Rumi is a poet. But he is also a significant spiritual teacher.
Rumi is an inspiration. He contributes to clearing up our confusion. He uses words to dress up events. He facilitates our understanding of issues pertaining to the heart, intellect, and soul. Due to his famous love affair with Shams Al-Tabrizi, I mistakenly believed that Rumi only wrote poetry about love before reading any of them. Along with writing flawless love poems, he also gave a moving speech on faith. He described love and detachment in such a spiritual way that I was completely taken aback. It’s challenging for me to single out one verse by Rumi as the best, but there is one that has a particularly strong impact on my spiritual development. I first discovered it in Coleman’s translation of Rumi’s poetry, The Essential Rumi.
The poem is called “A Great Wagon,” and the middle verse — my favorite — is below:
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”
doesn’t make any sense.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”
Three important concepts are highlighted in this verse: the understanding of the spiritual world, the investigation of non-judgment, and oneness. Some people undervalue or dismiss spirituality as a fad, but as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said: “We are not human beings experiencing a spiritual experience. We have a human perspective even though we are spiritual beings. In his poems, Rumi probed this truth. Not only do we exist in the metaphysical world, but we also are it. Since the dawn of time, our goal has been to see past our physical selves and recognise our true nature. Eight centuries before the widespread spiritual movement, Rumi wrote about it.
In addition, Rumi establishes a solid fact: black and white are artificial. We are aware of the good and evil, the true and false, the beautiful and the ugly. The grey area, which is devoid of conflicts, exists beneath the apparent black and white, but we are unable to see it. We have a propensity to judge the events that transpire in our lives. We categorise the things we dislike as “bad” and the things we enjoy as “good.” Our dualistic mind separates feelings, thoughts, and events, and we do so unconsciously. Our internal and external disputes are frequently caused by this mental division.
There is complete connectedness in this realm, which is free of categorization and judgement. When we realise our oneness with everything and everyone else, as he puts it, even the word “each other” will no longer make meaning. In our own minds, we believe that we are distinct from other people, animals, and environment. The reality is that we all come from the same energy. But without first letting go of judgments, we can never fully realise this oneness. A step towards achieving a higher realisation that knows no opposition is realising that all living things are a component of us.
Because of the way Rumi combines these concepts in this poetry, I adore it and identify with it. Before we can join the spiritual world and comprehend our “oneness,” we must first let go of judgements. Because of Rumi, whenever I catch myself making snap judgements or labels, I pause, make room in my mind, and recall to go to that field. I converge there, where I merge with everything and everyone. Because when I think of the universe as being separate, I only have room for myself.
Hi, I’m Garima and I write about life experiences. I have several books available on Amazon. Check them out today! Any purchases or KDP reads will be greatly appreciated. If you like my books, do leave a review. Here’s my author page on Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0BQDZXYNV
Be Inspired..!! 
Thank you, Garima! Great poem and great reminder: let go of judgments.
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Glad you liked the poem, Patrick. Rumi is a mentor. It is only when we let go of judgement that the power of gratitude opens the door to our heart and brings the awareness to see things exactly as they are.
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Reblogged this on Life Matters and commented:
During Poetry Month let’s remember one of the greatest poets, Rumi! Thank you Garima for your beautiful words below.
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Thank you Patrick.
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Thank you for this and introducing to me to pause and reflect before judging , and of course teaching me about Rumi, thank you, truly inspiring
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Most welcome. The awareness that we are judging something to appease ourselves or minimise another’s self-worth. Through an expanded awareness, we recognise our habituated thoughts patterns and are able to break the cycle. We move from the egoic need to judge something or someone and into our hearts where all possibilities exist.
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Yes so true , totally seeing things differently now, thank you for this
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Most welcome. Have a restful Sunday!
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Thank you for opening the drapes this morning
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Most welcome
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I see the wind shaking the birds from the pines
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Woah…
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We hear, “It’s not what you think”
It IS not what you think and it IS what you think in perfect harmony and timing. And…it is part of a larger composition. Both/and….
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A common unhelpful thought or cognitive distortion is called Catastrophising. Catastrophising occurs when you tend to believe that the worst possible outcome or explanation is the most likely. In other words, it’s the ability to make a mountain out of a molehill. Something which, on reflection, I seem to have a natural talent for.
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Ok. So ponder wh
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Perhaps there are people who have the opposite natural talent.
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Oh there are…plenty of such fishes
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It seems fish were not intended to forever be sea dwellers. Perhaps curiosity was transformed into intention in at least one
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Yes! I have always felt this way. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. The spiritual realm is not foreign it is what we are it is life. This physical world is the foreign place that we are temporarily experiencing.
Wonderful post!
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Thank you for taking time to read my post and leaving such a thoughtful message.
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Why use the word “foreign”?
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“Foreign” meaning not native to where we originate from and truly belong even though within the unconscious state this world is presently all most know and/or relate to.
Those who are spiritually awoke are more intune and drawn toward their nature of existence which is derived from the spirit realm.❤
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I love that poem. In Rumi’s poems, there’s so much beauty in the between
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Oh he is just wonderful!
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A certain gentleman who was very much in love with Princess Diana left the part of Rumi’s poem:
““Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” on his floral tribute, a bouquet of white lilies which he left with all the other floral tributes on the occasion of the Princess’ death in 1997.
I love this poem too. His words speak through the centuries and are as relevant now as they ever were. ❤️✍️🙂❌🦊
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Beautiful lines.
Across time, place and culture, Rumi’s poems articulate what it feels like to be alive and they help us understand our own search for love and the ecstatic in the coil of daily life is we compare Rumi’s work to Shakespeare’s for its “resonance and beauty”.
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Hey Garima ! That is Rumi Gate in Lucknow. Isn’t it ?
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It is!
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