بخش 75

Shams

KONYA, JUNE 1246

By and large, the narrow-minded say that dancing is sacrilege. They think God gave us music—not only the music we make with our voices and instruments but the music underlying all forms of life, and then He forbade our listening to it. Don’t they see that all nature is singing? Everything in this universe moves with a rhythm—the pumping of the heart, the flaps of a bird’s wings, the wind on a stormy night, a blacksmith working iron, or the sounds an unborn baby is surrounded with inside the womb.… Everything partakes, passionately and spontaneously, in one magnificent melody. The dance of the whirling dervishes is a link in that perpetual chain. Just as a drop of seawater carries within it the entire ocean, our dance both reflects and shrouds the secrets of the cosmos.

Hours before the performance, Rumi and I retreated into a quiet room to meditate. The six dervishes who were going to whirl in the evening joined us. Together we performed our ablutions and prayed. Then we donned our costumes. Earlier we had talked at great length about what the proper attire should be and had chosen simple fabric and colors of the earth. The honey-colored hat symbolized the tombstone, the long white skirt the shroud, and the black cloak the grave. Our dance projected how Sufis discard the entire Self, like shedding a piece of old skin.

Before leaving the hall for the stage, Rumi recited a poem:

“The gnostic has escaped from the five senses

And the six directions and makes you aware of what is beyond them.”

With those feelings we were ready. First came the sound of the ney. Then Rumi entered the stage in his capacity as semazenbashi. One by one, the dervishes followed him, their heads bowed in modesty. The last to appear had to be the sheikh. As firmly as I resisted the suggestion, Rumi insisted on my performing that part tonight.

The hafiz chanted a verse from the Qur’an: There are certainly Signs on earth for people with certainty; and in yourselves as well. Do you not see?

Then started the kudüm accompanying the piercing sound of ney and rebab.

Listen to the reed and the tale it tells,

how it sings of separation:

Ever since they cut me from the reed bed,

my wail has caused men and women to weep.

Giving himself over to the hands of God, the first dervish started to whirl, the hems of his skirts gently swishing with a separate life of their own. We all joined in and whirled until there remained around us nothing but Oneness. Whatever we received from the skies, we passed on to the earth, from God to people. Each and every one of us became a link connecting the Lover to the Beloved. When the music ceased, we jointly bowed to the essential forces of the universe: fire, wind, earth, and water, and the fifth element, the void.

I don’t regret what transpired between me and Kaykhusraw at the end of the performance. But I am sorry for putting Rumi in a difficult position. As a man who has always enjoyed privilege and protection, he has never before felt estranged from a ruler. Now he has at least a smattering of insight into something that average people experience all the time—the deep, vast rift between the ruling elite and the masses.

And with that, I suppose I am nearing the end of my time in Konya.

Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.

With the initiation of poetry, music, and dance, a huge part of Rumi’s transformation is complete. Once a rigid scholar who disliked poetry and a preacher who enjoyed the sound of his own voice as he lectured others, Rumi is now turning into a poet himself, becoming the voice of pure emptiness, though he might not have realized this fully yet. As for me, I, too, have changed and am changing. I am moving from being into nothingness. From one season to another, one stage to the next, from life to death.

Our friendship was a blessing, a gift from God. We thrived, rejoiced, bloomed, and basked in each other’s company, savoring absolute fullness and felicity.

I remembered what Baba Zaman once told me. For the silk to prosper, the silkworm had to die. Sitting there all alone in the whirling hall after everyone had left and the hubbub had died away, I knew that my time with Rumi was coming to an end. Through our companionship Rumi and I had experienced an exceptional beauty and learned what it was like to encounter infinity through two mirrors reflecting each other endlessly. But the old maxim still applies: Where there is love, there is bound to be heartache.