Gifts of Rumi No. 3 Part 4
Love, whether of an earthly kind or heavenly kind, will lead us to yonder1.
Masnavi I Manavi Vol. 1 (102-143)
The divine physician met and examined the handmaiden and he saw her pain and the secret became open to him. But he concealed this secret and did not tell anything to the king about it.
The divine men keep other’s secrets and not even repeat those secrets within themselves as their way is that the secret of the Friend (Yar) stays disguised. Concealing the secrets is one of the Sufi qualities.
Rumi believes that Love is indefinable.
Love, whether of an earthly kind or heavenly kind will lead us to yonder1.
It is Love that explains itself not the tongue.
Whatever explanation I have tried to come up with about Love, I feel ashamed of it whenever I face Love itself.
Hesamoldin (who wrote down when Rumi was dictating Poems of Masnavi I Manavi’s) asked Rumi once to talk about his spiritual relationship with Shamse Tabrizi.
Hesamoldin said please feed me with more spirituality because I am hungry for more and please don’t say you will do that later, because that is not a way of Sufi.
Rumi said do not ask me about this right now because I am in fana2.
Everything that one is saying while in fana (or while has not returned to consciousness or returned to existence yet), cannot be understood by anyone who is in a normal state.
The shadow is a sign of sun, but the sun’s light is the proof for the sun itself.
There are differences between signs (like a shadow) and the proof (like Sun). One must not focus on the indications and signs of truth but focus on the truth itself (Spiritual Sun). Focusing on the indications and signs makes one to lose sight of the truth itself.
Just like when a nighttime story brings sleep to eyes, indications and signs will bring neglect and ignorance.
When the truth itself shines (like the Sun), the signs of truth (like the moon) cannot shine and will disappear.
Under the Sun’s light that is received from a distance, everything is growing and comes to life and we benefit from its warmth and the trees give us fruits. If the Sun comes close enough it will no longer give us all these benefits and will burn and destroy everything and everyone!
In the same way, if God should become naked in vision, we can no longer remain and we will be wasted because we cannot handle that moment. God has created all these veils and masks for our own benefit.
Always ask for the understanding of the truth in your own capacity, and not more.
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1) Far distance
2) Fana, Fanā, “to pass away,” or “to cease to exist”
The complete denial of self and the realization of God is one of the steps taken by the Ṣūfī (mystic) toward the achievement of union with God. Fana may be attained by constant meditation and by contemplation on the attributes of God, coupled with the denunciation of human attributes. When the Ṣūfī succeeds in purifying himself entirely of the earthly world and loses himself in the love of God, it is said that he has “annihilated” his individual will and “passed away” from his own existence to live only in God and with God.
Many Ṣūfīs hold that fana alone is a negative state, for even though ridding oneself of earthly desires and recognizing and denouncing human imperfections are necessary for every pious individual, such virtues are insufficient for those who choose the path of Ṣūfism. Through fanāʾ ʿan al-fanāʾ (“passing away from passing away”), however, the Ṣūfī succeeds in annihilating human attributes and loses all awareness of earthly existence; he then, through the grace of God, is revived, and the secrets of the divine attributes are revealed to him. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/201463/fana#ref218048