Within the poems that were assigned for us to read were poems “ This World Which is Made of Our Love for Emptiness,” “Craftsmanship and Emptiness,” “Emptiness,” and “The Food Sack.” All of these poems are found in section three called “Emptiness and Silence” that starts on page 17. In the poem “This World Which is Made of our Love for Emptiness” is saying that from emptiness comes everything that exists. For me I think that this poem is stating that from just God comes everything. If you draw a parallel between the use of emptiness in the poem and the idea of God, it becomes very clear. The first line of the poem states, “ Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence: this place made from our love for that emptiness!” If you put the idea of God wherever you see the word emptiness, you get the idea that God has created everything and from our love and under his guidance, he will create more beautiful things. This theme of loving emptiness, which I have now categorized as a symbol for God, is also seen in the other poems that I have listed above. In the poem “Craftsmanship and Emptiness” we get the idea that we shouldn’t fear emptiness, since it is the creator. To me I think Rumi is commenting on how some religions, especially those who focus around the Old Testament, teach that God is to be our leader out of fear, but in this poem it clearly states that we shouldn’t fear God. That we should praise him for being the almighty creator. In the poem “Emptiness” the idea of God is seen in the last lines that state “ Instead of being so bound up with everyone, be everyone. When you become that many, you’re nothing. Empty.” To me this use of emptiness is to show that we should not be caught up on material things, in the idea that we shouldn’t love material things, but should just love God. I thought that this also ties into the idea of lusting after material things that St. Augustine brought up in Confessions. The last poem that I will talk about in this post is “The Food Sack.” To me this poem is somewhat like a parable. I say that it is parable like because it tells a story of people praising an empty food sack, and when a passerby comments that “It’s only an empty sack” those who praise it go on a rant about love. Then through this rant and story one comes out with the sense that we should love God even if he isn’t seen, that just believing in him will provide all the necessities. I guess now on a second thought, all of Rumi’s poems could be seen as parables. Rumi’s poems uses many themes to explain how to follow the guidence of God.
I like your interpretation of the emptiness poems. For me I compared the emptiness to the saying, "is the glass half empty or half full." For since God made all things, he is also present in all things, but that also means that he is also present in all the things that are not there, "emptiness." The poems having to do with emptiness were my favorites because they turned the concept of God being present in all things around and gave a different perspective. I like how you brought up the end of the poem also, because I found it hard to understand but, I have thought about it a lot.
Although we talked about it in class, I wanted to elaborate on my interpretation of “Two Friends.” It was discussed that the person who is knocking on the door could be representative of God and the second time God knocks on the door, the person on the other side of the door and God are same person, implying that God is within everyone. When I first read this poem I literally interpreted the two subjects as two friends. I thought it was interesting that at first, friend one, that was inside said, “There’s no place for raw meat at this table.” Then when friend two went away and came back, friend two became “completely cooked.” To me this insinuated that friend two came back “cooked” because he realized that it was worth it to change or compromise himself in order to be with friend one. To me this highlighted one of Rumi’s major themes of companionship and unity, and how one may have to compromise some things about themselves in order to become part of a whole, in order to contribute to something bigger than themselves. To me, this poem also spoke to the importance of friendship and being intimate with another; it seemed apparent within the poem that certain aspects of oneself are worth giving up in order to experience relationships with other people. Rumi seems to imply in his other poems that truth can come from experiencing relationships. “The Mouse and a Frog” was once of my favorite poems. And it builds on this idea of unity and companionship by highlighting how enlightening simply being with other kinds of people and learning from them can be, “sometimes when two beings come together, Christ becomes visible” (79). Rumi is saying that the ultimate truth, or knowledge of Christ, can come from learning more about oneself through “telling stories and dreams and secrets,” and just being human together. I was also very intrigued by the Jesus poems, especially “Jesus on the Lean Donkey.” While reading I immediately compared it to Averroes and his belief that only the elite thinkers should be exposed to the deeper meaning behind actions and beliefs that we are supposed to have. A holy man witnesses a snake crawl into the mouth of a sleeping man and without letting the man know what is going on the holy man forces the man to eat and run, thereby forcing him to throw up everything in his stomach, including the snake. This saves his life and the holy man explains that he couldn’t tell the man what was going on because if the man had know the reasons behind his orders then the man would have died of fear. The poem then goes on to explain, “God’s silence is necessary, because of humankind’s faintheartedness” (203). All people cannot know the allegorical, deeper truth of God, because people who cannot understand these truths fully might be scared to continue on with their journey to serve God. For example, Averroes explained in his Decisive Treatise that commoners who became aware of the allegorical meaning behind the Qur’an would revolt and become blasphemous and chaos would ensue.
I completely agree with your post! I found it interesting how you connected the poem of the man and the Holy man to Averroes and the idea of there being a deeper meaning to the things that God does, and how only certain people are able to capture that meaning. Similar to the Allegory of the Cave, only the highest members of the society could capture the highest form of reality, while those stuck down below would have given up on faith, which was blasphemous. The Holy man could not tell the man about the snake because the man would have reacted in a negative way that simply would have ended in his own demise. The lack of understanding allowed the man to believe that something greater surely was going on, but it was not for him to understand at that point in time. Like you stated in your entry, we have to keep faith in God and believe that He was some sort of plan for us, even when it is beyond our understanding.
Reading your review I completely agree with your initial reading of "Two Friends" and how you took it at a literal level. When I initially read it I thought not of companionship and unity with your friends but with all sides of one self, especially when the poem talks about "being cooked" and doing so by riding oneself of ego. However your interpretation makes me think of Rumi's fundamental issue with his separation fro Shams how the poem could also be wishful thinking on Rumi's part that one he is worthy he will be reunited with Shams.
This weeks reading of Rumi was very interesting. There were so many connections to religion and friendship in these stories more than the reading that we have read before. By far my favorite poem is Emptiness because although I am not a religious person, this poem touches upon the immense being that God is. The last four lines of Emptiness brings everything together ultimately stating that everyone is God but if one is with no one but God, that is everything. At first this last few lines were very confusing because I understood it as being nothing when you become everything, as stated in the poem “When you become that many (everything), you are nothing. Empty.” Being in touch with God meant that you had to become empty and nothing and in order to do thing we have to be everything. I understood this as understanding everything and being selfless, being in touch with everyone else, their culture, motives, everything. This made me understand a little more about why Muslims appreciate science so much, because trying to understand and be in touch with science make them more aware of everything and in a sense be part of science. And as Rumi stated before, being part of everything makes you empty and being empty means that they are able to be in touch with God. Sometimes I feel like Rumi does not speak in poetic terms as much as he does philosophical terms for the general public to understand how it is that someone can become in touch with God. Another favorite poem of mine was Chinese Art and Greek Art because of the meaning of unity in this poem. This poem was based on a competition on who makes better art. The Chinese decided to make a painting while the Greeks decided to clean and polish the walls making everything “pure and clear.” When the Chinese painting was shown and was parallel to the Greeks work of art the Chinese painting was reflected better on the Greeks clean and pure wall. I loved this because we can interpret this as Rumi saying that we need to clean ourselves and purify ourselves in order to absorb the truth or the beautiful or God. It is easy to say that Rumi has a constant belief that it is important to purify and be empty which is stated in both Emptiness and Chinese Art and Greek Art. The idea that the Greek art was to take everything and just absorbing it through an empty and pure wall is an example to being clear with the universe and for a better understanding of God.
I agree with you as well. I also feel that the poems Rumi wrote were touching upon what God is. I felt like Rumi represented God as a being that was a creator of all things beautiful, which was a pleasant change from the readings about the Old Testament, which portrayed God as a being that was bent on anger and frustration towards people who were committing sins. Several of these poems I felt portrayed God's potential of being behind a lot of what is beautiful is the poem about wine. The wine poem portrayed the beverage as a figurative Segway that brings a person closer to God since wine itself brings the person consuming it out of self-consciousness. I also agree with all of what you are saying about Chinese and Greek Art as well. Although I'm non-religious, Rumi still brought me to a clearer understanding of God than the Old Testament, and even the Qur'an as well.
I really enjoyed the poems that we had to read from Rumi. It was a nice change to have readings that were based on love instead of violence, And like we discussed in class, these poems were something that can be universally understood, appreciated and related to.
One poem that I particularly liked was "Two Friends". It had a theme of unity and two things working together towards harmony. Such as when it says that two scissor blades make on cut or the two men washing clothes; one works to make them wet and the other works to make them dry and even though they seem like they are "thwarting" each other their work is actually "perfect harmony". This can be interpreted into so many different things. It could be seen as an analogy for people in general to work together in harmony or it could be referring to God. With the aspect of the door, like we talked about in class, God is something that is within us and we have to empty ourselves of our egos and let Him in along with understanding of the world around us.
Another poem that I liked was "The Three Fish". From this poem I got the message that even without guidance there is still hope for one to survive on their own. Such as when the half intelligent fish was first lost without the intelligent fish but still managed to get itself out of harms way. This may be a literal way of looking at the poem but I still liked the lighter tone it took compared to the darker readings that we have been discussing.
I too enjoyed the readings of Rumi from this week. Like you said it was a nice change from the readings full of violence and sin that we have read in past weeks. Along with the idea of perfect harmony that you mention when talking about "Two Friends" it is also about how we are all one. We see each other as separate, nut like you said, God is within us all and this fact therefore makes us united. As for "The Three Fish" I really liked the comment made today in class about how the intelligent fish represents Shams and the half intelligent fish represents Rumi. I hadn't made this connection beforehand and thought it was a perfect analogy afterwards. Like you said, there are many different ways of interpreting Rumi's work. This makes it very relatable to people of all ages and all cultures and very well may be why he continues to be so extremely famous.
I also thought that the "Two Friends" passage epitomized the ideals Rumi was trying to get across. I think the best example, as you mentioned above, is the analogy of scissors working together; although the blades separate and unique, they work in unison. These insights that Rumi offers seem to be timeless testaments to how we should behave, which according to Rumi, is in the spirit of love and open mindedness. My personal favorite of Rumi's poems was probably the following:
"The body is a device to calculate the astronomy of the spirit. Look through that astrolabe and become oceanic."
In this quote, Rumi emphasizes that we must trust our bodily intuitions and our feelings to come to understand our spirit, in much the same way a sailor must trust his astrolabe to navigate the oceans.
Throughout the semester we have read about Jesus from many viewpoints, so it was very interesting to read the “Jesus Poems: The Population of the World” section of the book. The one poem that really stuck out to me was “Jesus on the Lean Donkey”. This tells the story of a traveling holy man that saved the life of a man that unknowingly had a snake crawl into his mouth. In order to save the man’s life the holy man made him eat rotten apples, beat him, and ran him until he puked. These actions ultimately saved the man from dying from the snake crawling into his mouth. As soon as the man realized the reason behind the holy man’s actions, he was thankful and resentful of the way he spoke to the holy man. The holy man knew that he had to keep his reasons secret from the man because he could not have handled the truth and would have died from the snake. A line that stood out to me was “If I described the enemy that lives inside men, even the most courageous would be paralyzed. No one would go out, or do any work. No one would pray or fast, and all power to change would fade from human beings”. This line is very important to the poem because it relays a message of Jesus, that most people are incapable of understanding everything about God so it is better for some people to just take the Lord’s message for its literal meaning. I think that this relates to Plato’s Republic and the idea of the Philosopher Kings. They were the only group that Plato thought could fully understand the forms and gain the most knowledge in life, so people who were not geared to be Philosopher Kings were encouraged to focus in other areas where they could be useful.
Another interesting part of “Jesus on the Lean Donkey” was the opening first two sentences. Rumi started off by saying that Jesus was on a donkey and that this donkey was a symbol of how the rational intellect should control the animal soul within each person. If your spirit was strong like Jesus a person would be able to control the animal part within them, however if their spirit was weak the donkey would grow to be a dragon meaning your animal part would get out of control. I liked this comparison because it portrays Jesus in a positive manner because Rumi was trying to say that if a person tries to model themselves after Jesus they would have a good life. Another interesting thing was that Rumi referred to Jesus as the “Son of Mary” just like the Qur’an does. I like how Rumi speaks of Jesus throughout the Jesus poems portion of the book and I think that it is very insightful of how Rumi viewed Jesus throughout this time period.
I think it is interesting how you compare the message to Plato's Republic. It could also be applied to Averroes in this way, when he states that only the scholar class should be able to read the Qur'an in a metaphorical and critical way, because their fatih will not be questioned, but for lower classes it could lead them to question some of the unquestionable aspects of faith like Allah's existence.
What I thought was interesting after reading Rumi, was that this novel reflects our society today. Relationships have often been the muse for different songwriters throughout the decades, and these songs obviously become popular among the masses. Artists usually express the feelings of love, drunkenness, sex, and God. That being said, Rumi touched base on all these themes and used poetry to convey them (however hundreds of years ago).
The poem called, “I Have Five Things to Say,” embodies Rumi’s concept of love as being universal. Rumi seeks a journey to grow through love, empty his ego and eventually connect with God. It made sense that how abandoning your ego makes you feel pure because letting go of all materialistic things that don’t have value allows you to focus on aspects of life that really matter, such as love. Ironically, the artists of today, who express the same values as Rumi thru their art, have been consumed by “the industry” and lost sight of who they are as people. They are washed up by media therefore they loose their sense of identity and cannot be one with themselves; instead most turn to drugs, are thirsty for attention and try to flaunt their materials.
Rumi advocated using music, poetry and dancing as a path to get closer to God. Generally it’s a great way to express yourself and figure and a gateway to overcome obstacles. The other readings we have read thus far emphasize how philosophy and scholastic learning is a way to get closer with god. Rumi takes another approach, which I think is more personable, but it does have its downsides when exploited.
I never even thought of comparing all of Rumi’s poems and his inner themes to society today, specifically the music industry. You can see the messages that Rumi tries to portray through his poems in so many songs that you hear today. You can turn on the radio for an hour and hear songs about love, God, our connection with God, companionship and so many other themes that we see in Rumi’s poems. I was actually very surprised to read some of the material in “Sexual Urgency.” It was very erotic and graphic in many parts. This is the same way I feel about movies, TV, and music in today’s society. I can’t believe some of the things that people show and say in these medias about sex. It goes to show you that just because Rumi was an artist from a completely different day and age, there are commonalities between human beings. These commonalities are carried on through so many portals including oral traditions, religion, and even pure human instinct in the case of the sexual scenes. I think it’s important that when we read, we try to make connections to the day that we live in and try to realize why these themes that Rumi used in his poems from the 13th century still manage to be relevant and even important in our society today.
While I was reading Rumi I noticed how easy it was to relate to certain poems he would write. It’s one of the reasons I think his work has gained so much attention over the years. I thought it was fairly easy to read through his poems at first glance without reading into the context much. Even on the surface I thought his poems were extremely deep and thought provoking. As we talked about his work in class today I realized how much more depth each passage has.
For example in our group we were able to talk about the poem “Two Friends” for a majority of the time. I found it interesting because everyone is able to approach his writings with a different prospective. Each person giving different interpretations of what it could mean. It seems like a book like Rumi could have an entire course based around it with the amount of information it has. Personally I enjoyed the readings we had but I’m sure there were plenty of metaphors that I read over without even noticing.
I completely agree with how easy it was to relate to the poems. Typically I have a difficult time with poems and understanding them, but with these poems I had a much easier time. It is all about how he wrote them and that definitely makes his poems more popular because more people are able to read them. I also agree that it was interesting to hear the different perspectives that everyone took on what a poem meant.
I definitely agree with you on this. Rumi's poems are incredibly relatable, in my opinion, for a reader of any age, gender, etc. The sense of sincerity in his poems as well as the depth of each passage, like you talked about, make it easy to find places that you can identify with his writings all throughout.
In our group discussion we also found that each of us interpreted the poems a little differently as well and I think that's because we all have different experiences so we all relate to rings and observe things in varying ways. No two people have had exactly the same experiences in their lives so therefore, we all go through life with different thoughts, ideas, etc. and that makes us be able to relate to things such as Rumi's poems in different ways. I think that's one of the coolest things about this class, that everyone comes from something different so we can all relate in different ways.
As someone who has a lot of difficultly being able to 'read through the lines' and understanding poetry -- I found it especially hard to understand Rumi. In most of his poems, it seemed like he was talking about one thing but later talking about another and it was hard to me to be able to correlate what Rumi was saying to what I was thinking. There was so much depth to his poetry, and although reading the poem wasn't hard, it was difficult to be able to understand or grasp the concept of his meanings. Even through being in class, I had a hard time being able to understand that the poems meant a certain way.
While reading Two Friends, I was extremely confused about why the friend was first denied but let in after he was 'cleansed' and said 'you' instead of me. However, after talking about the poem in class, I began to gain an understanding that it could mean something in a religious aspect, that only after you are cleansed can you be one with God and in other ways, such as talking about yourself as an individual. It seems that there is so much more depth to these poems, and it still hard for me to really be able to understand Rumi. However, one thought I had while reading these poems were that Rumi seemed to be the 'ideal' Muslim in terms of being peaceful and open about love and companionship as opposed to all the other things we've learned about the Quran or other books in general. In that I mean that he was the only author who was not all about war, and selfishness, rather about knowing oneself and being able to love others.
I agree with you about poetry. I have always had difficulty time reading into a poem that may be because I simply just don’t find it as interesting as other works of art, but nonetheless Rumi is especially cryptic. The earlier poems about the tavern actually caught my attention. I found them to be very interesting and at first I questioned why Rumi is talking about drinking, isn’t he Muslim? And isn’t drinking against their religion? But when I looked a little further into it I noticed that the wine has a deeper meaning. “Jesus was lost in his love for God. His donkey was drunk with barley. Drink from the presence of saints, not from those other jars.” It later goes into drinking the purest. So in that drinking the wine is filling yourself with the holy spirit.
I personally enjoyed the readings of Rumi for this week. I thought that the poems were an interesting change of pace from the texts that we have read so far this semester. Not only was the actual writing of Rumi much more simplistic and less pedantic than our previous readings, but the overall message was also slightly different.
Many of the works that we’ve read, most notably Plato, Saint Augustine, and Averroes, are extremely elitist, and also very dry. The focus of these works were making complex, academic arguments that can be very difficult to follow as a college student, let alone the largely uneducated masses at the time of these publications. In contrast, Rumi intended his poetry to be read and understood by the common person, which is clearly reflected in the writing style. Rumi uses simple words, metaphors and symbols to convey the messages of friendship, love, and to teach about God. While the previously mentions writers held the general attitude that it was the right of highly educated philosophers to understand scripture, and that the less educated masses should blindly follow their interpretations. This is dramatically different to Rumi, who intended to help readers understand God rather than decreeing to them what they should believe.
I completely agree with you. I also found the readings of Rumi were interesting and less complicated compared to much of the other readings we have done over the course of the semester. The poems were also easy to connect with. I enjoyed reading "Saladin's Begging Bowl." It brings up a realistic perspective on what happens when we are separated from someone we love. There are the many emotions that are expressed in this poem. He says "If I separated myself from you, I would turn entirely thorn" (pg 12). Rumi does a great job at expressing the emotional aspect that goes along with separating from a loved one. I may not completely understand the deep meaning of this poem, but the surface meaning is easy to relate to, which is why I enjoyed it so much. This agrees with what you said about Rumi directing his poetry at the general population, not just one specific audience.
I totally agree with you as well. I loved in Rumi how his poems were accessible to every man, as well has how he emphasized love, peace, and calm as a way to spirituality and God. Though I am not religious, I find a lot of the poems in Rumi apply to me in ways that other texts (especially religious ones) never did. Many of the other texts that we've read this semester have been very elitist, as you said, and have emphasized war and violence. It was a welcome change, in my opinion, to read about love, peace in Rumi, as well as having him suggest that we find our own paths to spirituality and God instead of prescribing one way as the right way.
Within the poems that were assigned for us to read were poems “ This World Which is Made of Our Love for Emptiness,” “Craftsmanship and Emptiness,” “Emptiness,” and “The Food Sack.” All of these poems are found in section three called “Emptiness and Silence” that starts on page 17. In the poem “This World Which is Made of our Love for Emptiness” is saying that from emptiness comes everything that exists. For me I think that this poem is stating that from just God comes everything. If you draw a parallel between the use of emptiness in the poem and the idea of God, it becomes very clear. The first line of the poem states, “ Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence: this place made from our love for that emptiness!” If you put the idea of God wherever you see the word emptiness, you get the idea that God has created everything and from our love and under his guidance, he will create more beautiful things. This theme of loving emptiness, which I have now categorized as a symbol for God, is also seen in the other poems that I have listed above. In the poem “Craftsmanship and Emptiness” we get the idea that we shouldn’t fear emptiness, since it is the creator. To me I think Rumi is commenting on how some religions, especially those who focus around the Old Testament, teach that God is to be our leader out of fear, but in this poem it clearly states that we shouldn’t fear God. That we should praise him for being the almighty creator. In the poem “Emptiness” the idea of God is seen in the last lines that state “ Instead of being so bound up with everyone, be everyone. When you become that many, you’re nothing. Empty.” To me this use of emptiness is to show that we should not be caught up on material things, in the idea that we shouldn’t love material things, but should just love God. I thought that this also ties into the idea of lusting after material things that St. Augustine brought up in Confessions. The last poem that I will talk about in this post is “The Food Sack.” To me this poem is somewhat like a parable. I say that it is parable like because it tells a story of people praising an empty food sack, and when a passerby comments that “It’s only an empty sack” those who praise it go on a rant about love. Then through this rant and story one comes out with the sense that we should love God even if he isn’t seen, that just believing in him will provide all the necessities. I guess now on a second thought, all of Rumi’s poems could be seen as parables. Rumi’s poems uses many themes to explain how to follow the guidence of God.
ReplyDeleteI like your interpretation of the emptiness poems. For me I compared the emptiness to the saying, "is the glass half empty or half full." For since God made all things, he is also present in all things, but that also means that he is also present in all the things that are not there, "emptiness." The poems having to do with emptiness were my favorites because they turned the concept of God being present in all things around and gave a different perspective. I like how you brought up the end of the poem also, because I found it hard to understand but, I have thought about it a lot.
DeleteAlthough we talked about it in class, I wanted to elaborate on my interpretation of “Two Friends.” It was discussed that the person who is knocking on the door could be representative of God and the second time God knocks on the door, the person on the other side of the door and God are same person, implying that God is within everyone. When I first read this poem I literally interpreted the two subjects as two friends. I thought it was interesting that at first, friend one, that was inside said, “There’s no place for raw meat at this table.” Then when friend two went away and came back, friend two became “completely cooked.” To me this insinuated that friend two came back “cooked” because he realized that it was worth it to change or compromise himself in order to be with friend one. To me this highlighted one of Rumi’s major themes of companionship and unity, and how one may have to compromise some things about themselves in order to become part of a whole, in order to contribute to something bigger than themselves. To me, this poem also spoke to the importance of friendship and being intimate with another; it seemed apparent within the poem that certain aspects of oneself are worth giving up in order to experience relationships with other people. Rumi seems to imply in his other poems that truth can come from experiencing relationships. “The Mouse and a Frog” was once of my favorite poems. And it builds on this idea of unity and companionship by highlighting how enlightening simply being with other kinds of people and learning from them can be, “sometimes when two beings come together, Christ becomes visible” (79). Rumi is saying that the ultimate truth, or knowledge of Christ, can come from learning more about oneself through “telling stories and dreams and secrets,” and just being human together.
ReplyDeleteI was also very intrigued by the Jesus poems, especially “Jesus on the Lean Donkey.” While reading I immediately compared it to Averroes and his belief that only the elite thinkers should be exposed to the deeper meaning behind actions and beliefs that we are supposed to have. A holy man witnesses a snake crawl into the mouth of a sleeping man and without letting the man know what is going on the holy man forces the man to eat and run, thereby forcing him to throw up everything in his stomach, including the snake. This saves his life and the holy man explains that he couldn’t tell the man what was going on because if the man had know the reasons behind his orders then the man would have died of fear. The poem then goes on to explain, “God’s silence is necessary, because of humankind’s faintheartedness” (203). All people cannot know the allegorical, deeper truth of God, because people who cannot understand these truths fully might be scared to continue on with their journey to serve God. For example, Averroes explained in his Decisive Treatise that commoners who became aware of the allegorical meaning behind the Qur’an would revolt and become blasphemous and chaos would ensue.
I completely agree with your post! I found it interesting how you connected the poem of the man and the Holy man to Averroes and the idea of there being a deeper meaning to the things that God does, and how only certain people are able to capture that meaning. Similar to the Allegory of the Cave, only the highest members of the society could capture the highest form of reality, while those stuck down below would have given up on faith, which was blasphemous. The Holy man could not tell the man about the snake because the man would have reacted in a negative way that simply would have ended in his own demise. The lack of understanding allowed the man to believe that something greater surely was going on, but it was not for him to understand at that point in time. Like you stated in your entry, we have to keep faith in God and believe that He was some sort of plan for us, even when it is beyond our understanding.
DeleteReading your review I completely agree with your initial reading of "Two Friends" and how you took it at a literal level. When I initially read it I thought not of companionship and unity with your friends but with all sides of one self, especially when the poem talks about "being cooked" and doing so by riding oneself of ego. However your interpretation makes me think of Rumi's fundamental issue with his separation fro Shams how the poem could also be wishful thinking on Rumi's part that one he is worthy he will be reunited with Shams.
DeleteThis weeks reading of Rumi was very interesting. There were so many connections to religion and friendship in these stories more than the reading that we have read before. By far my favorite poem is Emptiness because although I am not a religious person, this poem touches upon the immense being that God is. The last four lines of Emptiness brings everything together ultimately stating that everyone is God but if one is with no one but God, that is everything. At first this last few lines were very confusing because I understood it as being nothing when you become everything, as stated in the poem “When you become that many (everything), you are nothing. Empty.” Being in touch with God meant that you had to become empty and nothing and in order to do thing we have to be everything. I understood this as understanding everything and being selfless, being in touch with everyone else, their culture, motives, everything. This made me understand a little more about why Muslims appreciate science so much, because trying to understand and be in touch with science make them more aware of everything and in a sense be part of science. And as Rumi stated before, being part of everything makes you empty and being empty means that they are able to be in touch with God. Sometimes I feel like Rumi does not speak in poetic terms as much as he does philosophical terms for the general public to understand how it is that someone can become in touch with God.
ReplyDeleteAnother favorite poem of mine was Chinese Art and Greek Art because of the meaning of unity in this poem. This poem was based on a competition on who makes better art. The Chinese decided to make a painting while the Greeks decided to clean and polish the walls making everything “pure and clear.” When the Chinese painting was shown and was parallel to the Greeks work of art the Chinese painting was reflected better on the Greeks clean and pure wall. I loved this because we can interpret this as Rumi saying that we need to clean ourselves and purify ourselves in order to absorb the truth or the beautiful or God. It is easy to say that Rumi has a constant belief that it is important to purify and be empty which is stated in both Emptiness and Chinese Art and Greek Art. The idea that the Greek art was to take everything and just absorbing it through an empty and pure wall is an example to being clear with the universe and for a better understanding of God.
I agree with you as well. I also feel that the poems Rumi wrote were touching upon what God is. I felt like Rumi represented God as a being that was a creator of all things beautiful, which was a pleasant change from the readings about the Old Testament, which portrayed God as a being that was bent on anger and frustration towards people who were committing sins. Several of these poems I felt portrayed God's potential of being behind a lot of what is beautiful is the poem about wine. The wine poem portrayed the beverage as a figurative Segway that brings a person closer to God since wine itself brings the person consuming it out of self-consciousness. I also agree with all of what you are saying about Chinese and Greek Art as well. Although I'm non-religious, Rumi still brought me to a clearer understanding of God than the Old Testament, and even the Qur'an as well.
DeleteI really enjoyed the poems that we had to read from Rumi. It was a nice change to have readings that were based on love instead of violence, And like we discussed in class, these poems were something that can be universally understood, appreciated and related to.
ReplyDeleteOne poem that I particularly liked was "Two Friends". It had a theme of unity and two things working together towards harmony. Such as when it says that two scissor blades make on cut or the two men washing clothes; one works to make them wet and the other works to make them dry and even though they seem like they are "thwarting" each other their work is actually "perfect harmony". This can be interpreted into so many different things. It could be seen as an analogy for people in general to work together in harmony or it could be referring to God. With the aspect of the door, like we talked about in class, God is something that is within us and we have to empty ourselves of our egos and let Him in along with understanding of the world around us.
Another poem that I liked was "The Three Fish". From this poem I got the message that even without guidance there is still hope for one to survive on their own. Such as when the half intelligent fish was first lost without the intelligent fish but still managed to get itself out of harms way. This may be a literal way of looking at the poem but I still liked the lighter tone it took compared to the darker readings that we have been discussing.
I too enjoyed the readings of Rumi from this week. Like you said it was a nice change from the readings full of violence and sin that we have read in past weeks. Along with the idea of perfect harmony that you mention when talking about "Two Friends" it is also about how we are all one. We see each other as separate, nut like you said, God is within us all and this fact therefore makes us united. As for "The Three Fish" I really liked the comment made today in class about how the intelligent fish represents Shams and the half intelligent fish represents Rumi. I hadn't made this connection beforehand and thought it was a perfect analogy afterwards. Like you said, there are many different ways of interpreting Rumi's work. This makes it very relatable to people of all ages and all cultures and very well may be why he continues to be so extremely famous.
DeleteI also thought that the "Two Friends" passage epitomized the ideals Rumi was trying to get across. I think the best example, as you mentioned above, is the analogy of scissors working together; although the blades separate and unique, they work in unison. These insights that Rumi offers seem to be timeless testaments to how we should behave, which according to Rumi, is in the spirit of love and open mindedness. My personal favorite of Rumi's poems was probably the following:
Delete"The body is a device to calculate the astronomy of the spirit. Look through that astrolabe and become oceanic."
In this quote, Rumi emphasizes that we must trust our bodily intuitions and our feelings to come to understand our spirit, in much the same way a sailor must trust his astrolabe to navigate the oceans.
Throughout the semester we have read about Jesus from many viewpoints, so it was very interesting to read the “Jesus Poems: The Population of the World” section of the book. The one poem that really stuck out to me was “Jesus on the Lean Donkey”. This tells the story of a traveling holy man that saved the life of a man that unknowingly had a snake crawl into his mouth. In order to save the man’s life the holy man made him eat rotten apples, beat him, and ran him until he puked. These actions ultimately saved the man from dying from the snake crawling into his mouth. As soon as the man realized the reason behind the holy man’s actions, he was thankful and resentful of the way he spoke to the holy man. The holy man knew that he had to keep his reasons secret from the man because he could not have handled the truth and would have died from the snake. A line that stood out to me was “If I described the enemy that lives inside men, even the most courageous would be paralyzed. No one would go out, or do any work. No one would pray or fast, and all power to change would fade from human beings”. This line is very important to the poem because it relays a message of Jesus, that most people are incapable of understanding everything about God so it is better for some people to just take the Lord’s message for its literal meaning. I think that this relates to Plato’s Republic and the idea of the Philosopher Kings. They were the only group that Plato thought could fully understand the forms and gain the most knowledge in life, so people who were not geared to be Philosopher Kings were encouraged to focus in other areas where they could be useful.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting part of “Jesus on the Lean Donkey” was the opening first two sentences. Rumi started off by saying that Jesus was on a donkey and that this donkey was a symbol of how the rational intellect should control the animal soul within each person. If your spirit was strong like Jesus a person would be able to control the animal part within them, however if their spirit was weak the donkey would grow to be a dragon meaning your animal part would get out of control. I liked this comparison because it portrays Jesus in a positive manner because Rumi was trying to say that if a person tries to model themselves after Jesus they would have a good life. Another interesting thing was that Rumi referred to Jesus as the “Son of Mary” just like the Qur’an does. I like how Rumi speaks of Jesus throughout the Jesus poems portion of the book and I think that it is very insightful of how Rumi viewed Jesus throughout this time period.
I think it is interesting how you compare the message to Plato's Republic. It could also be applied to Averroes in this way, when he states that only the scholar class should be able to read the Qur'an in a metaphorical and critical way, because their fatih will not be questioned, but for lower classes it could lead them to question some of the unquestionable aspects of faith like Allah's existence.
DeleteWhat I thought was interesting after reading Rumi, was that this novel reflects our society today. Relationships have often been the muse for different songwriters throughout the decades, and these songs obviously become popular among the masses. Artists usually express the feelings of love, drunkenness, sex, and God. That being said, Rumi touched base on all these themes and used poetry to convey them (however hundreds of years ago).
ReplyDeleteThe poem called, “I Have Five Things to Say,” embodies Rumi’s concept of love as being universal. Rumi seeks a journey to grow through love, empty his ego and eventually connect with God. It made sense that how abandoning your ego makes you feel pure because letting go of all materialistic things that don’t have value allows you to focus on aspects of life that really matter, such as love. Ironically, the artists of today, who express the same values as Rumi thru their art, have been consumed by “the industry” and lost sight of who they are as people. They are washed up by media therefore they loose their sense of identity and cannot be one with themselves; instead most turn to drugs, are thirsty for attention and try to flaunt their materials.
Rumi advocated using music, poetry and dancing as a path to get closer to God. Generally it’s a great way to express yourself and figure and a gateway to overcome obstacles. The other readings we have read thus far emphasize how philosophy and scholastic learning is a way to get closer with god. Rumi takes another approach, which I think is more personable, but it does have its downsides when exploited.
I never even thought of comparing all of Rumi’s poems and his inner themes to society today, specifically the music industry. You can see the messages that Rumi tries to portray through his poems in so many songs that you hear today. You can turn on the radio for an hour and hear songs about love, God, our connection with God, companionship and so many other themes that we see in Rumi’s poems.
DeleteI was actually very surprised to read some of the material in “Sexual Urgency.” It was very erotic and graphic in many parts. This is the same way I feel about movies, TV, and music in today’s society. I can’t believe some of the things that people show and say in these medias about sex. It goes to show you that just because Rumi was an artist from a completely different day and age, there are commonalities between human beings. These commonalities are carried on through so many portals including oral traditions, religion, and even pure human instinct in the case of the sexual scenes. I think it’s important that when we read, we try to make connections to the day that we live in and try to realize why these themes that Rumi used in his poems from the 13th century still manage to be relevant and even important in our society today.
While I was reading Rumi I noticed how easy it was to relate to certain poems he would write. It’s one of the reasons I think his work has gained so much attention over the years. I thought it was fairly easy to read through his poems at first glance without reading into the context much. Even on the surface I thought his poems were extremely deep and thought provoking. As we talked about his work in class today I realized how much more depth each passage has.
ReplyDeleteFor example in our group we were able to talk about the poem “Two Friends” for a majority of the time. I found it interesting because everyone is able to approach his writings with a different prospective. Each person giving different interpretations of what it could mean. It seems like a book like Rumi could have an entire course based around it with the amount of information it has. Personally I enjoyed the readings we had but I’m sure there were plenty of metaphors that I read over without even noticing.
I completely agree with how easy it was to relate to the poems. Typically I have a difficult time with poems and understanding them, but with these poems I had a much easier time. It is all about how he wrote them and that definitely makes his poems more popular because more people are able to read them. I also agree that it was interesting to hear the different perspectives that everyone took on what a poem meant.
DeleteI definitely agree with you on this. Rumi's poems are incredibly relatable, in my opinion, for a reader of any age, gender, etc. The sense of sincerity in his poems as well as the depth of each passage, like you talked about, make it easy to find places that you can identify with his writings all throughout.
DeleteIn our group discussion we also found that each of us interpreted the poems a little differently as well and I think that's because we all have different experiences so we all relate to rings and observe things in varying ways. No two people have had exactly the same experiences in their lives so therefore, we all go through life with different thoughts, ideas, etc. and that makes us be able to relate to things such as Rumi's poems in different ways. I think that's one of the coolest things about this class, that everyone comes from something different so we can all relate in different ways.
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ReplyDeleteAs someone who has a lot of difficultly being able to 'read through the lines' and understanding poetry -- I found it especially hard to understand Rumi. In most of his poems, it seemed like he was talking about one thing but later talking about another and it was hard to me to be able to correlate what Rumi was saying to what I was thinking. There was so much depth to his poetry, and although reading the poem wasn't hard, it was difficult to be able to understand or grasp the concept of his meanings. Even through being in class, I had a hard time being able to understand that the poems meant a certain way.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading Two Friends, I was extremely confused about why the friend was first denied but let in after he was 'cleansed' and said 'you' instead of me. However, after talking about the poem in class, I began to gain an understanding that it could mean something in a religious aspect, that only after you are cleansed can you be one with God and in other ways, such as talking about yourself as an individual. It seems that there is so much more depth to these poems, and it still hard for me to really be able to understand Rumi. However, one thought I had while reading these poems were that Rumi seemed to be the 'ideal' Muslim in terms of being peaceful and open about love and companionship as opposed to all the other things we've learned about the Quran or other books in general. In that I mean that he was the only author who was not all about war, and selfishness, rather about knowing oneself and being able to love others.
I agree with you about poetry. I have always had difficulty time reading into a poem that may be because I simply just don’t find it as interesting as other works of art, but nonetheless Rumi is especially cryptic. The earlier poems about the tavern actually caught my attention. I found them to be very interesting and at first I questioned why Rumi is talking about drinking, isn’t he Muslim? And isn’t drinking against their religion? But when I looked a little further into it I noticed that the wine has a deeper meaning. “Jesus was lost in his love for God. His donkey was drunk with barley. Drink from the presence of saints, not from those other jars.” It later goes into drinking the purest. So in that drinking the wine is filling yourself with the holy spirit.
DeleteI personally enjoyed the readings of Rumi for this week. I thought that the poems were an interesting change of pace from the texts that we have read so far this semester. Not only was the actual writing of Rumi much more simplistic and less pedantic than our previous readings, but the overall message was also slightly different.
ReplyDeleteMany of the works that we’ve read, most notably Plato, Saint Augustine, and Averroes, are extremely elitist, and also very dry. The focus of these works were making complex, academic arguments that can be very difficult to follow as a college student, let alone the largely uneducated masses at the time of these publications. In contrast, Rumi intended his poetry to be read and understood by the common person, which is clearly reflected in the writing style. Rumi uses simple words, metaphors and symbols to convey the messages of friendship, love, and to teach about God. While the previously mentions writers held the general attitude that it was the right of highly educated philosophers to understand scripture, and that the less educated masses should blindly follow their interpretations. This is dramatically different to Rumi, who intended to help readers understand God rather than decreeing to them what they should believe.
I completely agree with you. I also found the readings of Rumi were interesting and less complicated compared to much of the other readings we have done over the course of the semester. The poems were also easy to connect with. I enjoyed reading "Saladin's Begging Bowl." It brings up a realistic perspective on what happens when we are separated from someone we love. There are the many emotions that are expressed in this poem. He says "If I separated myself from you, I would turn entirely thorn" (pg 12). Rumi does a great job at expressing the emotional aspect that goes along with separating from a loved one. I may not completely understand the deep meaning of this poem, but the surface meaning is easy to relate to, which is why I enjoyed it so much. This agrees with what you said about Rumi directing his poetry at the general population, not just one specific audience.
DeleteI totally agree with you as well. I loved in Rumi how his poems were accessible to every man, as well has how he emphasized love, peace, and calm as a way to spirituality and God. Though I am not religious, I find a lot of the poems in Rumi apply to me in ways that other texts (especially religious ones) never did. Many of the other texts that we've read this semester have been very elitist, as you said, and have emphasized war and violence. It was a welcome change, in my opinion, to read about love, peace in Rumi, as well as having him suggest that we find our own paths to spirituality and God instead of prescribing one way as the right way.
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