Rumi...

The animals reveal, again, Rumi's grounded compassion, how meshed with the texture of living he is, as the wonderful Letters at the end of this volume also show. His deep surrender is one with a sure grasp of the practical and the daily. The edge of the wheel that touches the ground here, presses firmly into it. I don't mean to imply that he observes behavior like an experimental biologist, but he does watch closely, and always on the verge of laughter - the dog and the rooster, the mouse and the frog, and even the dream-puppies that bark inside the womb ( p. 41). What could they be barking about? To keep watch? To start game? Or do they want to be fed? The embryo pups have none of those reasons, so he concludes they're like people who talk about something before they have the actual experience, who make idle talk on spiritual matters. "Still blind, they act as though they see." Rumi is tough on hypocrisy, and very complex in his treatment of the nafs. Perhaps the best image of how the animal-soul energies should be controlled is that of Jesus on the spindly donkey (p. 65), Jesus being the clear, rational soul and the donkey the nafs-ammara, or animal-soul.

Consider the characteristics of the donkey: It's transportation for the poor. It can carry large loads up a narrow path. It has a modest, steadfast, calm nature. Of even energy, patient, surefooted, not easily spooked. Not noble, not splendid, not high-strung, not used for war, and generally unimpressed with human authority, the donkey is more known for what it is not, than for what it is. The thin donkey gives many clues for the uses of controlled energy.

Don't feed both sides of yourself equally.
The spirit and the body carry different loads
and require different attentions.
Too often
we put saddle bags on Jesus and let the donkey
run loose in the pasture.
Don't make the body do
what the Spirit does best, and don't put a big load
on the Spirit that the body could carry easily. (pp.71-2)

The snake, or the dragon, is Rumi's symbol for the nafs when they're frighteningly out of control. See "The Snake-Catcher and the Frozen Snake" (p. 67) as well as the snake-swallowing episode of "Jesus on the Lean Donkey" (p. 65).

Hazrat Inayat Khan, who brought Sufism to the West in this century , has this to say abut Rumi and the animal-soul energy, or as he calls it, the false ego.

Rumi says your worst enemy is hiding within yourself, and that enemy is your nafs or false ego. It is very difficult to explain the meaning of this "false ego." The best I can do is to say that every inclination which springs from disregard of love, harmony, and beauty and which is concerned with oneself and unconcerned with all others is the false ego.

This enemy, Rumi says, develops. The more it is fed, the stronger it becomes to fight with you; and the stronger it becomes, the more it dominates your better self. There comes a day when man is the slave of this enemy which is hidden within himself. The worst position is to have an enemy which one does not know. It is better to have a thousand known enemies before one than to have one within one and not to know it.

There are many meanings ascribed to the custom of sages in India to have snakes around their necks. One of those meanings is: "I have got it. It is still living, but now I know that it is there, and it is my ornament." What does this enemy breathe? This enemy breathes "I." Its breath is always calling out, "I, separate from you, separate from others, separate from everybody. My interest is mine; it has nothing to do with others. The interest of others is others' interest; it is not mine. I am a separate being."

Remember that no man is without it. If man was without it, he would never have said "I," because it is this enemy within him which is saying "I." The day this enemy is found and erased, or shed and crucified, that day the real "I" is found. But this "I" is a different "I." This "I" means you and I and everybody; it is an all "I."


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