{"id":63,"date":"2010-11-19T18:21:09","date_gmt":"2010-11-19T23:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/?p=63"},"modified":"2010-11-19T18:21:09","modified_gmt":"2010-11-19T23:21:09","slug":"rumi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/2010\/63\/poems\/rumi\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parable of the Three Fishes<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the story of the lake and the three big fish
\nthat were in it, one of them intelligent,
\nanother half-intelligent,
\nand the third, stupid.<\/p>\n

Some fishermen came to the edge of the lake
\nwith their nets. The three fish saw them.<\/p>\n

The intelligent fish decided at once to leave,
\nto make the long, difficult trip to the ocean.<\/p>\n

He thought,
\n“I won’t consult with these two on this
\nThey will only weaken my resolve, because they love
\nthis place so. They call it home. Their ignorance
\nwill keep them here.”<\/p>\n

When you’re traveling, ask a traveler for advice,
\nnot someone whose lameness keeps him in one place.<\/p>\n

Muhammad says,
\n“Love of one’s country
\nis part of the faith.”
\nBut don’t take that literally!
\nYour real “country” is where your heading.
\nnot where you are.
\nDon’t misread that hadith.<\/p>\n

In the ritual ablutions, according to tradition,
\nthere’s a separate prayer for each body part.
\nwhen you snuff water up your nose to cleanse it,
\nbeg for the scent of the spirit. The proper prayer is,
\n“Lord, wash with me. My hand has washed this part of me,
\nbut my hand can’t wash my spirit.
\nI can wash this skin, but you must wash me.<\/p>\n

A certain man used to say the wrong prayer
\nfor the wrong hole. He’d say the nose-prayer
\nwhen he splashed his behind. Can the odor of heaven
\ncome from our rumps? Don’t be humble with fools.
\nDon’t take pride into the presence of a master.<\/p>\n

It’s right to love your home place, but first ask,
\n“Where is that, really?”<\/p>\n

The wise fish saw the men and their nets and said,
\n“I’m leaving.”<\/p>\n

Ali was told a secret doctrine by Muhammad
\nand told not to tell it, so he whispered it down
\nthe mouth of a well. Sometimes there’s no one to talk to.
\nYou must just set out on your own.<\/p>\n

So the intelligent fish made its whole length
\na moving footprint and, like a deer the dogs chase,
\nsuffered greatly on its way, but finally made it
\nto the edgeless safety of the sea.<\/p>\n

The half-intelligent fish thought,
\n“My guide
\nhas gone. I ought to have gone with him,
\nbut I didn’t, and now I’ve lost my chance
\nto escape.
\nI wish I’d gone with him.”
\nDon’t regret what’s happened. If it’s in the past,
\nlet it go. Don’t even remember it!<\/p>\n

A certain man caught a bird in a trap.
\nThe bird says, “Sir, you have eaten many cows and sheep
\nin your life, and you’re still hungry. The little bit
\nof meat in my bones won’t satisfy you either.
\nIf you let me go, I’ll give you three pieces of wisdom
\nOne I’ll say standing on your hand. One on your roof.
\nAnd one I’ll speak from the limb of that tree.”<\/p>\n

The man was interested. He freed the bird and let it stand
\non his hand.
\n“Number One: Do not believe an absurdity,
\nno matter who says it.”<\/p>\n

The bird flew and lit on the man’s roof. “Number Two:
\nDo not grieve over what is past. It’s over.
\nNever regret what has happened.”<\/p>\n

“By the way,” the bird continued, “in my body there’s a huge
\npearl weighing as much as ten copper coins. It was meant
\nto be the inheritance of you and your children,
\nbut now you’ve lost it. You could have owned
\nthe largest pearl in existence, but evidently
\nit was not meant to be.”<\/p>\n

The man started wailing like a woman in childbirth.
\nThe bird: “Didn’t I just say, Don’t grieve
\nfor what’s in the past? And also, Don’t believe
\nan absurdity? My entire body doesn’t weigh
\nas much as ten copper coins. How could I have
\na pearl that heavy inside me?”<\/p>\n

The man came to his senses. “All right.
\nTell me Number Three.”<\/p>\n

“Yes. You’ve made such good use of the first two!”
\nDon’t give advice to someone who’s groggy
\nand failing asleep. Don’t throw seeds on the sand.
\nSome torn places cannot be patched.<\/p>\n

Back to the second fish,
\nthe half-intelligent one.
\nHe mourns the absence of his guide for a while,
\nand then thinks, “What can I do to save myself
\nfrom these men and their nets? Perhaps if I pretend
\nto be already dead!
\nI’ll be belly up on the surface
\nand float like weeds float, just giving myself totally
\nto the water. To die before I die, as Muhammad
\nsaid to.”
\nSo he did that.<\/p>\n

He bobbed up and down, helpless,
\nwithin arm’s reach of the fisherman.<\/p>\n

“Look at this! The best and biggest fish
\nis dead.”
\nOne of the men lifted him by the tail,
\nspat on him, and threw him up on the ground.<\/p>\n

He rolled over and over and slid secretly near
\nthe water, and then, back in.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,
\nthe third fish, the dumb one, was agitatedly
\njumping about, trying to escape with his agility
\nand cleverness.
\nThe net, of course, finally closed
\naround him, and as he lay in the terrible
\nfrying-pan bed, he thought,
\n“If I get out of this,
\nI’ll never live again in the limits of a lake.
\nNext time, the ocean! I’ll make
\nthe infinite my home.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parable of the Three Fishes This is the story of the lake and the three big fish that were in it, one of them intelligent, another half-intelligent, and the third, stupid. Some fishermen came to the edge of the lake with their nets. The three fish saw them. The intelligent fish decided at once to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems","category-4-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kuny.ca\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}