Life is a wonderful thing, full of magic. It is a miracle itself. Such a big miracle that every other one is pale in comparison. That makes me wonder sometime why even generation of people asked for miracles from God, while the biggest miracle of all was theirs and within their own body.
I am not here for accuracy of quotes from Rumi. Tell you thee truth from all the people who read Rumi, I am probably the one who read the least from his vast collection of thoughts and philosophy. But whenever I do read a poem, amazingly its so close to my way of thinking. My friends will read me a poem from him that I have heard for first time. And I would say oh my god, isn't that what I said in my so and so article last year. Maybe he is so genius that everybody who reads him, makes sense and if you are a logical person, it will be a perfect match. Or maybe
I so much think like him that we both come to same conclusion independently. Anyways that's not the point and its not important. I leave judgment to you, my reader. And if you criticize or praise my writings or put a price on my head, its not going to change anything. Independence of my mind is very important to me and I will never surrender to anything that build steal walls around power of brain and logical thinking. For me when I think and write nothing is off limit. Rumi says
I (we) picked the core from Koran and left the skin to others and in some version that changed to "and left the skin to donkeys". So lets explore that a little, you will understand why I am careless in quoting word by word and instead being faithful to quote go for meaning. Because just like Rumi used the expression in relation to Koran, why I can not use the same in relation to Rumi?
There are things that made sense and was good than but not 700 some years ago when Rumi was alive. What was true, not true anymore, what was good , not god anymore, what was bad could be normal now. Remember I don't believe on ultimate good and Ultimate white except for God. Even good people have traces of grey in them. I am a big believer in that Universe is not made of black and white, but made of millions of shades or grey, which is neither good or bad but depending on intensity of shades can be close to one of the two. There is no perfect human being. But if human use their potential can get very close to reaching Godlike purity. Or in contrast, Satan like evil. Don't believe me? Than you haven't got the meaning of Einstein's of relativity or don't believe in it. Which is perfectly fine with me, you have a right to believe on anything you want. I am the one that I think I believe in relativity even more than Einstein himself. Now I use the same argument that Rumi used, against himself. I don't care for exact quote of what he said, I am trying to say and quote what he meant, not what he said. Some of the stuff that made since 3000 years ago for Moses but didn't 2000 years ago for Jesus. What made sense 1400 years ago but not 700 years ago. Not all that is said 700 years ago have the same meaning today.
By now you know I am not atheist or agnostic. I am just for limitless thinking and against untouchable ideas. Don't get me wrong, I am never going to say scriptures are useless and doesn't work today, but instead I say the should go forward with time and apply to different ages in different forms and adopt innovation, innovation that never stop and never stop us and power of our brains. You can still apply the Torah and Bible and Koran, except in today's world you have to apply it to today's reality that wouldn't put a break to human power get closer to Gods and understanding of God. After all we are his representatives on Earth. Koran itself is half
examples of early civilization and their stories and some rules and a big part is that God says only I know what it means. Don't believe me? Go ask any scholar. So is Torah and Bible and book or Zoroaster and Buddha and whatever else. The main thing is we have to use the part that makes our life better and get us closer to highest power. Maybe from all of them Rumi's writing make more sense because you can translate it EverReady's life and constant evolution of human soul.
Now lets explore something else Rumi says. again forgive me for exact quotes. There is a very big limitation to translating Rumi from Farsi to English. No matter how good a job people like Coleman Bark and the rest have done. Its never as beautiful as it came from Rumi's pen and mouth. So I am not as big or good as Coleman Barks and the rest and not even going to try.
Anyways he says God sends every person to earth for one single purpose. If you do everything else, not that one, you wasted your time. There is another quote about that which I come to later. That one is the one that title comes from. Anyways , he says if you don't do that job, its like a King sends you to a city to do a particular job, you go there, spend a lot of time, do all kind of stuff, good or bad, even for a big benefit of that kingdom maybe but you don't do that one job you been sent after. You wasted your time and when you come back you may lose your head instead.
He gives numerous more example, like buying a priceless gold dagger, but you stick it in the wall and hang a kitchen apron on it. You could have done that job with a nail that you buy for a penny.
Or he says you have a bowel made of pure gold and you just cock turnip in it. Or you are a gold that you are happy to just stay meted in a fire and always be in liquid form and never have an intention to be minted and get out of the warmth and be an coin, a gold coin that is worth something.
So like he says, explore what you been sent for, discover what is your prophecy and your message to the world and fulfil it. Never let it go six feet under with you , without anybody knowing about it or benefited from it. For each one of you, could be different. Mine maybe is my constant fight for liberating human mind and potential of their brains and soul , or raising my kids so they can bring something big to this world, or raising them in such away that they can raise their kids such that the can bring a breakthrough good to this world. Or a combination of both or all. I am still in process of exploring and discovering my potential. But yours is different from mine and everybody else is different from you. But if you don't try very very hard to find it, you certainly wasted your time and the most precious gift and miracle that god gave you which is your life and the power of your brain. See I am not saying heart, I say brain. That another example of how knowledge and philosophy and religion should be adjusted and advance with time.
OK now lets go to the weird title. It comes from this story in masnavi, Rumi's most famous collection of poems which is mostly examples for life and stories.
You are someone standing in the street in front of an ugly wall which extends to a rooftop. On top of the roof is an old crone. She is ugly, her mouth has the worst smell anybody ever sensed, Her skin is harder and crustier than a crocodile. Her eyes, nose anything will be the worst you ever imagine, scary like a monster of worse kind. Her heart is a hard black Stone. The world is full of beautiful women and nice people. Now you spend your whole life under that wall, she on rooftop, using her witchcraft magic, hypnotized you, you can't move and listen to her day after day after day. One day you finally realize, oh my god, what I have done. There is so much beauty existed in this world and I was chained and hypnotized by her and had to listen to nonsense and didn't have time to even think about anything else.
Now you have to realize several points here. Rumi was never politically correct. If you are not going to be politically correct with God and prophets and scriptures and say I picked core from Koran and left the skin for donkeys. You shouldn't expect they be politically correct and be afraid women is going to criticize you because that crone was a female, that is going to be shortsightedness that you grasped nothing from what he says. Just like when I use black and white and use it as right and wrong and good or bad which ultimately I don't believe in absolute right and wrong and bad and good anyways and everything is shaded of grey for me, I don't expect African Americans or African people say why you didn't use ultra violet and infra red instead. Because I believe in your wisdom to grasp the meaning of what I say. I believe there are not enough words in human language that can explain full potential of what we are thinking.
Anyways, get back to subject. What Rumi means in this story?
There is an army of people misused by a tyrant. Killing, destroying and burning anything that's good, beautiful, useful etc etc. You are in that army and so helplessly believe in your mission. You are that guy standing under the wall listening to that crone on the roof. And that crone is the Tyrant who gives you mission and convince you to fulfil it. There is a warlord in Afghanistan, killing scores of people, thousands of them, cutting peoples hands to get their jewelry out bbefore killing them or after etc. you are in his group, doing those bad things, you are the guy there and warlord is the crone. Bush is killing those thousands of Iraqis, civilian, village people, kids, caused misery to millions. He is that crone. Hitler was the crone and SS were the guys listening under the wall. Instead German could have gotten better leader, Americans could have elected better president. Afghans could have not gone on a killing and rape spree calling it Jihad. Iraqis would have got rid of Saddam sooner. Somalis wouldn't be killing each other. Sudanese and Turks wouldn't have committed genocides against Darfur and Armenians. Arabs wouldn't commit genocide and burned libraries in Iran and Afghanistan. Etc etc. The problem is people Finlay realize what they have done, sooner or later, whether they admit or not. But shamefully too late, way too late. And ever generations after that people suffer from what stupid things and evil things they have done. Oh my god I wasted my life and there is no way to redeem myself. That's what they eventually going to say. No need for god to tell you when you come back after death. You may just realize it yourself, just before death and at the end of your sorry life.
Now how many book you can write in this subject? infinite maybe. This is the core meaning of that poem. So please whatever you do, please don't allow anybody to hypnotize you and than to feel good about yourself, call your crimes Jihad, freedom fight, new world order, spreading democracy, liberating, or fulfilment of your religious duty or order from god or scripture.
Keep in mind if Rumi would have said it clear and open as I can say it today. He would have been hanged or killed way before he could write anything else. But the genius of his writings and poems is that he said it in such a way that nobody could prosecute him and we still read it 800 years later. And not only that but it was true than and its true now and its going to be true and have real applications tomorrow.
Now those were extreme cases. You may not do anything extreme like the examples I gave you, but you still can ignore and be blind to beauty and goodness in this world and instead go after useless things, be satisfied with usual stuff even you can achieve and reach higher and do much better. Everybody can, don't tell me I can't and don't talk to me of impossible, You would just have to recognizer your true potential and limitless possibilities and go for it. Otherwise that example still be relevant to you and all you have done , is wasted your precious time and your life.
