eternity

In Sydney, Australia, Arthur Stace (and here) used to graffiti footpaths with the word ‘Eternity‘.

This has become something of a Sydney icon.

The randomness so far suggests…

In summary, our over-riding concern is to satisfy our self-interest, seeking happiness. To achieve this we seek our place in eternity, and we seek to overcome being alone. Our place in eternity is secured spiritually, physically and/or culturally. One means of overcoming aloneness is through transcendent beauty.

Doubtless there are other means of overcoming aloneness.

I’m not sure if honouring the self-sacrifice of another qualifies, but it was the basis for Christianity and the religion of Antinous. Parents sacrifice their interests for their children, so I guess there might be something going on there, whereby we worship self-sacrificing activity that gains us a benefit. Meanwhile, the self-sacrificer (for example a parent or a religious figure) gains some eternal reward, if only the continued or bettered life of his or her children (the child being the parent’s tilt at physical eternity). However, the whole elevation-of-self-sacrifice thing seems a bit artificial to me. I find the contemplation of a transcendent beauty a far more attractive proposition. I’ve no problem with having kids, but to cultivate a culture of the worship of the self-sacrifice of the parent seems just a little on the indulgent side on the part of the parent, and, for that matter, is neatly self-serving of the worshiper and recipient of the sacrifice too. It’s just all a bit grubby.

I have to admit, however, that at least the self-sacrifice structure is more democratic than beauty. Beauty itself is constructed as a kind of nobility, and is only accessible to a few to enjoy. An existing elite will absorb into its ranks great physical beauty. In contrast, the fruits of self-sacrifice are granted, for example in Christianity, to anyone who cares to adopt the model.

Perhaps the power of pure (idealised) self-sacrifice is derived from its ultimate rebellion against what might be a, or the, primary motivating human force - self-interest. From this, can idealised self-sacrifice be understood to transcend humanity itself ? Or is self-sacrifice the ultimate expression of our humanity transcending our animal nature? Perhaps it is both these things. We are not necessarily consistent creatures!

In anthropology there is some controversy over whether self-sacrifice satisfies self-interest or whether it can be entirely selfless. I would need a pretty strong case to convince me that 99 times out of 100, if not in all cases, self-interest is not at the heart of self-sacrifice. Even if cases of pure self-sacrifice exist, I am not sure that they would upset the applecart of the general rule.

By the way, this is not a matter that can be solved by thought experiment. It is simply a matter of fact, lying in the intention of the person. But included in understanding that intention must be, for example, such things as our current understanding of biology, plus a certain scepticism about claims of motivation. It is not enough to say that the mother believed that she was being purely self-sacrificing in risking her life to save her child.

Another way of overcoming aloneness might be to act in pure honesty. This one has not had much of a run so far, for reasons that hardly need elaborating. But somehow, with the fragmentation of many overarching social norms, I suspect it might yet have its day. In the meantime, we are, as I understand it, supposed to have a totally honest relationship with god, and hence, I suppose, with ourselves. That’s a start. But it has proved a decidedly weak system.

Perhaps all our cultural forms are in fact attempts at transcending being alone. Not all cultural forms, however, are elevated to the spiritual plane. This spiritual elevation would seem to be an acid test for perceived effectiveness.

It is fair to say that our search for transcendence of aloneness is intertwined with our quest for eternal existence.

We attempt to meld with the partner with whom we have children.

We work with others in our quest for everlasting fame. In Socrates‘ terms the product of that work is the ‘progeny’ of our partnership.

Connections we form with others can have a spiritual component. Beauty is one vehicle for such a connection. (See Dante, Rumi and Socrates.)

Each age will make crossovers between the various elements. They need not be exclusive.

Greeks and Romans had a construction where one’s lover and spiritual companion was not necessarily part of the reproductive relationship.

I suppose fertility rites conflate the spiritual and reproductive functions.

These days we combine all three in heterosexual marriage. No doubt this is nothing new, but its emphasis might be stronger than in the past. Heterosexual marriage groans under the weight of its burden.

Pierre-Paul Prud’hon: Study for Le Rêve du Bonheur

Donnie Darko

Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?
Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?

Sartor Resartus

by Thomas Carlyle 1833-4

[Bk 1 Ch X] ‘To the eye of vulgar Logic,’ says Teufelsdröckh, ‘what is man? An omnivorous Biped that wears Breeches. To the eyes of Pure Reason what is he? A soul, a Spirit, and Divine Apparition. Round his mysterious ME there lies, under all those wool-rags, a Garment of Flesh (or of Senses), contextured in the Loom of heaven; whereby he is revealed to his like, and dwells with them in UNION and DIVISION; and sees and fashions for himself a Universe, with azure Starry Spaces, and long Thousands of Years. Deep-hidden in he under that strange Garment; amid Sounds and Colours and Forms, as it were, swathed in, and inextricably over-shrouded: yet it is skywoven, and worthy of a God. Stands he not thereby in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities?’

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

Ibn al-Arabi was convinced that the imagination was a God-given faculty. When a mystic created an epiphany for himself, he was bringing to birth here below a reality that existed more perfectly in the realm of archetypes. When we saw the divine in other people, we were making an imaginative effort to uncover the true reality: “God made the creatures like veils,” he explained, “He who knows them as such is led back to Him, but he who takes them as real is barred from His presence.” Thus - as seemed to be the way of Sufism - what started as a highly personalised spirituality, centring on a human being, led Ibn al-Arabi to a transpersonal conception of God….

Do we live by the imperatives of our engagement with the idea of eternity?

It seems in literature there are three main arenas of eternal existence:

Physical reproduction

Earthly fame

Spiritual

Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra

You higher men, do learn this, joy warrants eternity. Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity.

[Compare this with here!]

Samuel Johnson: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

[On viewing mummies in Egypt, Rasselas says:] ‘Those that lie here stretched before us, the wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to remember the shortness of our present state; they were, perhaps, snatched away while they were busy, like us, in the choice of life.”
“To me, said the princess, the choice of life is become less important; I hope hereafter to think only on the choice of eternity.”

Homer: The Iliad

[Achilles] For my mother, Thetis, the Goddess of the Silver Feet, tells me I carry two sorts of destiny towards the day of my death. Either if I stay here and fight beside the city of the Trojans my return is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting.

But if I return home to the beloved land of my fathers, the excellence of my glory is gone, but there will be a long life left for me, and my end in death will not come to me quickly.

Li Yu: The Carnal Prayer Mat

[Wei-yang sheng] Therefore venerable master, let me go into the world and seek out the one who is destined to be mine. Have patience until I have found her and married her and begotten a son who will carry on my devotions at the shrine of my ancestors. When that is accomplished, no further desires will bind me to the world of dust.

[Wei-yang sheng] If I understand the Buddhist doctrine correctly, it tells us to achieve wisdom and enlightenment through the powers that are within us and so attain to a state beyond life and death.

Plato: Symposium

[Plato wrote the book, telling of conversations at a Symposium. Here he recounts a tale Socrates has told, where Socrates is being addressed by Diotima, a woman wise in love.]

[86][Diotima] All men, Socrates, have a procreative impulse, both spiritual and physical….

[89]…every creature naturally cherishes its own progeny; it is in order to secure immortality that each individual is haunted by this eager desire and love…. [I]f you will only reflect you will see that the ambition of men provides an example of the same truth…. [90] [Love] of fame and the desire to win a glory that shall never die have the strongest effects upon people. For this even more than for their children they are ready to run risks, spend their substance, endure every kind of hardships and even sacrifice their lives…. [Diotima uses as examples Alcestis, Achilles and Codrus] [I]t is desire for immortal renown and a glorious reputation such as theirs that is the incentive of all actions, and the better a man is, the stronger the incentive; he is in love with immortality.

Those whose creative instinct is physical have recourse to women, and show their love in this way, believing that by begetting children they can secure for themselves an immortal and blessed memory hereafter for ever; but there are some whose creative desire is of the soul, and who long to beget spiritually, not physically, the progeny which it is the nature of the soul to create and bring to birth.

Eternity - Cary Kwok (2007) 

If you ask what that progeny is, it is wisdom and virtue in general; of this all poets and such craftsmen as have found out some new thing may be said to be begetters; but by far the greatest and fairest branch of wisdom is that which is concerned with the due ordering of states and families, whose name is moderation and justice.

[This quest is achieved by contemplating beauty, beginning with the beauty of a single lover, and moving into an ever more general appreciation of beauty. Text here.]

[95] Do you not see that in that region alone where he sees beauty with the faculty capable of seeing it, he will be able to bring forth not mere reflected images of goodness but true goodness, because he will be in contact not with a reflection but with the truth? And having brought forth and nurtured true goodness he will have the privilege of being beloved of God, and becoming, if ever a man can, immortal himself.

I still find it hard to comprehend this thing that we all are, this body. How much of our feeling is merely a product of its biological needs? We work, strive, love, care and participate in hierarchy, all in the name of our biology. And yet, with economic sufficiency, haven’t we really outgrown many of the feelings that relate to the needs of our body? Can love exist beyond biological need? Socrates described love’s fruits in Plato’s Symposium. Rumi sought unification with his beloved companions. Aristophanes, too, describes the unifying capacity of love, also in the Symposium.

Again, note, particularly in Socrates’ version, the role of beauty. Beauty, and the desire for beauty, is this the gateway to the divine? Is this the driver of spiritual energy? Is this why so much religious observance seems simply a pastiche?

A symposium

Aristophanes

Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus. Mankind, he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you. In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word ‘Androgynous’ is only preserved as a term of reproach. In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast. Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three; and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round like their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods. Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: ‘Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.’ He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state. After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them,–being the sections of entire men or women,–and clung to that. They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not been always their position, and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man. Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saying. When they reach manhood they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children,–if at all, they do so only in obedience to the law; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him.

Symposium illustration by Eugene Karlin. Also see here.

And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover’s intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which he has only a dark and doubtful presentiment. Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side by side and to say to them, ‘What do you people want of one another?’ they would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: ‘Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another’s company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of two–I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain this?’–there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need (compare Arist. Pol.). And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians (compare Arist. Pol.). And if we are not obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo, like the profile figures having only half a nose which are sculptured on monuments, and that we shall be like tallies. Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which Love is to us the lord and minister; and let no one oppose him–he is the enemy of the gods who opposes him. For if we are friends of the God and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world at present. I am serious, and therefore I must beg Eryximachus not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying to Pausanias and Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly nature, and belong to the class which I have been describing. But my words have a wider application –they include men and women everywhere; and I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would be happy. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to such an union; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love. Wherefore, if we would praise him who has given to us the benefit, we must praise the god Love, who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future, for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed. This, Eryximachus, is my discourse of love, which, although different to yours, I must beg you to leave unassailed by the shafts of your ridicule, in order that each may have his turn; each, or rather either, for Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left.

Indeed, I am not going to attack you, said Eryximachus, for I thought your speech charming, and did I not know that Agathon and Socrates are masters in the art of love, I should be really afraid that they would have nothing to say, after the world of things which have been said already. But, for all that, I am not without hopes.

Socrates

[Socrates begins by describing a meeting he had with Diotima of Mantineia, a woman he says is wise in love and beauty, and in many other kinds of knowledge. At first the terminology will seem to be referring only to heterosexual love, but as the text unfolds it is clear this is not so.]

[86] [Diotima] ‘All men, Socrates, have a procreative impulse, both spiritual and physical, and when they come to maturity they feel a natural desire to beget children, but they can do so only in beauty and never in ugliness. There is something divine about the whole matter; in procreation, and bringing to birth, the immortal creature is endowed with a touch of immortality.’

[87] ‘The object of love, Socrates, is not, as you think, beauty.’

‘What is it then?’

‘Its object is to procreate and bring forth in beauty.’

‘Really?’

‘It is so, I assure you. Now, why is procreation the object of love? Because procreation is the nearest thing to perpetuity and immortality that a mortal being can attain.

[90] ‘Those whose creative instinct is physical have recourse to women, and show their love in this way, believing that by begetting children they can secure for themselves an immortal and blessed memory hereafter for ever; but there are some whose creative desire is of the soul, and who long to beget spiritually, not physically, the progeny which it is the nature of the soul to create and bring to birth. If you ask what that progeny is, it is wisdom and virtue in general; of this all poets and such craftsmen as have found out some new thing may be said to be begetters; but by far the greatest and fairest branch of wisdom is that which is concerned with the due ordering of states and families, whose name is moderation and justice.’

‘When by divine inspiration a man finds himself from his youth up spiritually fraught with these qualities, as soon as he comes of due age he [91] desires to procreate and to have children, and goes in search of a beautiful object in which to satisfy his desire; for he can never bring his children to birth in ugliness. In this condition physical beauty is more pleasing to him than ugliness, and if in a beautiful body he finds also a beautiful and noble and gracious soul, he welcomes the combination warmly, and finds much to say to such a one about virtue and the qualities and actions which mark a good man, and takes his education in hand.’

‘By intimate association with beauty embodied in his friend, and by keeping him always before his mind, he succeeds in bringing to birth the children he has long desired to have, and once they are born he shares their upbringing with his friend; the partnership between them will be far closer and the bond of affection far stronger than between ordinary parents, because the children that they share surpass human children by being immortal as well as more beautiful.’

[92] ‘The man who would pursue the right way to this goal must begin, when he is young, by applying himself to the contemplation of physical beauty, and, if he is properly directed by his guide, he will first fall in love with one particular beautiful person and beget noble sentiments in partnership with him. Later he will observe that physical beauty in any person is closely akin to physical beauty in any other, and that, if he is to make beauty of outward form the object of his quest, it is great folly not to acknowledge that the beauty exhibited in all bodies is one and the same; when he has reached this conclusion he will become a lover of all physical beauty, and will relax the intensity of his passion for one particular person, because he will realise that such a passion is beneath him and of small account.’

‘The next stage is for him to reckon beauty of soul more valuable than beauty of body; the result will be that, when he encounters a virtuous soul in a body which has little of the bloom of beauty, he will be content to love and cherish it and to bring forth such notions as may serve to make young people better; in this way he will be compelled to contemplate beauty as it exists in activities and [93] institutions, and to recognise that here too all beauty is akin, so that he will be led to consider physical beauty taken as a whole a poor thing in comparison.’

‘From morals he must be directed to the sciences and contemplate their beauty also, so that, having his eyes fixed upon beauty in the widest sense, he may no longer be the slave of a base and mean-spirited devotion to an individual example of beauty, whether the object of his love be a boy or a man or an activity, but, by gazing upon the vast ocean of beauty to which his attention is now turned, may bring forth in abundance of his love of wisdom many beautiful and magnificent sentiments and ideas, until at last, strengthened and increased in stature by this experience, he catches sight of one unique science whose object is the beauty of which I am about to speak.’

‘And here I must ask you to pay the closest possible attention.’

Rubens - Symposium. Alcibiades (left), Plato (centre), Socrates (balding figure). Plato would have been in his early teens at the dramatic date of the Symposium. See Elizabeth McGrath, “The Drunken Alcibiades: Rubens’ Picture of Plato’s Symposium,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, v.46 (1983), 228-235; E. McGrath, Rubens, v.1 p.98, v.2 p.61 (London: Harvey Miller, 1997)

‘The man who has been guided thus far in the mysteries of love, and who has directed his thoughts towards examples of beauty in due and orderly succession, will suddenly have revealed to him as he approaches the end of his initiation a beauty whose nature is marvellous indeed, the final goal, Socrates, of all his previous efforts. This beauty is first of all eternal; it neither comes into being nor passes away, neither waxes nor wanes; next, it is not beautiful in part and ugly in part, nor beautiful at one time and ugly at another, nor beautiful in this relation and ugly in that, nor beautiful here and ugly there, as varying according to its beholders; nor again will this beauty appear to him like the beauty of a face or hands or anything else corporeal, or like the beauty of a thought or a science, or like beauty which has its seat in [93] something other than itself, be it a living thing or the earth or the sky or anything else whatever; he will see it as absolute, existing alone with itself, unique, eternal, and all other beautiful things as partaking of it, yet in such a manner that, while they come into being and pass away, it neither undergoes any increase or diminution nor suffers any change.’

‘When a man, starting from this sensible world and making his way upward by a right use of his feeling of love for youths, begins to catch sight of that beauty, he is very near his goal, This is the right way of approaching or being initiated into the mysteries of love, to begin with examples of beauty in this world, and using them as steps to ascend continually with that absolute beauty as one’s aim, from one instance of physical beauty to two and from two to all, then from physical beauty to moral beauty, and from moral beauty to the beauty of knowledge, until from knowledge of various kinds one arrives at the supreme knowledge whose sole object is that absolute beauty, and knows at last what absolute beauty is.’

‘This above all others, my dear Socrates,’ the woman from Mantinea continued, ‘is the region where a man’s life should be spent, in the contemplation of absolute beauty. Once you have seen that, you will not value it in terms of gold or rich clothing or of the beauty of young men, the sight of whom at present a throws you and many people like you into such an ecstasy that, provided that you could always enjoy the site and company of your darlings, you would be content to go without food and drink, if that were possible, and to pass your whole time with them in the contemplation of [95] their beauty.’

‘What may we suppose to be the felicity of the man who sees absolute beauty in its essence, pure and unalloyed, instead of a beauty tainted by human flesh and colour and a mass of perishable rubble, is able to apprehend divine beauty where it exists apart and alone? Do you think that it will be a poor life that a man leads who has his gaze fixed in that direction, who contemplates absolute beauty with the appropriate faculty and is in constant union with that? Do you not see that in that region alone where he sees beauty with the faculty capable of seeing it, he will be able to bring forth not mere reflected images of goodness but true goodness, because he will be in contact not with a reflection but with the truth? And having brought forth and nurtured true goodness he will have the privilege of being beloved of God, and becoming, if ever a man can, immortal himself.’

[From Penguin, 1951, trans. Walter Hamilton]

Rumi

Introduction to translations of Rumi’s poetry, by Reynold Nicholson.

Their first home was at Warandah, about forty miles south-east of Konia, where Jalalu’l-Din [Rumi] married; in 1226 his eldest son Sultan Walad was born. Presently Baha’u'l-Din transferred himself and his family to Konia, at that time the capital of the Western Seljuk empire, and he died there in 1230. He is said to have been an eminent theologian, a great teacher and preacher, venerated by his pupils and highly esteemed by the reigning monarch, to whom he acted as a spiritual guide. About this time Burhanu’l-Din Muhaqqiq of Tirmidh, a former pupil of Baha’u'l-Din at Balkh, arrived in Konia. Under his influence, it is said, Jalalu’l-Din, now in his twenty-fifth year, became imbued with enthusiasm for the discipline and doctrine of the Sufis - men and women who sought to unite themselves with God. During the next decade he devoted himself to imitation of his Pir and passed through all the stages of the mystical life until, on the death of Burhanu’l-Din in 1240, he in turn assumed the rank of Shaykh and thus took the first, though probably unpremeditated, step towards forming a fraternity of the disciples whom his ardent personality attracted in ever increasing numbers.

The remainder of his life, as described by his son, falls into three periods, each of which is marked by a mystical intimacy of the closest kind with a “Perfect Man,” i.e. one of the saints in whom Divine attributes are mirrored, so that the lover, seeing himself by the light of God, realizes that he and his Beloved are not two, but One. These experiences lie at the very centre of Rumi’s theosophy and directly of indirectly inspire all his poetry. In handling the verse narrative of a mystic’s son who was himself a mystic it is prudent to make ample allowance for the element of allegory, yet it would be rash to reject the whole story as pious fiction seeing that at the date when it was written many persons were living who could way whether it was, or was not, a recognizable picture of things which they themselves had witnessed.

In 1244 a wandering dervish, known to posterity by the name of Shamsu’l-Din of Tabriz, arrived at Konia. Jalalu’l-Din found in the stranger that perfect image of the Divine Beloved which he had long been seeking. He took him away to his house, and for a year or two they remained inseparable. Sultan Walad likens his father’s all-absorbing communion with this “hidden saint” to the celebrated journey of Moses in company with Khadir, the Sage whom Sufis regard as the supreme heirophant and guide of travellers on the way to God. Meanwhile the Maulawi (Mevlevi) disciples of Rumi, entirely cut off from their Master’s teaching and conversation and bitterly resenting his continued devotion to Shamsu’l-Din alone, assailed the intruder with abuse and threats of viloence. At last Shamsu’l-Din fled to Damascus, but was brought back in triumph by Sultan Walad whom Jalalu’l-Din, deeply agitated by the loss of his bosom friend, had sent in search of him. Thereupon the disciples “repented” and were forgiven. Soon, however, a renewed outburst of jealousy on their part caused Shamsu’l-Din to take refuge in Damascus for the second time, and again Sultan Walad was called upon to restore the situation. Finally, perhaps in 1247, the man of mystery vanished without leaving a trace behind.

Sultan Walad vividly describes the passionate and uncontrollable emotion which overwhelmed his father at this time.

“Never for a moment did he cease from listening to music (sama) and dancing;
Never did he rest by day or night.
He had been a mufti: he became a poet;
He had been an ascetic: he became intoxicated by Love.
‘Twas not the wine of the grape: the illuminated soul drinks only the wine of Light.”

Here Sultan Walad alludes to the Diwan-i Shams-i Tabriz, (Lyrics of Shams of Tabriz), an immense collection of mystical odes composed by Jalalu’l-Din in the name of Shamsu’l-Din and dedicated to the memory of his alter-ego. The first verse does not confirm, but may have suggested, the statement of some authorities that grief for the loss of Shams-i Tabriz caused Jalalu’l-Din to institute the characteristic Mevlevi religious dance with its plaintive reed-flute accompaniment.

The next episode (circa 1252-1261) in Jalalu’l-Din’s spiritual life is a fainter repetition of the last. For many years after the disappearance of Shamsu’l-Din he devoted himself to Salahu’l-Din Faridn Zarkub, who as is deputy (khalifah) was charged with the duty of instructing the Mevlevi acolytes. They showed their resentment in no uncertain manner, and the ringleaders only gave in when they had been virtually excommunicated.

On the death of Salahu’l-Din (circa 1261) the poet’s enthusiasm found a new and abundant source of inspiration in another disciple, Husamu’l-Din Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Hasan ibn Akhi Turk, whose name he has mystically associated with his greatest work, the celebrated Mathnawi (epic poem). He calls the Mathnawi “the book of Husan” and likens himself to a flute on the lips of Husamu’l-Din, pouring forth “the wailful music that he made.” During the last ten years of the poet’s life this last beloved follower acted as his khalifah, and upon his death in 1273 succeeded him as Head of the Mevlevi Order, a dignity he held until 1284, when Sultan Walad took his place….

A Platonic type of mystical love had been cultivated by Sufis long before Rumi declared that he and Shams-i Tabriz were “two bodies with one soul.” In this union of loving souls all distinctions vanish: nothing remains but the essential unity of Love, in which “lover” and “beloved” have merged their separate identities. In calling his lyrics the Diwan (Poems) of Shams-i Tabriz, Rumi of course uses the name Shams as though Shams and himself had become identical and were the same person….

Western students of the Diwan and the Mathnawi will recall a celebrated parallel…. Did not Dante transfigure the donna gentil who was the object of his romantic passion into the Celestial Wisdom and glorify her under the name of Beatrice?

Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510) Dante and Beatrice in the Sphere of the Moon

I believe in sex. I believe in sunny beaches with waves. I believe in a book, some simple food that becomes delicious with the hunger born of hours in the surf. I believe in learning, and knowledge, real knowledge. I believe in not fitting in. Why? Because fitting in makes too many assumptions that are unsustainable. I believe in laziness, sensuality, desire, wealth – abundant and limitless wealth of the most personally corrupting kind.

I want eternal life of dazzling perfection, of a desirability perfectly matched to my needs, fluctuating with rhythm, with surprise, in exact accordance with all I am. On dissolution from this existence I want to be the universe. I want to live in every molecule, in every subatomic particle, in every everything and every nothingness that I do not understand. Am I not that already, anyway? – but I want to know it.

(Is hell just nothingness? I don’t know.)