Rumi & Shams

[thespiritualemporium]

Shams was like a tramp, or mendicant, rolling around the lanes of Konya, today located in central Turkey.

This mad dervish, clothed in rags, with knotted hair and beard, was one of the five Perfect Masters of the time.

Rumi, by contrast, was a man of great intellectual learning and ran a madrasa of repute. He was held in high regard by the local community, with his sermons in the mosque transcribed and distributed for general consumption.

However he started to become dissatisfied with the intellectual, and drift towards a more mystical approach.

One winter’s evening in 1244 his world became a little more unhinged. Shams grabbed the reins to Rumi’s horse, and then set about roasting his intellectual understanding.

Rumi’s heart knew what was truly being offered and he embraced the opportunity. He spent more and more time in the PM’s presence, imbibing his spiritual fire.

Rumi’s students and friends became worried and jealous of this new development, felt threatened, and tried to have Shams bumped off on several occasions.

Rumi even turned his back on Shams at one time, leading to Shams leaving.

All of this unwittingly led to the creation of the whirling dervishes, without which any modern day spiritual fair would be lacking.

Shams came back to Konya a year later, only to be disposed of by Rumi’s students and family once again.

Shams-e-Tabriz (1185-1248)
Mevlana Djalal ad-Din Rumi (1207-1273)

[Grounded Gifts]

you mustn't be afraid of death
you're a deathless soul
you can't be kept in a dark grave
you're filled with God's glow


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be happy with your beloved
you can't find any better
the world will shimmer
because of the diamond you hold

when your heart is immersed
in this blissful love
you can easily endure
any bitter face around

in the absence of malice
there is nothing but
happiness and good times
don't dwell in sorrow my friend

Translated by Nader Khalili "Rumi, Fountain of Fire"
Cal-Earth Press, 1994

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[Grounded Gifts]

At the twilight, a moon appeared in the sky;
Then it landed on earth to look at me.
Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey;
That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky.
I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore;
For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul.
The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;
The ship of my existence drowned in that sea.

Divan, 649:1-3,5

[Grounded Gifts]

WHY CLING

Why cling to one life
till it is soiled and ragged?


The sun dies and dies
squandering a hundred lived
every instant


God has decreed life for you
and He will give
another and another and another

(translated by Daniel Liebert)
Mathnawi V. 411-414 (translated by Kabir Helminski)
The Rumi Collection, Edited by Kabir Helminski