Discourses of Rumi - Fihi ma Fihi - English

Цитата:
Recognized as perhaps the greatest mystical poet of Islam, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273) communicated something through his writing that has attracted spiritual seekers from almost every religion in the world, for hundreds of years. Primarily famous for his poetry, Rumi has also left another manuscript that is not so well known - the collection of discourses given at the gatherings with his students. It Is What It Is (Fihi ma Fihi) is considered by some scholars to be an abbreviated prose companion to his far more famous six volume work, the Masnavi. “It is,” meaning his collected discourses, “what it is,” meaning, evidently, the Masnavi.

This present book is edited and rewritten by Doug Marman from A. J. Arberry’s original English translation, published in 1961 as Discourses of Rumi. Arberry himself admitted that his scholastic, literal, work “is not an easy book to read...and the original is by no means easy always to understand.” According to more recent studies of the original manuscript (Chittick and Shah, for example,) Arberry’s translation also has some technical errors, and better understandings of Rumi’s subtle spiritual teachings have come to light.

Цитата:

Discourse 27

It is better not to question the fakir, for that is as much as to urge an oblige him to invent a lie. For when a materialist questions him, he has to reply. He cannot answer him truthfully, since he is not worthy of or receptive to such an answer, and his mouth and lips are not suitable to take such a morsel. So the fakir must answer him appropriately to his capacity and ruling start, namely by inventing a lie so as to get rid of him, and though everything that the fakir says is true and cannot be a le, yet in comparison with his former answer and statement and truth that is a lie; except that to the listener it is relatively right, and more than right.

A certain dervish had a disciple who used to beg for him. One day out of the yield of his begging he brought some food to his mater. The dervish are the food. That night he experienced nocturnal emission.

'From whom did you bring that food?' he asked the disciple.
'A lovely girl gave it to me,' the disciple answered.
'By Allah,' rejoined the dervish, 'it is twenty years since I had a nocturnal emission. This was the effect of her morsel.'

This shows that the dervish must be cautious and not eat the morsel of everyone. For the dervish is delicate; things have their effect on him and become visible, just as a little blackness shows on a clean white gown; as for a black gown which has become black with grime for many years and has lost all whiteness, if a thousand kinds of filth and grease should trickle on it it would not appear on it to the people. This being so, the dervish must not eat the morsel of sinners and those who live on iniquity, and of materialists. For the morsel of such a man has an effect on the dervish, and corrupt thoughts manifest under the influence of that strange morsel - so that the dervish had nocturnal emission through consuming the food of that girl.

Discourse 69

Between a man and God there are just two veils, and all other veils manifest out of these: they are health, and wealth. The man who is well in body says, 'Where is God? I do not know, and I do not see.' As soon as pain afflicts him he begins to say, 'O God! O God!' communing and conversing with God. So you see that health was his veil, and Go was hidden under that pain. As much as a man has wealth and resources, he procures the means to gratifying his desires, and is preoccupied night and day with that. The moment indigence, appears, his spirit is weakened and he goes round about God.

Drunkenness and emptyhandedness brought Thee to me;
I am the slave of Thy drunkenness and indigency!

God most High granted to Pharaoh four hundred years of life and rule and kinship and enjoyment. All that was a veil which kept him far from the presence of God. He experienced to a single day of disagreeableness and pain, lest he should remember God. God said 'Go on being preoccupied with your own desire, and do not remember me. Goodnight!'

King Solomon grew weary of his reign,
But Job was never sated of his pain.

Notes: 'King Solomon grew weary': Rumi quotes himself, see Divan, p. 151

Discourse 70

The Master said: This that men say, that in the human soul there is an evil which does not exist in animals and wild beasts - it is not from the standpoint that man is worse that they; it is explained by the fact the evil character and wickedness of soul and vileness which are in man are according to a secret essential element which is in him. Those characteristics and vileness and evil are a veil over that element. The more precious and venerable and noble that element is, the greater are its veils. So vileness and evil and bad character are the cause of the veil over that element; and these veils cannot be removed save with grave strivings.

Those strivings are of various kinds. The greatest of them is to mingle with friends who have turned their faces to God and turned their backs on this world. For there is no more difficult striving than this, so sit with righteous friends; for the very sight of them dissolves and naughts that carnal soul. It is for this reason that they say that when a snake has not seen a man for forty years it becomes a dragon; that is, because it sees no one who would be the means of dissolving it s evil and vileness.

Wherever men put a big lock, that is a sign that there is to be found something precious and valuable. So you see, the greater the veil the better the element. Just as a snake is over the treasure, so do you not regard our ugliness, but regard the precious things of the treasure.

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