyond himself, and came back. So, how could everybody randomly be the one who is searched for? There is no doubt about the subtle point in the couplet:
If they drive us away from our city, so what?
The countryside also belongs to us.
If God gives me success, I’ll go to a place where no sound or echo might reach me. Let the winds that blow from different directions run after each other. Let me recite something—let me whisper into the ears of the wind; bring your ears there, too.
One who has a guarantee and support to lean on—his heart is joyful;
his back is strong, and he doesn’t grieve for anything.
Mevlana’s Good Teaching
I had mentioned about the problem with my eye: “Now, this is not something within my power to do anything about, this is an obstacle that has come from the universe of the Unseen. Now, go! Only the letter of Mevlana is enough for me.”
His son (Sultan Veled), whom he sent to me said, “Then what would Mevlana say to me? Wouldn’t he tell me, ‘O stupid one, O ass, O foolish one! I sent you to bring that person. And since you went, you found him and he told you that his eye was aching, then what was appropriate for you to do was to wait there, to serve him, and until he returned to health, to stay there.”
From these words of the young man I understood that Mevlana had taught him those words, that humility. Those words, that gentleness, those subtle answers must all be due to Mevlana’s teaching that he showed such an extraordinary interest in me about this matter.
If I give an example that is superior to these words, it won’t fit into the minds of the ignorant people . . . .
Love of the Homeland is Part of the Faith
He says, “Why would such and such a person’s son walk behind a stranger from Tabriz? Would the earth of Khorasan be a follower of the earth of Tabriz and be dependent on it?”
He claims to be a person of piety and joy, but he doesn’t have enough intelligence to understand that the honoring of earth is not the point.
If someone from Istanbul says, “Mecca is of this world, from the universe of matter; and faith is from the other world, that is from the universe of meaning,” here, what the one from Mecca should do is agree with the one from Istanbul. In the hadith, “Love of the homeland is part of the faith,” how could the intention of Muhammad be love of Mecca? Mecca is of this world, but faith is not of this world.
Therefore, things related to faith are not of this universe—they are from the other universe. Just as in the hadith, “Islam began as a stranger, and it will return as a stranger”—the intention is the same. Since Islam is a stranger, this means it has come from a different universe. How can it be particular to Mecca? Those who say it belongs only to Mecca, are the ones who couldn’t even reach the first step of love.
May Revelation Dawn within You
Even if the whole world would hang me by my beard, still if something needs to be said, I will say it. But without a doubt, even after a thousand years, these words will be heard by those whom I want to hear.
A few people became the Prophet’s scribes for the revelation—those who wrote down the divine commands—and a few people became the place where the revelation descends, that is, the place of its effect. Work hard so that you may be both! In other words, be both the object of the revelation and the scribe of the revelation that comes to the heart.
The word murid comes from irada (will); murid means “one who wills,” or “one who wishes” —“one who desires.”
See Mathnawi I:3228-3297.