Rumi Shows Us the Way

Someone asked, “What is the way?”
I said, “To leave your desires.”
_{Jalal al-Din Rumi}

Most of our lives we pray to the Lord for the fulfillment of our desires. Although it is human nature to want more and more, Maharaj Charan Singh tells us:

Desires can never be fulfilled. If you go on putting wood in the fire, the fire will always go on burning. If you stop feeding it with fuel, naturally there won’t be any fire.
_{Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

Saints tell us that our endless desires and ambitions are the cause of all our anxiety and stress. If we were to pause and reflect, we would find that that there is a price tag on everything, and inevitably the cost is our time, energy and peace of mind. We want more money, better relationships, successful careers, luxuries, more likes on our social media – but which of these can assure us permanent happiness?

Then, when we come to the spiritual path we realize that maybe our desires now should be spiritual in nature. Yet again, we start to complain about lack of spiritual progress; we want specific sevas; we beg for personal interviews or to be in close proximity with the Master. The nature of our desires evolves from material to spiritual, but our appetite is as insatiable as ever.

Masters always point out that the path to God-realization is narrow, and a true devotee cannot afford the luxury of wanting anything other than God himself.

I know that for the right practice of it the heart must be empty of all other things, because God will possess the heart alone; and as He cannot possess it alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can He act there, and do in it what He pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him.
_{Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God}

Great Master tells us:

The truth is that all your attachments, all your loves and hatreds, all your desires are shackles and chains – these bind you. These do not allow you to see God. These are your prison house. Your desires bind you. You cannot serve God and mammon at the same time. You cannot be a slave of the flesh and at the same time the master of the universe. To realize the Truth is to become master of the universe, and to entertain desires is to acknowledge bondage and slavery to the things of the world – flesh and objects.
_{Glimpses of the Great Master}

Rumi goes on to say:

Your failure to obtain your wish
is because you seek your wish.
Otherwise, all wishes would be granted
as a gift to you.

The Masters often remind us that if the giver has the capacity to give, shouldn’t he also have the capacity to know what we need?

The moment we submit to the will of the Lord, the struggle is over. The Lord gives us that which is best needed for our journey back home. It is for us to accept this gift with gratitude and faith.

All the Masters have told us time again that meditation is the answer to all that we seek. As Hazur often said, “From meditation everything will come – love, submission and humility.” Similarly, Jesus Christ explained, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Again Rumi reminds us:

As long as you have desire,
know that desire is your idol.
Once you become the beloved,
you become existence –
you have no more desire.
_{Jalal al-Din Rumi}

When we place our wishes and wants higher than the true purpose of our existence, we clearly follow the path of the mind. We chase our desires, but then, we are chased by the consequences of those desires.

In the final answer to our predicament Rumi, elsewhere in his writings says:

When a naked man is being chased by hornets, his only escape is to jump in a river and completely immerse himself in the water. This river is remembrance of God and the hornets are the man’s worldly desires.
_{The Essential Rumi}

Perhaps, the hornets of the world will not exist for us when we become one with the water. This is why it is said that human being minus desire equals God. Through our uninterrupted and concentrated simran, all the wishes and desires which arise like turbulent waves in our mind are put to rest. The attention becomes one-pointed, waiting for the Beloved to appear, and then there is absolutely no thought of me, mine or I. It is only then that we will truly understand what the great Indian mystic Kabir says:

Narrow indeed is the path of true love
For it can hold but one, not two.
When I was – ah! the Master was not,
But now the Master is, and I am not.
_{Quoted in Adventure of Faith}

In a nutshell, Rumi shows us that the true way to God is to eliminate all desires, preconceived notions, concepts, and anything that has to do with our illusory identity. He helps us to understand that life is not about getting and having. It is about being and becoming. It is about being that lover who just loves and who wants nothing.