37. The Mind of Europe

This is Chapter 36 from the revised online version of The Republic of Rumi: a Novel of Reality.

Western Images is a picture galley on the other side of the Remaining Wine. It displays images of the West as they flashed upon the Poet’s inward eye. The first is called ‘Message’. It consists of nine stanzas of five couplets each.

Stanza 1

The Poet asks the morning breeze to take his message to the intellectuals of the West: “You have accumulated knowledge at the cost of the heart.”

Stanza 2

Philosophy wanders through the desert and mountains without catching a single prey. It roams around in the garden but gets no flowers. “Now let’s take our needs to the doorstep of Love,” the Poet invites his Western counterparts. “Let’s bow down to Love and seek expansion.”

Stanza 3

Reason turns dust into gold and then throws some of the dust into the eyes of Jesus. Constantly tying and untying knots on the heart, it sows ambers and reaps flames.

Stanza 4

The vulgar intellect becomes captive to its own thoughts but a penetrating intellect sees through the nine skies and combines the longing of Adam with the light of the angels.

Stanza 5

Humanity leaps forward from the isolation of Love and turns dark clay into mirror. It was a flame that broke into ambers and each amber acquired taste, longing and vision.

Stanza 6

Love has now turned to the ways of lust, plunging its sword into the breasts of friends and giving the name of empire to plain robbery. It is high time that a new tradition should be introduced and the heart should be washed clean.

Stanza 7

Monarchy is coming to an end and the age of conquerors is over. Joseph of the West comes out of the prison and sits on the throne after the accusations against him by Potiphar’s Wife are proven false. Old secrets are no longer restricted to the elite. Life is creating a new world and those who care to see can see this.

Stanza 8

The Poet sees that which is yet to come: a revolution too big for the universe’s mind. Blessed are those who see the rider in the dust and the essence of the song in the trembling of the strings.

Stanza 9

Life is a running stream and is about to flow faster. What has been but should not have been will not be anymore. What should have been but has not been will be.

The Poet puts out the candle by way of announcing the advent of dawn after a very dark night.