A Bi-Weekly Podcast with host Fatemeh Keshavarz
I start this episode by describing the concept of the Self – “Khod” in Persian – as an ongoing inner process. I then explore Rumi’s words on the way this Self, when liberated, can become a Lover or “Ashegh,” a site for the glow of the fire of life.
This episode is dedicated to the concept of healing, as Rumi speaks about. In his view, healing is not a thing which happens to us but something that we build gradually. It begins by taking action, observing results, and building on them with more action. To teach us this difficult concept, he uses examples from nature.
In this episode, I talk about seasonal change and the autumn, which we usually see as a sign that the summer has ended. For Rumi, the pale leaves are more than that. Dealing with the short days and cold winds, waiting for the spring, the autumn leaves know the story of lovers’ separation.
In this program I continue to explore what poetry was to Rumi. Sometimes it was the music to his happy moments, and comfort during sadness. But he also used it for more complex things like keeping us curious, or showing us the value in perplexity. Most of all, he loved helping us discover the movement in things that seem unable to move, like grapes’ journey to sweetness. I end with our own journey to Shiraz, again, where Saʿdi’s poetry helped me reach my ailing mother.
In this program, I start by underlining Rumi’s emphasis on the concept of sokhan (‘human speech’). For our poet, human beings are made up of their thoughts, which they give birth to when they speak. Like roads, even superhighways, human speech connects peoples and cultures across cities and continents. Then we do something new: we travel from Konya where Rumi lived all the way to the Southwest of Iran, to hear the Great Saʿdi of Shiraz on the same topic.
Rumi speaks of Jesus often. In this program, I discuss the dynamism of this image, and its celestial power. The breadth of Jesus is life-giving in the Qur’anic tradition and in Persian poetry as a whole. I, then, turn to the way Rumi expands the poetic power of this image by bringing it into the environment around us and into our day-to-day living. Once more, we are in the picture as this divine force turns the earth into a meadow.
This program brings you many poems so you hear Rumi’s own voice as opposed to interpretations of it. These poems generate a dynamic energy that help Rumi break out of his old habits. He describes them as birds that break open the cage of his body to fly free. Once they are out, they are ours too. They make sadness leave, and tears go away . In his words, they help us wash our body and soul in ways of wisdom. We see/discover a new world being created around us every instant, a new world of our own.
In this program I speak about Rumi’s informal sermons to people who came from many places to hear him speak. He did not write these presentations into a book, his followers did. It came to be know as Fihe ma fihe which means “It is in it, what is in it.” The title which echos a famous line of poetry highlights the unconventional nature these talks. They contain stories, jokes, rebukes, and basically his words of wisdom. Like everything else that Rumi said, their focus is love. Again, the purpose of this love is to give us the stamina to work on understanding the purpose of our existence. We are each a Mary, pregnant with God. If we understand our body- and the sacred nature of what we carry – we will give birth to our sacred being/God in due time.
Who are we, what controls us, emotion or rationality. How should we approach Rumi’s poetry, with our hearts or our minds? After the enlightenment, thinkers and philosophers – starting with Descartes – divide human beings into body and soul, one earthly and the other heavenly. For Rumi, we are one big bundle of many things: fear, courage, analytical abilities, and total confusion. There is no either/or because our human experience is a continuum. Emotion and rationality are not enemies, they are each other’s extension, sometimes the same thing. Getting confused can be a prelude to seeking clarity. Think what you would do if you had a great piece of fabric and wanted to have a dress made…
This program looks at the Sufi concept of Oneness of all existence. For Rumi, the source of all existence is one light and we are windows through which this light shines. Our ability to let this light come through, and be colored by our thoughts and actions, makes the world what it is. We all matter regardless of our age, race, color…We are like words in a sentence. Every word matters even one as small as “and.” To be true to our role in the universe, we must never stop searching. We do not have the answers. But the good news is that asking questions is more important than knowing the answers.