Our Master Jalaluddin Rumi

 He is enlightened whose speech and behavior accord, who repudiates the ordinary connections of the world. (Dhu'I-Nun, the Egyptian)

 Maulana (literally, Our Master) Jalaluddin Rumi, who founded the Order of the Whirling Dervishes, bears out in his career the Eastern saying, "Giants come forth from Afghanistan and influence the world." He was born in Bactria, of a noble family, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. He lived and taught in Iconium (Rum) in Asia Minor, before the beginning of the Ottoman Empire, whose throne he is said to have refused. His works are written in Persian, and so esteemed by the Persians for their poetic, literary and mystical content that they are called "The Koran in the Pehlevi tongue"-and this in spite of their being opposed to the national cult of the Persians, the Shia faith, criticizing its exclusivism.

 Among the Arabs and the Indian and Pakistani Moslems, Rumi is considered to be one of the first rank of mystical masters-yet he states that the teachings of the Koran are allegorical and that it has seven different meanings. The extent of Rumi's influence can hardly be calculated; though it can be glimpsed occasionally in the literature and thought

of many schools. Even Doctor Johnson, best known for his unfavorable pronouncements, says of Rumi, "He makes plain to the Pilgrim the secrets of the Way of Unity, and unveils the Mysteries of the Path of Eternal Truth."

 His work was well enough known within less than a hundred years of his death in 1273 for Chaucer to use references to it in some of his works, together "with material from the teachings of Rumi's spiritual precursor, Attar the Chemist (1150-1229/30). From the numerous references to Arabian material which can be found in Chaucer, even a cursory examination shows a Sufi impact of the Rumi school of literature. Chaucer's use of the phrase, "As lions may take warning when a pup is punished . . ." is merely a close adaptation of Udhrib el-kalba wa yatrf addaba el-fahdu ("Beat the dog and the lion will behave"), which is a secret phrase used by the Whirling Dervishes. Its interpretation depends on a play upon the words "dog" and "lion." Although written as such, in speaking the password, homophones are used. Instead of saying dog (kalb), the Sufi says heart (qalb), and in place of lion (fahd), fahid (the neglectful). The phrase now becomes: "Beat the heart (Sufi exercises) and the neglectful (faculties) behave (correctly)."

 This is the slogan which introduces the "beating the heart" movements encouraged by the motions and concentrations of the Mevlevi—Whirling-Dervishes.

 The relationship between the Canterbury Tales as an allegory of inner development and the Parliament of the Birds of Attar is another interesting item. Professor Skeat reminds us that, like Attar, Chaucer has thirty participants in his pilgrimage. Thirty pilgrims seeking the mystical bird,  Simurgh makes sense in Persian, because si-murgh actually means "thirty birds." In English, however, such a transposition is not possible. The number of pilgrims, made necessary in the Persian because of the requirements of rhyme, is preserved in Chaucer, deprived of double meaning. "The Pardoner's Tale" occurs in Attar; the pear-tree story is found in Book IV of the Sufi work, the Mathnawi. of Rumi.

 Rumi's influence, both in ideas and textually, is considerable in the West. Since most of his work has been translated into Western languages in more recent years, his impact has become greater. But if he is, as Professor Arberry calls him, "surely the greatest mystical poet in the history of mankind," the poetry itself in which so much of his teachings is couched can really only be appreciated in the original Persian. The teachings, however, and the methods used by the Whirling Dervishes and other Rumi-influenced schools, are not so elusive, providing that the way of putting esoteric truths is understood.

There are three documents by means of which Rumi's work can be studied by the outside world. The Mathnawi-i-Manawi (Spiritual Couplets) is Jalaluddin's masterwork-six books of poetry and imagery of such power in the original that its recitation produces a strangely complex exaltation of the hearer's consciousness.

It was forty-three years in the writing. It cannot exactly be criticized as poetry, because of the special intricacy of ideas, form and presentation. Those who seek conventional verse alone in it, as Professor Nicholson remarks, have to skip. And then they lose the effect of what is in fact a special art form, created by Rumi for the express purpose of conveying meanings which he himself concedes have no actual parallel in ordinary human experience. To ignore this remarkable achievement is like selecting the taste without the strawberry jam.

 Nicholson, overstressing the role of the exquisite poetry in the ocean of the Mathnawi, sometimes shows a preference for formal verse.

 “The Mathnaivi," he says (Introduction, Selections from the Diwan of Shams of Tabriz, p. xxxix), "contains a wealth of delightful poetry. But its readers must pick their way through apologues, dialogues, interpretations of Koranic texts, metaphysical subtleties and moral exhortations, ere all at once they chance upon a passage of pure and exquisite song.” 

To the Sufi, if not to anyone else, this book speaks from a different dimension, yet a dimension which is in a way within his deepest self.

Like all Sufi works, the Mathnawi will vary in its effect upon the listener in accordance with the conditions under which it is studied. It contains jokes, fables, conversations, references to former teachers and to ecstatogenic methods— a phenomenal example of the method of scatter, whereby a picture is built up by multiple impact to infuse into the mind the Sufi message. 

This message, with Rumi as with all Sufi masters, is arranged partially in response to the environment in which he is working. He instituted dances and whirling movements among his disciples, it is related, because of the phlegmatic temperament of the people among whom he was cast The so-called variation of doctrine or action prescribed by the various Sufi teachers is in reality nothing more than the application of this rule.

In his teaching system, Rumi used explanation and mental drill, thought and meditation, work and play, action and inaction. The body-mind movements of the Whirling Dervishes, coupled with the reed-pipe music to which they were performed, is the product of a special method designed to bring the Seeker into affinity with the mystical current, in order to be transformed by it. Everything which the unregenerate man understands has a use and a meaning within the special context of Sufism which may be invisible until it is experienced. "Prayer," says Rumi, "has a form, a sound and a physical reality. Everything which has a word, has a Physical equivalent. And every thought has an action." 

One of the really Sufic characteristics of Rumi is that, although he will uncompromisingly say the most unpopular thing—that the ordinary man, whatever his formal attainments, is immature in mysticism-he also gives the chance! to almost anyone to attain progress toward the completion, of human destiny. 

Like many Sufis cast in a theological atmosphere, Rumi first addresses his hearers on the subject of religion. He stresses that the form in which ordinary, emotional religion is understood by organized bodies is incorrect. The Veil of Light, which is the barrier brought about by self-righteousness, is more dangerous than the Veil of Darkness, produced in the mind by vice. Understanding can come only through love, not by training by means of organizational methods. For him, the earliest teachers of religions were right. Their successors, apart from a few, organized matters in such a way as virtually to exclude enlightenment. This attitude requires a new approach to the problems of religion. Rumi takes the whole question out of the normal channel. He is not prepared to submit dogma to study and argument. The real religion, he says, is other than people think it is. Therefore there is no virtue in examining dogma. In this world, he says, there is no equivalent to the things which are called the Throne (of God), the Book, Angels, the Day of Reckoning. Similes are used, and they are of necessity merely a rough idea of something else. 

In the collection of his sayings and teachings called In It What Is In It (Fihi Ma Fihi), used as a textbook for Sufis, he goes even further. Mankind, he says, passes through three stages. In the first one, he worships anything-man, woman, money, children, earth and stones. Then, when he has progressed a little further, he worships God. Finally, he does not say, "I worship God," nor "I do not worship God." He has passed into the last stage.

In order to approach the Sufi Way, the Seeker must realize that he is, largely, a bundle of what are nowadays called conditionings—fixed ideas and prejudices, automatic responses sometimes which have occurred through the training of others. Man is not as free as he thinks he is. The first step is for the individual to get away from thinking that he understands, and really understand. But man has been taught that he can understand everything by the same process the process of logic. This teaching has undermined him. 

"If you follow the ways in which you have been trained, which you may have inherited, for no other reason than this, you are illogical." 

The understanding of religion, and what the great religious figures taught, is a part of Sufism. Sufism uses the terminology of ordinary religion, but in a special manner which has always excited the anger of the nominally devout. To the Sufi, generally speaking, each religious teacher symbolizes, in his creed and especially in his life, an aspect of the way whose totality is Sufism. Jesus is within you, says Rumi; seek his aid. And then, do not seek from within yourself, from your Moses, the needs of a Pharaoh. 

The way in which the different religious paths are symbolized for the Sufi is stated by Rumi when he says that the path of Jesus was struggling with solitude and overcoming lustfulness. The path of Mohammed was to live within the community of ordinary humanity. "Go by the way of Mohammed," he says, "but if you cannot, then go by the Christian way." Rumi here is not by any means inviting his hearers to embrace one or other of these religions. He is pointing to the ways in which the Seeker can find fulfillment; but fulfillment through the Sufic understanding of what the paths of Jesus and Mohammed were. 

Similarly, when the Sufi speaks of God, he does not mean the deity in the sense in which it is understood by the man who has been trained by the theologian. This deity is accepted by some, the pious; rejected by others, the atheists. But it is a rejection or acceptance of something which has been presented by the scholastics and priesthood. The God of the Sufis is not involved in this controversy; because divinity is a matter of personal experience to the Sufi. 

All this does not mean that the Sufi is trying to take away 'ne exercise of the reasoning faculty. Rumi explains that reason is essential; but it has a place. If you want to have

clothes made you visit a tailor. Reason tells you which tailor to choose. After that, however, reason is in suspense. You have to repose complete trust—faith—in your tailor that he will complete the work correctly. Logic, says the master, takes the patient to the doctor. After that, he is completely in the hands of the physician. 

But the well-trained materialist, although he claims that he wants to hear what the mystic has to tell him, cannot be told the whole truth. He would not believe it. The truth is not based upon materialism any more than upon logic. Hence the mystic is working on a series of different planes, the materialist on only one. The result of their contact would be that the Sufi will even appear inconsistent to the materialist. If he says today something which he said differently yesterday, he will appear to be a liar. At the very least, the situation of being at cross-purposes will destroy any chance of progress in mutual understanding. 

"Those who do not understand a thing," Rumi observes, "claim that it is useless. The hand and the instrument are as flint and steel. Strike flint with earth. Will a spark he made?" One of the reasons why the mystic does not preach publicly is that the conditioned religious man, or the materialist, will not understand him:

A king's hawk settled upon a ruin inhabited by owls. They decided that he had come to drive them out of their home and take possession of it himself. "This ruin may seem a prosperous place to you. To me, the better place is upon the arm of the King," said the hawk. Some of the owls cried, "Do not believe him. He is using guile to steal our home.

The use of fables and illustrations like this one is very widespread among the Sufis; and Rumi is the master fabulist of their number. 

The same thought is often given by the master in many different forms, in order to make it penetrate the mind. Sufis says that an idea will enter the conditioned (veiled) mind only if it is so phrased as to be able to bypass the screen of conditionings. The fact that the non-Sufi has so little in common with the Sufi means that the Sufis have to use the basic elements which exist in every human being, and which are not entirely killed by any form of conditioning. And these elements are precisely those which underlie the Sufi development. Of these the first and permanent one is love. Love is the factor which is to carry a man, and all humanity, to fulfillment: 

"Mankind has an unfulfillment, a desire, and he struggles to fulfill it through all kinds of enterprises and ambitions. But it is only in love that he can find fulfillment"

But love is itself a serious matter; it is something which keeps pace with enlightenment. Both increase together. The full potential fire of illumination is too powerful to be endured all at once. 

“The heat of a furnace may be too great for you to take advantage of its warming effect; while the weaker flame of a lamp may give you the heat which you need." 

Everyone, when he gets to a certain stage of mere personal sophistication, thinks that he can find the way to enlightenment by himself. This is denied by Sufis, for they ask how a person can find something when he does not know what it is. "Everyone has become a gold seeker," says Rumi, "but the ordinary do not know it when they see it. If you cannot recognize it, join a wise man." 

The ordinary man, thinking that he is on the path of enlightenment, often sees only a reflection of it. Light may be reflected upon a wall; the wall is the host to the light. "Do not attach yourself to the brick of the wall, but seek the eternal original." 

"Water needs an intermediary, a vessel, between it and the fire, if it is to be heated correctly." 

How is the Seeker to set about his task of getting on the right path? In the first place, he should not abandon work and living in the world. Do not give up working, instructs Rumi; indeed, "the treasure which you seek derives from it" This is one reason why all Sufis must have a constructive vocation. Work, though, is not only ordinary labor or even

socially acceptable creativity. It includes self-work, the alchemy whereby man becomes perfected: "Wool, through the presence of a man of knowledge, becomes a carpet. Earth becomes a palace. The presence of a spiritual man creates a similar transformation."

The man of wisdom is initially the guide of the Seeker. As soon as possible this teacher dismisses the disciple, who becomes his own man of wisdom, and then he continues his self-work. False masters in Sufism, as everywhere else, have not been few. So the Sufis are left with the strange situation that whereas the false teacher may appear to be genuine (because he takes pains to appear what the disciple wants him to be), the true Sufi is often not like what the un-discriminating and untrained Seeker thinks a Sufi should be like.

Rumi warns: "Judge not the Sufi to be that which you can see of him, my friend. How long, like a child, will you prefer only nuts and raisins?" 

The false teacher will pay great attention to appearance, and will know how to make the Seeker think that he is a great man, that he understands him, that he has great secrets to reveal. The Sufi has secrets, but he must make them develop within the disciple. Sufism is something which happens to a person, not something which is given to him. The false teacher will keep his followers around him all the time, will not tell them that they are being given a training which must end as soon as possible, so that they may taste their development themselves and carry on as fulfilled people. 

Rumi calls upon the scholastic, the theologian, and the follower of the false teacher: "When will you cease to worship and to love the pitcher? When will you begin to look for the water?" Externals are the things which people usually judge by. "Know the difference between the color of the wine and the color of the glass." 

The Sufi must follow all the routines of self-development; otherwise mere concentration upon one will cause an imbalance, leading to loss. The speed of development of different people varies. Some, says Rumi, understand all from reading a line. Others, who have actually been present at an event, know all about it The capacity for understanding develops with the spiritual progress of the individual. 

The meditations of Rumi include some remarkable ideas, designed to bring the Seeker into an understanding of the fact that he is temporarily out of contact with complete reality, even though ordinary life seems to be the totality of reality itself. What we see, feel and experience in ordinary, unfulfilled life, according to Sufic thinking, is only a part of the great whole. There are dimensions which we can reach only through effort Like the submerged portion of the iceberg, they are there, though unperceived under ordinary conditions. Also like the iceberg, they are far greater than could be suspected by superficial study. 

Rumi uses several analogies to explain this. One of the most striking is his theory of action. There is, he says, such a thing as comprehensive action, and there is also individual action. We are accustomed to seeing, in the ordinary world of sense, only individual action. Supposing a number of people are making a tent. Some sew, others prepare the ropes, some again weave. They are all taking part in a comprehensive action, although each is absorbed in his individual action. If we are thinking about the making of the tent, it is the comprehensive action of the whole group which is important.

In certain directions, the Sufi says, life must be looked upon as a whole, as well as individually. This getting into tune with the whole plan, the comprehensive action of life, is essential to enlightenment. 

Little by little, as his experiences increase, the Sufi begins to reshape his thinking along these lines. Before he had actual experience of mysticism, he was either a scoffer, uncommitted, or had a completely illusory idea of the nature of the experience, and especially of the teacher and the path. Rumi gives him meditations designed to overcome the overdevelopment of certain ideas which are current among the uninstructed. Man expects to be given a golden key. But some are faster than others in developing. A man traveling through the darkness is yet traveling. The disciple is learning when he does not know that he is learning, and as a result he may well chafe. In winter, Rumi reminds him, a tree is collecting nutriment. People may think that it is idle, because they do not see anything happening. But in spring they see the buds. Now, they think, it is working. There is a time for collecting, and a time for releasing. This brings the subject back to the teaching: "Enlightenment must come little by little—otherwise it would overwhelm."

The tools of scholasticism, used sparingly by Sufis, are being replaced by esoteric training, and this has to be done in accordance with the capacities of the student. The tools of the goldsmith, our teacher remarks, in the hands of the cobbler are like seeds sown in sand. And the cobbler's tools in the farmer's hand are like straw offered to a dog, or bones to a donkey. 

The attitude toward ordinary conventions of life undergoes an examination. The question of humanity's inner yearnings is seen, not as a Freudian need, but as a natural instrument inherent in the mind in order to enable it to attain to truth. People, Rumi teaches, do not really know what they want. Their inner yearning is expressed in a hundred desires which they think are their needs. These are not their real desires, as experience shows. For when these objectives are attained, the yearning is not stilled. Rumi would have seen Freud as someone who was obsessed by one of the secondary manifestations of the great yearning; not as someone who had discovered the basis of the yearning. 

Again, people may appear evil in one's eyes—and yet to another individual they may seem fair. This is because in the one mind there is the idea of unpleasantness, in the other, the concept of goodness. “The fish and the hook are both present together." 

The Sufi is learning the power of detachment, to be followed by the power of experiencing what he is considering, not just looking at it. In order to do this, he is instructed by the teacher to meditate upon Rumi's theme: "The satiated man and the hungry one do not see the same thing when they look upon a loaf of bread." 

If a person is so untrained that he is influenced by his own bias, he cannot hope to make much progress. Rumi concentrates upon developing control; control through experience, not through mere theory as to what is good or bad, right or wrong. This belongs to the category of words: 

 "Words, in themselves, are of no importance. You treat a visitor well, and speak a few kind words to him. He is happy. But if you treat another man to a few words of abuse, he will be hurt. Can a few words really mean happiness or sadness? These are secondary factors, and not real ones. They affect people who are weak." 

The Sufi learner is developing through his exercises a new way of seeing things. He is also acting, reacting, differently in a given situation than he otherwise would. He understands the deeper meaning of such recommendations as this: Take the pearl, not the shell. You will not find a pearl in every shell. A mountain is many times larger than a ruby." What seems almost trite to the ordinary man, perhaps passed on as a wise saw, becomes intensely meaningful to the Sufi, who finds in its depths contact with something that he calls "other"—the underlying factor which he is seeking. What may appear a stone to the ordinary man, continues Jalaluddin, further developing his theme, is a pearl to the Knower. 

Now the elusiveness of spiritual experience is glimpsed by the Seeker. If he is a creative worker, he enters the stage when inspiration enters him sometimes, but not at other times. If he is subject to ecstatic experience, he will find that the joyous meaningful sense of completeness comes transitorily, and that he cannot control it. The secret protects itself: "Concentrate upon spirituality as you will—it will shun you if you are unworthy. Write about it, boast of it, comment upon it—it will decline to benefit you; it will flee. But, if it sees your concentration, it may come to your hand, like a trained bird. Like the peacock, it will not sit in an unworthy place." 

It is only when he is beyond this stage of development that the Sufi can communicate anything of the path to others. If he tries to do so before, "it will flee." 

Here, too, the need for a delicate balance between extremes is essential, or the whole effort may be in vain. The net which is your mind, observes Rumi, is delicate. It has to be so adjusted as to catch its catch. If there is unhappiness, the net is torn. If it is torn, it will not be of use. By too great love and too great opposition alike, the net becomes torn. "Practice neither." 

The five inner senses begin to function as the inner life of the individual is awakened. The food which is not a palpable food, spoken of by Rumi, starts to exercise a nutritious effect. The inner senses resemble in a way the physical ones, but "they are to them as copper to gold." 

As individuals all vary in their capacities, the Sufis at this stage are developed in some ways and not in others. It is usual for a number of inner faculties and special abilities to develop concurrently and harmoniously. Changes in mood may occur, but they are not at all like the changes in mood which undeveloped people feel. Mood becomes a part of real personality, and the crudeness of ordinary moods is replaced by the alternation and interaction of higher moods, of which the lower ones are considered to be reflections. The Sufi's conception of wisdom and ignorance undergoes a change. Rumi puts it like this: "If a man were entirely wise, and had no ignorance, he would be destroyed by it. Therefore ignorance is laudable, because it means continued existence. Ignorance is the collaborator of wisdom, in this sense of alternation, as night and day complement one another." 

The working together of opposite things is another significant theme of Sufism. When apparent opposites are reconciled, the individuality is not only complete, it also transcends the bounds of ordinary humanity as we understand them. The individual becomes, as near as we can state it, immensely powerful. What this means, and how it takes place, are matters of personal experience outside the realm of mere writing. Rumi reminds us in another place, talking of the written words: "The book of the Sufis is not the darkness of letters. It is the whiteness of a pure heart" Now the Sufi attains some of the insights which are associated with the developing of an infallible intuition. His feeling for knowledge is such that he can, by reading a book, often sift the fact from the fiction, the real intention of the author from other elements. Especially threatened by this faculty are the imitators, who claim to be Sufis, and whom he is able to see through. Yet his sense of balance shows him how far the imitator may be of value in the cause of Sufism.  

Rumi comments upon this function in the Mathnawi, and this teaching is faithfully passed on by Sufi teachers when they find that the student has reached this stage: “The imitator is like a canal. It does not itself drink, but may transit water to the thirsty." 

As he progresses on the path, the Sufi realizes how immensely complex and even perilous it is, unless carried out in accordance with the method which has been developed through the ages. Using a fable, the Mathnawi records this stage of the experiences. A lion entered a stable, ate an ox which he found there, and sat in its place. The stable was dark, and the ox's owner entered and felt around for bis animal. His hands passed over the lion's body. The lion said, "If there were any light, he would die of fright He strokes me thus only because he takes me for an ox." Read as an ordinary story, this vivid sketch might be passed over as just a version of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread. 

The understanding of true meanings behind inexplicable worldly happenings is another consequence of Sufi development. Why, for instance, does a certain phase in mystical study take one person longer than another, even if he is carrying out roughly the same routines? Rumi illustrates the experiencing of a special dimension in life which veils the complete workings of actuality, giving us an unsatisfactory view of the whole. Two beggars, he says, came to the door of a house. One was immediately satisfied, and given a piece of bread. He went away. The second was kept waiting for his morsel. Why? The first beggar was not greatly liked; he was given stale bread. The second was made to wait until a fresh loaf was baked for him. This story illustrates a theme which recurs frequently in Sufic teaching—that there is often one element in a happening which we do not know. Yet we base our opinions upon material which is incomplete. Small wonder that the uninitiated develops and passes on a "squint" which is self-perpetuating. 

"You belong," sings Rumi in one verse, "to the world of dimension. But you come from nondimension. Close the first 'shop,' open the second." 

All life and all creation is seen in a new and comprehensive form. The worker, to use the imagery of the Mathnawi, is "hidden in the workshop," hidden by the work, which has, as it were, spun a web over him. The workshop is the place of vision. Outside it is the place of darkness. 

The Sufi's position as one with greater insight into matters of the world and of the whole, as opposed to the part, gives him a tremendous potentiality for power. But he can exercise this only in association with the rest of creation —first with the other Sufis, then with mankind, finally with all creation. His powers and his very being are linked with a new set of relationships. People come to him, and he realizes that even those who scoff have quite possibly come to learn rather than to score a point over him. He regards a great number of happenings as a sort of question and answer. A visit to a sage he considers to be the approach, "Teach me." Hunger may be a questing, a question: Send food." Abstinence from food is an answer, a negative one. 

And, as Rumi concludes this passage, the answer to the existence of a fool is silence.

He is able to pass on a part of his mystical experience to certain others, some of the disciples who come to him, and who are adapted by their past experiences for such a development. This is sometimes done by mutual concentration exercises (tajalli), and its practice may develop into the true mystical experience. "At first," Rumi told his disciples, "enlightenment comes to you from the Adepts. This is imitation. But when it comes frequently, it is the experience of truth." A Sufi may often, during many of the stages of the search, seem to be unheeding of the feelings of others, or otherwise out of step with society. When this is so, it is because he has glimpsed the true character of a situation behind the apparent situation visible only partially to others. He acts in the best possible way, though he does not always know why he has said or done a thing. 

Jalaluddin, in Fihi Ma Fihi, gives an illustration of just such a situation. A drunken man saw a King pass by with a highly prized horse. Fie called out some uncomplimentary remark about the horse. The King was angry, and summoned him to his presence later. "At that time," explained the man, "a drunkard was standing on that roof. I am not him, for he is gone." The King was pleased with the reply, and rewarded him. The drunk is the Sufi, just as is the sobered man. The Sufi, in his state of association with true reality, acted in a certain way. As a result he was rewarded. He had also performed a function in explaining to the King that people are not always responsible for their actions. He had, too, given the King a chance to perform a good action. 

No ripe grape becomes unripe again, and human evolution cannot be stopped. It can be directed, however; and it can also be interfered with by those who do not know what true intuition is. Thus the teachings of the Sufis can become distorted; thus, too, can the Adept be treated if he allows himself to be seen too openly by the profane. As for actually preaching Sufic things to those without, Rumi, like other Sufi teachers, is prepared always to make a general invitation: 

While the inner lamp of jewels is still alight, hasten to trim its wick and provide it with oil.

But he is in accord with the teachers who refuse to discuss the cult with all and sundry: "Summon horses to a place other than where grass is to be found; and they will question it"—no matter what it is. 

The Sufis oppose the pure intellectuals and scholastic philosophers partly because they believe that such training of the mind in obsessive and one-track thinking is bad for that mind and for all other minds as well. Equally, those who think that all that matters is intuition or asceticism are strongly combated by Sufic teaching. Rumi insists upon the balance of all the faculties. 

The union of mind and intuition which brings about illumination and the development which the Sufis seek is based upon love, always love—this insistent theme of Rumi is nowhere better expressed than in his writings, unless it be within the actual walls of a Sufi school. Just as intellectualism works with palpable materials, Sufism works with both perceptible and inner ones. Where science and scholasticism ever narrow their scope to take in smaller and smaller areas of study, Sufism continues to embrace every evidence of the great underlying truth, wherever it may be found. 

This power of assimilation and ability to invoke symbolism, story and thought from the underground Sufic current has caused the outward commentators (even in the East) great excitement and new pastimes. They track down the origins of a story in India, an idea in Greece, an exercise among shamans. These elements they bear back delightedly to their desks, eventually to provide ammunition in the struggle in which their opponents are only each other. The unique atmosphere of Sufi schools is found in the Mathnawi and Fihi Ma Fihi. But many externalists consider that they are confusing, chaotic and loosely written.

True, both books are partially guides which have to be used in conjunction with actual Sufic teaching and practice—work, thought, life and art. But even one commentator who accepted the reality of this atmosphere as deliberately created, and who repeated the Sufi account of this in print, showed himself in personal contact to be rather bewildered by the whole thing. Still, it must be said that he considered himself to be a Sufi, although not admitted by any Sufic method. Under the influence of such men, the Western study of Sufism, now in a period of tremendous upsurge, has become a litde more Sufic, although it still has a very long way to go. The "intellectual Sufi" is the latest fad in the West

Sufism, of course, has a technical terminology all its own, and Rumi's verses teem with familiar and special varieties of initiatory terms. He describes, for instance, in his third great book, The Divan of Shams of Tabriz, some of the concepts of mind and activities which are projected within a secret meeting of dervishes. Couched in rhapsodic verse, the teachings of Sufi being "in thought and action" are conveyed by a method especially devised for their projection: 

Join the community, be like them, so see the joy of real life. Go along the ruined street, and see the distraught (owners of the "ruined houses"). Drink the cup of feeling, so that you do not feel shame (self-consciousness). Shut both the eyes of the head, so that you may see with the inner eye. Open the two arms of your self, if you seek an embrace. Shatter the earthen idol in order to see the face of idols. Why accept so great a dowry for a feeble hag—and for three loaves why do you accept military servitude?

The Friend returns at night; tonight do not take a draught—shut your mouth against food, that you gain the food of the mouth. In the assembly of the kindly Cupbearer, circle yourself—come into the Circle. How long will you circle (around it)? Here is an offer-leave one life, gain the Shepherd's kindliness. . . . Cease thought except for the creator of thought-thought for "life" is better than thought of bread. In the amplitude of God's earth, why have you fallen asleep in a prison? Abandon complicated thoughts—in order to see the concealed answer. Be silent of speech, to attain enduring speech. Pass "life" and "world," in order to see the Life of the World. 

Although the actuality of Sufi being cannot be assayed by the more limited criteria of discursive thought, this poem can be seen as an assembling of the salient factors in the Rumi method. He stipulates a community, dedicated to perceiving reality, of which apparent reality is only a substitute. This cognition comes through contact with others, by being engaged in group activity, as well as in personal activity and thought. What actually is fundamental comes only when certain patterns of thinking have been reduced to their correct perspective. The Seeker must "open his arms" to an embrace, not expect to be given anything while he stands passively awaiting it. The "feeble hag" is the whole array of mundane experiences, which are reflections of an ultimate reality that bears hardly any comparison with what seems to be truth. For the "three loaves" of ordinary life, people sell their potentiality. 

The Friend comes at night—comes, that is, when things are still, and when the individual is not drugged by automatic thinking. The food which is a special nutrition of the Sufi is not the same as the ordinary food; but it is an essential part of the human intake.  

Humanity is circling around reality, in a system which is not the real system. It must enter the circle instead of following its perimeter. The { relationship of the real awareness to what we consider to be awareness is as of a hundred lives to one life. Certain characteristics of life as we know it—the predatory and selfish ones, the many others which are barriers to progress-must be outbalanced by benign factors. 

Thought, not pattern-thinking, is the method. Thought must be for all life, not for small aspects of it. Man is like someone who has the choice of traversing the earth, but has fallen asleep in a prison. The complications of misplaced intellectualism hide the truth. Silence is a prelude to speech, real speech. The inner life of the world is gained by ignoring the fragmentation implied by "life" and "world." 

When Rumi died in 1273 he left his son Bahaudin to carry on the generalship of the Mevlevi Order. Surrounded in life by people of every creed, his funeral was attended by people of every description. 

A Christian was asked why he wept so bitterly at the death of a Moslem teacher. His reply shows the Sufi idea of recurrence of teaching and of the transmission of spiritual activity:

"We esteem him as the Moses, the David, the Jesus of the age. We are all his followers and bis disciples."

The life of Rumi shows the mixture of transmitted lore and personal illumination which is central to Sufism. His family was descended from Abu Bakr, the Companion of Mohammed, and his father was related to King Khwarizm Shah. Jalaluddin was born in Balkh, a center of ancient teaching, in the year rzo7, and it is claimed in Sufi legend that it was foretold by Sufi mystics that a great future would be his. The King of Balkh, under the influence of powerful scholastics, turned against the Sufis, and especially against his kinsman, our Rumi's father. One Sufi master was drowned in the Oxus by order of the Shah. This persecution foreshadowed the invasion of the Mongols, in which Najmuddin (the Greatest), the Sufi leader, was killed on the battlefield. It is this master who founded the Kubravi Order, which is closely connected with the development of Rumi. 

The virtual destruction of Central Asia by Chengiz Khan's forces caused the dispersal of the Turkestan Sufis. Rurrd's father fled with his young son to Nishapur, where they met another great teacher of the same Sufi stream, the poet At-tar, who blessed the child and "spiritualized" him with the Sufi baraka. He presented to the boy a copy of his Asrctrnama (Book of Secrets), written in verse. 

Sufi tradition has it that since the spiritual potential of the young Jalaluddin had been recognized by the contemporary masters, their concern for his protection and development became the motive for the travels of the refugee party. They left Nishapur with the saintly Attar's words in their ears: “This boy will spark the fire of divine exaltation for the world." The city was not safe. Attar, like Najmuddin, awaited his turn for a martyr's grave, which he gained at the hands of the Mongols not long afterward.

The Sufi group with their fledgling leader reached Baghdad, where they heard of the utter destruction of Balkh and the slaughter of its inhabitants. For some years they wandered, performing the pilgrimage to Mecca, returning northward to Syria and Asia Minor, visiting Sufi centers. 

Central Asia was falling apart under the relentless blows of the Mongols, and Islamic civilization, after less than six hundred years of life, seemed about to be snuffed out

Rumi's father ultimately made his headquarters not far from Konia, which is associated with the name of St. Paul. The city was at this time in the hands of the Seljuk monarchs, and the King invited Jalaluddin to settle there. He accepted a professorial post, and continued instructing his son in the Sufi mysteries. 

Jalaluddin also came into contact with the Greatest Master, the poet and teacher Ibn El-Arabi of Spain, who was in Baghdad about this time. The contact was established through Burhanudin, one of Rumi's teachers, who had made his way to the Seljuk regions to find Rumi's father recently dead. Replacing him as Rumi's mentor, he took him to Aleppo and Damascus. 

It was when he was nearly forty that Rumi started his semipublic mystical teachings.2 The mysterious dervish «gun of the Faith of Tabriz" inspired him to produce a great jewel of his finest poetry, and to couch his teachings in a manner and form they were to retain throughout the life of the Mevlevi Order. His work done, the dervish vanished after about three years, and no further trace of him was ever reported.

This "emissary from the unknown world" has been equated by Rumi's son with the mysterious Khizr, the guide and patron of the Sufis, who appears and then passes out of normal cognition after transmitting his message. 

It was during this time that Rumi became a poet. For him, although acknowledgedly one of the greatest poets of Persia, poetry was only a secondary product. He did not regard it as any more than a reflection of the enormous inner reality which was truth, and which he calls love. The greatest love, as he says, is silent and cannot be expressed in words.  

Although his poetry was to affect men's minds in a way that can only be called magical, he was never carried away by it to the extent of identifying it with the far greater being of which it was a lesser expression. At the same time, he recognized it as something which could form a bridge between what he "really felt" and what he could do for others.

Adopting the Sufic methods of getting a thing into perspective, even at the risk of demolishing the fondest ideas, he himself assumes the role of critic of poetry. People come to him, he says, and he loves them. In order to give them something to understand, he gives them poetry. But poetry is for them, not for him, however great a poet he may be— "What, after all, is my concern with poetry?" In order to hammer home the message, as only a poet with the greatest contemporary reputation could dare to do, he states categorically that in comparison with the true reality, he has no time for poetry. This is the only nutrition, he says, that his visitors can accept, "so like a good host he provides it" 

The Sufi must never allow anything to stand as a barrier between what he is teaching and those who are learning it. Hence Rumi's insistence upon tie subsidiary role of poetry in the perspective of the real quest What he had to communicate was beyond poetry. To a mind conditioned to the belief that there is nothing more sublime than poetic expression, such a feeling might produce a sense of shock. It is just this application of impact which is necessary to the Sufi cause, in the freeing of the mind from attachment to secondary phenomena, "idols." 

Rumi, the inheritor of his father's chair, now projected his mystical teachings through artistic channels. Music, dancing and poetry were cultivated and used in the dervish meetings. Alternating with these were certain mental and physical exercises designed to open the mind to the recognition of its greater potential, through the theme of harmony. Harmonious development, through the medium of harmony, rrtight be a description of what Rumi was practicing. 

Studying such of his teachings as they can from the outside, many foreign observers have been bewildered by Rumi. One refers to his "very unoriental view that woman is not a mere plaything, but a ray of deity " 

One poem of Rumi's, published in The Diwan of Shams of Tabriz, has caused a certain amount of confusion to the literalists. It appears to refer to Rumi's examination of all forms of current religion, old and new, and his conclusion that the essential truth lay in the inner consciousness of man himself, not in external organizations. This is true as we realize that, according to Sufi belief, the "examining” of these creeds is done in a special way. The Sufi does no* necessarily literally travel from one country to another, seeing religions to study and taking what he can from thern. Neither does he read books of theology and exegesis, in order to compare one with the other. His "journey" and his

"examination" of other ideas takes place within himself. This is because the Sufi believes that, like anyone experienced in anything else, he has an inner sense against which he can measure the reality of religious systems. To be more specific, it would appear nonsensically cumbersome to approach a metaphysical subject by ordinary research methods. Anyone who said to him, "Have you read the book on such and such by so-and-so?" would be using the wrong approach. It is not the book, nor the author, but the reality of what that book and that man signify, which are important to the Sufi. In order to make his assessment of a person or his teachings, the Sufi needs only a sample. But this sample has to be accurate. He must, in other words, be placed into rapport with the essential factor in the teaching in question. A disciple, for instance, who does not thoroughly understand the system which he is following cannot convey enough of that system to the Sufi to enable an assessment to be made. 

This is the poem in which Rumi speaks of the attaining of the rapport with die various faiths, and his reaction to them: 

Cross and Christians, end to end, I examined. He was not on the Cross. I went to the Hindu temple, to the ancient pagoda. In neither was there any sign. To the heights of Herat I went, and Kandahar. I looked. He was not on height or lowland. Resolutely, I went to the top of the Mountain of Kaf. There only was the place of the 'Anqa bird. I went to the Kaaba. He was not there. I asked of his state from Ibn Sina: he was beyond the limits of the philosopher Avicenna. ... I looked into my own heart. In that his place I saw him. He was in no other place. . . . 

This "be" (which, in the original, could be either he, she «it) is the true reality. The Sufi is eternal, and his use of »ords like "drunkenness" or "grape" or "heart" is necessary

but ultimately so approximate as to appear a travesty. As Rumi puts it: 

Before garden, vine or grape were in the world,

Our soul was drunken with immortal wine. 

The Sufi may be compelled to use similes drawn from the familiar world at an early stage of transmission, but Rumi follows the standard Sufi formula very strictly. The crutches must be removed if the patient is to be able to walk by himself. The value of Rumi's mode of expression for the student is the fact that he makes this much more plain than most material available outside of Sufi schools. If certain external Orders have fallen into the habit of literally conditioning their followers to repetitious stimuli, marking time at a certain stage of development, retaining the attachment of the disciples to the "crutches," it is no fault of Jalaluddin Rumi.

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