Rumi’s Divan essay
With the sensuous beauty and profound spiritual approaching, Rumi writes about the holy presence in ordinary experiences. This poetry is broadly admired around the globe and he is one of the most popular poets in the USA. Rumi’s loneliness at certain period of his time made him initiate the activities for which he is still honored and highly praised. He poured out own soul in the poetry and mystical dances of a spirit. This paper is meant to examine Rumi’s poetry and clarify in what way his mystical view distinguishes from erotic poetry. Thesis statement: erotic poetry is the explicit poetry, which deals with sex or sexual love. Rumi’s mystical view is distinguished from the usual erotic poetry due to the fact that Rumi using sex as the metaphorical means for the mystical union with God, rather than merely depicting intimate relations among people.
Rumi’s Metaphorical Approaches
In the dissimilar passages of Masnavi, the amazing epic of the 13-century Persian spiritualist Jalal al-Din Rumi, mystical knowledge is depicted with the help of the erotic terms. There are lots of passages in Masnavi, which can be considered in the erotic importance. The symbolic meetings with the Divine, mystical text and the scripture are expressed in gendered terms, which are projected onto eroticized bodies (Tourage 600-616).
The word jaib, translated as “bosom” that additionally means “cavity,” indicates “womb.” This is in consonance with its usage elsewhere in the Masnavi where Mary is depicted as pak jaib, namely, “pure-bosom” or “pure-womb” (Tourage 600-616). This passage is the example of the usage of erotic imagery to clarify the symbolic meeting with the dimension, which transcends the subjective level. The Universal Soul impregnates the individual soul by the contact which is clarified by means of analogy with the sexual intercourse resulting in pregnancy. The word pearl in this case is considered as the analogy with semen symbolically put in the individual soul; put differently, the womb (of the individual soul) obtains the pearl of (the Universal Soul’s) semen in this symbolic meeting. The pearl, representing the Divine semen, is the seed, which grows to be the Messiah of the soul, or to utilize the words of Rumi’s critic Isma’il of Ankara, “a spiritual Child… having the breath of Christ that gives the kiss of life to the dead” (Tourage 600-616). This sacred child, or the “Jesus of the soul,” comes as the real evidence of the meeting with the Universal intellect (Tourage 600-616).
Though the analogy is not perfectly evolved, there are cases in Sufism, where the mystic is depicted as the bride of God. As mode of collapse of the mystical and the erotic, the poet utilizes the image of bride in dissimilar contexts. Several instances can prove this point. In one passage in the Masnavi, theme of the sexual meeting with a good-looking bride in bridal room is played out with reference to mystical stations on the religious pathway and mystical state. The poet writes, “The mystical state is like the self-presentation of that gorgeous bride/and mystical stations are like being alone with the bride” (Tourage 600-616). The conclusion is that many Sufis can enjoy a passing mystical state, but hardly ever do they reach a station: “The bride can be displayed before commoners and nobles alike/In a bridal room how ever, the king is alone with a bride”. Therefore, it is only certain pragmatic approach, which opens up the inherent meaning of Scripture. The opposite of the spiritual approach to the Scripture is the superficial meeting with text. The poet clarifies the superficial meeting in the account of a 90-year-old lady, an “ancient whore,” who cuts small pieces of the Scripture and utilizes own saliva to paste these pieces on her face to beautify herself (Tourage 600-616).
In the section in Fihi ma Fihi, the poet likens the holy book Koran to bride and depicts the approach of the spiritualist to it in extremely sexually charged words: “The Koran is like bride… Seek its pleasure, do it service from afar, and strive to do what pleases it… and it will demonstrate you own face. You will be looking for the people of God. Enter among my servants, and enter my garden of paradise” it should be mentioned, that the final part of this passage is the direct quotation of a verse from the Koran, that likens the moment of unveiling to entrance into the internal sanctuary of a garden, presumably as in the sexual encounter (Tourage 600-616). A garden as the metaphor for human body or the body of the text is a popular theme of medieval Persian poetry. This heightened sense of reality projected into the metaphorical plane, made it the appropriate metaphor for the esoteric dimension of Muslim spirituality. The significance of this passage lies in expressing the obvious hermeneutical approach to Scripture by identifying the latent erotic metaphor in the obviously non-erotic verse from the Koran (Tourage 600-616).
One more poem from Rumi’s “Divan” is renowned with power of spiritual ecstasy. It demonstrates the complete paradox of ‘I’ and ‘Thou’. In this verse a point of Rumi’s mystical verses becomes really noticeable. Thus, the metre is also far richer in the motion. Rumi utilizes ramal of as lots of lengths as the shorts (-v–/vv–/vv–/–) and finishes each distich with distinguishing syllable ‘Thou’ and ‘I’: “man ve tu” (Richter). The faster tongue attempts to reach this finale, the more the last part emerges out of metre in the pleasant-sounding and concise manner: “Surrounded by our happiness/We reach liberty/You and I” (Richter).
From an analysis of this example, it is possible to make a conclusion that a style of poet’s poems also had to be recognized as spiritual in the most common meaning of the didactic verses, with which he divides his basic and poetic intent. However, the word “mystical poetry” should not be restricted to only one poem or the collections of the poet. Mystical poetry with Rumi is the literary genre, which reveals religious subject in the rhythmically motivated and artistic vision and alters them for the aim of the characteristic spiritual attitude of participants (Richter).
Some people assert that the poems of this poet are the usual instances of erotic poetry. However, all poems of Rumi demonstrate how profoundly he is rooted in tradition of the Persian verse. One extremely precious feature of these verses is that Rumi purifies fine and renowned forms of poetic debauchery and effusiveness. The other feature is in emphasized link with the approach of spiritual expression whose organization and stylistic basics readers are familiar with now. The poet speaks to the sense that people have of own human unworthiness, own human limitations and he persuades the readers that all people are loved by God. The spiritual door opens, if people embrace that pain in the celebration of God.
Conclusion
So, Rumi is the actual voice of the unconditional love. He wishes to discuss own pain, the pain of being human, the pain of loving God. He is sincere. He touches the wounds. He shows how an individual may be the intimate friend of God. His poetry deals with union with God. Ordinary erotic poetry is the explicit poetry, which deals with sex or sexual love. That is why Rumi’s mystical view is distinguished from the usual erotic poetry due to the fact that Rumi using sex as the metaphorical means for the mystical union with God, he is using sex as metaphoric for union with God rather than merely depicting intimate relations among people.
