Rumi says, “Inside the Kaaba, there is no Hajj ritual.” Millions of Muslims worldwide face the Kaaba within the city of Mecca five times each day to perform their daily prayers. Once a year, they perform the Hajj ceremony by circumambulating this holy house. In a line of poetry from his book of mystical stories, the Masnavi, Rumi appears to pose an intriguing question to these Muslims: “which way will you face to perform your prayers once you are inside the house?” The answer is that within the house, you are enveloped by truth on all sides. You can then pray facing any direction you choose. This suggests that truth cannot be confined to a single religion, ceremony, ritual, or direction. It is omnipresent. In the city of Bastam in eastern Iran, a mystic tour leader shared that the great Persian mystic Bayazid Bastami performed his daily prayers facing all directions. Shams, Rumi's spiritual teacher, said that if you remove the Kaaba from the midst of all the Muslims prostrating before it, you will see that people are prostrating to each other's hearts in every direction.
Ali, you provide a very illuminating example here. Rumi always offers an insight that breaks through collective human habits and lifts our earthly, insecure nature beyond fear. Perhaps we need to spend time as limited, unsocialized human beings in the tutelage of groups, tribes, religions, and parties until we can reach higher and deeper into the larger eternal secret. Until we can grow to the universal.
Rumi says, “Inside the Kaaba, there is no Hajj ritual.” Millions of Muslims worldwide face the Kaaba within the city of Mecca five times each day to perform their daily prayers. Once a year, they perform the Hajj ceremony by circumambulating this holy house. In a line of poetry from his book of mystical stories, the Masnavi, Rumi appears to pose an intriguing question to these Muslims: “which way will you face to perform your prayers once you are inside the house?” The answer is that within the house, you are enveloped by truth on all sides. You can then pray facing any direction you choose. This suggests that truth cannot be confined to a single religion, ceremony, ritual, or direction. It is omnipresent. In the city of Bastam in eastern Iran, a mystic tour leader shared that the great Persian mystic Bayazid Bastami performed his daily prayers facing all directions. Shams, Rumi's spiritual teacher, said that if you remove the Kaaba from the midst of all the Muslims prostrating before it, you will see that people are prostrating to each other's hearts in every direction.
Ali, you provide a very illuminating example here. Rumi always offers an insight that breaks through collective human habits and lifts our earthly, insecure nature beyond fear. Perhaps we need to spend time as limited, unsocialized human beings in the tutelage of groups, tribes, religions, and parties until we can reach higher and deeper into the larger eternal secret. Until we can grow to the universal.
Ali, this comment is so insightful that it could be expanded into an essay or article.