Disciplines | Rumi Poem

Here's a wonderful poem by the great Sufi poet Rumi on the importance of spiritual discipline. In which there is a focus on moral cultivation and establishing a personal connection to God through reforming, disciplining, and purifying the ego. Sufism seeks a type of knowledge outside worldly intellect – one that is intuitive and inextricably tied to the Divine.

Rumi was of the view that seeking essential knowledge through disciplines – knowledge about the essence of humanity – was a way one might be granted divine love. It was the best type of knowledge because it was tied to questions of meaning, purpose, and death. In other words, knowing yourself was a means of knowing God.

The Sufis believed that the highest knowledge of God was something that could only be experienced. To read and contemplate upon God or the universe was one thing. But experiencing God was something different, something impossible to intellectualize.

Photo by Zak Bradford.

Transcript

Do not expect to be always happy on this way.

You have been caught by a lion,

My dear.

The friend dumps plaster on your head.

Think of it as expensive perfume.

Inside you there is a monster that must be tied up and whipped.

Watch the man beating a rug.

He's not mad at it.

He wants to loosen the layers of dirt.

Ego accumulations are not loosened with one swat.

Continual work is necessary.

Disciplines.

In dreams and even awake,

You will hear the beloved screaming at you.

A carpenter saws and chisels a piece of wood because he knows how he wants to use it.

Curing a hide,

The tanner rubs in acid and all manner of filth.

This makes a beautiful soft leather.

What does the half-finished hide know?

Every hard thing that happens works on you like that.

Hurry,

Chums.

Come back like the sun comes back.

Every day with new and powerful secrets.

Reviews

Thank you for introducing me to this Rumi poem. I need to listen to it more- there is so much there. It requires study. Thank you🙏