SALVATION

We all are longing for a perfect, flawless human being. How dif­ficult it is to find a perfect human being in our day When we see flaws that arise from those valuable people whom we respect and love, we are disillusioned, torn down from inside, and we feel an urge to love people and accept them with their both good and bad sides. We say, "Flawless humans cannot be found. " But in this regard we should not be completely hopeless. Though in this world people turn to materialistic values by losing spiritual values, it is still possible to find superior people, flawless people, and perfect people even if they are one in a million. They are the suns of the spiritual world and the world of humanity.

For a moment let us suppose that the sun of this perceived material universe darkens until it extinguishes; everything on the face of the earth will be destroyed and life will stop. But how about the suns of the spiritual world? We live because of them; we realize our humanity because of them. When they retire from the face of the earth, spiritual life will stop and human beings will lose their humanity. Grudge, anger, lies, hypocrisy, envy, jealousy, lust, and many other evils will cover the earth and people will start eating each other like beasts. It is known that once Diogenes, a philosopher of Sinop, a city on the shores of the Black Sea, walked on the streets with a lamp in his hand in broad daylight looking for a human being. Were there not any humans around him? Indeed, there were plenty, but the philosopher was seeing them as wolves, foxes, rabbits, and pigs disguised in human form. In his opinion there were no human beings on the streets; the streets were full of animals in human form.

One day Rabia al-Adawiyyah (an early woman mystic in Islam) came out into the street in ecstasy without properly cov­ering herself according to the tradition of that era and walked in the market place. When she ran across the great saint Hasan al-Basri, she covered half of her face. When her ecstasy subsided, they asked her the reason why she came out without proper cov­ering, and she replied: "I didn't see any human in the streets. I saw some foxes sitting in front of the stores, many wolves walk­ing down the street, and some dogs that were snarling at each other. In this herd of animals, I saw a half human, and I covered half of my face. " With the following couplet, Rumi reminds us of Diogenes, who was looking for a human being with a lamp at his hand in broad daylight: "Yesterday a shaykh took a lamp in his hand. He said, 'I am tired of devils and beasts. I seek a true person. '

A philosopher likens people to buildings. The sides of the buildings that face the street are beautiful, clean, and decorated. Their rear sides are poorly maintained and contaminated. Somebody whom we call "a nice person" is one whom we view from one side and see his good attributes. However, there may be many bad attributes of a person whose good side we see and like. Similarly, people whom we consider bad and hateful can have many good attributes. Therefore, people are both good and bad. Rumi does not view people from one perspective; he considers them from all sides. He seeks ways of salvation for humankind. He strives to cleanse them from their flaws and make them true human beings. In the Mesnevi, Rumi says:

The human body is like a jungle where predators roam. We have to be very careful and watchful not to be victimized and torn into pieces. In our body there are thousands of wolves, thousands of pigs, clean, dirty, beautiful and ugly, thousands of attributes. If one of these attributes in us overweighs we come under the influence of that attribute.,.. Sometimes the wolf in man takes control of the city of the body and it acts; then the attribute of wolf appears. Sometimes, the human becomes a beautiful person like Joseph with a face as beautiful as the moon. Goodness, evil, hate, grudge keep on flowing from heart to heart through secret channels. Every moment there is a dif­ferent thing that emerges in the heart. The human sometimes turns into a devil, sometimes into an angel, sometimes into a trap, and sometimes into a beast.

It is clear that Rumi views human beings comprehensively, considering all of their attributes. Thus, the human being is nei­ther absolutely good, nor absolutely evil. Rumi says: "Sometimes angels envy our cleanliness and sometimes the dev­ils run away from our evil." He also says in the Mesnevi: "Since there are many devils who have the face of Adam, it is not well to give your hand to every hand. "

Considering man's habits and attributes, Rumi says in one of his poems: "They have made this physical form and appearance of man by bringing together many opposite attributes. They have drawn this form in the workshop of sorrows. They have kneaded his day with sadness. The human being sometimes becomes a devil, sometimes an angel, and sometimes a wild beast. What a mysterious creature is man that different habits, virtues, goodness and evil have come together in him. " After seeing humankind in this manner with an eye that sees the truth as a creature that has gathered both good and evil attributes in itself, Rumi seeks ways to salvation for them.

How can humanity be saved? How can those wild beasts in the jungle of the body be annihilated? How are we going to overcome the animal within us and regain our lost humanity? How are we going to do away with our bad habits? According to Rumi, our passions, anger, and lust have taken our humanity as prisoner. How are we going to liberate our humanity from the captivity of these beasts? Rumi gives us some suggestions: "Throw away the passion, envy, and grudges from the heart. Change your bad behavior and bad thoughts. Denying every­thing harms you, deny little. Affirmation is, on the other hand, useful. Increase your affirmation. " Rumi wants us to get away not only from bad behavior but also from adoring the world and striving to gain material prosperity and to be courageous: "Until when are you going to think about this soul that flutters within needs, until when are you going to worry about this world that is full of hardship and struggle? All that the world can take from you is this body. Count yourself, your material existence, this pile of flesh that is going to decay and feed the ants and the worms as garbage and do not worry so much. "

It is not that Rumi does not want us to work, but rather he does not want us to love the material world because in another place Rumi says: "What is the world? The world is the state of being unaware of God, It is not richness, wealth, possessions, and having children. "Although man is not the largest, the strongest, or the most powerful creature in the outer world, or the universe of material, he became the master of the universe due to his mind and intelligence, and he overpowered the strongest and the most courageous animals. He uses the huge elephant as a servant although the elephant could easily throw him with its trunk and trample him under its feet. Man puts the most dangerous predators—lions, tigers—in a cage like helpless birds. But unfortunately man has been defeated by the animals inside; he has been overpowered by them. The master of the material universe, the brave, capable, resourceful, and strong man who keeps all animals under his command, flies in the skies, goes to the moon, invents radios, television, attains daz­zling successes—how surprising it is that he has surrendered to the animals inside. He has become the slave of the wolf of anger, the snake of lust, the dog of the nafs (ego and desires). In order to teach us a lesson, in the following lines, Rumi complains of the dog of the nafs as follows: "I thought that if I put the chain of repentance around the neck of the dog of the nafs, if 1 make him old that way, maybe I could eliminate his rebellion. But whenever he sees a decaying corpse, he breaks the chain and runs for the corpse. I do not know how I am going to deal with this dog of the nafs. I do not know what I should do to this dog of the nafs.

According to Rumi, humankind is a poor slave that looks free and independent. They have invisible handcuffs in their hands and chains tied to their feet. Man is a slave that is forced to serve both his desires and the animals in him. It is for this rea­son that real freedom is to be free from the influence of the internal animals. Our Great Prophet has viewed this internal struggle, man's battle with his lower self (nafs), as "the greatest jihad" and described it as the greatest battle for the sake of God in the path of independence. According to Rumi, in order for us to win this battle, we need first to find ourselves and know where we came from and what we are. The moment we get to know ourselves the good news of our freedom will reach us. As Rumi puts it, we first need to take off the bond of body from the spirit. We need to turn our head to the heavens because our place is not this dirty soil. We are like the animals with our flesh and blood but we are not animals.

Rumi maintains that we need to cleanse our body that has become contaminated with desires. In the Mesnevi he says: "O defiled in body, frequent the tank: outside the tank, how shall a man be cleansed? The bodily pure one who has been banished from the tank becomes distanced also from his spiritual purity. The purity of this tank is infinite; the purity of bodies is little weight. A man can purify his body, but the purification of the heart is not easy. "117 According to Rumi there are two great ene­mies that prevent humankind from attaining true humanity: one of them is lust, the other one anger. "Anger and lust make a man squint-eye, they change the spirit (so that it departs) from recti­tude. "118 Humankind has been created in the middle level. Above them are the angels and below them are the animals. Human beings are close to the angels with their mind and knowledge. They are close to the animals with their anger and lust. Rumi explains that the person who becomes a slave to his selfish desires and lust is far away from the true path: "If you are taken by lust and desires of the self, let me tell you that you will go empty handed and without any gains. If you give up lust, you will see dearly why you came to this world and where you are going. "

According to Rumi, in order for us to be saved, we should first turn inside ourselves and see our mistakes. We should cleanse the house of the heart from dirty thoughts. We should keep it as clean as a house of worship. We should endure the calamities that strike us. We should believe that everything comes from God and nothing happens without His will, and for this reason we should not complain of diseases, poverty, and sorrows. We should see the trouble that comes from the Beloved as a remedy. "O heart, rhere is you and there is His Trouble. How pleasant is it to be troubled by Him. His trouble is your remedy. Therefore, endure the pain and sorrows that come from Him, do not complain or lament. This is His will and His command is this. If you trample your material desires under your feet, you will kill the dog of the self, and this is the real sacrifice. "120 We are created from the soil, and we live on the soil. With our bodies we are tied to the soil, and like animals we also eat and drink, but in us there is a Divine Entrustment (amnah kubra) that is not in the animals, and there­fore our heads are in the heavens. With our physical composition and our body we resemble animals, but we are human with our spirit and the Divine Entrustment that is in us. We take the food that nourishes our body from the soil The nourishment of our spirit is above, in the heavens. The nourishment for our spirit and for our humanity is the holy light of God that fills the earth and the heavens. In Mesnevi, Rumi explains this idea: "Man's orig­inal food is the Light of God: animal food is improper for him. But, in consequence of disease, his mind has fallen into this (delu­sion) that day and night he should eat of this water and clay (He is) pale-faced, weak-footed, faint-hearted—where is the food of Heaven which has (starry) tracks? That is the food of the chosen ones of the (Divine) sovereignty; eating thereof is (done) without throat or implement. "

So, in order to conquer bad habits and animalistic feelings that are hidden in us, Rumi advises us to nourish ourselves with heavenly foods and discover the ore, the entrustment that is in us. In order to open our hearts' eyes and to escape the animali-ty and attain humanity—in other words, to let our good habits come up and our humanity be dominant that are hidden in our body (our animalistic side in physical terms)—we need to con­template God who created the whole universe and who is the possessor of all the creatures, to feel Him in our hearts, to know that we are always in His presence no matter wherever we may be. If we realize His Power, Art, and Greatness by looking at the works of art He has created, frequently remembering Him, we descend to our hearts. We find Him there, gain His holy light, and shine with His holy light. Our eyes as well as our hearts shine with Him, and we come to realize that we are not alone. In the Divan-i Kabir, Rumi says, "There is someone hidden here. Do not think that you are alone. " And also in a couplet in the Mesnevi: "When Man receives light from God, he is wor­shipped by the angels because of his being chosen (by God).

For man to discover what is in himself, Rumi offers a vari­ety of metaphors and examples. He says that the jug that finds a secret passage to the sea of unity ceases to be a jug and becomes a sea; "The great rivers kneel (in homage) before the jar into which there conies a channel from the sea." Man is created from soil, but when he became subject to Divine Manifestation and was charged with the Divine Entrustment, he gained superiority and became the most honorable and the most superior of all creatures. Rumi indicates this truth in the follow­ing couplets from the Mesnevi:

When the earth of Adam became God's courier, God's angels laid their heads (in worship) before His earth.... He is the Ruler and (the One who said) God does what He wills: from the very self of pain, He creates the remedy. Then it has become certain that You exalt whoever You will: He said to an earthly creature, "Unfold your wings. " To the creature of fire He said, "Go, become Iblis (Satan): be gone under the Seventh Earth with (your) imposture! O earthly Adam, go you above (the star) Suha; O fiery Iblis, go to (the bottom of) the earth. "'

While we try to recognize the Divine Entrustment in us, we should also push the devil that is in us to the deepest corners of our self and imprison him. For us to save our humanity that is a slave of our animalistic nature, it is necessary to think and real­ize where we came from and where we are going. Rumi disclos­es this truth to us in the following couplets:

I am not of the same order as the King of kings—far be it from me!—but I have light from Him. His light illuminated me in (His) self-manifestation. Homogeneity is not in respect of form and creation that is to say we are not homogeneous with Him in form and essence. We have relations with Him, since we are reflections of his names and attributes: water becomes homogenous with earth in the plant. Wind (air) becomes homogenous with fire in consistency; wine at last becomes homogenous with nature because if gives enjoyment to nature. Since our genus is not the genus of our King, my ego has passed away for the sake of His existence. Inasmuch as my ego passed away, He remained alone; I roll at the feet of His horse, like dust. The soul became dust, and the (only) signs of it are the mark of His feet on its dust. Become dust at His feet for the sake of this mark, in order that you may become the crown on the head of the lofty. Let not my form beguile you: partake of my desert and spiritual fruit before my departure. Oh, there are many whom the form waylaid: They aimed at the form (of the holy man) and (in reality) struck at God. After all, the soul is joined to the body, (but) has this soul any likeness to the body? The sparkle of the eye's light is paired with the fat; the light of the heart is hidden in a drop of blood; Joy (has its seat) in the kidneys, grief in the liver; intellect (bright) as a candle, inside the brain in the head. These connections are not without a how and a why, (but) as regards knowledge of the why (our) minds are impotent. The Universal Soul came into contact with the partial (individual) soul, and the (latter) soul received from it a pearl and put it into its bosom. Through that touch on its bosom the (individual) soul became pregnant, like Mary, with a heart-beguiling Messiah, Not the Messiah who is (a traveler) on land and water, (but) the Messiah who is beyond (the limi­tation of) measuring (space). So when the soul has been impregnated by the Soul of the soul, by such a soul the world is impregnated.

When the human realizes his essence in this way, he will try to appreciate that essence and find his humanity. According to Rumi, real humanity, the love that we feel for God who created us by realizing our humanity and sensing the essence in us, will destroy all our bad habits, cleanse, and raise us spiritually. Our realization of where we came from and who is in us will rescue us from all vice. What a great happiness is it for a believer to be aware that we live with Him and to feel that He is with us wher­ever we may be. In a couplet in the Mesnevi, Rumi says: "We have to come to know (that) we are not this body: beyond the body we live through God."

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