The Lunatic, the Lover and the Poet (Largo dolce e legato)
Excerpt-Archetypal Imagination-Noel Cobb
At the age of thirty-seven, Mevlana Jalal ‘uddin Rumi was at the peak of his career as professor of Islamic theology in Konya (the ancient Greek city of Iconium in Asia Minor) where he had succeeded his father in the role of spiritual teacher. His discourses drew thousands of listeners, among them many kings and princes, as well as commoners.
As a student he had been taught by the best minds of his time. As a boy he had received the blessings of the great Sufi master, Farid al-Din‘Attar of Nishapur, who told the boy's father: “The day will come when this child will kindle the fire of divine enthusiasm throughout the world.” For over ten years he had put all his energy into perfecting his profound and scholarly sermons. As a good Muslim he scorned music, and as a philosopher he probably considered poetry a lesser vehicle for the Truth. He was married; he had several children; and he was a deeply respected leader of the community. Then one day in November, 1244, as he was leaving the college where he had been teaching, something happened.
Sitting majestically on his horse, conversing with his students, who scrambled to walk beside him and to hold the stirrups of his mount, Rumi was suddenly aware of a weird figure that emerged from the Inn of the Sugar Merchants and moved through the throng towards him. It was a man of about sixty, a dervish, wearing an old, patched cloak of coarse, black felt. Leaping through the crowd, he grasped the bridle of the horse and shouted a question at the rider. Rumi answered. The man shouted another question (the books disagree as to what the questions were). Rumi answered again. This time the dervish fell to his knees in the dust. Rumi dismounted and knelt in the dust himself, touching the stranger's head and embracing him as if he were his long-lost, best friend. The crowd stopped. The students began murmuring. After a time, Rumi and the stranger stood up. Rumi gave the horse into the charge of one of his students and sent the crowd away. The two men left town and were not seen again for three months. The students discovered that they had gone to a hermitage in the country where they had remained hermetically cloistered. Who was this stranger?
No one knew much about him, except that he came from Tabriz and that he was a wanderer. His name was Shams, which means “The Sun.” Rumi seemed spellbound. His students were outraged. It was as if a demon or djinn had appeared and taken possession of their master. He no longer appeared at his classes. After a time he even stopped wearing the professor's gown and took to wearing an old dervish cloak, like Shams. Worse, he seemed to dote on everything the old dervish said. Once when Rumi was giving a discourse to a few close students, Shams appeared, took his books and threw them into a nearby pool, saying “You must live by what you know.” When Shams told Rumi not to speak, Rumi remained silent for days. The final proof that Rumi had gone mad was that, under Shams’ influence, he had taken to listening to ecstatic music, composing poems and dancing. Rumi was drunk with the experience of divinity, but not in the abstract: Shams’ presence was theophanic.
The meeting with Shams had, in fact, transformed Rumi into a great poet. In the years between 1245 and 1261, he composed some fifty thousand verses, comprising 3,500 ghazals and 2,000 quatrains. These were put together and called, by Rumi, the Divan, or Book, of Shams-i-Tabriz. And until recently, the only translations available in English were a selection from 1898 of forty-eight ghazals by Reynold Nicholson, a professor of Arabic at Cambridge. The populace of Konya was shocked and indignant at Rumi's behavior and his association with Shams. Though Rumi told his closest friends that Shams was a great alchemist and a wide-ranging scholar of the sciences who had renounced all that to devote himself to the contemplation of love's mysteries, the people generally held that Shams was a magician who had bedevilled Rumi's mind. Rumi ignored public opinion: If thou art Love's lover and seekest love, Take a keen poniard and cut the throat of bashfulness. Know that reputation is a great hindrance in the path; This saying is disinterested: receive it with pure mind. Insofar as one is afraid to be who one is, reputation is a hindrance in the path. Being who he was, with Shams, was a joy for Rumi. It was hard going with the rest of the community. But Rumi had seen something, and he wasn't going to let go of it that easily.
What is to be done, O Moslems? for I do not recognize myself.I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem. I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea; I am not of Nature's mint, nor of the circling heavens. I am not of the earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire; I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity. I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqsin; I am not of the kingdom of Iraqain, nor of the country of Khorasan. I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell; I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwan. My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless; 'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one; One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call. He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward; I know none other except “Ya Hu” and “Ya man Hu.” I am intoxicated with love's cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken; I have no business save carouse and revelry. If once in my life I spent a moment without thee, From that time and from that hour I repent of my life. If once in this world I win a moment with thee, I will trample on both worlds, I will dance in triumph forever. O Shamsi Tabriz, I am so drunken in this world, That except of drunkenness and revelry I have no tale to tell.
Cobb, Noel. Archetypal Imagination (pp. 190-191). Lindisfarne Books.