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Monday, May 3, 2010

34. Creation Stories

This is Chapter 34 from the revised online version of The Republic of Rumi: a Novel of Reality. Here the reader is offered a few insights about the upcoming world.
Beyond the flowers of Sinai you see the House of Reflections. It contains diverse ideas from the Poet’s mind (good that you basked in the glowing warmth of Love before approaching this realm of ideas).

Each idea is contained in a poem that takes life eyes as you concentrate on it. The one directly related to your present status in the Garden is ‘The Conquest of Nature’. It consists of five holograms with separate subheadings.

The birth of Adam
There is commotion in the universe. Love rejoices while Beauty trembles. Lying unaware in the embrace of Life, Desire opens eyes and a new world comes into being. Life declares that since it struggled restless in the darkness of the earth for many eons, a door has at least opened in the dome of the sky.
The Devil’s refusal
God bids angels to bow down to the newly created Adam. Since the Devil was born of fire, he considers himself superior to human being. He refuses to obey and says to God, “This short-sighted ignoramus creature was born in your lap but it will grow old in my arms.”
The temptation of Adam
The Devil avenges his expulsion from heaven by tempting the first couple. “A life of passion and longing is better than eternal quiet,” he says. “Do you not know as yet that passion fizzles out if union is achieved?”
Adam speaks on coming out of Paradise
The human being comes out and says, “How good it is to fill life with passion and longing: to open the door of the cage on to a spacious garden. I would exchange certainty for doubt, for I have become a martyr of the quest.”
The Dawn of Resurrection
(Adam in the presence of God)
Adam addresses the Almighty. “You whose sun illumines the star of life,” he says. “With my heart You lit the candle of the sightless world. My skills have poured an ocean into a strait, my pickaxe makes milk flow from the heart of stone. Venus is my captive, the moon worships me. Although his sorcery deluded me, excuse my fault, forgive my sin: the world could not have been subdued otherwise, for pride could not be taken prisoner without the halter of humility. Reason catches artful nature in a net and thus Ahriman, born of fire, bows down before the creature of dust.”
Adam’s address to the Almighty on the Dawn of Resurrection sounds like it is coming from you – the words printed in this book are like stones mentioned by him while your soul is hacking them to allow streams of life flow out of them and become this Garden – and that should not be surprising since Adam on the Dawn of Resurrection is most likely to be the new humanity, and that is represented by you.

The Garden is suddenly filled with the fragrance of the rose and you are told that a houri wanted to experience the world. She turned into the morning breeze, grow out of the branch like a bud, which then became a flower and withered after a time. Fragrance is all that is left of her now and it tells you that Time shall be less of a mystery for the new human being.

As you listen to the Song of Time, you notice that its five stanzas make a strange parallel to the five episode of the Creation Story you saw just now. The parallels require some effort to be drawn but once you draw the parallels they help you experience Time at five levels.

Stanza 1
Everything in the world seems to be pegged on the wall of Time, which itself appears to be nothing as you look at it but turns out to be your soul when you look within: the primary description of your life is the span of time you get to spend in the world. The birth of Adam – Time as yourself?
Stanza 2
Time paints its pictures with blood: Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, European colonialism and the greatest catastrophes of history appear like sparks shed by the flame of Time, which turns out to be a burning fire as well as the garden of Paradise. The Devil’s refusal – Time as a sign of God?
Stanza 3
Time appears to be passing but is also eternity and stays still: tomorrow can be seen in today except that the human eye cannot behold the effect of wine in the wine. Hence Time turns out to be the formless attribute by which you define Divine Life and, as you know, is also your soul. The temptation of Adam – Time as Truth?
Stanza 4
You are pitted against Time: while you propose your designs it disposes destiny beyond the spell of limited reasoning. You are free to choose only because the highest choice will merely take you to another dimension of Time but never possibly beyond it. You are the secret of Time just as it is yours: a secret that your soul hides as well as reveals. Adam speaks on coming out of Paradise – Relativity of Time?
Stanza 5
Time is the traveler that seeks you as its destination. You are the fruit of its labors – you are a song of thousand melodies but one heart and that heart alone is big enough to contain the ocean of Time as if it were a storm rising of your own tide. The Dawn of Resurrection and Adam in the presence of God – Time as your reward?

7 comments:

  1. I can tell this will be one of the most interesting of all the chapters...so I know I need to return when refreshed...Thanx so much for the gift of each of these for each of us here...as soon as you have them ready...

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  2. First, how appropos "good that you basked in the glowing warmth of Love before approaching this realm of ideas"...

    And how I am most challenged by looking at all these aspects of time which I've never before done...about TIME! :)

    Most I love and resonate to the line: You are a thousand melodies yet only ONE heart!

    Of course I will be back again...I NEED this one.

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  3. The power of stories indeed. Myth has been interpreted in such diverse ways in various religions, loved reading this poetic interpretation too.

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  4. The parallels that you have drawn of five levels of Time are simply outstanding. For me now this is just like a myth that for everything Khurram Ali Shafique has a very versatile and classic theory of interpretation at hand, and you never fail us. I simply admire fertility of imagination and richness of abstract ideas supplemented with thorough and astute knowledge.

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  5. The temptation of Adam

    The Devil avenges his expulsion from heaven by tempting the first couple. “A life of passion and longing is better than eternal quiet,” he says. “Do you not know as yet that passion fizzles out if union is achieved?”

    This little nugget is surely worthy of some discussion, is it not?

    I would love to know more from you what you understood Allama Iqbal to mean when he spoke in glowing terms of the word "passion"...

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  6. While many poets and sages have rightfully reminded us that many passions are evil, I have been interested that in some places Allama Iqbal has been more positive with this term...albeit in a different sense than usual and there may be a different term even in the original? Perhaps it is when passion is for all humanity and for oneness with the Creator? Perhaps this "other passion" includes more peace than longing except where longing is for peace for all?

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  7. I keep returning to "Time is a Sword" XVII of "The Secrets of the Self" and am struck with the phrase: "Look, O Thou enthralled by
    Yesterday and Tomorrow, behold another world in thine own heart!" The poet is way ahead of his time here.

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