Speech as the Shadow of What It Serves
If a visitor is drawn to a teacher before a word is spoken, what are words for? The talks answer that speech points past itself, and only matters for where it points.
The first talk answers a visitor's complaint that the master says nothing: the man was drawn there before a word was spoken, Rumi replies, so speech is only the shadow of what it serves. The claim reaches his own art. He told his listeners he could not stand poetry and recited verse only so they would not grow bored, as a host plunges his hands into tripe because his guest likes it. Words, on this account, are an accommodation to the listener, needed because people need them, and never the thing itself.
- language
- teaching
- interpretation
- knowledge
- epistemology
- spiritual knowledge
- revelation
- prophecy
- appearance and reality
- spiritual perception
- spiritual guidance
Enter a dialogue
- If words only point past themselves, why did you talk at such length to everyone who came to you in Konya?
- A seeker goes on reading and listening, yet whatever first drew them to the search has gone quiet. Where should they look for it?
- A host handles tripe because his guest likes it, you said, and you recite poetry likewise. Is a teacher's art only a courtesy to his audience?
- Rubbed amber draws straw to itself without a word. Why can no number of miracles move someone who has nothing in common with the saint?
- A king who knows no Arabic nods in the right places at a poet's Arabic ode. What did he understand that words could not tell him?