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Unto
Him shall we return
by Rumi
O my noble friends, slaughter this cow,
if you wish to raise up the spirit of insight.
I died to being mineral and growth began.
I died to vegetable growth and attained to the state
of animals.
I died from animality and became Adam:
why then should I fear?
When have I become less by dying?
next I shall die to being a human being,
so that I may soar and lift up my head among the
angels.
Yet I must escape even from that angelic state:
everything is perishing except His Face.*
Once again I shall be sacrificed, dying to the
angelic;
I shall become that which could never be imagined -
I shall become nonexistent.
Nonexistence sings its clear melody,
Truly, unto Him shall we return!**
Mathnawi III:3900-3906
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Daylight"
Threshold Books, 1994
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The concepts of
"Fana" and "Baqa"
With hands (swollen) like a tambourine and belly
like a drum,
I am beating the drum of (I am proclaiming) my love
for the water, as the rose (does).
If that Trusty Spirit spill my
blood, I will drink draught on draught of blood,
like the earth.
I am a blood-drinker, like the
earth and like the embryo: (ever) since I became a
lover I am (engaged) in this trade.
During the night I boil on the
fire, like a kettle; (all) day till nightfall I
drink blood, like the sand.
I repent that I set contrivance
afoot (in order to escape) and fled from that which
his anger desired.
Let him drive on (let him not
restrain) his anger against my intoxicated soul: he
is the Feast of the Sacrifice, and the lover is the
buffalo (for slaughter).
Whether the buffalo sleep or
whether it eat something, he nurtures (fattens) it
for the feast and the slaughter.
Deem me to be (as) the cow of
Moses that gave life (to the murdered man): each
limb of me is the (means of) raising from the dead
every one that is (spiritually) free.
The cow of Moses was one offered
in sacrifice: her smallest limb brought a murdered
man to life.
At its touch the murdered man
sprang up from his place-- at the words spoken (by
God), strike him with part of her.
O my noble (friends), slaughter
this cow (the fleshly soul), if ye desire to raise
to life the spirits (possessed) of insight.
I died to the inorganic state and
became endowed with growth, and (then) I died to
(vegetable) growth and attained to the animal.
I died from animality and became
Adam (man): why, then, should I fear? When have I
become less by dying?
At the next remove I shall die to
man, that I may soar and lift up my head amongst the
angels; And I must escape even from (the state of)
the angel: everything is perishing except His Face.
Once more I shall be sacrificed
and die to the angel: I shall become that which
enters not into the imagination.
Then I shall become
non-existence: non-existence saith to me, (in tones
loud) as an organ, Verily, unto Him shall we return.
Know death to be (the thing
signified by) what the (Mohammedan) community agreed
upon, namely, that the Water of Life is hidden in
the (Land of) Darkness.
Grow from this river-bank, like
the water-lily, greedy and craving for death as the
sufferer from dropsy.
The water is death to him, and
(yet) he is seeking the water and drinking it--and
God best knoweth the right course.
Oh, the cold lover, clad in the
felt (garment) of shame, who from fear of (losing)
his life is fleeing from the Beloved!
O thou disgrace (even) to women,
behold hundreds of thousands of souls clapping their
hands (and rushing) towards the sword of His love!
Thou hast seen the river: spill
thy jug in the river: how should the water take
flight from the river?
When the water in the jug goes
into the river-water, it disappears in it, and it
becomes the river.
His (the lover's) attributes have
passed away, and his essence remains: after this, he
does not dwindle or become ill-favoured.
I have hanged myself on His
palm-tree in excuse for having fled from Him."
The Mathnawi of
Jalalu'din Rumi,
Translation of Book III, verses
3890-3915
Edited and translated by Reynold
A. Nicholson
E.J.W. Gibb Memorial
A note by Ghazaleh, a scholar of Rumi
"During the night I boil on the
fire, like a kettle; (all) day till nightfall I
drink blood, like the sand." -- Rumi
In my limited level of understanding, I think that
Rumi is talking about how one needs to let go of the
ego (as the center of the conscious personality), in
order to make room for the emergence of the
Self/Spirit/Soul (as the center and the
circumference of the Greater Personality). Through
symbolic imagery and poetic language, he
demonstrates the process of initiation, traversing
the dark night of the soul, transformation and
evolution from one level of existence into another.
When water boils, it's nature changes from water to
steam. Therefore, it is no longer water, it has died
(become "fana"), but its nature has been
transformed to a different level of existence,
steam, and has thus attained "bagha".
All night, the soul longs for fana. It yearns for
dying onto the ego/animalistic desires. This is a
realm where there is no true freedom of choice, for
how could a tiger not instinctively kill a coyote
for survival reasons? But a human being is endowed
with the freedom to choose to be transformed into a
higher being, and join its original source, the
Creator. In the same manner, water would boil
in a kettle, in order to transform into steam and
emerge upwards towards the Great Spirit. Steam
always rises upwards, towards Spirit, at a higher
level of enlightenment. The kettle is a
representation of the body or matter, a container or
form for the human ego, the less evolved aspect of
the human being.
The water, in this context, may symbolize the
lover's inner truth contained in the human body; it
is a stream that has origniated from the Greater
ocean, the Divine Spirit. Unfortunately, this stream
(water) has been trapped in matter (the kettle) and
therefore, painfully longs to be redeemed and
reunited with its source (the Great Spirit). The
steam is symbolic of the redeemed water after it has
been put to the test and transformed. The fire
symbolizes pure and Divine Love and passion for the
Beloved. Boiling on the fire, describes the process
of initiation or individuation, purification and
transformation which, like all initiation, is always
very taxing, and sometimes the initiate does not
survive through this dark night of the soul, into
the light of day. Therefore, even if the initiate
does embark on the arduous task of self-realization
that s/he is called upon to endure, it will not come
to fruition without Divine Grace.
As established by alchemists, and approved by the
gnostics who espoused Erfan, two ingredients are
absolutely necessary to the process of
transformation:
1. a voluntary and willing sacrifice on the
part of the individual who has chosen or has been
called upon to journey through this mystic or
shamanic path, and
2. Divine intervention or intention by way of
an act of Grace.
In the same way as water sacrifices itself to steam
(or one dies onto the ego to be reborn onto the
Self/Beloved), the sand absorbs the blood of the
lover who is willing to sacrifice his/her current
level of existence into a higher form. If God, the
One and only Beloved, spills my (the lover's) blood
and
decides on my death in this earthly form, I (the
lover) would happily offer myself as sacrifice like
Moses' cow, in order to help resurrect a dead man,
thus contributing to the act of creation. And I will
drink my own sacrificial blood with thirst and
desire. Since I have experienced Divine Love,
sacrifice or letting go of the ego, is now my way of
life. I shall freely accept this death as it will
pave the way for me to evolve unto the next, higher
level of consciousness, which is cause for
celebration. Lovers (spiritual seekers, initiates)
attain spiritual ecstasy through self-sacrifice
(symbolized by the image of drinking one's own
blood), not the sacrifice of the Self.
Like the cow of Moses, each limb of my sacrificed
body, or each treasure I have found in my process of
individuation or Self-discovery (knowing God
within), will help bring about the resurrection of a
free (spiritually enlightened) human being.
Therefore, it behooves me to sacrifice the cow
(symbol of the animal instinct, ego) through
transcendent Love, in order to resurrect the
wise-old man/woman within.
As such, death is not an absolute state of
non-being, but a transition period of evolution from
a lower to a higher level of enlightenment.
Therefore, there is no reason to fret death, as it
can only enlarge the greater
personality, not take away anything of lasting
value. All forms of creation die except for the
Creator who is the ruler of our psyche and master of
our house. We are all from God and shall return to
God.
I long for the water of life and wish I were that
eternal water. In fact, I have drunk so much water
that it is killing me! This is because the water of
life is hidden in the dark. However, we all have the
capacity to choose to connect with this eternal
water, if we consciously and willingly relinquish
our animal instincts and ego desires of this
material world. Just as a lily grows in opaque pond
water and spreads its wings in the pond, we too can
grow in the garden of love and truth, through
attaining the state of "fana" known as ego
death. By joining our own jug of water with the
eternal ocean of the Beloved, we become the Beloved,
as we cannot withdraw a stream from the ocean. As
such, we die onto our egocentric personal self and
are reborn into our higher Self; we attain the final
connunctio, coming together of the opposites; we
shall have a glimpse of wholeness, the Eternal
Truth, the goal of our Heart's
desire. Ghazaleh
A
Light Within His Light
by Rumi
I circled awhile with each of the intelligences,
the nine fathers that control the levels
of spirit-growth. I revolved
for years with the stars through
each astrological sign.
I disappeared into the kingdom of nearness.
I saw what I have seen, receiving nourishment
as a child lives in the womb.
Personalities are born once,
a mystic many times.
Wearing the body-robe, I've been busy
in the market, weighing and arguing prices.
Sometimes I have torn the robe off
with my own hands and thrown it away.
I've spent long nights in monasteries,
and I have slept with those who claim to believe
nothing on the porches of pagodas,
just traveling through.
When someone feels jealous, I am inside
the hurt and the need to possess.
When anyone is sick, I feel
feverish and dizzy.
I am cloud and rain being released,
and then the meadow as it soaks it in.
I wash the rains of mortality
from the cloth around a dervish.
I am the rose of eternity, not made of
water or fire or the wandering wind,
or even earth. I pay with those.
I am not Shams of Tabriz,
but a light withint his light.
If you see me, be careful.
Tell no one what you've seen.
Ghazal (Ode) 331
Version by Coleman Barks
"Say I Am You"
Maypop, 1994
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