At the Still Point…
by Peter Young
‘Rather Rumi’s task has been the transformation of a perspective founded irrevocably upon the Unity of Existence into a form capable of being received anywhere by anyone who has a heart and spiritual intelligence.’
Earth revolves around the sun, the moon around the Earth, while Earth turns upon her own axis. From the greatest sun to the smallest speck all things are turning in celebration of their Origin. They are from Love and they dance for Love, and their dancing for Love is their return to Love. Rumi, who had realised Love and so become one with Love, said:
“He who does not dance for the Friend has no friend”.
If the Earth had no axis to turn upon there would be no day or night. If the world of humankind had no axis there could be no humankind. The heart of mankind here in the world is a single person, one of the perfect saints who are friends of the Friend. He is the centre of the wheel and is known as the Pole of the Time, and all temporal and spiritual affairs of the world are in his hands.
“At the still point of the turning world,
There the dance is… and there is only the dance.” (T.S.Elliot)
Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi is at the still point of the turning of our present world. Despite the fact that his bodily existence came to an end in 1273, his essential reality is permanent and continues to be active as an extension of spiritual help from the Presence of All Help. Unlike the Pole of the Time, who is a living person in the world, Rumi’s place may be thought of rather as the axial point of the present era. His responsibility as such is the turning of the overall spirituality of mankind in the direction that of necessity it must take. Thus he oversees a greater span than his own human lifetime. Perhaps, even, his influence is more prevalent since his death, with the approach of that time for which he was preparing during his lifetime.
Rumi is a Pole of this kind, and his task has been to take that which had been brought out from the Interior and established here in the world by the Greatest Shaykh, Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi (1165-1240) and to “turn it into universal flow and effect” (Bulent Rauf). We do not mean here the transmission and dissemination of the work of Ibn ‘Arabi, which was the task of his direct heir, Sadruddin Konevi. Rather Rumi’s task has been the transformation of a perspective founded irrevocably upon the Unity of Existence into a form capable of being received anywhere by anyone who has a heart and spiritual intelligence. This work has been in progress below the surface for the hundreds of years since Rumi’s lifetime. Today we are witnessing the beginnings of its outward effects, not least in the widespread appreciation of Rumi’s spiritual perspective and availability of his poetry. His current standing as America’s favourite poet cannot have come about except through the interior necessities of our time, guided and navigated by the extension of spiritual help that is Rumi himself.
Rumi tells of the universal reality of Love. The Love of which he speaks, - and which, made flesh, he was, - this Love acknowledges no racial or religious distinctions or distance. During his own lifetime he was beloved and revered by followers of all the different religions who had flocked to the Selçuk capital, Konya. Christians in particular saw in his humility and poverty, and in his breadth of scope and teaching a Christ-like spirituality. After his death thousands from the Christian and Jewish communities came to his funeral to pay their respects. And when asked why they had come they said, “We came because he helped us to understand our religion better”.
Rumi’s language of Love crosses all boundaries with insouciance. This is because the Reality of Love is both above all things and present within all things, and so for Love what limits could there be? Love is not in opposition to anything; rather it is Love that holds everything together.
Rumi’s well-known invitation, issued from the still-pointed centre of Love to the whole of humanity is to be taken absolutely literally, now more than ever before:
Come, come, whoever you are,
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving,
Even if you have broken your vow a thousand times,
It doesn’t matter!
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, come, yet again come.”
Who are these people to whom he calls? All who will respond! All who can say in their hearts, like Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi, “I follow the religion of Love. That is my religion and my faith”. All who select themselves by responding to this universal invitation, these are Rumi’s people, because they have declared themselves for the all-pervading, all-embracing Reality of Love. By responding to the invitation they leave behind their self-definition by religions and race, and step into the arena of Oneness and the One Universal Spirit. This is the direction that is opened up for all of mankind, the direction that we now must take, and Rumi shows the way.
