There is a Field | Poem and Interpretation

When the mind's inner turmoil recedes for even a moment, the heart soars. Everything becomes clear and all is well.

In the poem we will contemplate today, Rumi has left us an invitation to this inner garden, and clear directions on how to get there. This is how it goes:

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense."

This field that you have been invited to is known by many names.

When you are in this field wide awake, you call it love. When you find yourself in it as you stir from sleep, you call it peace. And when you arrive here in deep meditation, you may call it samadhi.

This is is your inner garden. The field the soul rests in when the very important matters of the mind are put aside for a moment. When all the ideas of doing and not doing and undoing are put aside.

Many little paths lead to this verdant field. When you just stop to look at the sky, or sit quietly in the dark, relish that glass of water, or listen to the birds singing. Maybe just lying down for a nap.

This field is never far from you. You just need to take one step back. Away from the mental turmoil.

All the wrongdoings done to you, or done by you. And all the right doings you may be trying to achieve.

Rumi is not asking you to give up your ideals and principles and goals. Not permanently. You are just being invited to take a moment.

Go meet Rumi. Have a tryst with your own heart.

"When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about."

Soul does not mean anything supernatural here. This refers to the heart of you. What is truly you.

When you rest, the thoughts if any, are as if at a distance. The pale reflections of the mind. And as they set, they give way to Pure Light.

When you look inside, you find peace. When you look outside you see beauty. And love pours out from that well of infinite depth. That is your own heart.

The world that is too full to talk about.

So here we are in this field now, you and I. Stripped down to the one speaking and the one listening. Just two consciousnesses in this field.

But what does two mean here? How do we distinguish between you and I here?

Here in this field of just being, you are just Sentience. Where the voice is coming from. Where it is being heard and understood. Where the words are not necessary.

"Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense."

This is the field where there is nothing but the fullness, indescribable fullness, of just being.

Everyone you love and everyone you hate, your ancestors, your unborn children, what are they then other than this same Sentience? The very same Sentience. Were they ever separate?

This field is the perfect and complete union of love. Where all ideas of separation are pierced. Fall part. The fullness is of the Whole. The indivisible Reality underlying all appearances.

Until you meet someone in this field, you do not know them. You do not even know your Self.

So remember:

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.

I'll meet you there."