http://www.pbphonehome.com/flesh.mp3

The King and the Handmaiden and the Doctor
Rumi

Do you know why our soul-mirror
does not reflect as clearly as it might?

Because rust has begun to cover it.
It needs to be cleaned.

Here's a story
about the inner state that's meant by soul-mirror.

In the old days there was a king
who was powerful in both his kingdoms,
the visible as well as the spiritual.

One day as he was riding on the hunt, he saw a girl
and was greatly taken with her beauty.

As was the custom,
he paid her family handsomely and asked that she come
to be a servant at the palace. He was in love with her.

The feelings trembled and flapped in his chest
like a bird newly put in a cage.

But as soon as she arrived, she fell ill.
The king was like the man who had a donkey,
but no saddle for the pack. Then he bought a saddle,
and wolves killed the donkey.

He had a water jar,
but no water. Then he found water, but the pitcher
fell and broke.

He brought his doctors together.
"You have both our lives in your hands. Her life
is my life. Whoever heals her will receive
the finest treasure I have, the coral inlaid
with pearls, anything!"

"We'll do what we can. Each of us
is the healing-savior of our regions. Surely
we can find a cure."

They neglected, in the pride
of their accomplishments, to say If God wills.
I don't mean that just the saying of the phrase
would have helped.

There was a coldness and a closed
quality beneath the omission. There are many
who don't say Inshallah, and yet their whole soul
resonates with it all the time!

So the doctors began,
and no matter what they tried, the girl got more pale
and thin. The effects of their medicines were
the opposite of what they expected.

Oxymel
produced bile. Almond oil caused dryness. Myrobalen,
instead of loosening the bowels, constricted them.
Water seemed to feed the fever.

The king saw
that his doctors were helpless. He ran barefooted
to the mosque. He knelt on the prayer rug
and soaked the point of it with his tears.

He dissolved into an annihilated state,
and as he came out of that, he spoke this prayer:
"You know what's hidden here. I don't know what to do.
You have said, 'Even though I know all secrets,
still declare it outwardly with an action.'"

He cried out loud for help, and the ocean of grace
surged over him. He slept in the midst
of his weeping on the prayer rug.

In his dream an old man appeared.

"Good king,
I have news. Tomorrow a stranger will come.
I have sent him. He is a physician you can trust.
Listen to him."

As dawn came, the king was sitting up
in the belvedere on his roof. He saw someone coming,
a person like the dawn. He ran to meet this guest.

Like two swimmers who love the water, their souls knit
together without being sewn, no seam.

The king said,
"You are my beloved, not the girl! But actions
spring from actions in this reality.
What should I do?"

We should always ask for discipline.
One who has no self-control cannot receive grace.

And it's not just himself he hurts. Undisciplined
people set fire to the landscape!

A table of food
was coming down from the sky to feed Moses
and his people, when suddenly voices from the crowd
called out, "Where's the garlic?"
and "We want lentils!"

At once the bread and the dishes
of grace-food disappeared. Everyone had to keep digging
with mattocks and cutting with long scythes.

Then Jesus interceded and sent more trays of food.
But again some insolent people showed no respect.
They grabbed like it wouldn't be enough,

even though Jesus
kept telling them, "This food will last.
It will always be here."

To be suspicious and greedy
when majesty arrives is the worst arrogance.
The gates closed.

Withhold your giving, and no
rain clouds will form. When sex goes on between
everybody all the time, epidemics spread
in every direction.

When you feel gloomed over,
it's your failure to praise. Irreverence
and no discipline rob your soul of light.

The king opened
his arms and held the saintly doctor to him. He kissed
his hand and his forehead and asked how his journey
had been, Many dear concerns for this one
who had been announced in his dream.
He led him to the head table.

"At last, I have found what patience can bring.
This one whose face answers any question, who simply
by looking can loosen the knot of intellectual discussion.

You translate what is inside us.
If you were to vanish, this vast meeting room
would shrink to a closet. Protect us."

They talked and ate a spirit meal. Then the king
took the doctor's hand and led him to where
the girl lay, telling him the story
of her illness.

The doctor felt her pulse
and observed her coloring and her urine, "Your healers
have not helped. They've made her worse.
They don't know the inner states."

The secret
of her pain opened to him, but he didn't tell the king
what it was. It was love, of course.


The ailments of love are different from any other.
Love is the astrolabe that sights into the mysteries
of God.


Earth-love, spirit-love, any love
looks into that yonder, and whatever I try to say
explaining love is embarrassing!

Some commentary
clarifies, but with love silence is clearer.
A pen went scribbling along, but when it tried
to write love, it broke.

If you want to expound on love,
take your intellect out and let it lie down
in the mud. It's no help.

You want proof that the sun exists, so you stay up
all night talking about it. Finally you sleep
as the sun comes up.

Look at it! Nothing
is so strange in this entire world as the sun.
The sun of the soul is even more so. It has no yesterday!
The physical sun is unique, but it's possible
to imagine something like it.

The spiritual sun
has nothing comparable, inner or outer.
Imagination cannot contain it. Word of that
sun, Shams, came,

and everything hid. Now Husam
touches my arm. He wants me to say more about Shams.

Not now, Husam. I don't know how to make words make
sense, or praise. In the Friend-place nothing true
can be said. Let me just be here.

But Husam begs,
"Feed me! Hurry! Time is a sharp downstroke. A sufi
is supposed to be a child of the moment. Aren't you
a sufi? Don't say tomorrow or later!"

And I reply,
"It's better that the way of the Friend be concealed
in a story. Let the mystery come through what
people say around the lovers, not from
what lovers say to each other."

"No! I want this
as naked and true as it can be. I don't wear a shirt
when I lie down with my beloved!"

"O Husam. If the Friend
came to you completely naked, your chest could not stand it.
You wouldn't be here in your body any longer. Ask
for what you want, but within some limits.

A little stick can't hold up a mountain.
If that inner sun by which existence exists
came even a little closer, everything
would be scorched. Don't ask for that.
Say no more for now about Shamsi Tabriz."

This has no end.
Go back to the beginning,

the end of the story
of the king and the lovesick maiden
and the holy doctor, who said,

"Leave me alone with the girl."
It was done, and quietly he began.

"Where are you from?
Who are your relatives there? Who else are you close
to in that region?"

On and on he gently asked
about her life. When someone steps barefooted on a thorn,
he immediately puts his foot on his knee and searches
with a needle, and when he can't locate the tip,
he moistens around the place with moisture
from his lips. A splinter is often
difficult to get out.

How much more difficult a thorn
in the heart! If everyone could find that thorn
in themselves, things would be
much more peaceful here!

Someone puts a clump of burrs
under a donkey's tail. The donkey doesn't know
what's wrong. He just starts jumping
and bucking around.

An intelligent, thorn-removing
doctor must come and investigate.

So the divine physician
asked about her friends and held her hand
to feel the pulse.

She told many stories of her home,
mentioning many names, and he would say the names again
after her to test the pulse reaction.

Finally he asked,
"When you visit other towns, where are you most likely to go?"
She said one town, then another, where she bought bread
and where salt, describing the houses,

until he happened
to say the word Samarcand!

The dear city sweet as candy.
She blushed. Her breath caught. O she loves
a goldsmith in Samarcand! She misses him so.

"Where exactly
does he live?"

"At the head of the bridge on Ghatafar Street."
"Now I can heal you. Don't be afraid. I will do to you
what rain does to a meadow. But don't tell this
to anyone, certainly not the king.

When the love center
in your chest becomes the grave for such a secret,
then what you want will be quickly yours."

Seeds must hide
in the ground to become whatever is in them.
The girl felt better. She trusted him.

The doctor
went to the king and told him part of the story.

"On some pretext
we must bring here from Samarcand a certain goldsmith.
Lure him with the prospect of wealth and honors."

The king's messengers went with robes and coins
and easily persuaded the man to leave
his family and his town.

He rode an Arabian horse
into the presence of the king and the doctor,
who said,

"Marry the girl to this man,
and she will be completely cured."

It was done,
and for six months those two loved and made love
and totally satisfied themselves with each other.
The girl was restored to perfect health.

Then the physician gave the goldsmith a potion,
so that he began to sicken.

His handsomeness faded,
and his strength dwindled. Little by little he became
sunken-cheeked and jaundiced and ugly,

and the girl stopped
loving him. Any love based on physical beauty
is not love.

"This world is a mountain. What we do
is a shout. The echo comes back to us."

The goldsmith said
that and died. Choose to love the one
who does not die.

Don't say, "But how can we do that?"
The generous one is not hard to find.

But what about
the doctor's poisoning the poor goldsmith! It was not done
for the king's sake. The reason is a mystery
like Khidr's cutting the boy's throat.

Everything
the doctor did was out of God's will. Khidr
sunk the boat, yet it was right to do.

When someone
is killed by a doctor like this one, it's a blessing,
even though it might not seem so.

A child cries
at its first haircut, but not the mother. Such a doctor
is part of a larger generosity. He takes away one
and gives back a hundred.

Don't judge his actions
by what you would do. You are not living
completely within truth as he is.

BSK3601 said:

I Love U 2 BK... even if you are a little tired...you still manage to clue me in.