What sort of a person is he who has always held in his hands what his heart has desired? If he is a king perhaps another Hitler. Who knows maybe such people devastate the world around them for only one or two things their hearts have desired. But this is not something which is going to happen in a book like Masnavi. One of the greatest beauties Masnavi's first story is that our king, although he is a king, is not able to procure the slave woman or rather her love and is conquered. Please note that in Rumi's mystical view one of the worst calamities that may happen to you is for you to see whatever your heart desires in your hands always. Indeed, it seems that if the king had managed to buy the slave woman's love the way he bought the woman herself this great masterpiece in the world's literature, this book of Masnavi, would not even have started.
Yes, it turns out in our story that the slave woman herself is in love with another man, but since she is not a king or a queen and can not buy the one whom she loves she becomes sick. And what sort of a person is he or she who is not able to fall sick I mean who is not able to fall in love. Saadi thinks such a person is a beast.
T on the way to an early morning class
1 comment:
Oh Ali, On page 43 of Wild Apples I have quoted Thoreau:
You may buy a servant or slave, in short, but you cannot buy a friend. You can't buy the finer part of any fruit--i.e.the highest use and enjoyment of it. You can't buy the pleasure whit it yields to him who truly plucks it; you can't buy a good appetite, even."
Even a King or rich man is kept from the richest enjoyments. We cannot make someone love us. Jesus said, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."
Sue
Post a Comment