The Mathnawi of Rumi Volume 2

Rumi made painstaking efforts to convey his teachings as clearly and effectively as possible, using simple language, the masnavi verse form, entertaining stories, and the most vivid and accessible imagery possible. The aim of the present translation is to render Rumi’s Masnavi into a relatively simple and attractive form which, with the benefit of metre and rhyme, may enable as many readers as possible to read the whole book with pleasure and to find it rewarding.

Prose Introduction

‘Teach me God’s Greatest Name,* my friend,’ he said,

‘With which you’re able to revive the dead,

So I can do some good to these poor bones,

And grant them life though now they’re like mere stones.’

Jesus said, ‘Shut your mouth! That’s out of reach: 145

It’s not designed for your lips or your speech.

It needs breath purer than the rain and light,

And action finer than an angel’s flight—

It may take longer than a century
To make you fit for heaven’s treasury.

If you should grasp this rod now, understand,

Your hand is not like Moses’s pure hand.’

- RumiHere is the reason for the postponement of this second volume: if all divine wisdom should be made known to the slave at once, the benefits in it would leave him unable to act, and the infinite wisdom of God would obliterate his
comprehension. He would not be able to cope. This is why God makes a little of that infinite wisdom into a toggle which can be put into his nostrils, to lead him like a camel towards the necessary action. If He were not to inform him of those benefits, he would not move at all, because knowledge of the gain to be made is what motivates human beings, who say, ‘For the sake of this I will do what is right.’ If He should pour infinite wisdom down on him, the slave would be unable to move, just as a camel will not walk unless a toggle is put into its nose of an appropriate size—if the toggle is too big it will just slump down: ‘There is nothing, the storehouse of which is not with Us. And We only send it down in a fixed measure.’ * Without water, clay cannot be made into a brick, nor can it become a brick if the water is excessive. ‘He has raised the sky and He has set up the scales.’ * He gives everything in the right proportion, not without measurement and calculation, apart from to those people who have been transformed from their physical forms, becoming the ones referred to when He says, ‘He provides without calculation for whomsoever He chooses.’ * Whoever hasn’t tasted will not yet be aware. Someone asked, ‘What is a lover?’ I answered, ‘You will know when you become like us.’ True love cannot be measured, which is why it is said to be an attribute of God in reality, and applicable to the slave only metaphorically. ‘He loves them’—this is the totality; ‘and they love Him’*–do ‘they’ exist though in reality?

Source: Section from 'The Mathnawi of Rumi Volume 2' - Available for download once logged in