When 'I' left the city | What Rumi understood about Reality

A poem by Jalaluddin Rumi.

"When I entered the city, you moved away.

When I left the city, you didn't even look up to say goodbye.

I'll accept your kindness, I'll accept your insult.

I'll accept whatever you have to give.

Your radiance shines in every atom of creation,

Yet our petty desires keep it hidden.

Like the beautiful wife of a prince, you dwell in a lonely place.

If you came out of hiding, the veil on every face would fall.

You confound the doubting heart,

You intoxicate the faithful head,

You have robbed every soul of its senses,

You have brought every heart to your breast.

All roses fall prey to December,

All intellect falls prey to love's glory.

Since the rose is not eternal, why be captured by its scent?

Let me know your secrets —

Only the ones that last forever.

How many men have found tragic ends running after beauty?

Why don't they look for you? — the heart and spirit of all beauty?

You formed man from a handful of dust.

You gave him the power to know the highest truth.

You freed him from the snares of this world with one breath of your spirit.

O love, O heart,

Find the way to heaven.

Find the way to God's pasture.

You have spent enough time in this pasture made for cattle.

Set your sights on a place higher than your eyes can see.

For it was a higher aim that brought you here in the first place.

Now be silent.

Let the One who creates the words speak.

He made the door,

He made the lock,

He also made the key."

Let us use this poem to understand "God". God as seen by the Sufi who has annihilated himself in the love of God.

"When 'I' entered the city, you moved away."

'I'. What is this 'I'? It is the thought of I — of being apart from God, one soul in the immensity of the universe.

When you see the universe through this lens of separation, then God is nowhere to be found. You could say your Beloved has moved away. It may feel that way.

As long as 'I' remains in the city, God remains unseen and unknown.

"When I left the city, you didn't even look up to say goodbye."

When 'I' leaves the city; when the thought of I, the thought of you being something in the world, something separate, an individual living thing, sentient in its own right, when that belief is extinguished, then the meaning of God becomes clear. It reveals itself. There is no real loss of self, no sorrow for this 'I' leaving the city.

From God's eyes, there never was this 'I', this separate self. It was only a thought, an idea, a belief, conditioning. There's no need to look up and say goodbye to a mistaken belief.

This is surrender. The sage's surrender to God.

You give up the very idea of 'me'.

"I'll accept your kindness. I'll accept your insult. I'll accept whatever you have to give."

But in fact there is no 'I' to accept or reject because you have given up the very idea of 'I' as a separate thing.

"Your radiance shines in every atom of creation, yet our petty desires keep it hidden."

It is this single I-thought that serves as the blinders to the nature of Reality. The mind built around the idea of 'me'; being led by pain and pleasure, desires and fears, cravings and aversions, completely blind to the nature of the Self.

All the time the Self shines forth, lighting up every experience, every atom of what is observed and known.

"Like the beautiful wife of a prince, you dwell in a lonely place.

If you came out of hiding, the veil on every face would fall."

While the light of Awareness lights up the whole world, Awareness itself cannot be found in the world.

The Self resides in the heart. That place that gets locked away by the mind as it turns outward towards the reflections. When the mind turns inwards, surrenders and the heart pours out into the world, then the veil drops. The veil of every face drops.

And behind the veil is You — the Beloved.

The veil of individuality is maintained only by giving all reality to appearances. Caring about the phenomena but forgetting the Reality that allows them to be.

"You confound the doubting heart,

You intoxicate the fateful head,

You have robbed every soul of its senses,

You have brought every heart to your breast."

The doubting person takes themselves to be real, takes a separate 'I' to be real, and then doubts the reality of the world. The faithful one again assumes the 'I' as real and then looks up to some higher entity. Both are wrong.

The Self is found by giving up the very thought of I.

When both the doubtful and the faithful forget themselves, lose their senses, where do they go?

"You have brought every heart to your breast."

Any moment of solace, of peace, of quiet, love, joy, it is only ever found by returning to the Heart. By forgetting this sense of separation.

"All roses fall prey to December.

All intellect falls prey to love's glory."

No matter the beliefs, the philosophy, the theorems, the Truth shines of its own accord. Love exists.

Consciousness cannot be denied. All glory and grace belong to the Self — the Reality that makes perception possible.

"Since the rose is not eternal, why be captured by its scent?

Let me know your secrets —

Only the ones that last forever."

We are not talking about life here, or even consciousness in the sense of this stream of experience. That is not eternal. That is just the scent, the passing show, whose only value is in helping you discover what is You, the true Self.

"How many men have found tragic ends running after beauty?

Why don't they look for you? — the heart and spirit of all beauty."

The mind seeks beauty in objects, in experiences. But the beauty is in the perceiving of the experience. The true beauty is of the Awareness that makes perception possible.

Remaining formless, invisible, but also present as the beauty of the object and the perceiving of the beauty.

"You formed man from a handful of dust.

You gave him the power to know the highest truth.

You freed him from the snares of this world with one breath of your spirit."

All these living creatures. They have formed from a handful of dust. Be it mud or stardust, life comes only through the grace of Awareness — The power to know, for experience to flow. For a mind to be freed of this world and its misery, it takes but one breath of Awareness. Leaving aside the thought of I, listening, knowing the Truth that is being described by this world.

"O love, O heart,

Find the way to heaven.

Find the way to God's pasture.

You have spent enough time in this pasture made for cattle.

Set your sights on a place higher than your eyes can see.

For it was a higher aim that brought you here in the first place."

The mind can never be satisfied through personal glory, or a passing experience, or salvation of the individual. The mind will only be satisfied through the highest truth; the actual undiluted Truth — The Realization of the Self, The Ultimate Union. It is when the mind gives up the idea of individuality that it is united with the Heart, and only there do you find true peace and contentment.

So, how do you do this? Well, you can't. The universe does not rely on the actions and intentions of individuals. Reality unfolds as per its own laws.

"Now, be silent.

Let the one who creates the words speak.

He made the door,

He made the lock,

He also made the key."