The Essential Rumi

The Essential Rumi brings together the timeless poetry of one of the world's most revered spiritual thinkers. Translated by Coleman Barks, the words of Persian poet and Sufi mystic Jalal Ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi ring through the ages and present themselves to be just as powerful, important, and necessary today as when first written in the thirteenth century. None of the poems and observations in The Essential Rumi are long, dry philosophical treatises; that is not Rumi's style. Instead, he distills age-old questions and spiritual wisdom into crystal-clear images and metaphors that shed brilliant, beautiful light on what it means to be a spiritual being having a human experience—which, ultimately, is what we all are.

The Essential Rumi separates the great master's writing into 28 different themed sections. This, Barks wryly says, is "to confuse scholars who would divide Rumi's poetry into the accepted categories." The categories of which Barks speaks are the general ones that an observer would use to organize any writer/thinker who created a monumental amount of output: odes, quatrains, poems, discourses, letters, sermons, etc. Rumi left thousands of works as part of his legacy, including 3,500 odes, 2,000 quatrains, and a multi-volume epic poem. But instead of separating all of these by type of writing, Barks takes on the far more challenging (and creative) role of separating them by recurring motifs. Some of these motifs are obvious, some are far more subtle. Among the themes are emptiness and silence, loving, separation, union, and even taverns. This approach underscores the fluidity of Rumi's writing. In a very real sense, these works inform and support one another. Unlike many religious or sacred texts, there's no contradiction or wishy-washiness to what Rumi is saying. His work is a journey to enlightenment put into words, "a fluid, continuously self-revising, self-interrupting medium."

At the beginning of each section, Barks includes a brief meditation about the assemblage that follows. These provide some sense of context, but they do not try to assign meaning to Rumi's words or to find messages that are not there. The meditations simply illuminate certain aspects of Rumi's life or writing style and how the theme of the following section will fit into one of these aspects.



There are several characters that thread their way through Rumi's writings. Shams is one of the most formative…and perhaps the reason there is an Essential Rumi at all. Shams is the first, true friend Rumi has in his life, an absolute kindred spirit. It is apparent that the two spend much time in conversation, discussing the joys, challenges, and mysteries of life. After Shams disappears (rumors suggest he has been murdered), Rumi turns to writing and fleshing out the ideas he first started to explore in his conversations with his friend.

Other characters are much more recognizable. Jesus Christ, Moses, and Mohammad all figure into Rumi's writings. Even though he is in the Arab world, Rumi feels a profound spiritual connection with Jesus. He routinely harkens back to lessons or messages taught by Jesus. Rumi utilizes Moses in his writing as a way to further understand his own spiritual path. Moses was a man constantly seeking out and trying to understand God—much like Rumi. And Mohammad was a prominent figure in Rumi's time, and being a Muslin, Mohammad is someone Rumi idolizes and looks to for spiritual wisdom. Mohammad appears again and again in Rumi's writing and at times is the spiritual template through which Rumi processes his own experiences.

Friends Saladin Zarkub and Husam Chelebi, and even animals like frogs and mice, also play important roles in Rumi's journey and, thus, his written works.



Many of Rumi's poems take the form of advice to the reader. Because everyone from Jesus Christ and Mohammad to rodents and reptiles influence him, this advice defies religion and instead speaks to the universal condition of being human. "Gamble everything for love, / if you're a true human being," Rumi says in one poem.

In another: "Give up wanting what other people have," he writes. "That way you're safe."

"The wine God loves / is human honesty," he says in another.



And: "Dance, when you're broken open."

One gets the feeling that Rumi is not just spouting off clichés or bumper-sticker speak, but that he has really, truly learned these lessons the hard way.

While Rumi's words are a balm for the soul, they also aren't afraid to be playful and fun. Some revel in the joys of life, and others muse on the misery that can so easily imprison any human spirit. There are even deeply sensual poems here that celebrate love with an almost physical candor. In short, these writings encapsulate the entirety of the human experience. And, yet, they're more than that as well. They're looking toward the divine, toward an eternal and sacred love, where "we have fallen into the place, where everything is music."