“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” - Rumi
I just finished reading Pico Iyer's novel Abandon. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had just the right mix of showing cultural diversity, travel, romance and jewels about the Sufi's.
The story is about an Englishman, John, who on a fellowship in Santa Barbara, Calif. is studying and writing his thesis on the Sufi poet Rumi. As he tries to pull his thesis together, he becomes involved in a complicated romantic relationship with Camilla. Using the double edged meaning of being abandoned and abandoning oneself to a higher purpose made the title a perfect fit. His struggles with the relationship are a metaphor for the Sufis, and the process of surrendering oneself to the direct experience of God. The story plays out wonderfully. It set up to show the juxtaposition of the ancient Persian culture against a primarily California backdrop and culture. Though there is some travel to Iran, England, India, France, Syria, and Spain included. Throw in one more element of a search for a possible lost Rumi manuscript, and, voila it is now, also, a mystery.
Here are two of the passages that John included in his thesis that I particularly enjoyed:
"For the Sufis, the heart of life is mystery: everything we don't know. We are even mysterious to ourselves, they believe: a part of us going through the rituals of our daily life, while another part, a deeper part, cries out for whatever it is that can take us back. The stranger whose voice we recognize as our own."
"In many ways, indeed, the Sufis are closer in spirit to the mystics of other traditions than to the mainstream of Islam. That is one of the things that make seem so subversive. We know them mostly through their poems, short enigmatic outpourings that are thrown like hand grenades to explode our every assumption. Their goal, deep down, is to take us into a space outside of space, as you could call it, where time as we know it is stilled, and everything that is beyond time comes to light."
I see that Mr. Iyer has at least 8 other books. I am looking forward to reading them.
“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” - Rumi
light of the soul ignites
purpose is dissolved in flames
love consumes all we are not
May you blessed by all that you do
I just finished reading Pico Iyer's novel Abandon. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had just the right mix of showing cultural diversity, travel, romance and jewels about the Sufi's.
The story is about an Englishman, John, who on a fellowship in Santa Barbara, Calif. is studying and writing his thesis on the Sufi poet Rumi. As he tries to pull his thesis together, he becomes involved in a complicated romantic relationship with Camilla. Using the double edged meaning of being abandoned and abandoning oneself to a higher purpose made the title a perfect fit. His struggles with the relationship are a metaphor for the Sufis, and the process of surrendering oneself to the direct experience of God. The story plays out wonderfully. It set up to show the juxtaposition of the ancient Persian culture against a primarily California backdrop and culture. Though there is some travel to Iran, England, India, France, Syria, and Spain included. Throw in one more element of a search for a possible lost Rumi manuscript, and, voila it is now, also, a mystery.
Here are two of the passages that John included in his thesis that I particularly enjoyed:
"For the Sufis, the heart of life is mystery: everything we don't know. We are even mysterious to ourselves, they believe: a part of us going through the rituals of our daily life, while another part, a deeper part, cries out for whatever it is that can take us back. The stranger whose voice we recognize as our own."
"In many ways, indeed, the Sufis are closer in spirit to the mystics of other traditions than to the mainstream of Islam. That is one of the things that make seem so subversive. We know them mostly through their poems, short enigmatic outpourings that are thrown like hand grenades to explode our every assumption. Their goal, deep down, is to take us into a space outside of space, as you could call it, where time as we know it is stilled, and everything that is beyond time comes to light."
I see that Mr. Iyer has at least 8 other books. I am looking forward to reading them.
“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.” - Rumi
light of the soul ignites
purpose is dissolved in flames
love consumes all we are not
May you blessed by all that you do
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment