Beyond Religion

The Essential Rumi is always a good choice of books to take on trips. I was fortunate to take it again on this trip to Las Vegas. There were nights in my room and an afternoon at the pool, before my daughter and grandkids joined me that I was able to snuggle up to it and vanish in the mystery of his art.

I've tried before to understand the Persian mystic from eight centuries ago. To "get" him as a son of a scholar or as a Sufi poet living in a violent Muslim world, harrassed by Genghis Khan. It is always after I've emerged myself in the ocean of his timelessness, the blinding light of his revelations, the swirling trance of his magic spells that later I demand some explanation of who and how and why he achieved the impossible. Ha, the folly of the intellect!

"The impossible" he achieved is his rare skill of delivering the reader directly to a sublime experience. This isn't morality or dogma but direct understanding of essence. Even as a feeble egoist with an unfair portion of delusion, I'm temporarily transported to a depth of exhultation which should be reserved for the most avid bottisatva.

One morning just before I read his masterpiece about "Surrender" called Omar and the Old Poet, I was aware of my arrogance, and then I read this line:

"Don't be a searcher wrapped in the importance of his quest. Repent of your repenting!"

Wow--he put me in my place....AGAIN!

Even now, as I reflect about the space (or vacuum?) that I disappear into (or from?) when the pages are open to the translations of Coleman Barks, the edges of reality (illusion?) get blurred, and the odd sensation of slipping in to a hollow vibration that seems to resonate at some submolecular level reminds me how I love to love being in love with God.

So here is my puny rendition, my salute to the master...

A Whispered Response to a Rumi Reflection
What is my love of God?
Formless ecstasy, lost in
the internal bliss of a symphony of laughter,
which is never remembered, never forgotten and can not be contained.

What is this union with God?
Finger to hand, hand to arm, arm to chest and chest to heart.
There is no finger, no me, no God. Only union.

What is this feeling? This dance? This gratitude? This beauty?
Flaws on a blemish of a gnat’s wing,
Which I swallowed….by mistake.