The Poetry of Roomi

(Santiniketan)

Emerson says: "Man can only paint, or make nothing but Man." There are people who paint man because they cannot escape from man. But they are in the habit of pretending; they draw a veil over the face of reality. They think that a ‘real’ thing has no beauty. They are only in love with the words which are attached to some common beauties, as for example: rose, nightingale, dew, starry region, skylark, death, unpremeditated art, youth, virgin, etc.

These words can create a beautiful atmosphere, and those artists who are immature and those who are like professional dancers, and whose aim it is to reach always towards an object, use this kind of words to create a blue mist over their hollowness of thought.

But the true artist is never one because of beautiful words alone: he becomes a creator because he has a keen perception of the impressions and the expressions of the heart. He becomes a prophet, and walks in the beauty of humanity, because he faces Life....

Roomi was a true artist, and the bone of his art is morality and spiritualism, dry enough subjects for most people, but his beautiful allegorical stories and his elevating art produce such curiosity and interest in one that one’s thoughts are chased through many tracks which we passed through many times although without knowing their full significance.

People always see through their own spectacles. When a child sees the moon, the child thinks that the moon is also a child, and wants to play with this other child. A happy man sees in the moon a smiling beauty, and a man trampled by the foot of misery will find in the moon a face which has turned pale with misery.

Roomi draws great lessons from ordinary things and actions. But he never sees through the microscope of feelings and emotions. He is not purely subjective like the child or the happy man or the one trampled by misery, He meditates on these scattered apperceptions, analyses his "conscious experiences" psychologically, and finds the "ultimate meaning." We shall consider what constitutes the ground of Roomi’s mysticism, but, before we begin, we should know that a wrong conception is swaying the minds of critics nowadays that we should not search for a philosophy or any principle in poetry. All the classical works, be they poetry or prose, have a principle of life, a philosophy which one can discover in the book somewhere, though it may be written in a few words only.

Plato has narrated the gist of Islamic Mysticism in Greek philosophy, but afterwards the pure Islamic ideas got mixed with Christian visions.

Some of the elements of Islamic Mysticism are the same as are to be found in the principle of the "Unity of Existence" of the Vedanta, and in the principle of the "Emancipation or Nirvana" of Buddhism.

Now, at once a question arises: What was the reason for dressing the virginity of Mysticism in the garb of Pessimism?

The reason was that the Indian philosophers, who were in favour of the principle of the unity of existence, addressed the mind, and the Irani poets addressed the hearts: and it may be, as some argue, that pessimism is inevitable in the poetry of the heart.

The truth is that world literature was poisoned as regards the understanding of the nature and significance of mysticism, Plato and Socrates, who thought that mysticism is retirement from the world, have taken an important part in misleading the people. But we can forgive poor Plato and Socrates because they were imprisoned in "Wisdom." They thought that the passion of life was a second-rate thing. And Nietzche attacked these "wisdom-catchers."

It is surprising that, at a time when the nation to which Roomi belonged was going through numberless disturbances, and the surroundings were pregnant with heart-pricking cries, Roomi’s poetry does not make us conceive the sorrow and pessimism which are sure to envelope every individual of a declining nation. The mansion of his philosophy took no support from the ephemeral annoyances of existence. It stood on the firm base of Life and Practice.

Symbolism is a kind of expression in which a writer, instead of presenting things and ideas in their own shape, presents them with some signs only, and gives sure but passing touches of the real.

Goethe’s poetry has also got these touches; and, in this connection, among modern writers, two are worth mentioning: Paul Valery and Iqbal.

Roomi’s works are also symbolical. In one of his poems he speaks about the whole movement of symbolism:

"It is good to relate the secrets of the heart in such a way that people think it the story of someone else."

In Roomi’s view, music is the source of Life’s passion, and he gives preference to passions and to those inspirations which create beauty.

Nietzche and Schopenhauer have presented the same thoughts on music many centuries after Roomi’s death. Here I would like to present a translated stanza:

"Dry strings, dry wood and dry skin!

But wherefrom is the voice of my friend coming?"

It is maintained by some philosophers that the Universe is made of atoms, and because the atoms are material, the soul is nothing. The enemies of this idea maintained that human discernment is not "matter".…Latterly scholars sought refuge in the "Dualism" of Kant.

Now science has proved that the origins of the atoms are electrons which are a kind of energy and are not matter as such. And Roomi, who was one of the bitterest enemies of materialism and of "Dualism," thinks with Shankar Acharya and Hegel that "discernment" is the origin of the Universe, but alongside of discernment was for him the lustre of love.

Bergson and other philosophers say that the severity of perception can make the soul imperishable. So, this kind of severity of perception or spiritual emotion is Love. Roomi has written some of his best lines on this subject, and one can ask why Roomi has given so much importance to Love.

The reply is that Roomi wants the development of the ego or soul, but what is the soul? It is a flower of Love’s Tree....So, Love has a great importance. Let us read two or three stanzas of Roomi on Love:

"At the time of the musical soiree, Love’s minstrel strikes up this strain: ‘Servitude is chains and Lordship headache.’

"If, the ruby have not a seal graven on it,

"Tis no harm; Love in the sea of sorrow is not sorrowful."

Roomi thinks that even the turning out of Satan from Heaven is "Love," and sees Love everywhere like Coleridge:

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame."

What a beautiful and majestic word is "philosophy"! It rings in the ears of the "people" continually and speaks about something beyond the human mind, almost in a whisper.

But men who are not called "people" think that philosophy is nothing mysterious–it makes a man capable of neglecting the words and achieving the flames from the sparks.

Roomi thought that man is progressing and that in the end he will become a divine power. This idea originated in Islamic mysticism.

Iqbal says in one of his lectures:

"In the higher Sufism of Islam, unitive experience is not the finite Ego effacing its own identity by some sort of absorption into the infinite Ego, it is rather the infinite passing into the loving embrace of the finite."

The word "progress" reminds me of those days when I used to fight with bearded wisdom. These were the arguments: Progress means change; that the world is progressing means that the world is changing; and if the world is changing, it means God is also changing. And change signifies incompleteness.

In Roomi’s mysticism the visions of Motion and Evolution are roughly emphasized. Sometimes he is against some Islamic ideas also: he thinks that the law of Life is fate.

He is laying stress on individual immortality, and says that man never loses himself in God like a drop of water in the ocean, but he becomes a glow-worm in the light of a searchlight, and never loses his individuality.

He says that one who can develop his ego is a "perfect man" and can capture the whole universe.

"Whatever an ill man takes becomes illness, but if a perfect man takes infidelity, it becomes religion."

He says further:

"The hand of an imperfect man is the hand of a devil and demon, because he is in the trap of imposition and guile. If ignorance come to him, the perfect man, it becomes knowledge, but the knowledge that goes into the imperfect man becomes ignorance."

It was Voltaire perhaps who said that God created man according to his own shape, and man made God according to his own.

Roomi thinks that man has all divine powers but knows not how to use, and does not know how to develop them. He does not think like Bacon. "The world’s a bubble and the life of man less than a span." He thinks that man’s life is larger than the universe, and imperishable.

In one of his poems he talks about man’s superiority even to angels:

"The worship of Adam by the angels is clear evidence of his superiority. The husk always bows down and pays homage to the kernel."

Again, he says that the perfect man owes the same reverence which God claims:

"To Praise and glorify him, the perfect man, is to glorify God: the fruit (of divine attributes) is to grow out of the essential nature of this tree, the spirit of the perfect man.

Apples grow into these baskets in a fine variety. ’Tis Further he says about the weapons of a perfect man:

"The weapons of the witness (the perfect man) are a trenchant, veracious tongue, and a keen eye, whose nightly vigil no secret can elude. There are a thousand pretenders, false witnesses, who raise their heads; the judge turns his ear towards but this witness."

Nietzche and Roomi both want the progress of Man; they both desire the development of the ego; they like to have a man of divine powers, but there is a slight difference, namely, that Nietzche wants a superman, and Roomi a "perfect man."

Nietzche does not believe in God, and says that, if we do not cover the place of his display with dust, a superman cannot come into being, but Roomi as an egoist believed in God, because the ego of man is soul and its food is Love, Life and Practice…A nation has also its ego, and its food is History. The food of Humanity’s ego is "Universal Brotherhood" and the ego of the Universe is God....So, he believed in God. But he does not give to God that unthinking reverence which people generally give:

"Be a bold man under the niched battlements of His Grandeur’s castle....Hunt the angels and the prophet, and snatch away the God."

Roomi was not less surprisingly bold than Nietzche!

Nietzche’s philosophy has its roots in Evolution. He is the lover of the struggle of life. He thinks that cowardice of every kind, not trying to break the rules, bonds and customs, contentment, reliance, gentleness and admonition, are all the peculiarities of slavery. That is why he attacked Christianity and Buddhism. And he thinks that if a man cut the throats even that way to attain "supermanliness," then there is no harm.

By comparing Roomi and Nietzche, we should say that we appreciate Nietzche, but we are in love with Roomi, because he is so daring that he enters our private apartments without taking permission and leaves us in dancing joy.

The Divine Comedy of Dante and ‘Masnavi’ (the poetical works) of Roomi are two imperishable books, but the Divine Comedy is known only to adorn the book-shelves whereas ‘Masnavi’ is read daily as scripture in the Persian-knowing cities, because the style is magnificent and finally attracts even the dull and contrary-minded. Some of his lines are strikingly beautiful.

Since thou hast seen the revolution of the water-mill, come now and see also the water of the river.

Thou hast seen the dust rise into the air: come, see the wind that raised the dust.

Thou seest the kettles of thought boiling: look with intelligence on the fire too.

If the paintings cannot kindle your lamp from their flames, then it is useless to look at them.

If music cannot drag the buried memories from the sub-conscious into the conscious mind, then it is mere waste of time.

So, the Artist who does not know how to analyse life in his Art, who does not know how to teach people that delirium is not dreaming….his art is a guide towards meaninglessness.

And Roomi, who is a true artist, a prophet of life and one in continual search, gives flashes of his vigorous philosophy in every line of his.