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PRELUDE ON EARTH
The Spirit of Rumi appears
and explains the
mystery of the Ascension
| Tumulutous love, indifferent to the city— | |
| for in the city’s clangour its flame dies— | |
| seeks solitude in desert and mountain-range | 185 |
| or on the shore of an unbounded sea. | |
| I, who saw among my friends none to confide in, | |
| rested a moment on the shore of the sea: | |
| the sea, and the hour of the setting sun— | |
| the blue water was a liquid ruby in the gloaming. | 190 |
| Sunset gives to the blind man the joy of sight, | |
| sunset gives to evening the hue of dawn. | |
| I held conversation with my heart; | |
| I had many desires, many requests— | |
| a thing of the moment, unsharing immortality, | 195 |
| a thing living, unsharing life itself, | |
| thirsty, and yet far from the rim or the fountain, | |
| involuntarily I chanted this song. |
Ghazal
| Open your lips, for abundant sugar-candy is my desire; | |
| show your cheek, for the garden and rosebed are my desire. | 200 |
| In one hand a flask of wine, in the other the beloved’s tress— | |
| such a dance in the midst of the maidan is my desire. | |
| You said, ‘Torment me no more with your coquetry: begone!’ | |
| That saying of yours, ‘Torment me no more, ‘ is my desire. | |
| O reason, become out of yearning a babbler of words confused; | 205 |
| O love, distracted subtleties are my desire. | |
| This bread and water of heaven are fickle as a torrent; | |
| I am a fish, , a leviathan-Oman is my desire. | |
| My soul has grown aweary of Pharaoh and his tyranny; | |
| that light in the breast of Moses, Imran’s son, is my desire. | 210 |
| Last night the Elder wandered about the city with a lantern | |
| saying, ‘I am weary of demon and monster: man is my desire.’ | |
| My heart is sick of these feeble-spirited fellow-travellers; | |
| the Lion of God and Rustam-i Dastan, are my desire. | |
| I said, ‘The thing we quested after is never attained.’ | 215 |
| He said, ‘The unattainable - that thing is my desire!’ | |
| The restless wave slept on the grey water, | |
| the sun vanished, dark grew the horizon— | |
| evening stole a portion of its capital | |
| and a star stood like a witness above the roof. | 220 |
| The spirit of Rumi rent the veils asunder; | |
| from behind a mountain mass he became visible, | |
| his face shining like the sun in splendour, | |
| his white hairs radiant as the season of youth— | |
| a figure bright in a light immortal, | 225 |
| robed from head to foot in everlasting joy. | |
| Upon his lips the hidden secret of Being | |
| loosed from itself the chains of speech and sound: | |
| his speech was as a suspended mirror, | |
| knowledge commingled with an inward fire. | 230 |
| I asked him, ‘What is the existent, the non-existent? | |
| What is the meaning of praiseworthy and unpraiseworthy?’ | |
| He said, ‘The existent is that which wills to appear: | |
| manifestation is all the impulse of Being. | |
| Life means to adorn oneself in one’s self, | 235 |
| to desire to bear witness to one’s own being; | |
| the concourse on the day primordial arrayed | |
| desired to bear witness to their own being. | |
| Whether you be alive, or dead, or dying— | |
| for this seek witness from three witnesses. | 240 |
| The first witness is self-consciousness, | |
| to behold oneself in one’s own light; | |
| the second witness is the consciousness of another, | |
| to behold oneself in another’s light; | |
| the third witness is the consciousness of God’s essence, | 245 |
| to behold oneself in the light of God’s essence. | |
| If you remain fast before this light, | |
| count yourself living and abiding as God! | |
| Life is to attain one’s own station, | |
| life is to see the Essence without a veil; | 250 |
| the true believer will not make do with Attributes— | |
| the Prophet was not content save with the Essence. | |
| What is Ascension? The desire for a witness, | |
| an examination face-to-face of a witness— | |
| a competent witness without whose confirmation | 255 |
| life to us is like colour and scent to a rose. | |
| In that Presence no man remains firm, | |
| or if he remains, he is of perfect assay. | |
| Give not away one particle of the glow you have, | |
| knot tightly together the glow within you; | 260 |
| fairer it is to increase one’s glow, | |
| fairer it is to test oneself before the sun; | |
| then chisel anew the crumbled form; | |
| make proof of yourself; be a true being! | |
| Only such an existent is praiseworthy, | 265 |
| otherwise the fire of life is mere smoke.’. | |
| I asked again, ‘How shall one go before God? | |
| How may one split the mountain of clay and water? | |
| The Orderer and Creator is outside Order and Creation; | |
| we - our throats are strangled by the noose of Fate.’ | 270 |
| He said, ‘If you obtain the Authority | |
| you can break through the heavens easily. | |
| Wait till the day creation all is naked | |
| and has washed from its skirt the dust of dimension; | |
| then you will see neither waxing nor waning in its being, | 275 |
| you will see yourself as of it, and it of you. | |
| Recall the subtlety Except with an authority | |
| or die in the mire like an ant or a locust! | |
| It was by way of birth, excellent man, | |
| that you came into this dimensioned world; | 280 |
| by birth it is possible also to escape, | |
| it is possible to loosen all fetters from oneself; | |
| but such a birth is not of clay and water— | |
| that is known to the man who has a living heart. | |
| The first birth is by constraint, the second by choice; | 285 |
| the first is hidden in veils, the second is manifest; | |
| the first happens with weeping, the second with laughter, | |
| for the first is a seeking, the second a finding; | |
| the first is to dwell and journey amidst creation, | |
| the second is utterly outside all dimensions; | 290 |
| the first is in need of day and night, | |
| the second-day and night are but its vehicle. | |
| A child is born through the rending of the womb, | |
| a man is born through the rending of the world; | |
| the call to prayer signalizes both kinds of birth, | 295 |
| the first is uttered by the lips, the second of the very soul. | |
| Whenever a watchful soul is born in a body | |
| this ancient inn the world trembles to its foundations!’ | |
| I said, ‘I know not what manner of birth this is.’ | |
| He said, ‘It is one of the high estates of life. | 300 |
| Life plays at vanishing and then reappearing- | |
| one role is constant, the other transitory; | |
| now life dissolves itself in manifestation, | |
| anon it concentrates itself in solitude. | |
| Its manifestation shines with the light of the Attributes, | 305 |
| its solitude is lit up by the light of the Essence. | |
| Reason draws life towards manifestation, | |
| love draws life towards solitude. | |
| Reason likewise hurls itself against the world | |
| to shatter the talisman of water and clay; | 310 |
| every stone on the road becomes its preceptor, | |
| lightning and cloud preach sermons to it. | |
| Its eye is no stranger to the joy of seeing, | |
| but it possesses not the drunkard’s boldness; | |
| therefore, fearing the road, it gropes like a blind man, | 315 |
| softly, gently it creeps along, just like an ant. | |
| So long as reason is involved with colour and scent | |
| showly it proceeds upon the path to the Beloved; | |
| its affairs achieve some order gradually— | |
| I do not know when they will ever be completed! | 320 |
| Love knows nothing of months and years, | |
| late and soon, near and far upon the road. | |
| Reason drives a fissure through a mountain, | |
| or else makes a circuit around it; | |
| before love the mountain is like a straw, | 325 |
| the heart darts as swiftly as a fish. | |
| Love means, to make assault upon the Infinite, | |
| without seeing the grave to flee the world. | |
| Love’s strength is not of air and earth and water, | |
| its might derives not from toughness of sinew; | 330 |
| love conquered Khaibar on a loaf of barley, | |
| love clove asunder the body of the moon, | |
| broke Nimrod’s cranium without a blow, | |
| without a battle shattered Pharaoh’s hosts. | |
| Love in the soul is like sight it in the eye, | 335 |
| be it within the house or without the door; | |
| love is at once both ashes and spark, | |
| its work is loftier than religion and science. | |
| Love is authority and manifest proof, | |
| both worlds are subject to the seal - ring of love; | 340 |
| timeless it is, and yesterday and tomorrow spring from it, | |
| placeless it is, and under and over spring from it; | |
| when it supplicates God for selfhood | |
| all the world becomes a mount, itself the rider. | |
| Through love, the heart’s status becomes clearer; | 345 |
| through love, the draw of this ancient inn becomes void. | |
| Lovers yield themselves up to God, | |
| give interpretative reason as an offering. | |
| Are you a lover? Proceed from direction to directionlessness; | |
| make death a thing prohibited to yourself. | 350 |
| You who are like a dead man in the grave’s coffer, | |
| resurrection is possible without the sound of the Trumpet! | |
| You have in your throat melodies sweet and delicate; | |
| how long will you croak like a frog in the mud? | |
| Boldly ride upon space and time, | 355 |
| break free of the convolutions of this girdle; | |
| sharpen your two eyes and your two ears— | |
| whatever you see, digest by way of the understanding. | |
| "The man who hears the voice of the ants | |
| also hears from Time the secret of Fate." | 360 |
| Take from me the glance that burns the veil, | |
| the glance that becomes not the eye’s prisoner. | |
| "Man is but sight, the rest is mere skin; | |
| true sight signifies seeing the Beloved. | |
| Dissolve the whole body into sight— | 365 |
| go to gazing, go to gazing, go to gaze!" | |
| Are you afraid of these nine heavens? Fear not; | |
| are you afraid of the world’s immensity? Fear not. | |
| Open wide your eyes upon Time and Space, | |
| for these two are but a state of the soul. | 370 |
| Since first the gaze advanced on manifestation | |
| the alternation of yesterday and tomorrow was born. | |
| The seed lying in the soil’s house of darkness | |
| a stranger to the vast expanse of the sky— | |
| does it not know that in an ample space | 375 |
| it can display itself, branch by branch. | |
| What is its substance? A delight in growing; | |
| this substance is both its station and itself. | |
| You who say that the body is the soul’s vehicle, | |
| consider the soul’s secret; tangle not with the body. | 380 |
| It is not a vehicle, it is a state of the soul; | |
| to call it its vehicle is a confusion of terms. | |
| What is the soul? Rapture, joy, burning and anguish, | |
| delight in mastering the revolving sphere. | |
| What is the body? Habit of colour and scent, | 385 |
| habit of dwelling in the world’s dimensions. | |
| Your near and far spring out of the senses; | |
| what is Ascension? A revolution in sense, | |
| a revolution in sense born of rapture and yearning; | |
| rapture and yearning liberate from under and over. | 390 |
| This body is not the associate of the soul; | |
| a handful of earth is no impediment to flight.’ |
