By TONY EVANS
For the Idaho Mountain Express
Have you ever wondered where the clear and compelling voice of universal compassion might come from within the Islamic world? What if this voice was already celebrated by millions of Americans and quoted in café's and universities across the country?
The poetry of 13th century sheikh and scholar Jellaludin Rumi has become a remarkable phenomenon in the United States, due to the translations of Coleman Barks, making Rumi the most read poet in America over the last 10 years.
Barks recently traveled to Rumi's birthplace in Afghanistan as part of a U.S. State Department cultural delegation.
He will read Rumi poems to the accompaniment of cello and harp as a keynote speaker for the Sun Valley Mountain Wellness Festival, Sunday, May 28, at Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church in Sun Valley.
Come prepared to forget everything you have learned from the TV news about Islam. Rumi's passionate and transforming message is a mystical call to a direct relationship with God. Judging by the unprecedented sales of his poetry in this country, it seems to be working.
"What I'm trying to do is something the Sufis call 'sema,'" says Barks, which is a deep listening to the spoken word with music, and sometimes movement is involved too, a sort of moving meditation. It's a way of letting the words and the images go deeper into your heart where they can be of some use for you."
"... Move beyond any attachment to names.
Every war and every conflict between human beings has happened because of some disagreement about names."
Sufis are the "mystics" of Islam; "spiritually impatient," in the words of religious scholar Huston Smith. Rumi lived during the "Golden Age of Islam" (750-1500) when the arts and sciences flourished and Plato and Socrates were debated within the context of Muslim theology. Born into a line of mystic teachers, Rumi was inspired by a friendship with a mysterious older wise man, Shams of Tabriz, who was perhaps killed by members of Rumi's religious community. Following his tragic loss, Rumi entered an ecstatic mourning, which produced thousands of poems, including the six-volume Matthnavi, which transcended Christian, Jewish and Muslim doctrines, attaining a universal significance which has lasted more than 700 years.
"...it's such an unnecessary foolishness
Because just beyond the arguing there is a long table
of companionship set, and waiting for us to sit down.
What is praised is one, and so the praise is one too..."
The central theme running through Rumi's writings is that God, Allah, or the divine "presence" is immediate and accessible at all times to all people everywhere.
"The Sufi's have a story about these fish that schooled around and got together into study groups and tried to figure out if the ocean existed," says Barks. "And they are swimming in it. So this is theology for the Sufi ... speculation by the fish on whether or not the ocean exists. When you look for God, God is in the look of your eyes, so close that if we really knew it we would just scream or go silent or something."
"...many jugs being poured into a huge basin,
All religions, all this singing; one song.
The differences are just illusion and vanity.
Sunlight looks slightly different on this wall than it does on that wall,
And a lot different on this other one. But it is still one light..."
"Religion and poetry both remind us of what is sacred," Barks says. He undertook the work of translating Rumi in 1976 after being given a collection of literal translations by poet Robert Bly, saying, "these poems need to be released from their cages." One year later he encountered Sufi holy man Bawa Muhaiyadeen in a dream. Soon he met Muhaiyadeen in person and spent time with him over next nine years in Philadelphia.
"The only authority I can claim for working with such a prestigious poet as Rumi is my friendship with Bawa," Barks says. "Every time I work on it (Rumi) my friendship with my teacher is revived or something. I don't know why I am so lucky."
"We have borrowed these clothes, these time and space personalities
from a light. And when we praise we are pouring them back in.
What is praised is one and so the praise is one too."
Rumi's provocative verse works to undermine confusions with regard to religion, politics and the divine significance of the natural world. He employs an alchemical symbology which views all phenomena as pathways to the divine "presence," which is God or Allah for the Sufis of Islam.
"It's like the teenagers are running the show now, he says. "We obviously need a Nelson Mandela or Dalai Lama to be in charge. We don't have many others. That's why I think the popularity of Rumi is so current, because it gives you a glimpse of someone—a true human being—and what it is to have a compassionate, clear vision. And also one that sees a lot of hilarity in what people do."
Poetry courtesy of Coleman Barks, "The Soul of Rumi," Maypop Productions.
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Event info:
Coleman Barks
7-9 p.m., Sunday, May 28
Our Lady of the Snows
Tickets: Chapter One Bookstore in Ketchum, 208-726-5425, sunvalleywellness.org
Coleman Barks
