“Man o To” Berlin-based artist “Nu” real name Fabian Lamar sings in Persian. The lyrics from Rumi’s poem, dedicated to his soul mate Shams-i Tabrizi. Despite appearing as two separate people (two forms), the couple shares a single, shared soul. The final line (“bi man o to” - without you and I) refers to transcending the ego to achieve a pure, spiritual union.
Feeling something in it long before I understood what it meant. The poem dissolves identity itself. Nation, religion, selfhood, even the distinction between body and soul collapse.
Later, I studied Kabbalah, and became interest in the parallels between Gnosticism and Sufism. Teachings, traditions separated by history and theology, yet rhyming in their pursuit of union with the divine.
Last year, I then came across The Forty Rules of Love (sidenote: 50% of my reading is actually made up of romance novels which I do not include in my book reviews list. That said, I loved this author and binged all of her beautifully writen novels!) which intertwines the relationship between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz with a modern parallel story. Spiritual transformation, sometimes arrives through another person.
That is what draws me to Rumi’s work.
His poetry treats love as a destructive force in the most beautiful sense. His work is about the ego being burned away by love. Not romantic love in the modern sense, but love as a metaphysical force: the thing that dissolves separation between self, God, nature, and other people.
Rumi gives language to the part of spirituality that cannot be reasoned into. The longing, the ache, the ecstatic sense that the self is not the final container of consciousness.
“My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”
“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”