The Song of the Reed
The Teaching
Listen to this reed how it tells a tale, complaining of separations — Ever since I was cut from the reed bed, I have made men and women weep with my song.
I want a chest torn open with longing so that I might describe the pain of love’s desire. The one who stays far from his roots seeks again the time of his union.
In every gathering, in every party, I sang. I was their friend whether they were happy or sad. Each befriended me from his own opinion. From within me no one sought my secrets.
My secret is not far from my complaint, but eye and ear lacked that light. Fire, not breath, is what the reed is made of. Let anyone without this fire be nothing.
Commentary
The Reed Flute is one of the great images in world mysticism: the individual soul as a reed cut from the reed bed of divine origin, making music from its very wound. Separation becomes the instrument of reunion.
Plotinus’ ‘flight of the alone to the Alone’ is the same longing, the individual soul’s ache to return to its source. This longing is not a problem to be solved but the spiritual energy itself.
For the perennial map: this is perhaps the most important teaching about the relationship between suffering and spiritual awakening. The wound is not an obstacle to the path, it IS the path. The pain of separation from the divine is the most direct evidence of the divine. Only what has been cut from something can know what it means to have been joined.
Translation note: this rendering is by Coleman Barks, whose Rumi brought these poems to Western readers but de-emphasizes their Islamic context. For a fuller discussion of what that means in practice, see The Guest House entry.
Themes
Connections 19
Travelled
Sufism reached Sikhism by 1469 CE. The Guru Granth includes the verses of the Sufi Sheikh Farid.
Travelled
Neoplatonism reached Sufism by 840 CE. The ‘Theology of Aristotle’, a 9th-century Arabic paraphrase of Plotinus, circulated under Aristotle’s name, and Sufi metaphysics drew on the tradition.
Unsure
Gibran wrote about the Sufi poets; how much they shaped The Prophet is argued.
Unsure
Islam took in Buddhist Central Asia (the monastery at Balkh), and the Buddha’s legend circulated in Arabic (Kitāb Bilawhar wa Būdhāsaf). The renunciation of Ibrahim ibn Adham echoes the Buddha’s. Influence on Sufism is argued; unsettled.
Travelled
Christianity reached Sufism by 700 CE. Early Muslim ascetics wore wool and learned from Christian monks, and early Sufi literature is full of meetings with them. The extent is argued.
Unsure
Transmission between Gnosticism and Sufism has been argued, not shown.
Travelled
Ram Dass read and drew on Sufism.
Travelled
Judaism reached Sufism by 650 CE. The Qur’an retells the Hebrew prophets, and Jewish lore (the Isra’iliyyat) entered early Muslim piety.
Travelled
Christianity reached Sufism by 700 CE. Early Muslim ascetics wore wool and learned from Christian monks, and early Sufi literature is full of meetings with them. The extent is argued.
Travelled
Merton took ‘le point vierge’ from Louis Massignon, who took it from al-Hallaj; the two corresponded from 1959.
Unsure
No documented reading of Sufism by Alan Watts.
Unsure
No documented reading of Sufism by Alan Watts.
Unsure
No documented reading of Sufism by Neem Karoli Baba.
Travelled
Joseph Campbell read and drew on Sufism.
Travelled
Christianity reached Sufism by 700 CE. Early Muslim ascetics wore wool and learned from Christian monks, and early Sufi literature is full of meetings with them. The extent is argued.
Travelled
Judaism reached Sufism by 650 CE. The Qur’an retells the Hebrew prophets, and Jewish lore (the Isra’iliyyat) entered early Muslim piety.