I leafed through this wonderful conversation and enjoyed. I am tempted to print and read it deeply and take noes and prepare for a profound conversation. Rumi's spiritual teacher Shams of Tabriz said, "Science takes you to the door. It does not take you inside." That is true about religion too. Muslims who go to the House of Kaaba reach only the door. They do not pass through the door and get inside. Whoever enters that house has to put Islam and all other religions behind. You walk around the house only when you are outside. Inside the house there is no ritual, nothing to bow before and no building to walk around. Sooner or later this shell should be broken.
Rumi was an extraordinary mufti, something like a pope in the Islamic world when he met Shams of Tabriz, a wondering dervish nobody knew came from where. He then changed into the passionate poet whom we know today. After his encounter with Shams, he said, "I was sitting at my praying carpet with dignity and pride. You put me in the hands of the children on the streets like a toy."
Ali, you frame the spiritual quest so beautifully through the inspiration of Rumi. Religion can be a helpful school, a tutelage to shape our moral and social worldview, but it cannot be the ultimate source -- it can only point to it. To open that door and venture beyond, into the ultimate endless and conversation, would indeed leave the shell behind.
I leafed through this wonderful conversation and enjoyed. I am tempted to print and read it deeply and take noes and prepare for a profound conversation. Rumi's spiritual teacher Shams of Tabriz said, "Science takes you to the door. It does not take you inside." That is true about religion too. Muslims who go to the House of Kaaba reach only the door. They do not pass through the door and get inside. Whoever enters that house has to put Islam and all other religions behind. You walk around the house only when you are outside. Inside the house there is no ritual, nothing to bow before and no building to walk around. Sooner or later this shell should be broken.
Rumi was an extraordinary mufti, something like a pope in the Islamic world when he met Shams of Tabriz, a wondering dervish nobody knew came from where. He then changed into the passionate poet whom we know today. After his encounter with Shams, he said, "I was sitting at my praying carpet with dignity and pride. You put me in the hands of the children on the streets like a toy."
Ali, you frame the spiritual quest so beautifully through the inspiration of Rumi. Religion can be a helpful school, a tutelage to shape our moral and social worldview, but it cannot be the ultimate source -- it can only point to it. To open that door and venture beyond, into the ultimate endless and conversation, would indeed leave the shell behind.