Touched by Rumi: May 2022
/Rumi has the ability to reach people of all backgrounds, ages, religions, and more. His wisdom sparks us to look within and influences us to view ourselves and the world in a different way. In this section of our Monthly Newsletter we ask people to show us how Rumi has affected them and their way of thinking.
Spreading Rumi’s Wisdoms
An Interview by Minyi Jiang, REC Publicity Intern.
Coming from a biopsychology background, Kiana Ranjbaran, a third-year student at UC Santa Barbara, is interested in studying the poetry and wisdom of Rumi, a well-known Persian poet in the 13th century. Since 2020, Kiana has interned at the Rumi Educational Center though the Department of Religious Studies at UC Santa Barbara where she works closely with the founder to create Rumi e-courses and writes about Rumi’s wisdom for the monthly newsletter. She is planning to initiate a new meditation program on campus.
What is your personal connection with Rumi’s poetry before you joined REC?
I remember the first time I read Rumi, it was something that I kind of ran into. There was a coffee shop where I grew up in San Diego, and they had a take a poem leave a poem. The poem that I picked up was Rumi’s. I was maybe 12 years old. I don't remember what the poem was, but it made me feel like it was great.
After my first year of college, I was hanging out with my dad and my uncle, and they were talking about Persian poetry. They told me that “if you're looking for spirituality, or if you're just looking for something beautiful and something that can ground you in who you are, then read Hafez, read Rumi, read Omar.” So that sparked my interest.
How did you know about REC? Who is the founder?
In fall or winter of 2020, I found the Rumi Educational Center through the school. At that time in my life, I was looking for a way to move forward in terms of my college career, it was over COVID, so that was difficult to do. But when I found it, I felt really lucky because it was something that I cared about a lot.
Fariba Enteshari is the founder of REC, and she teaches Persian at UCSB. She left Iran in her early 20s. She was a biochemist for maybe 20 years, and she became interested in Rumi. Now she has studied Rumi for the past 20 years, and she's really well versed in his knowledge. You can bring up any topic with her, and she knows what Rumi would say about it.
She understands that this wisdom is ancient and that it's healing, and that people need to be able to be exposed to it especially because Rumi’s poetry is very, we use the word interfaith, meaning you can't feel that it's just talking about one God, it's really getting to the point of what God is.
What is your role at REC? How many students from UCSB are currently in the team?
Right now, the team has four current students and one alumnus from UCSB. Interestingly enough, all four of us are STEM majors, but have this interest in religious studies, culture, and language.
There are some people who work on marketing through social media. There's one person who's really well versed in Farsi, and she helps Fariba with translation. I have been writing the Rumi in the World section for the Monthly Newsletter and blog for the past year or so. I've also acted as an advisor and data manager. I helped sort through materials to find what's good and what works, and I also created a database for storing the quotes that we use.
You were the first intern, what made you feel like this is what you want to be a part of? What makes this experience valuable to you?
What really made me want to be an intern is that I felt that I have something to offer. I feel very fulfilled by what I do and that I'm making an impact. Rumi Educational Center is such a small organization that even as an intern, everything I do makes a big impact.
It also is an inner crossing of all of these things that I enjoy. I love science, and I get that from my courses. I love psychology, and I also get that from my courses. But I also love poetry, writing, humanities, culture, and spirituality. Just being getting the spiritual knowledge is very valuable to me in terms of the experience. Also being able to be an intern for a nonprofit that is small, local, and grassroots is really attractive to me.
What is the most attractive thing about Rumi’s wisdom that you want to teach to someone who has never read Rumi’s poetry before?
I think it would depend on their religious stance. It might be hard to explain it to somebody who didn't feel any kind of religiosity. I really like fairy tales that have some lessons in them. Rumi’s poetry is like a story that has a moral at the end of it.
It sums up core wisdom very well. Even though it does use the words God, divine, and creator, it is essentially very much about God and humanity in the separation, our relationship to God and our relationship to sin, and all of that stuff. It just is really, really good wisdom.
What is the core wisdom of Rumi?
Rumi says that the root of human sin and suffering is human disconnection from God. We can come back into God and ultimately, that enables you to act fully out of love and to understand the places where ego is ruling your life, making you fearful, and making you hard to be around for other people.
Rumi talks a lot about universal love, self and ego, how we fit into the world and how we fit into the universe, and the relationship between humanity and the divine. Universal love is understanding that you are interconnected to everything and knowing that the greatest sin is the thinking that you're separate from other things. A short way of saying it is when you victimize others you victimize yourself, when you push it onto other people you push it into yourself, and when you act bad you bring it in.
What events and programs are REC offering?
We are trying to share the wisdom that Rumi has given us. Fariba leads a monthly webinar that will go over a theme for the month. We are preparing our e-courses. We have a new 6-week meditation series coming up called the Way to Love on every Sunday starting on May 1st.
We are also starting a meditation program at UCSB, called UCSB Lagoon Meditations .We are going to start meeting every Tuesday at 2 pm on the big lawn by the lagoon where Fariba will read a poem and share its meaning and the wisdom behind it and lead us in a meditation that will be open to the everyone.
Who should read Rumi?
I think everybody should read Rumi. It's like that I think everybody should go to therapy. You might not need it the most, but if you read it and look at it, I'm sure that anybody could find something that they feel valuable. I think that if you're interested in poetry, art, and things that are beautiful, stimulating, and fulfilling, then read Rumi.
- Interview by Minyi Jiang, REC Publicity Intern.