It Is What It Is - The Discourses of Rumi - Intro

Anonymous Wrote:

Years ago I posted to alt.religion.eckankar sections from my book, The
Silent Questions and also my other book The Whole Truth, before they
were published. I thought I might do this with my new book, It Is What
It Is - The Discourses of Rumi, if folks on ARE would find this
interesting. I also look forward to feedback.

Here is the intro to the book. It is a bit long for a post, but I
thought it would be best to include the whole thing.

If more about the book sounds interesting, let me know. I was thinking
about posting one of the discourses every two or three weeks. Let me
know what you think.

We should be printing the new book later this year, by the way. So,
this is a sneak preview.

Doug.

Introduction

Recognized by many as the greatest mystical poet of Islam, Jalal al-
Din Rumi (1207-1273) communicated something through his writing that
has attracted spiritual seekers from almost every religion in the
world, for hundreds of years. Even in his day, Rumi was sought out by
merchants and kings, devout worshipers and rebellious seekers, famous
scholars and common peasants, men and women. At his funeral, Muslims,
Christians, Jews, Arabs, Persians, Turks and Romans honored him.
Listen to his call for seekers of truth:

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper,
Lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken
Your vow a hundred times.
Come, yet again, come, come.

Rumi’s love and honor for all religious traditions was not always
popular in his day, and often provoked criticism from the more
dogmatic. A story is told that one such public challenge came from a
Muslim dignitary, Qonavi, who confronted Rumi before an audience. "You
claim to be at one with 72 religious sects," said Qonavi, "but the
Jews cannot agree with the Christians, and the Christians cannot agree
with Muslims. If they cannot agree with each other, how could you
agree with them all?" To this Rumi answered, "Yes, you are right, I
agree with you too."

Although kings were his followers, Rumi’s critics could never
understand why Rumi’s greatest love and dedication went to what they
called, "the tailors, the cloth-sellers, and the petty shopkeepers –
uncouth and uncultured ruffians." Yet even amongst his dearest
companions, Rumi allowed no vanity. The story is told that one day,
while Rumi was in deep contemplation, surrounded by his disciples, a
drunkard walked in shouting and stumbling. The man staggered toward
Rumi and fell on him. To Rumi’s followers such a disgrace of their
teacher was intolerable, and they rose as one to rush the ignorant
fool. Rumi stopped them with his raised hand, saying, "I thought this
intruder was the one who was intoxicated, but now I see it is not he,
but my own students who are drunk!"

There are thousands who believe that Rumi’s presence (baraka) still
exists today, and still teaches. If this is true, it is certainly
largely due to the remarkable vitality that can be found in his
writings and poetry. There is a relevancy they contain that reaches to
our inner core. Rumi’s poetry has captured the hearts of spiritual
seekers around the world because of its depth and beauty. His verses
sketch out the whole panorama of life, from human sorrow and devotion,
to the universal breadth of God’s hidden plan. His poetry seems
fathomless and endless.

Rumi has also left to us another manuscript that is not so well known
– the collection of discourses given during gatherings with his
students. It Is What It Is (Fihi ma Fihi) is a record of these
spiritual discussions that often accompanied music, the reciting of
sacred poems and phrases, and the now famous Whirling Dervish exercise
that Rumi originated to enliven and bring spiritual opening to the
rather somber people of Konya, Turkey, in his day.

This present book is edited and rewritten from A. J. Arberry’s
original English translation, published in 1961 as Discourses of Rumi.
Arberry himself admitted that his scholastic, literal, work "is not an
easy book to read...and the original is by no means easy always to
understand." According to more recent studies of the original
manuscript (Chittick and Shah, for example,) Arberry’s translation
also has technical errors, and better understandings of Rumi’s subtle
spiritual teachings have come to light. I hope this edition will help
illuminate and clarify such passages, and to build on Professor
Arberry’s contribution.

If you were to compare the original manuscript of Rumi’s discourses
with this present book, the first change you might notice would be the
dropping of phrases like, "may Allah bless him and give him peace,"
after every reference to a saint or prophet, which was the proper and
respectful way of speaking in Rumi’s day, and still is today in some
parts of the world. Also, Rumi makes numerable references to the Koran
and quotes from it frequently. Since Rumi’s listeners knew the Koran
well, such quotes were familiar and personal brush strokes. However,
to many readers of this book this will not be so. Therefore, I have
removed a few quotes that could prove confusing to those who do not
know the Koran, or that might disturb the direction of Rumi’s message.

Rumi’s reference to God is always deeply personal. Whether he uses the
masculine term "Allah," or refers to God as "The Beloved," it is
nearness and closeness to God that Rumi is expressing. Unfortunately,
the English language has no personal, neutral pronoun for God. To
always use "He" in referring to God, to mankind, or to any general
person, was common practice when Arberry released his edition, but
seems too masculine today. In Rumi’s Persian language, "God" has no
gender, and Rumi’s symbolic portrayal of God uses images of the Lover,
and the Ocean, as often as the King. Therefore, I have used "It" to
refer to God in places, to help rise above gender, but have also used
"He" and "Beloved" to communicate the personal closeness of Rumi’s
message.

The flow, rhythm and impact of Rumi’s images are what I have tried to
preserve, over everything else. These inner subtleties are,
paradoxically, more important than the apparent point he is making.
For example, in discourse “Twenty-Six” Rumi says, "Beware! Do not say,
‘I have understood.’ The more you understand and grasp these words,
the farther you will be from understanding them. Their meaning comes
in not understanding." Such insights can not be explained, we must
catch them inwardly, with only the subtle clues that Rumi leaves to
guide us.

Follow Rumi closely in this way, and you will see a string that holds
one pearl to the next on this necklace. Each story, each image, is a
new moment in Rumi’s discourse, yet rarely is it broken from the last
moment. Step by step, Rumi is dancing. We must be limber and flexible
in our consciousness to follow without losing that thread. Yet, hidden
in the rhythm and pattern of Rumi’s dance is his true intention.

Even today, Rumi challenges many of our basic cultural assumptions,
and often in ways we could miss if we aren’t careful. It is easy to
make the mistake of rejecting an idea on the grounds that it is out of
date, or that it sounds merely like a traditional, orthodox opinion. I
would caution about ever jumping to this conclusion with Rumi, since
you will more likely find that he has caught you making the very same
error. I have tried to add commentary to help reflect some of the
subtler aspects of his discourses.

For example, in discourse “Twelve,” Rumi asks the question, "If a
saint, who carries God’s secret jewel [spiritual grace], strikes
someone and breaks their nose and jaw, who is the wronged party?" Rumi
claims it is the saint who has been wronged. "Since the saint is
consumed in God, their actions are God’s actions. God is not called a
wrongdoer."

At first glance, this smacks of religious zealotry. The same sort that
brought about the killings and murders of the Inquisition and modern
day terrorism. No different than any other self-justified excuse.
Anyone can blame God for their own choices, we say. But read Rumi’s
words closely; he is not talking about justifying violence. He is
asking what makes an act right or wrong, good or bad. He is asking us
to look beneath our cultural ideas of right and wrong to see the true
cause: God’s will.

But the problem doesn’t stop here, since we have not yet caught Rumi’s
vision. Our culture rejects ideas of Absolute Right or Wrong. We have
learned that each person must decide for themselves what is true, and
no outside authority has the right to force their perspective on what
is God’s will. So, after centuries of petty religious battles and
church-state slaughters, we have tried to solve this problem socially
by placing personal rights above religious belief. In other words, we
still don’t believe the saint has the right to strike out.

Rumi knows all this and is way ahead. He goes on to say, "A westerner
lives in the West. An oriental comes to visit. The westerner is a
stranger to the oriental, but who is the real stranger? Is not the
oriental a stranger to all the West?" In other words, sure the idea of
a true saint using violence sounds strange and wrong to us, because it
is a stranger to our thoughts. But if this true saint speaks and acts
only from Truth, then who is the real stranger to Truth?

Rumi continues, "This whole world is but a house, no more. Whether we
go from this room to that room, or from this corner to that corner,
still are we not in the same house? But the saints who possess God’s
jewel have left this house, they have gone beyond. Mohammed said,
‘Islam began a stranger and will return a stranger as it began.’"

In this way, Rumi’s words come right through time and ask us today,
"Can you accept that a true Lover of God could carry God’s authority?
Can you see that, because of what they know, they will always be a
stranger to this world?" So who is out of date? Certainly anyone bound
by the culture of their time, anyone who is not moved by something
greater.

If you see what is happening here, you will see that Rumi is using our
own unexamined aversions and dislikes to teach us. Some of Rumi’s most
profound poetry is ignored because of such thorns, prompting him to
say, in discourse “Thirty-Five”: "How wonderfully gracious God is! IT
sets a seal on those who listen and do not understand, argue and yet
learn nothing. God is gracious. Its wrath is gracious, and even Its
lock is gracious. But Its lock is nothing next to Its unlocking, for
the grace of that is indescribable. If I shatter into pieces, it is
through the infinite grace of God’s unlocking."

This raises an interesting observation. Rumi was never general in his
discussions, he always spoke to specific situations. He addressed the
particular beliefs and conflicts of those around him. He was a witness
and spokesman for The Way as it was manifesting in his day. And still
his words can teach us now.

If a traveler tripped over a rock in their path 700 years ago, and
from this event altered the course of their life, we might conclude
the rock was only incidental. But if that same rock trips thousands,
through the centuries, each walking away with a different message and
a different lesson, then can we call this an accident? When foolish
people trip, they get up and walk away as if nothing happened. They
learn nothing. A wise person finds the greater meaning for their fall.
But a rock that trips travelers in every age, each time imparting a
different meaning, that is not just a rock. That is God.

Many of the terms Rumi uses have a very different meaning in their
Islamic context than they do in their Christian sense. For example,
the word "belief" amongst many Sufis is much closer to what we might
call "knowingness." This is not the same as "faith," which often
refers to a person’s hopes. The Quakers had a term known as
"convincement" that expresses some of this, but still betrays too much
of our own choice in the matter. As Rumi uses the word "belief," he is
talking more about the effect of having experienced something that
changes how we see life, than he is talking about having been sold on
some doctrine.

Likewise, when Rumi refers to Islam, he is talking about The Way. He
is not talking about the preconceived notions that people have about
Islam today, or even in his day, but the spiritual path itself and the
religious tradition.

It is not always easy to understand this as Rumi meant it, just as
Rumi’s use of Mohammed as the Prophet and Voice of God is easily
interpreted as traditional belief, which is only the outward cloak of
what Rumi is really saying. It is just this sort of blindness that
Rumi is speaking to when he says, in discourse “Seventy”: "Wherever
men or women put a big lock, that is a sign of something precious and
valuable. Just like the snake that guards a treasure, do not regard
what repels you, but look instead at the preciousness of the
treasure."

Rising above the forms of religion, Rumi touches the universal. This
is why so many countries and followers have claimed him as their own –
because he speaks to our hearts and lifts our vision to the essence
behind all faiths and beyond all borders. Even in recent times, we
find followers of Sant Mat and the Radhasoamis of India have adopted
him as a Sat Guru, and students of Eckankar consider him an ECK
Master. This is how Rumi would have wanted it, since he taught that
Truth crosses beyond man-made labels and boxes.

I think religious historians have done a disservice by categorizing
Rumi as a Sufi, Milarepa as a Tibetan Buddhist, Kabir as a Muslim, and
Guru Nanak as a Sikh. These were teachers who towered above such
definitions and refused to classify themselves. They were not bound by
customs or traditions. They lived and taught from states of
consciousness that demonstrated both individualism and universalism in
full expression. They showed both humanity and divinity, and rejected
the vanity and egotism that divides people into factions. They were
citizens of all worlds, and friends with all lovers of God.

As Rumi says in discourse “Two”:

“There is a saying that the saint is one, humankind is a hundred,
meaning the saint’s whole attention remains upon the one truth, while
people are scattered over a hundred appearances. But which hundred?
Which fifty? Which sixty? Lost in this world of mirrored reflections,
they are a faceless people without hands and feet, without mind and
Soul, quivering like a magic talisman, like quicksilver or mercury.
They do not know who they are. Call them sixty or a hundred or a
thousand, and the saint is one, but is not this view a trial itself?
For the truth is that the hundreds are nothing, while the saint is a
thousand, and a hundred thousand, and thousands of thousands.”

A transmission of divine grace flowed through the teachers I named
above. It poured out into the world. You can see it in the words of
their closest followers, who were often overwhelmed by such feelings
of love that lifted them up to a majestic view of all Life. Kings and
royalty bowed down to their inner authority, and the uneducated
understood the bread of life these spiritual leaders were giving.

But after they left this world, the subtle force that bathed their
students receded, and their literal words became the focus of their
teachings. Their exact phrases were then deemed sacred and this became
the doctrine followed, rather than the spiritual currents themselves.
This was never what these teachers wanted, but often this is all that
historians and later day students can see. For this reason, I have
tried to restore the inner power behind the words with this
translation and add some commentary, to help recapture that experience
of drinking from the fresh stream in Rumi’s presence.

I think it is more accurate to say that these teachers, who speak from
inner authority and bow down only to the source of Life, belong to the
same teaching. They should not be assigned to separate religions. This
gives a truer picture. It is the followers who create the hundreds of
separate philosophies, theories, religious traditions and lineages
that amount to nothing, as Rumi said, because they do even know
themselves. But the saints whose vision is focused upon the root of
the root of the root of religion have arrived at the universal
essence.

So, we can say that Christ was never a Christian, Buddha was never a
Buddhist and Mohammed never a Muslim, because what they followed was
alive, and not the doctrine that their followers preach. As Paul
Twitchell said, it is not the words of the Masters we should try to
emulate, but their state of consciousness.

In fact, devotees of religion often significantly diverge from what
their own founders first taught. For example, few westerners realize
that Mohammed never condoned war to convert others to Islam, and in
fact said, “there is no compulsion in religion,” making it clear that
force should never be used to change a person’s beliefs and no one
should be converted by the sword. Mohammed was never the aggressor in
battle and specifically forbade his followers from attacking first,
but said that war was only just and holy when fought to defend against
aggressors.[1]

The true Masters tell us over and over again that it is not words left
in books that are important, but the awareness gained through personal
inner experience that we should seek. This goes far beyond names and
forms, doctrines and holy books.

Take the title of Rumi’s discourses as an example. Fihi ma Fihi, was
translated by Arberry to In It What Is In It, but I believe It Is What
It Is comes closer to Rumi’s intent. In any case, this title is filled
with multiple meanings, just as all of Rumi’s works are. This may be a
foreign idea, that someone could be communicating many things at many
levels, at the same time, but let us look closely at this title for a
moment.

First, it is making a very specific, physical reference. "It," meaning
this manuscript, is the same as what is in "It," meaning Rumi’s most
famous work, his six volume poem, the Masnavi. In other words, the
Fihi ma Fihi provides explanations and keys to unlock the meaning of
the Masnavi. The two works were written parallel to each other, and
contain many references and stories that are continued from one to the
other. This being true, it is quite surprising that Rumi’s discourses
have not gained more attention. But this is only one of the title’s
meanings, and by no means the most important.

At another level, It Is What It Is asks us not to put into this
manuscript more or less than what it is. It is not clothed in the high
cloth of religious sanctity, nor does it speak as some authority. Rumi
wants us simply to see it for what it is. He wants us to be
emotionally honest and not to get carried away with the form. In other
words, don’t become attached to the beauty of this vase, it is merely
a holder of The Rose.

At the same time, "IT" refers to God. Therefore God is what God is.
This is the same as the Muslim saying, "There is no God but God." In
other words, Rumi asks, "What more is there to say?" All the words
here, all the stories and explanations are saying nothing more than
this. There is no more to reality than reality. God is. Reality is. It
is what it is. Explanations cannot explain it. Words cannot reveal it.

And so, "It," meaning the manuscript, is what "IT," meaning God or
reality, is. Therefore, the Fihi ma Fihi is cut from the same cloth as
reality, it is the same substance as God.

If you can see these many meanings, all swimming like fish in the
ocean that is the title, then you will know how to read Rumi. May it
also help you catch real fish as well.

– Doug Marman

[1] Jihad dar Islam (Holy War in Islam) is the title of a book written
by Ayatollah Salehi Najafabadi of Iran, recently translated into
English, that makes a thorough exploration of Mohammed’s words and
actions. The book shows clearly that the modern misrepresentation of
Jihad began over a hundred years after Mohammed by a series of cruel
Caliphs who greedily wanted to expand their empires. They used the
name of religion and their interpretations of the words of the Koran
to justify their violent aggression. This is nothing new, as we’ve
seen the same thing down through history, across all corners of the
world, with all religions.