The Masnavi, Book I (Rumi) · 15 of 37 · tr. E.H. Whinfield
STORY VI-a
Omar and the Ambassador.
The hare, having delivered his companions from the tyranny of the lion, in the manner just described, proceeds to improve the occasion by exhorting them to engage in a greater and more arduous warfare, viz., the struggle against their inward enemy, the lusts of the flesh.
He illustrates his meaning by the story of an ambassador who was sent by the Emperor of Rum to the Khalifa 'Omar.
On approaching Medina this ambassador inquired for 'Omar's palace, and learned that 'Omar dwelt in no material palace, but in a spiritual tabernacle, only visible to purified hearts.
At last he discerned 'Omar lying under a palm-tree, and drew near to him in fear and awe.
'Omar received him kindly, and instructed him in the doctrine of the mystical union with God.
The ambassador heard him gladly, and asked him two questions, first, How can souls descend from heaven to earth?
and secondly, With what object are souls imprisoned in the bonds of flesh and blood?
'Omar responded, and the ambassador accepted his teaching, and became a pure-hearted Sufi.
The hare urged his companions to abjure lust and pride, and to go and do likewise.
God's agency reconciled with man's freewill.
The ambassador said, "O Commander of the faithful, How comes the soul down from above to earth?
How can so noble a bird be confined in a cage?" He said, "God speaks words of power to souls, To things of naught, without eyes or ears, And at these words they all spring into motion; At His words of power these nothings arise quickly, And strong impulse urges them into existence.
Again, He speaks other spells to these creatures, And swiftly drives them back again into Not-being.
He speaks to the rose's ear, and causes it to bloom; He speaks to the tulip, and makes it blossom.
He speaks a spell to body, and it becomes soul; He speaks to the sun, and it becomes a fount of light.
Again, in its ear He whispers a word of power, And its face is darkened as by a hundred eclipses.
What is it that God says to the ear of earth, That it attends thereto and rests steadfast?
What is it that Speaker says to the cloud, That it pours forth rain-water like a water-skin?
Whosoever is bewildered by wavering will, l In his ear hath God whispered His riddle, That He may bind him on the horns of a dilemma; For he says, 'Shall I do this or its reverse?' Also from God comes the preference of one alternative; 'Tis from God's impulsion that man chooses one of the two.
If you desire sanity in this embarrassment, Stuff not the ear of your mind with cotton.
Take the cotton of evil suggestions from the mind's ear, 2 That the heavenly voice from above may enter it, That you may understand that riddle of His, That you may be cognisant of that open secret.
Then the mind's ear becomes the sensorium of inspiration; For what is this Divine voice but the inward voice?
3 The spirit's eye and ear possess this sense, The eye and ear of reason and sense lack it.
The word 'compulsion' makes me impatient for love's sake; 'Tis he who loves not who is fettered by compulsion.
This is close communion with God, not compulsion, The shining of the sun, and not a dark cloud.
Or, if it be compulsion, 'tis not common compulsion, It is not the domination of wanton wilfulness.
O son, they understand this compulsion For whom God opens the eyes of the inner man.
Things hidden and things future are plain to them; To speak of the past seems to them despicable.
Eckhart's signature doctrine that the Father eternally begets the Son in the ground of the soul; the human interior as the actual site of the divine generative act, distinct from inner_light's static indwelling.
The divine voice enters the mind's ear and God speaks to the body to make it soul, suggesting the generative act occurs within.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The passage urges removing evil suggestions and recognizing that preference comes from God, implying a letting-go of personal will.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The text argues extensively that human choice and preference ultimately stem from God's impulsion and whispering.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The instruction to remove the 'cotton of evil suggestions' from the mind's ear implies self-effacement to allow divine entry.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The ambassador's question about how the soul descends from heaven and is confined in a cage highlights the theme of exile from the divine origin.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The ambassador accepts the teaching and becomes a 'pure-hearted Sufi,' indicating transformation into a state of divine likeness.