February 2021: Love & Equity
/هر که را دیو از کریمان وا برد
بی کسش یابد سرش را او خورد
"The one who Evil separates from other humans will find himself without any help and this will devour his worldview."
~Rumi
Source: Mathnawi II, 2154
Translated by Dr. Fariba Enteshari
©Rumi Educational Center
Reflection on the Quote:
A message from Dr. Fariba Enteshari, Founder & Executive Director
Rumi tells us a story in the second book of Mathnawi:
One day, GOD, the Divine Light told Moses, “I am GOD, I fell sick, and you did not come to console me!”
Moses, puzzled replied, “Oh You, the Transcendent Glory, what mystery is this?”
To which God said again, “During my suffering, you did not ask kindly after ME.
This conversation sent Moses on a quest. Moses had to encounter and reflect on his actions, searching to understand what GOD meant.
Moses acknowledged his helplessness in finding an answer to what GOD intended him to know.
GOD gave Moses a clue…
“Someone who is close to Me was sick, and you did not visit him.”
(Maybe a neighbor of Moses or someone that Moses knew and could have reached out to, fell sick and Moses did not think of him.)—
GOD’s answer to Moses was, “I AM HE.”
There are many lessons in this story. The pandemic that we are facing today is teaching us that we ought to consider everyone or the problem won’t be solved. The partial view of solving a problem for some people but not for others has not worked in the past. Maybe it is time for us learn from our past experience. So many problems we are facing today need to be solved: the air we breathe, the environment that we share, poverty, hunger, wars that are still upon us.
Rumi taught us 800 years ago that love considers ALL…
پرسید یکی که عاشقی چیست گفتم که چو ماه شوی بدانی
One asks, “What is love?”
I said, “When one transforms into we one will know!”
Considering ‘we’ not ‘I, the ego will give us solutions to long term crucial problems. A short-sighted view will only provide a bandage to big problems. Shrinking a big problem down to what we would like to see does not make it go away.
You do not have the truth when you do not consider the whole.
Like Moses who was challenged by GOD, we are challenged by coronavirus to see the bigger picture and the underlying layers of the situation we are in. We need to understand that there is equity in love.
The word ‘equity’ means the quality of being fair or impartial and just.
As a society, we starve or thrive as a whole. This is why we need to adopt policies and laws that treat all of us in a fair and just way.
Creating disadvantaged subgroups in our society regardless of the reason behind it divides the house we live in and sets the course toward our own destruction.
The story that Rumi told us about GOD’s conversation with Moses goes deeper than an understanding that love resides in ‘we’ not ‘I’. In this story, GOD speaks to an evolved human, a messenger, a holy teacher and yet GOD sees that Moses needs to learn. Moses shows he does not think that the person in need is an important member of the community. In the original text in Farsi, GOD calls the person who was sick ‘my chosen slave!’ – an indication that he was not an important man. Moses despite his high holy rank needed to learn the importance of consoling others in tough situation regardless of one’s status. When someone falls sick it is not only the person who is ill, suffering— there is a chain reaction, a ‘butterfly effect’ of suffering is set in motion. This is what Moses and we need to learn.
In the story, GOD fell sick because Moses, the representative of GOD, did not pay attention to the suffering of a beloved servant, a fellow human…
Rumi finished this story with this powerful verse:
هر که را دیو از کریمان وا برد
بی کسش یابد سرش را او خورد
“The one who Evil separates from other humans will find himself
without any help and this will devour his worldview.”
Rumi is great in teaching the laws of world we live in.
His warnings and his voice echo throughout centuries calling us to consider All despite our selfish worldview.
-Dr. Fariba Enteshari