Rumi, Radical Love, & I/You (part A)

Garrison Institute grounds and building, March 15

     Last weekend, my beloved wife Belqis and I, along with twenty others, participated in an event at the Garrison Institute, north of NYC, on the topic of Rumi and Radical Love, led by Seemi Ghazi and Omid Safi. Omid recently published a book titled Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition. Of the 219 passages translated by Safi, 55 (about a fourth) are from Rumi. Attar has the second most with 26 poems, and then another 41 authors/sources contribute also to this wonderful collection on the mysterious theme of radical love. The volume and diversity suggest we may be in pursuit of something elusive, not surprising in the spiritual journey. I believe that while this path is perplexing, humbling, even overwhelming at times, this apparent multiplicity is One and is designed to guide each to integrity with his or her fit (fitra, see p. 29, Chittick, Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul). Remember: “my beloved…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). 

     The multitude of texts appears even more puzzling when almost all of these writers tell that love can never be contained in words. And yet our reach toward, our tremendous thirst for the elixir of life yearns into the beyond, looking for any help we can get. We need the teachings and models to guide us, to break the spell cast by all the fake stuff masquerading under the label love. We long to be thrust forward into the transformational living of passionate engagement with beloveds, with our world, and even, especially, with the Divine. In Omid’s introduction to Radical Love, he tells us:

“In a metaphor that changes how we think about love and spirit, [Ahmad] Ghazali talks about the Spirit crossing over from the realm of nonexistence toward the realm of existence. When it gets to the very threshold of existence, love is already there awaiting the Spirit. In other words, love is preexisting, pre-eternal. This is consistent with the teachings of many mystics who see love not as merely another divine quality, but the divine quality par excellence, even perhaps equal to the being of God.” (p. xxx)

That’s radical. Love. I went to the weekend workshop hoping to move past the printed word, wanting to move closer to the embodied word, longing to track with greater certainty into the mystic.

     The most powerful feature emerging for me from the weekend comes in what Coleman Barks calls “glance” (The Glance: Songs of Soul-Meeting, 1999). Fittingly, my mind muddles here and I can’t remember whether Seemi and Omid used that word or another—maybe “glimpse” or “gaze.” My mental blur is apropos because when we wander after love, especially in search of radical love, we’re moved into fields of wonder where bewilderment clues proximity. 

     Since we’re moving out beyond words, getting the right one doesn’t matter much; what we want is experience of the phenomena, the phenomenal. While I don’t recall which word Seemi used that Friday night, my being knows the feeling that came with her voice, even when she spoke or sang in an unfamiliar language. The body joins these vibrations honing in on relationship felt in our ritual ceremony. With Seemi’s voice and being, we were held in sacred space where we may connect horizontally and vertically. 

     When we’re in the eye-to-eye connection of the glance/gaze, we’re also in a unity of vibration; of course, unfortunately, most daily eye contact fails to attain this level. And then, strangely or not, if we really want more of the glance, of the access to radical love, guess what we need! Words—but ones like Rumi’s. Rich in poetry, story, and revelation. Not ones turned plastic and manipulative as even can be done to the word love. To build our capacity to engage significantly with radical love we’ll almost certainly have to construct “realized knowledge” on top of “transmitted knowledge.” (For elaboration on this, see William Chittick, Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul.) The transmitted knowledge that we need comes from revelation and authentic models; the realized kind is earned through experience and polishing of the heart to discern and know the True.

     While all this may sound daunting, and it should and it is, we are given loving opportunities, like the glance. Omid talked of three exemplary moments in life: 1) the birth of a firstborn (repeatable with some variation in subsequent childbirth, each extraordinary as is the unique gift of the one born), 2) the (first) falling-in-love, and 3) the eye to eye electric connection with one’s guide. I know each of those three+ with the differential coloring as fits with each individual’s journey.

     My personal experience of the first model named by Omid flooded with mercy. I was mostly unprepared, as first-time expectant fathers often are, having missed out on the nine-month inner mystery given to mothers-to-be. The miracle of birth of our child transformed the integrity of love. The previous meaning of this un-name-able center of life was stripped and replaced by the awesome. The second child brought in darker shades of love, qualities I’d likely been unable to bear without the grace of the first.

     Experiences with the falling-in-love model (repeatable with considerable variation) have offered another kind of mystery. The phenomena now seems to me suspect, mysteriously luring a person into deep waters, perhaps a set-up for heart-break and thereby an opportunity to surrender selfish illusion (“luv”) for self-giving-up care-for-another, “love.” Perhaps it’s a hint of the annihilation that goes with divine-love. The term “radical love” might be the care-taker that moves us along this pathway. Omid says in his introduction to Radical Love (“fiery, fierce, and alchemical”): “… it is by merging with the cosmic current of love that we are led back Home” (p. xxi, xxiii).

Dome of our meeting room for Radical Love