The Harper

 

In his Masnavi, Rumi tells the story of the harper. The harper was a musician with a beautiful voice, “sweet as that of the angel Israfil.” He was, therefore, very successful and sought after by many to perform at feasts, festivals, and all manner of special occasions. But over time and with age, his voice lost its charm, and no one would employ him.

In despair and hoping for relief, he went to the burial grounds to play his harp for God. When he finished playing, he fell asleep and had a dream that he was in heaven. At the same time a divine voice spoke to the Khalifa Omar.[1]

The voice told Omar to go to the burial ground where he would find an old man and to assist him. Omar went to the burial ground, found the old man, and gave him money promising that he would always have more when it was needed. With that, the old man cast away his harp, saying that it had diverted him from God, and expressed great contrition for his past sins.

But Omar corrected him, telling him that his worldly journey was now over and that he should not give way to contrition for the past as he had now entered into the state of ecstasy and intoxication of union with God, and in this exalted state regard to past and future should be swept away.

At this point the story ends, but not really, and another begins, the story of Mustafa. This is very common to the Masnavi. Rumi often enters correctives in the form of tangents, deflections, and contradictions. I believe this is because Rumi is sensitive to the fact that when truth is conveyed through a form, like a story or a parable or a discourse, etc., it becomes as if set in stone and over time becomes its own opposite.

It is also not uncommon to encounter in Rumi’s writing the technique of a story within a story. Who was Mustafa? It’s a common name in the Islamic world. It means the chosen one, and here it is in reference to the Prophet Muhammad and the night of his marriage to Safiyya. But Rumi is not speaking about worldly marriage for here, the bride is God, and the wedding night signifies Mustafa’s union with God. Likening this union to a blissful sleep, Mustafa’s morning prayers were put off till noon, and this brings up the question of fault, both Mustafa’s putting off of his prayers and Rumi’s for referring to God as a bride.

Rumi tells us as much when he says, “Impute it not as a fault if I call Him, ‘Bride,” to which the Beloved replies, “Speak on, tis fault only to him who sees faults. But how can the Pure Hidden Spirit notice faults? Faults seem so only to ignorant creatures, but not in the sight of the Lord of Benignity.”

Then, returning to the story of the Prophet, Rumi explains that God ‘sees’ differently than a common person and what appears a fault to man may be something quite different to God.

“How can the Pure Hidden Spirit notice faults? Faults (may) seem so to ignorant creatures, but not in the sight of the Lord of Benignity. Blasphemy even may be wisdom in the Creator’s sight.”

Then quoting the sages, Rumi closes with, “’The bodies of the righteous are as pure souls.’ Their words, their actions, their praises, are all as a pure soul without spot or blemish.”

But the discussion is not yet finished, and this is where Rumi returns to the story of the harper, beautifully connecting it with the discussion of the Prophet’s wedding night and Rumi’s fault.

Remember how in the beginning, the Khalifa Omar, responding to the divine voice that spoke to him, relieved the harper of all his worldly difficulties and plunged him into the ultimate dream state of union with God? Awaking from the dream, the harper was filled with contrition for his past sins, but Omar reminded him that he was now free of his former self and that the past no longer existed for him.

“But Omar corrected him, telling him that his worldly journey was now over and that he should not give way to contrition for the past as he had now entered into the state of ecstasy and intoxication of union with God, and in this exalted state regard to past and future should be swept away.”

But apparently, the harper is unable or unwilling to comply with Omar’s correction and is unable or unwilling to give up his contrition. Now, in part two of the Harper’s Tale, Omar reminds him that “Past and future are what veil God from our sight. Burn up both of them with fire!” I’m reminded of a statement by Gurdjieff that the most difficult thing for a man to give up is his own suffering…

What follows is some of the most beautiful writing I have discovered in the Masnavi. Upon seeing the harper’s contrition as an act of ego that keeps him from union with God, Omar’s says,

“This wailing of yours shows that you are still in a state of sobriety which savors of memories past; past and future are what veil God from our sight, burn up both of them with fire.”

“While circumambulating the house you are a stranger, but when you enter the house, you are at home.”

“Oh, you who seek to be contrite for the past, how will you be contrite for this contrition?”

For those who are unfamiliar with Rumi, the Masnavi is divided into six different books—each with its own prologue. Thie prologue in Book I is the famous story of the reed flute and its complaints and lamentations for being pulled as a reed from it home in the reed bed.  

“This plaint of the flute is fire, not air. Let him who lacks this fire be accounted dead! Tis the fire of love that inspires the flute, tis the ferment of love that possesses the wine.”

Rumi is speaking about the journey of the soul’s consciousness from unconsciousness to illusory consciousness, and from illusory consciousness to consciousness of Self. The state of illusory consciousness is what we call creation, the dream state of the soul in which the reed experiences having been pulled from the reed bed –the state of unconscious God.[2]

Now, in the Harper’s tale, speaking of the Harper’s inability to relinquish identification with the sense of otherness from God—from Self—Rumi revives the story of the reed flute.

“How long will you be partitioned by these segments (of past and future) as a reed? So long as a reed has partitions, it is not privy to secrets, nor can it sing in response to lip and breathing.”

I believe that Omar is referring to a particular state of the soul in illusion when he reminds the harper that he must give up his identification with his former reed state and embrace his reed-flute state so that he may fully sing the song of the Soul. This state of the soul, this limbo, this junction, is something akin to what Gurdjieff use to call ‘sitting between two chairs.’ Sitting between two chairs is a very uncomfortable state. 

I have personally observed that this state manifests on the level of ordinary human consciousness in the expression of objective conscience. Objective conscience is the response to objective morality. Objective morality is the same as objective Truth. This conscience, this morality, is beyond and untouched by social mores and cultural distinction. It is not amenable to any form of outer coercion or convincing. This conscience, this morality, never argues, it just states the truth. But at times, for some individuals, it can be pushed so far down beneath the surface of awareness that the individual is barely aware of it. The purpose of this avoidance of conscience is the avoidance of pain. Conscience is often quite painful to the self, but not to the Self, and the Self being God, ultimately and always eventually breaks free and one becomes aware of choice.   

This state of sitting between two chairs manifests at the higher levels of human subtle and mental consciousness as well. It reaches its summit in what Meher Baba describes as the sixth plane of consciousness. The sixth plane is the final stage of consciousness before the ultimate state of God Realization—the seventh plane. Here, the individual consciousness sees God everywhere and in everything and yet does not see itself as God. This is the expression of duality at the highest level, the highest state of sitting between two chairs. Can you imagine? As Kabir said, “Until you experience it, it is not true.” And as impossible as it is to describe that state, how much more impossible would it be to describe the state of Union with God? Rumi concludes the story of the harper this way,

“The heart of the harper was emancipated, and he was freed from weeping and rejoicing. His old life died, and he was regenerated, and amazement fell upon him for he was exalted above earth and heaven, an uplifting of the heart surpassing all uplifting. I cannot describe it—if you can, speak on.

“Ecstasy and words beyond all ecstatic words; Immersion in the Lord of Glory! Immersion from which there was no extrication—as it were identification with the Very Ocean.”

 

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[1] Omar was Khalifa approximately in the 14^th-15^th Century. The title Khalifa has many meanings, but at the time it signified a divine leader—a Master).

 

[2] Another example of this same story is told in the Cole Porter song, Begin the Beguine.