
A Guide to “Getting” Rumi - lermontov
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/03/01/rumi-machado-and-co/
======
hosh
Rumi was a mystic.

While mystical experiences are very personal, and are highly personalized,
there are some broad categories experiences in which they are shared across
people who have had them. They are oddly repeatable* even if they are not
falsifiable. There are signatures that are in common, and you can recognize
them. "Getting" Rumi for me was like this: After my own experiences, I
stumbled back across Rumi and it suddenly made sense. I can see what informed
his poetry, even across linguistic, religious, and historical lines.

This was the same with Tao Te Ching. What was impenetrably cryptic was
suddenly intuitive. Or Zen Koans for that matter.

*They are oddly repeatable even across religious lines, even in cultures that may not have formal religions. It's not religion that makes the mystic.

~~~
mponw
Thanks for your sharing your story. I learned of Rumi through my exposure to
non-violent communication (M. Rosenberg) and have already experienced many
times a mystic, transcendent moment of empathic connection to others and
myself. I find it is something that can be practiced, something you can have
at any moment of your life. Rumi's poems come very close to this beauty I have
experienced.

~~~
hosh
"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you; don't go back to sleep" :-D

~~~
mponw
What an honor to receive this present. I am really touched. Thank you from my
heart.

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brudgers
An interesting article on the removal of Islam from the popularized accounts
of Rumi:

[http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-erasure-of-
is...](http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-erasure-of-islam-from-
the-poetry-of-rumi)

~~~
pmoriarty
This reminds me very much of the desacralization of meditation, yoga, and even
Buddhism as they are often taught in the West.

The former two in particular are often thought of as nothing more than means
for improving one's health or destressing, with little if any appreciation of
their religious roots.

~~~
fdsfsafasfdas
'sacred' has had many meanings even in eastern buddhist sects;
'desacralization' had begun long before westernization.

However, there's huge kernel of truth here—Buddhist sects in particular (I
can't speak for other uses for meditation; it's a huge area of knowledge) are
entire frameworks (or philosophies, if you'd prefer) for how to think about
life, and picking and choosing subsets of it will only bring subsets of the
rewards.

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WaxProlix
Not a fan of Rumi (or poetry in general really), but that Machado poem was
incredibly lovely.

~~~
pmoriarty
I didn't like poetry until I took a poetry class at uni, and a talented
teacher opened my eyes.

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palad1n
Maybe it's my temperament, but I've always "gotten" Rumi. I rather had trouble
instead on Sylvia Plath's poetry.

~~~
pmoriarty
I find poetry to be the most personal of the arts. It can take a lot of
hunting to find the poet that's just right. My tastes has changed greatly as
I've gotten older, too. I can't relate to many of the poets I loved in my
youth, and I'm sure the younger me would have found the poets I like now to be
ridiculous. Finding poets with whom you resonate can be a life-long treasure
hunt.

~~~
MarkPNeyer
I'll just step in here to advertise a bit. I write poetry, using technical
metaphors to convey a lot of the things i think about. Here's an example:

===

In Case of Emergency, Shatter Ego

i am not a process, but the pattern.

i am not a system, but the shape.

i am not a rapid, but the river.

i am not the ocean, but a wake.

i am not the etching, but an image.

i am not the constant, but a rate.

i am not the message, but a relay.

i am not a signal, but the wait.

i am not a digit, but an index.

i am not a value, but a space.

i am not a body, but a person.

i am not a vertex, but a face.

===

If you liked that, here's a whole book full of it:

[https://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Emotion-Structure-
Possibili...](https://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Emotion-Structure-
Possibility/dp/1623751179/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1488490123&sr=8-1&keywords=mechanics+of+emotion)

~~~
pcthrowaway
I really enjoyed that, thanks!

These two lines were my favorite:

    
    
        i am not a digit, but an index.
        i am not a value, but a space.
    

And felt like these lines went against the message of the rest:

    
    
        i am not the constant, but a rate.
        i am not the message, but a relay
    
        i am not a vertex, but a face.

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pmoriarty
This article had me until it got to David Bowie. Sorry, but Bowie is no Rumi.

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dang
I love both Rumi and Bowie but you're right, that was weird. The Machado was a
much better fit.

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ytjohn
I did not see the last "i" before clicking the link.

