Shakespeare, a devotee once wrote, has
had neither equal nor second.
Don't tell that to lovers of
Mevlana Jelalludin Rumi.
The 13th century Sufi writer of ecstatic
love poetry has been dubbed "the
Shakespeare of mystics" and "the Shakespeare of the soul."
More
than any other poet in any other religious tradition, Rumi saw
the unseeable and expressed the inexpressible. He found the sublime
in everything — in song, in dance, in nature and in friendship.
At a time when God was either King or
Avenger, he dared to speak of the divine as pure love. Rumi's
God was "the Beloved."
his works are said to have outsold those
of Shakespeare. Books like The Essential Rumi and The Illuminated Rumi by
American translator Coleman Barks have sold more than 500,000
copies.
Rumi's verse has even been called the "Persian Qur'an." Time magazine,
in its Dec. 31, 1999 issue, crowned him "Mystic of the Century."
Anyone
who's read him may know the feeling of being transported to a
place of wonderment, of getting lost in the trance-like swirl
experienced by "whirling dervishes" — members of the Mevlevi Sufi
order founded by Rumi's followers and which continues today.
A dreamy new film about one woman's spiritual
odyssey comes close to capturing the feeling.
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic,
by Torontonians Tina Petrova and Stephen Roloff, was inspired
by something no one would consider very inspirational: a near-fatal
car accident.
It happened Dec. 21, 1997, when Petrova,
born a Roman Catholic, was driving to a Buddhist monastery
deep in California's Mohave desert, and plunged off a small
cliff. That was after a mysterious hitchhiker she had dropped
off warned: "Don't drive off the cliff today."
Petrova,
a retired actor and now a filmmaker, didn't know
it at the time but it was the beginning of a journey that would
change her life. She had driven off the metaphorical cliff
all right — and
straight into the pillow of Rumi's lap.
Back in Toronto a year
later, "broken and humbled," still in a rib brace and unable to
work, she prayed a novena to the Virgin Mary for guidance. That
night, her plea was answered by a vision of a robed figure she
recognized as Rumi.
As Petrova puts it in the film: "A Muslim mystic
appearing to a Tibetan Buddhist answering a plea to the Virgin
Mary ... welcome to my life."
Inspired, she organized the Rumi
Festival of Peace in Toronto in 1999, bringing together Barks,
a diverse group of dervishes, musicians and actors. It was just
the start of a mission that could well have been fired by Rumi's
words: "Sometimes in order to help, He makes us cry."
The film
follows Petrova on a pilgrimage-like journey of recovery as she
seeks out others dedicated to following Rumi's path "in word and
action." Appearances are made by Barks; Shaikh Kabir Helminski,
the western representative of Rumi's Mevlevi order who leads
a group of dervishes in California; author Andrew Harvey; and
architect Nader Khalili, whose innovative designs are inspired
by the Persian mystic.
Born in 1207 AD in what is today Afghanistan,
Rumi's family fled Mongol invasions and settled in present-day
Turkey. Rumi was a scholar of traditional Islam and its mystical
branch, Sufism, and taught at his father's religious school until
a meeting with a dervish named Shams of Tabriz changed his life,
and the course of mysticism.
Upon hearing that the wild monk
Shams had been murdered, Rumi, the story goes, began whirling
in grief, verses of ecstatic poetry pouring from him so fluidly
that scribes could barely keep up committing them to paper.
He
spent the rest of his life addressing his love for God and love
for absent friends as two sides of the same coin. His best-known
works are the Divan i Shams,
comprising about 3,500 poems, and his magnum opus, Mathnawi,
a work of 35,000 lines in six books that is considered today
a classic of Middle Eastern literature, held with a reverence
not far below the Qur'an.
In the West, Rumi's work is getting
wider play. A 1998 tribute CD released by New Age health guru
Deepak Chopra featured spoken word and music performances by
Madonna, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, and the late civil rights
icon Rosa Parks. Director Oliver Stone is said to be developing
a full-length Hollywood treatment on his life.
Why does Rumi's
voice echo after 700 years? Some point to his interfaith approach: "I am not Christian or Jew,
not Hindu, Buddhist or Zen," he wrote. "I'm not from the East
or West. I belong to the Beloved."
Or as Harvey, the author, puts
it, Rumi's embrace of all paths to God speaks to us "at the moment
when the human race needs that inspiration like oxygen ... (it's)
a midwifing voice in an apocalyptic time."
Despite his broad view,
Rumi was "very much a Muslim writer. To him, Muhammad was the perfect
man," says Maria Subtelny, a scholar of classical Persian literature
at the University of Toronto. Even so, "there is a universalism
there and if his writings inspire people who can derive spirituality
from it, that's testament to his genius."
Subtelny isn't the first
scholar or fan to believe God spoke to Rumi directly. "There's
no question in my mind that he was divinely inspired," she says.
Petrova needs no convincing.
"He
had a direct connection with God.This
man was on first-name terms with God."
A reporter can
barely get the question out — Why did she make the film? — before
Petrova launches into a 15-minute outpouring that is, well, poetic.
Following her vision, "I really had no choice. The mystical dream
I had, the vision, the building force of the love of Rumi coming
through me ... it almost knocked the wind out of me. I was propelled
forward on this journey and certainly there were times I felt I
was drowning."
She isn't counselling anyone to run out
and become a Sufi. "I just wish for people to heal their woundedness." Neither
is she ready to say that she's healed. "I'm saying that the journey
has been painful. It's been excruciating but it's also been uplifting
and blissful. I wish everyone on the planet could taste one sip
from the wellspring of love I have been graced with."
She quotes
a Rumi verse from memory: "Those tender words we said are stored
in the heart of heaven and one day, like the rain, the whole world
will grow green with their love."
Petrova believes that day is
today. "I think Rumi's words offer a profound ray of hope for humanity.
There's something about his poetry that cuts right to the centre
of the human heart. His writing speaks of loss and longing and
separation and love and union and bliss — the whole gamut
of the metaphysical journey home to God, and indeed is a roadmap
home to the Beloved."
Today, literally, is special for another
reason.
All over the Muslim world, Dec. 17 is
auspicious: It's Rumi's "Wedding Day," the day he met his Beloved and lifted the
final veil, or the day of his death in 1273. Petrova has helped
brainstorm the event into World Rumi Day, which she envisions
as an annual tradition.
Rumi — Turning Ecstatic airs
on Vision TV, a partner in the film, on Jan. 18 at 10 p.m. For
a list of local venues screening the film today, see http://www.rumi-turningecstatic.com.
