Rumi With a View

Sorry I’ve been away for a few weeks ---I had to take my wife, Sylviadayenta to the Betty Ford Clinic for a month---it worked---she looks just like Betty Ford!!

Today, I would like to discuss the great mystic poet Rumi, who was born in Persia in the 13th century. It is the area we now call Iraq and Afghanistan, or a World of Shit! He was then also born in the 14th century, , the 15th century, the 17th century(he got a century off for good behavior), the eighteenth century , the 19th century and twice in the 20th century---he is today living in Hoboken, New Jersey where he manages a Chick-Filet.
Rumi, led the life of your garden variety guru and scholar till he met a dervish named Shams of Tabriz, who set Rumi’s world awhirl.
He asked Rumi a question, still a mystery to this day, which caused Rumi to have an epiphany and produce begin producing his transcendental poetry.
(Some scholars have theorized that the question was "Who is buried in Grant's Tomb?")
A religious rift began over whether Rumi’s poetry was just his---advocates of this view were called the Rumitists, and the other belief that he merely channeling God---this group was known as the Author (i.e.,God)Writers.
For years they fought, leaving Persia beset with AuthorWriters and Rumitism.
Also of interest is that in his 66 years of life Rumi never married and had three strong relationships in his life, all with men.
Of that we know little more, because in Persia at that time there was a strict "Do Not Be Inquisitive---Do Not Expound" policy among Gurus.
Here is a sampler of some of Rumi’s deceptively simple poetry:

“ The sky is blue. The world is a blind man
squatting on the road.
“The sky is gray. The world is a
Very wet blind man squatting on the road.” (from “I Ran All the Way Home to See Your Sari”, 1233).


“Will this night of talking ever end?”
Why am I still embarrassed and timid about you?
You are thousands. You are One.
I have smoked too much Hashish!” (from “Baby Baby It’s a Wild Whirl”, 1241)


“ Light again, and the one who brings light!
Change the way you live!
From the ocean vat, wine fire in each cup!\
Two or three of the long dead wake up.
Two or three drunks become lion hunters.” (from, “I have Smoked Too Much Hashish Revisited” 1247)


“Listen to presences inside poems,
Let them take you where they will.
Follow those private hints,
And never leave the premises.” (from “House Arrest”, 1252)