Apr 24 | Go deep (Fire in the Wineglass #2)

Today’s lesson from Omid-jan’s course explored the introduction to the Masnavi. Each volume of the work (there are 6) comes with an Arabic preface of sorts, which explains how they should be read.

It begins:

This is the Book of the Masnavi, which is the roots of the roots of the roots of the Way in respect of unveiling the mysteries of attainment and certainty; and which is the greatest science of God and the clearest way of God and the most manifest evidence of God.

“You could say it’s ‘the heart of the heart of the heart’ of the faith,” Omid-jan said.

In the season of Easter, I often reflect on bridal imagery as a metaphor for Christ’s new relationship to the Church in a post-resurrection world. Today I explored the notion of knowing oneself, perhaps even unveiling one’s deepest roots, in a new way.

Knowledge comes in different levels, Omid-jan explained. If you liken the experience of God to honey, for example, we might find ourselves looking at the word “honey” written on a board. If we can read, we understand what this means, and indeed we understand enough that we know we can’t lick the board and discover the taste of honey there! It would just be ink. But seeing the word brings up lots of thoughts and ideas.

The next level would be to have someone bring a bowl of honey to us, but not have us taste. For me, this experience is like the reading of a sacred text. It may be a passage from the Hebrew Bible, or one of the Gospels, or a surah from the Qur’an, or the Masnavi itself, or even a person through whom we see the divine (when I explore this concept with residents of Hineni House I call these folks “living sacred texts”). I can see the colour, perhaps feel the shape of the experience of the divine. But I can’t quite taste it. I wasn’t there.

Omid-jan says, “Is it possible to fully taste honey just by listening to someone else describe it? So much of religion is this very thing! A teacher stands before us and says, ‘I do declare that this honey is as sweet as they come!’ We are asked to bear witness to their experience.”

But, he added, Shams says, “How long will you ride this horseless saddle?”

I’m reminded of the stick horses I sometimes played with as a child. Perhaps it’s good to do this when we’re young in our spirituality. It’s definitely safer, and there’s something terribly beautiful about a child easily creating an experience she has never had through play – something terribly divine in fact. But if we want the bones-deep knowledge, the integration of fleshly as well as spiritual knowledge, we’ve got to find a “real” horse.

In the Christian calendar, we’re looking ahead to the feast of Pentecost on May 31^st. Pentecost is often celebrated as “the birthday of the Church,” a day when we remember an ecstatic experience shared among Jesus’ disciples as they sat together. The Book of Acts describes it thusly:

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. (Acts 2:1-4)

Many of us interpret this as the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise in the Gospel of John that the “Advocate” would be sent to enliven the disciples after he was raised. In this story the Holy Spirit comes among them and gives them the Sign-Act of communication. The story goes on to say that a crowd of people from all over the world gather when they hear the noise, and are able to understand the testimony of the disciples in their own languages. Today, lots of churches try to replicate this experience on the feast in a number of ways, including reading the passage in multiple languages at once.

In a sense, this is still the sharing of an experience, as Omid-jan says, but we are brought closer by having it “read” to us in our own language, our own words. And indeed, the teaching is done by those who were close to the teacher. If he was the root (of the root of the root), they have become the branches, and now they are tossing their fruit hither and yon to seed the earth of all the children of Adam.

Through these seeds, we may yet become children of God.

As we enter the season of Ramadan, let’s explore the root of the root of the root of what sustains us. Let’s go deep.