Rumi: Poet of Passionate Religion

a favorite Rumi poem...

And an excellent commentary from a sermon by the Unitarian, Norman M. Brown who sez...

"I'm here to tell you about an ecstatic Sufi mystical poet who lived in 13th century Turkey and wrote in Persion. In contemporary renditions, Jelalludin Rumi is now the most widely read poet in America. Many Americans looking for spiritual food find it in the popular translations of Rumi...

BURNT KABOB
Last year, I admired wines. This,
I'm wandering inside the red world.

Last year, I gazed at the fire.
This year I'm burnt kabob.

Thirst drove me down to the water
where I drank the moon's reflection.

Now I am a lion staring up totally
lost in love with the thing itself.

Don't ask questions about longing.
Look in my face.

Soul drunk, body ruined, these two
sit helpless in a wrecked wagon.
Neither knows how to fix it.

And my heart, I'd say it was more
like a donkey sunk in a mudhole,
struggling and miring deeper.

But listen to me: for one moment,
quit being sad. Hear blessings
dropping their blossoms
around you. God.

rendering by Colman Barks

Brown...
The most classical religious words are these: "Thirst
drove me down to the water where I drank the moon's reflection. Now
I am a lion staring up totally lost in love with the thing itself."
He can drink the water of the moon's reflection, but his numinous
experience is not the moon itself. He has ravenous hunger for the
moon and hopelessness of ever reaching it ,­but he doesn't have to
reach it because he's already lost inside the love of it.
Finally Rumi says that trying hard doesn't get the results you want,
and your passionate will cannot pull you out, but only pulls you in
deeper. And you have to be trying to be ready for the blessed
visitation.
read on...

For anyone unfamiliar with Rumi, or familiar yet wanting a deeper understanding of the Great Poet, the Sermon in Full by Brown is a short but richly informative treatment and includes another of my favorites by Rumi which i posted some months back titled GUEST HOUSE.
~hat tip hedi, SufiMystic