like a baby with its mother’s smile
so come
let yourself go
get in the dance
after seeing him
you came speeding
like a ball to his bat
you lost your head
you lost your feet
so you danced
without your head or feet
you’ve gotten so drunk
on the wine of being
you’ve got ecstasy
written all over you
ecstasy keeps calling
so get ready for the journey
start to dance
untie your hair
spread your scent around
put the souls of sufis to dancing
the sun, moon, and stars
keep turning around the sky;
we’re in the middle
turning around the center
your singing and playing
are so beautiful!
even the lowest notes
start turning the sufis of the sky
the spring breeze comes running
singing
making the world smile
it causes a commotion
among the young
every day a fairylike beauty
steps out from behind the curtain
and puts everyone in a circle to dance
the sufi dances to that beauty’s tune
and waves his soft cloak
but the man of reason
gets confused
his turban comes untied
and drags on the ground
the stirring sound of his voice
comes from deep inside
the oven of his heart
when he starts spreading melodies
my heart jumps from its seat
he put a rebab*3 on his lap
took the cap off his head
and set it on the ground
when I saw his head
begin to shake
my heart went right to him
heart spins
his silk thread
like a bobbin
it turns so fast
that the spinner of the thread
sometimes sees it
sometimes doesn’t
body is like dust and soil
soul is like the wind
soul kicks up the dust
and through the dance of particles
soul is revealed
so let’s say your soul
looks a lot like dust and soil
and another soul
meets you in that dust
the whole universe
will start to dance
particle by particle
to your tune
come
come and see
that you are the soul of sema
come
come and see
that you’re a walking cypress
in sema’s garden
come and see
that someone exactly like you
has never existed before
and never will again
come and see
that the eyes of sema
have never seen anyone like you before
and never will again
what should I do
if love seizes me?
start dancing of course!
sweep love into your arms
and press her to your chest
when particles of dust
are touched by the sun
they spread their arms and start whirling
to a music no one can hear
a sweet voice came
from the threshold of greatness
come
it says to soul
how could soul resist?
how could a fish out of water lie still
with the sound of the waves in its ears?
the fish wants to jump back into the sea
how could a sufi not enter the dance
like a particle of dust under eternal light?
a bright light
shines in the sky
coming from the dance of lovers
yet still there are those
who condemn dance and music
and don’t believe it’s right
one group turns around the sun
and falls into god’s favor
the other just keeps turning
around the cold harsh winter
when you hear the songs of birds
your wings begin to flutter
if you really want to fly
free your feet from the tar
look at these particles
in front of my window
they’re dancing so exquisitely in the air
these particles dance sema
like sufis in the sun’s light
but to what kind of music, beat, or instrument
nobody knows
the most important sema
is the one that goes on inside us
particles of our body are dancing
with hundreds of different rhythms and graces
those who’ve attained
open their arms and start dancing
at a place beyond truth or lies
they don’t get involved
with matters of the head
or the soul
someone once offered a dervish
a totally bodiless soul
but the dervish just whispered
back in his ear
no thanks
o my mind
I asked
where have you gone?
I turned into wine
he answered back
how can I behave
like a grape anymore?
burn your soul and put its ashes
on your eyes as a salve
blindness will disappear from the world
souls enter sema
and turn into honey bees
they swarm around the honey
that’s never been tasted
we’re moving and dancing
like a flag on your wind
I’m going to the place
where I disappear completely
the clouds cleared away from your face
the sky split apart into layers
and shone like moonlight
through all the windows
the light became stronger
it broke all the souls into pieces
souls started dancing
in front of the sun
flying around everywhere
saying
what will be will be
the dome of the sky keeps turning
but the skies of love whirl much faster
the whirling sky turns only for lovers
so get up and join in
let’s start turning!
ours is the path
of joy and pleasure
music and dance
not stillness
not denial
the only one who benefits
from a pearl dropped on the road
is the one who takes the journey
the one who doesn’t
turn around that pearl
will have nothing
spring has given
the call to prayer
get up and come to the garden!
listen for the voices
in the tulips and the mountain
learn how to dance
from the branches of the trees
love keeps changing inside us
into so many different shapes and forms
every moment
a different feeling
wants to pass through your heart
but your body’s become frozen
and turned into stone
until you understand
the patterns in your heart
you won’t really be able to
move
an amazing dance is going on
from the bottom of the earth
to the top of the sky
once you’ve become a stream of particles
don’t go and become a mountain again
even the whirling sky
became jealous of our turning
because this is the real thing
the other’s just a shell
this is the real light
the other’s just a small fire
my friend
it’s time for sema
time to get up and jump
you’ve been asleep on a boat
for a thousand nights;
open your sail
and get up and jump
the heavy feeling in your head
made you sleep a long time
but they woke you up
so get up and jump
o flying thoughts
keep flying
keep jumping right through
this bewildered body!
come to your senses
the sufi is the child of the moment
forget about last year and next year and jump
it pays to be generous
when doing business with god
because love weighs more
than the whole steel yard
get up and jump!
get up and jump
like the waves of the sea
roaring with love
because pearls are being spread at their feet
if you’re feeling run-down
like straight, limp hair
parted in the middle
then jump up
like the springing curls in the hair of the beloved
for way too long
you’ve been lied to and bullied;
why don’t you jump right out
I get involved too much in making rhymes
so shhhhh. . .
let’s jump together
without any words this time
it doesn’t matter
how the branch moves
as long as it moves
it means there’s a breeze
o branch
don’t think you have to move
this way or that way
and don’t try to run away either
don’t you know
that the only guidance you’ll ever need
comes from the wind?
one particle says to another:
how long are we going to fly in the air?
only your beautiful hand knows
weather changes
in hundreds of ways
from dawn to dusk;
in every shape it takes
it whirls and dances for you
even if you can’t see the air moving
you can still watch the trees
and see the souls dancing around god
we’ve learned our melodies
from the revolving spheres
the song of the spheres
is what we sing with our voice
and play on our strings
as we’re all members
of the family of adam
we’ve all heard these melodies in paradise
and even though we’re now covered
in earth and water
we still have faint memories
of those songs of heaven
but while we’re covered up
in these earthly clothes
how can the tones of the dancing spheres reach us?
and so it is
that listening to music is lovers’ food
because it reminds them
of their union with god
even if your beloved turns into a fire
jump into it anyway and keep burning
burn up like a candle and melt
a divine dance appears in the soul and the body
at the time of peace and union
anyone can learn this dance
just listen to the music
without your blessing
no one
not even the embryo inside the womb
would move
it’s not just the movement
in the womb or in ecstasy
even the bones in the grave
dance with your radiance
we dance so much to the tunes of this world
come on friends
get ready for the dance in the other world
souls move around
with these rough coarse covers
once they throw off those heavy covers
then watch how they dance!
before we were born
we kept kicking and moving
in the darkness of the womb
just to express our heartfelt thanks
we are all sufis
who came dancing from the dervish convent
to give thanks for these blessings
GAZING RAPTLY
You’ve purified the body through fasting and breath. You’ve opened to the movements of the dance. Now it’s time to meet the friend.
Of the four practices that Rumi promotes in his poetry, none is mentioned so prominently and frequently as the simple action of sitting down across from a dear friend, looking into each other’s eyes, holding each other’s gaze, and surrendering to the radical alteration to body and self that naturally starts occurring. For centuries, Sufis have revered the relationship between Rumi and Shams as a kind of divine mystery that could only be marveled at, but never understood. No one knew for certain what went on behind the closed doors of their retreat room—what kind of interactions must have transpired between them to have sparked the intoxicated state of ecstasy they were in when they finally emerged from their retreat. But how could it have been missed? It’s everywhere in the poetry! Melting into the gaze of one’s friend is one of Rumi’s greatest legacies and gifts to anyone who has ever felt the pull of the ecstatic and is trying to figure out how to give birth to it.
However, while I believe that what Rumi and Shams were doing together can no longer be considered a complete mystery, if you truly want to understand what happened to them, you’ll need to experience it for yourself. To bring completely alive the story of Rumi and Shams’ ecstatic dissolving into the shared consciousness of union, you’ll want to do what they did. You’ll want to seek out and find a friend and explore the practice for yourself.*4
Something happens to two people who come together, look into each other’s eyes, hold the gaze, and . . . surrender. Almost immediately you start feeling things . . . as if dormant sensations of the body and soul start waking up from a long slumber. The visual field may become altered, as hard edges soften and the shape of your partner’s face shifts. You may laugh. You may cry. You may feel very scared and alone. You may feel overwhelmed with joy. Eventually, you may start feeling the energies in your heart and soul being drawn toward your friend as if by a strong magnet. Closer, ever closer, you feel your consciousness and energies starting to dance and commingle with your friend, until eventually you arrive at a place of such closeness and intimacy that you realize that you don’t feel separate from your friend anymore—that your soul has merged with her soul and you can no longer tell the difference. This play of two ordinarily separate souls relaxing into a condition that is separate no longer is, for Rumi, what real friendship is all about.
But mostly we don’t look at each other in this way. We resist surrendering to the compelling and natural desire for merging into union that wants to occur whenever two people lay eyes on each other. We’re leery of going beyond the self even if ecstasy is the offered reward. We don’t have time in our busy lives to allow an unraveling of our karmic knots by participating in a prolonged and surrendered gaze with a friend. How prolonged? Virtually everyone can get a taste of where this gazing is leading to in just a few minutes (indeed, one of the beauties of the mutual gaze is that its effects can be fel
t so immediately). The real depths that the practice can take you to, however, only start revealing themselves after long hours. Remember that Rumi and Shams spent long weeks and even months exploring what was happening to them. Connecting through the gaze sends both friends off on a journey of unfolding through the landscape of the soul; the longer you stay surrendered to the gaze, the more sights you get to see. The longer you spend in the gaze, the deeper you heal. Who, then, has time for the gaze? Babies do. Their parents do. Lovers do. And ecstatic friends do.
The first three practices can all be done alone. To explore the practice of gazing, you need to find a friend—someone whom you feel drawn to and who is drawn to you, someone who is as excited as you are to explore and play the great game of gazing and dissolving, someone who wants to risk being himself with another. You can gaze and go deep in this way with anyone, but in truth, over time you may find that you’re especially drawn to gazing with a particular someone and she with you. The gaze with this person simply feels right and starts initiating journeys you’ve never been on before with anyone else. Maybe your life circumstances will allow you to go into retreat together and spend long days and weeks just as Rumi and Shams did. Maybe they won’t. But know that you’ve found a friend, and explore the practice together as much as you can. Be forewarned, though. The practice is highly addictive to both body and soul, and you may want to spend a great deal of time together.
The basic instructions for the gaze are so simple. Sit or lie comfortably with your friend, and begin looking at each other. Look right into the eyes that are looking right back at you . . . and relax. What starts happening? Can you feel it? Can you accept the shifts that almost immediately start occurring in your awareness of body and self? Can you accept the unraveling of emotion and memory that begins to spread through you in waves of feeling? The more you relax into the gaze, the more you’ll be able to accept whatever comes to you: strong sensations, unusual perceptions, emotions.