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Maulana Rumi & Mysticism

10/10/2020

There are as many interpretations of Mysticism as many people who practice it. Either it is defined by a person who is from East or West or by a religious person or by stereotype or a liberal person. first or last, they will surely stand on the universal description of it and that is to cut off from the world and get some meditation to purify soul and body. Rumi along with Shams, they both led the foundation of Eastern Mysticism in a real sense.

As time passes so the number of preachers and admirer of mysticism increases and takes mysticism according to their own will and wish. This contradiction does not go from person to person but also from boundary to boundary like Eastern Mysticism & Western Mysticism. Hence, ‘Mysticism’ can be best defined as a collection of unique practices, discourses, texts, institutions, traditions, and experiences intended at human transformation, variously defined in different ways. It further studies or practices of union with ultimate reality means God.

The term ‘mystic,’ originated from the Greek mustes, reflecting “to hide.” In the Hellenistic world, ‘mystical’ indicated to “mystery” strict ceremonies. In early Christianity, the term came to indicate to “covered up” metaphorical translations of Scriptures and to veiled existences, for example, that of Jesus at the Eucharist. Later, the term started to take as “mystical theology,” which involved a direct understanding of the heavenly order of the universe and God (Bouyer, 1981). Regularly, mystics, mystical or not, consider them to be understanding as a story of a greater endeavor focused on human change.

The poetry of Rumi is not speaking about the love of a man or woman, but it longs for the love of the Divine. His poetry is often misinterpreted, and that misunderstanding comes from many of the faulty translations who do not know much about the degree and level of mystical paths. There is Shams in the poetry of Rumi but, that union is great and sublime above from worldly pleasure.

Rumi’s poetry is so versatile that it keeps many interpretations. The very lines of this poem also indicate and signifies the real message of God and remind human beings about their creation. very first lines of Rumi’s poem “Song of Reed Flute” talks about the separation of Rumi from Shams and speaks about the separation of a human being from their God. Mysticism also conveys this message to remain with God in every circumstance because today or tomorrow the ultimate destiny of us all is to go back to God from where we have come. As in lines, “Anyone who has remained far from his roots, seeks a return to the time of his union”.

Rumi has a place with a Sufi root where he works on shielding the heart from awful qualities like avarice, begrudge, presumption, and so on. By purging out the awful deeds and filling the heart with great deeds. This thing keeps Sufis to live in harmony with everything around them. They do not take a gander at the defects of the individuals around them yet focus on themselves. They never judge anybody except for themselves. They additionally work to live and support every person and sustain all plants and creatures. By satisfying God, and cleansing their hearts, and being kind and sympathetic to every single living thing, they accomplish harmony and a high profound status with God.

Mystics do their work and preach a very simple and plain message to people that avoid worldly pleasures and seed the fruit of the soul. Troubled are those people who plant and feed their bodies but do not think about the growth of the soul which mediates them with their God. Rumi also emphasizes this very point. As he says. “The body is not hidden from the soul, nor the soul from the body, but seeing the soul is not permitted”.

To leave this world is a bit difficult endeavor and get away from traditional ways of living quite intolerable because society ridicules and criticizes, but no matter how much way is difficult one must move forward because their mighty God is behind them who pushes them to go ahead. When Rumi left the visible world and ran after Shams then people greatly rebuked him and Shams, but Rumi did not leave the way and at last, he got the celestial light.

As Rumi narrates in his poem “The song of Reed flute”, Reed a hollow knotted stalk the sweet sound comes from the reed when played, the player thought what is inside the reed that makes the sound so melodious? He cut the reed in two pieces and found nothing; the melody was in his puff. Now RUMI is indicating that reeds are we and the melodious sound coming from us is due to HIS puff. When God created us, HE puffed the spirit.

If I understand correctly (and of course I may be wrong), man is an instrument that someone filled the melody and not an empty sound. This is real life can imagine. There comes a moment when we discover in ourselves the melodies and we are no longer just the same as before. The reed represents us, human beings; we have been cut away from the whole, God’s universe. Every reed, every human, has its unique sound. The yearning we must find love is the yearning to be once again part of the plant. Reference to ‘sugar’, is the sweetness we can produce when we share our love with others. To stay in a ‘hollow note’, is to stay pure, have clear thoughts, and not let other sounds interrupt. If someone does not want to hear the message of God, via the sound of the reed, our sound of love, then let them go.

It can be concluded that lamentation of the reed is the lamentation of the Soul which is still stranger to this World, which is full of lust and polluted thoughts. Deep inside there is still a longing for its Origin It wants to refill itself with the divine joy by remembering its union with the God which it has enjoyed in eternity. This is a pain of separation and love as it is the main theme of Sufism that God and man are one, but man has separated from God and now wants to rejoin. To get rejoined whatever he faces sufferings and pains as well as fire including patience and seemliness are the philosophy of Sufism. Just as the reed is cut from the reed bed, burned, hollowed, and drilled with holes, so must man in his unnatural state of separation from the Divine go through the trials of life and learn to be that empty before he can turn his suffering into joy, or in this case, beautiful music. It is the pain of separation that will eventually bring him Home. The lamentation of the reed flute is a metaphor for the longing of the Soul for its origin, with the Divine.