Essence of the One
A CHILDREN’S GAME
Listen to the poet Sanai
who lived secluded: “Don’t wander out in the road
in your ecstasy. Sleep in the tavern.”
When a drunk strays out onto the street,
children make fun of him.
He falls down in the mud.
He takes any and every road.
The children follow
not knowing the taste of wine, or how
his drunkenness feels. All the people on the planet
are children, except for a very few.
No one is grown up except those free of desire.
God said,
“The world is a play, a children’s game,
and you are the children.”
God speaks the truth.
If you haven’t left the child’s play,
how can you be an adult?
Without purity of spirit,
if you’re still in the middle of lust and greed
and other wantings,
you’re like children
playing at sexual intercourse.
They wrestle and rub together,
but it’s not sex!
The same with the fightings of mankind.
It’s a squabble with play-swords.
No purpose. Totally futile.
Like kids on hobby horses, soldiers claim to be riding
Boraq, Muhammad’s night-horse, or Duldul, his mule.
Your actions mean nothing, the sex and war that you do.
You’re holding part of your pants and prancing around,
Dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun.
Don’t wait till you die to see this.
Recognize that your imagination and your thinking
and your sense perception are reed canes
that children cut and pretend are horsies.
The knowing of mystic lovers is different.
The empirical, sensory, sciences
are like a donkey loaded with books,
or like makeup woman’s makeup.
It washes off.
But if you lift your baggage rightly, it will give joy.
Don’t carry your knowledge-load for some selfish reason.
Deny your desires and willfulness,
and a real mount may appear under you.
Don’t be satisfied with the name of HU,
with just words about it.
Experience that breathing.
From books and words come fantasy,
and sometimes, from fantasy comes union.
~ Jalal id-din Rumi
translated by Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi
This is a longer poem, but worth the time
to read and contemplate.
Rumi lived in the 1200’s,
yet his poetry is timeless.
This one is particularly relevant today.
Look at our world, our crazy world.
We are all children, and this is a game.
We take the illusion so seriously.
We follow the drunk without knowing
the taste of wine.
We fight each other for power and control.
Who is right and who is wrong?
No one! This isn’t real.
Do not follow blindly.
Drink the wine of Truth for yourself.
Drink now. Do not wait until you die.
Ask for help from The One
to extract you from this play.
Forget the stories you tell yourself.
Let go of what your mind believes.
Experience the breathing of the name of HU.
Ya Allah, Ya Haqq!
Oh Beloved God, Oh Truth!
Please help me to know Your Truth,
to be a witness to Your Reality,
to be in the world, but not of the world.
Please release me from the struggles
of my mind and heart.
Please return me to subsist in Your Essence alone,
the Essence of Your Truth
the Essence of The One.
The University of Spiritual Healing & Sufism opens its doors to all people who seek love, truth, justice and freedom, regardless of their religion, to all those who search for truth through the way of God. We teach how to purify your self so that your heart can more fully reflect your true essence. We welcome everyone who wants to learn how to carry the message of unity – the message of love, mercy, peace, freedom, justice and beauty.
USHS offers classes in Spiritual Healing & Counseling, Spiritual Peacemaking, and Spiritual Ministry & Sufi Studies. New Masters of Divinity classes begin each October and April. We have other distance learning opportunities as well. You are invited to join us. Click here to schedule a FREE chat with one of our advisors.
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