Day 4: The Elegance of the Ermine

Hello readers & contributors,

A lot of the posts going forward are going to be collaborations between my spiritually bright Friend, Mahesh Gandhi and myself. For this one, especially, I drew upon his wisdom and his ability to communicate with simplicity and alacrity. Thanks, Mahesh!

The Elegance of the Ermine

Midnight, and a messenger comes from a prayer niche,

someone as quiet as moonlight,

yet with a torch that burns our sleeping.    ........................ 1

A king knocks on the doorkeeper's door

and laughing, leads everyone out to a table.

Our lips tremble at the cup, with the same trembling

as a drop of mercury.

The gentleness of the host is the same

as that that made the elegance of the ermine. ...................2

The dry and wet of a love affair,

those tears are identical to the taking in

and giving away of a waterwheel's turning. ........................3

The keys that open all gates

are strapped to love's chest. ..............................................4

When a bird is completely broken and still,

it gets removed from the snare. .........................................5

This list of rude likenesses

does not come near saying

what happens in our lives. .................................................6

For those of you who are keen to understand this with your head leading you to your heart, please see the commentary below. Follow the numbering of verse and comments to relate them to each other. The numbers are at the end of each verse / section. ENJOY!

1.

We're all sleeping. Well, most of us anyway. But, this isn't the sleeping of the body, it's of our being. Rumi says that when one becomes quiet and still (at midnight), the process of deep introspection and the perspective shift that happens as a result (the messenger, the torch) awakens us.

2.

In such an awakened state, we're able to see why we're here, where our potential for growth lies and this is exciting (trembling lips). But, the gentleness of the awakening process is subtle and like the elegance of the ermine.

3.

The love affair that man [in the Sufi sense] has for God is akin to the alternating cycles of parched land and fertile, wet soil. Sometimes he's bathed, drenched in that Love and sometimes he becomes too immersed in himself...when his heart is parched, he immerses himself in his Beloved once again. 

4.

The heart (emotion, feeling, intuition) holds the key that make this Love for the Supreme possible. The keys are not in our heads.

5.

When our sense of separateness (our ego) is overcome, we are free from the the trap of us versus them, I versus you and we begin to see the commonality at the core of all of our individual experiences.

6.

However, even the great, enlightened Rumi humbly admits that this list of metaphors is crude and arrogant (refer 'rude') and does not come close to what happens during the process of awakening in our lives.

Loved it, now.