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Something sacred for sunday. Another poem from Rumi that revels in paradox and plurality.
What is to be done, O brothers?
I do not know who I am.
I am not a Christian, a Jew, a Magian, or a Muslim.
I am not of the East, the West; the land, or the sea.
I am not formed by Nature; nor by the circling heavens;
Not by earth nor water, nor air nor fire.
I am not the king nor the beggar;
Not of substance nor of form.
I am not from India, China, nor a bordering country;
Not from Persia, nor the lands of Khorasan.
I am not of this world nor the next;
Not of heaven nor of hell.
I came not from Adam nor from Eve;
I do not dwell in Eden nor the gardens of paradise;
My place is placeless, my trace is traceless.
Nothing is mine, neither body nor soul -
All belongs to the heart of the Beloved.
I've descided that sundays, it being God's day and all, I should post something of a religous nature. Today, I'd like to share another of my favourite poems. It is called Zero Circle and was written by a Sufi called Rumi. He was a 13th century Persian poet, islamic jurist, theologian and mystic. His followers founded the whirling dervishers that are famous for spinning around a lot.
Although of an islamic background his writing is universalist. First it requires us to release all intellectual confusion by envoking a paradox. Then it asks us to surrender ourselves to grace. I can think of no higher aspiration than to become a mighty kindness.
Zero Circle
Be helpless, dumbfounded
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
that No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.
So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.