Bahauddin, Rumi's father, was not only a major force in the development of Islamic spirituality, but also deeply influential in his son's life. This delightful and provocative collection reveals the depth of thirteenth-century Sufi mystical wisdom and its acute observations into nature, humanity, and the mysteries of life. Full of wit and insight, Bahauddin's notes bring to the reader a deeper understanding of his son Rumi's spiritual and intellectual heritage.
After his father's death in 1231, Rumi carried his father's spiritual notebook, known as the Maarif, everywhere. The writer Aflaki tells this story of the meeting of Rumi and Shams: Rumi is sitting by a fountain in Konya talking to his students with the Maarif open on the fountain's ledge. Suddenly, Shams interrupts the conversation and pushes the precious text into the water.
"Who are you and why are you doing this?" asks Rumi, protesting that this copy of his father's diary is the only one in existence.
Shams replies, "It is time for you to live what you have been reading of and talking about. But if you want, we can retrieve the book. It will be perfectly dry. See?" And he lifts Bahauddin's notebook out, "Dry."
Rumi set aside his father's book and joined Shams; but now, in this first-ever translation of the vital passages of the Maarif, renowned poet Coleman Barks and Persian scholar John Moyne open a window into the world of Rumi, the young man who became one of the world's best-loved poets and great spiritual teachers.
The Drowned Book
By Barks, ColemanHarperSanFrancisco
ISBN: 0060591943BLUE ROBE 23
Show the true way. (Qur'an 1:6)24
I have been given a taste for what is beautiful. Like milkrunning through my body, the gates open. I wear a blue robewoven of six directions with watercolor images flowing overthe cloth, a thousand kinds of flowers, yellow jasmine, wildiris. Orchard corridors, handsome faces on the street, I amcomposed of this beauty, the attar of pressed plants, rose oil,resinous balsam: live essence, I am the intelligent juice offlowers.
ONE OF THE WAYS GOD TASTES
In the middle of praying I was thinking about the nymphs ofparadise again, said to be half-camphor, half-saffron, withtheir hair of pure musk.
Then I remembered the old saying about such and suchwhose head is soaked in shame, with his foot bound tight intruthfulness.
Then I recalled the qualities of God: compassion, generosity,elegant intricacy, luminous wisdom, mercy, beauty. I becamegrateful that I know the taste of some of these qualities,according to my limited capacity, and even beyond it.
I see a long table spread with a tablecloth. On it are thepowers and qualities and creations, the seven stars from whichflow our pleasure here. Even in my unconsciousness, God entersmy desire and my soul with the taste of those qualities.
I feel myself becoming one of the ways God tastes.
Continues...Excerpted from The Drowned Bookby Barks, Coleman Excerpted by permission.
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