According to Rabbi Abraham Heschel, moments occur in every life “when there is a lifting of the veil.” The trick is to recognize this lifting and grasp its rarity and importance. While such recognition can be the product of readiness, it can also result from the occasion’s sheer impact.
Author Michael Lipson says “there is nothing whatsoever for us unless we notice it, cognize it, make our preliminary guess about it. This is as true of a pencil as of an archangel: we perceive only what we can perceive, and it means only what we allow it to mean. It’s not that there ‘is nothing really there’; it’s just that what is there for us depends on our perception.”
The Irish poet, philosopher, Catholic priest and scholar John O’Donohue tells an African story he learned from the American poet Robert Bly. When a farmer investigates why his cows are giving less milk, he discovers that a beautiful woman who comes down from the stars is taking it because she and her sisters love it so. He asks her to marry him; she agrees on the condition he never look in the basket she carries; he agrees. But six months later, figuring that the basket belongs to him because he’s married to her, he does look. He discovers that the basket appears empty, and he starts to sing and dance, saying, “There’s nothing in the basket, there’s absolutely nothing in the basket.” Hearing the commotion, the wife comes along, sees what has happened and announces she must leave for the basket is her spirit’s home. She adds it’s so like humans not to see spirit and to presume what they cannot see is nothing.
In 1976, Bly introduced Coleman Barks to the poetry of Rumi (1207-1273), telling him: “These poems need to be released from their cages.” Not only did Barks’ translations make Rumi the world’s bestselling poet, but the first years of this work saw an extraordinary event occur in Barks’ life, which was followed by a remarkable nine-year friendship.
“I am sleeping out on the bluff above the Tennessee River where I grew up,” Barks writes about his dream of May 2, 1977, his holy day. “I wake inside the dream …. A ball of light rises from Williams Island and comes over me …. it clarifies from the center out, revealing a man sitting cross-legged … a white shawl over the back of his head. He raises his head and opens his eyes. I love you, he says. I love you, too, I answer. The landscape ... feels suddenly drenched with dew, and I know that the wetness is love.” Sixteen months later Barks met this man.
Some time after the dream, Barks began sending some of his early translations to a teacher friend at Rutgers-Camden. This friend, “inexplicably, read them to his class. A … student came up afterward, asked him for my address, and started writing, urging me to come meet his teacher in Philadelphia.” When, in September 1978, Barks walked “into the room where the Sri Lankan saint Bawa Muhaiyaddeen sat … talking to a small group,” he realized this was the man he had met in his dream. Bawa endorsed the Rumi work, but “cautioned, 'If you work on the words of a gnani, you must become a gnani,' a master. I did not become one of those, but for nine years … I was in the presence of one."
As Barks says, “Working on Rumi’s poetry deepens the inner companionship,” so reading it can be like having the veil lifted.
Patrick Wolfe is a local writer and historian. More of his work is available at https://patrickswolfe.com
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking at https://www.timescolonist.com/blogs/spiritually-speaking
* This article was published in the print edition of the Times Colonist on July 6th 2024
