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 Divine
Lightning
by Dominic Tamborriello
Through Love, all pain turns into medicine.
Rumi
The man known as Jelaludin
Rumi is being revealed as one of the most incredible spiritual beings
ever known. Born almost exactly 800 years ago, he lived most of his life
in what is now Turkey and is claimed as a native son by everyone in the
former Persian Empire. Primarily through the interpretations of Coleman
Barks, he has become the biggest selling poet in America and the world.
Keep knocking and eventually the joy inside will open a window and look
out to see who’s there. Rumi
For those of you who do
not know of him, Rumi is known as the world’s greatest ecstatic mystical
poet. What that means is that his poetry came from a place inside of him
that was so broken open that only his love for God poured out. What came
from him was not dogma. What came was a challenge to open to life so
profoundly that your humanness could not help but be an entrance point
to union with the beloved and therefore oneness with all things.
Last year, I gazed at the fire. This year, I’m burnt kabob.
Rumi
Walking past someone
beating the dust from a rug, noticing a cook pushing chickpeas back down
into the boiling water, looking up at the moon, anything could and would
be used by this master teacher to illustrate how we could fall deeper
into love with God and the world. The person beating the dust from the
rug wasn’t angry with the rug. He was just trying to remove its
impurities. Rumi pointed out that life’s buffetings may be God’s way of
inspiring us to move closer to our highest selves. A boiling chickpea? A
metaphor for being totally immersed in this life until our deepest
flavors are released so they may join with the essence of the other
flavors in our world. A glance at the moon? Being broken open by beauty.
Last night, the moon came dropping its clothes in the street.I took it
as a sign to start singing.
Rumi
For Rumi, every moment
revealed the grandeur of having the opportunity to be so dumbfounded by
life that love would remain as the only possible answer. The love that
Rumi pointed us toward was indeed romantic, yet that would be so pale a
version of love to settle for. Yes, be happy that you have found love in
any form. Fall in love with a scent, a person beset by torment, a
question that demands you go beyond what you know. Then, use any and all
of that to fall so deeply into gratitude that you find yourself kneeling
and kissing the ground for your good fortune. After all, once you
dissolve into love, what is left but you and the beloved? And once that
happens, what is left but the oneness of the beloved with you resting
inside the heart of the beloved? Do you really want to know how to find
infinity? Read Rumi.
Gamble everything for love if you’re a true human being.
If not, leave this gathering.
Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.
You set out to find God
but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.
Rumi
Rumi’s message is not just
the lofty musings of someone who was unusually eloquent. They are more
than pragmatic given the state of the world. They are perhaps essential.
In the words of Andrew Harvey, another translator of Rumi and himself a
profound spiritual seeker, “Rumi’s message is not a message, it’s the
message.” While Rumi was a devout Muslim, he was so understanding of
other religious traditions that when he died, Muslims, Christians, Jews,
Buddhists and Hindus all argued about who was to bury him. His reverence
for all returned reverence to him. What would our world look like today
if that message of understanding and respect carried the day?
Move beyond any attachment to names.
Every war and every conflict between human beings has happened because
of some disagreement about names.
It’s such an unnecessary foolishness.
Because just beyond the arguing
there is a long table of companionship set
and waiting for us to sit down.
All this singing, one song.
The differences are just illusions
and vanity.
Rumi
If you’re reading this
article, it’s probably because you want more out of life. You want more
passion. You want more peace. You want more power. You want more
possibilities. Rumi calls us to such a full aliveness that not having
those things begins to feel foreign, begins to be the exception not the
rule. Listen to the power of his call to us even after his death:
If
you bake bread with the wheat that grows on my grave
you’ll become drunk with joy and
even the oven will recite ecstatic poems.
If you come to pay your respects
even my gravestone will invite you to dance
so don’t come without your drum.
Rumi
I hope that this has given
you a taste of Rumi. Are you feeling a strange hunger inside you? A
hunger for something that you’ve known you were missing and never had a
name for? Or perhaps you’re feeling a fire somewhere in your chest. I
hope so. If this article launches you on a journey of discovery, don’t
blame me. Blame it on the beloved who is calling to you through the
passion of somebody who lived 800 years ago. Blame it on the fire inside
you that won’t go away no matter how broken hearted you’ve been. Blame
it on Rumi.
The
breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Rumi
Dominic Tamborriello, LMSW,
is a clinical social worker in Ann Arbor, MI. He runs at least one
poetry therapy group every week as part of his private practice. He is
the primary organizer of RumiNations 800, an international conference
celebrating the 800th birthday of Rumi in Ann Arbor September 28th –
30th. For more information, RumiNations800.com or (734) 649-7092.
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