Stillness Speaks Book Previews

Purity: Why Saints Love Everyone? The Rumi Collection Helminski

by Sanjiv Manifest | Nov 8, 2024

Purity: “… Love everybody so that you may always stay among the flowers of the garden …” ~ Rumi

Speaking well of others simply returns to us (some even claim it’s multiplied upon return) …

This well known snippet of wisdom is a great practice at any time in our lives … but as we know from most, if not all, traditions that the only time that matters is now … and turns out there is another reason because sadly we are living in a time of increasing division and hate. One would think that by now humanity may have learned the value and power of this sentiment … but alas …

So … today, we want to offer a deeper glimpse into this wonderful sentiment … as a reminder … so we can hopefully embody it in all of our interactions … thereby dissolving hate … dissolving division … as His Holiness The Dalai Lama says: “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

And, this glimpse is via Rumi, who was universally respected and admired across religions and cultures … and whose wisdom – through his wondrous and profound poetry – continues to endure and thankfully spread more and more …

In Rumi’s “world” the above sentiment could be termed purity (as translated in English) … which is one of the 71 topics he speaks of in his most famous prose work fihi ma fihi or it is what it is ….

These topics are about everyday life matters such as … purity (discourse #15), mercy( #17), working with our humanness (#4), and the inner work (#38) … and so on …

“… Fihi Ma Fihi can be considered as a right introduction to Mathnavi. Fihi Ma Fihi provides explanations and keys to unlock the meaning of the Mathnavi. Rumi’s most famous work …” ~ A J Arberry (translator of the 71 discourses: Discourses of Rumi : Fihi Ma Fihi)

The Mathnavi, of course, is Rumi’s six volumes of mystical poetry capturing his utterings underscoring that the “Divine is everywhere” …

In this post we take a mini dive into purity … via Kabir Helminski’s anthology The Rumi Collection … which offers his own translations of some of these discourses and Rumi’s poems PLUS “… contributions from numerous leading {Rumi} translators—including Robert Bly, Coleman Barks, Camille Helminski, Andrew Harvey, and many other esteemed expositors of the Sufi tradition …”

In Helminski’s book the discourses (especially their name) have been “… modified stylistically for the purposes of {the} book …” …

This post is also the conclusion of our 3-part series previewing The Rumi Collection via chapter excerpts … with this, part 3, providing excerpts from the chapter Purity …

… in Part 1 we shared a poem – The Net of Gratitude (translated by Kabir & Camille Helminski) – excerpted from the section The Gift and the Giver …

… Part 2 offered the poem The Three States (translated by Andrew Harvey) from the section The Passion for God …

For additional background and context, we highly recommend you read Andrew Harvey’s Introduction via the look inside link on Shambhala Publications book summary page.

This series is part of our ongoing Shambhala Publications series that offers substantive previews of selections from Shambhala Publications new and classic titles …

All italicized text here is adapted from The Rumi Collection An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, © 1998 by Kabir Helminski. This post is about the 2023 edition. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. Shambhala Publications has also generously offered a free downloadable PDF of the Table of Contents (link is at the bottom of the post).

You can purchase the book at Shambhala Publications or Amazon.

Purity: Fihi Ma Fihi (It Is What It Is)

If you speak well of another, the good will return to you. The good and praise you speak of another you speak in reality of yourself. A parallel would be when someone plants a garden and herb bed around his house. Every time he looks out he sees flowers and herbs. If you accustom yourself to speak well of others, you are always in a “paradise.” When you do a good deed for someone else you become a friend to him, and whenever he thinks of you he will think of you as a friend—and thinking of a friend is as restful as a flower garden. When you speak ill of someone else, you become detestable in his sight so that when ever he thinks of you he will imagine a snake or a scorpion, or thorns and thistles. Now, if you can look at the flowers in a garden day and night, why would you wander in a briar patch or a snake pit? Love everybody so that you may always stay among the flowers of the garden. If you hate everybody and imagine enemies everywhere, it would be like wandering day and night in a briar patch or snake pit.

The saints love everybody and see everything as good, not for anyone else’s sake but for their own, lest a hateful, detestable image come into their view. Since there is no choice in this world but to think of people, the saints have striven to think. of everybody as a friend so that hatred may not mar their way.

So, everything you do with regard to people and every mention you make of them, good or evil, will all return to you. Hence God says, “He who doth right, doth it to the advantage of his own soul; and he who doth evil, doth it against the same” [41:46], and “Whoever shall have wrought evil of the weight of an ant, shall behold the same” [99:8].

[…]

Here’s more on Purity via Rumi’s quatrains …

Quatrains from Open Secret

Take someone who doesn’t keep score,
who’s not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing,
who has not the slightest interest even
in his own personality: he’s free.

[…]

Inside the Great Mystery that is,
we don’t really own anything.
What is this competition we feel then,
before we go, one at a time, through the same gate?

Translated by John Moyne and Coleman Barks

[…]

Stay tuned for … more from other luminaries in this Shambhala Publications series …

All italicized text here is adapted from The Rumi Collection An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, © 1998 by Kabir Helminski. This post is about the 2023 edition. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. Shambhala Publications has also generously offered a free downloadable PDF of the Table of Contents (link is at the bottom of the post).

You can purchase the book at Shambhala Publications or Amazon.

And, click here for the free, downloadable PDF of the Table of Contents.