Poetry Analysis
We read many poems this term and they were all very interesting and beautiful. There were also ones that dealt with altered states and of spirituality and then there were ones that were simply just amazing in my eyes. Those poems were amazing because they spoke with fresh words and ideas that are pretty radical. It is surprising on how old some of them area and how they still shock and refine people’s life’s as well as open up new ways of thinking and being. And so for my comparison and analysis of two poem I have chosen There’s Nothing Ahead by Rumi and an excerpt from the Bhagavad Gita translated by Mitchell Stephen.
There are two extremely important connections between Rumi and the Bhagavad Gita, and that is their mystical and unique history. For example the history of Rumi is the most beautiful history I’ve ever heard on someone. It truly speaks to me and I can feel what is said through it. I am referring to the friendship that allowed Rumi to grow and reach altered states until he at last found himself to the truest form. I will paraphrase some of the story so that I may share some of its beautiful content.
I believe there is confusion on the matter of who wrote the Bhagavad Gita but not on who Rumi was. The Afghanis call him Jelaluddin Balkhi and he was born on the 3oth of September of the year 1207, in Balkh, Afghanistan. And now we forward to the late fall of 1244 when he met a peculiar stranger who posed a question that turned out irresistible for him. That stranger was Shams of Tabriz and he would travel through the middle east for a certain special being that could endure his presence and his way of being. One time when he posed that question a voice answered, “What will you give in return?” And Shams answered, “My head!” and then the voice answered, “The one you seek is Jelaluddin of Konya. Soon after Rumi heard of Shams and his Question among another question as well. And then Rumi and Shams became inseparable. They spent long periods of time just talking and enjoying each other’s company. And thus began Rumi’s Transformation into a mystical artist (Rumi 2).
But then as it always is the best things in life are those which we can never gain back again. Soon Rumi’s son and his followers. And so one nigh on December 5, 1248 shams and Rumi were talking and a shams was called out to the back door. Shams went to the back and was never heard of again. Rumi searched for him in a frenzy and madness. And then Rumi found himself when he said this;
Why should I seek? I am the same as
he. His essence Speaks through me.
I have been looking for myself
Rumi and Shams friendship reminds me of Krishna and Arjuna’s friendship from the Bhagavad Gita. Although they might have been in a different level of knowledge and states it seems to me that both friendships came into being in a mystical way and then in an explosion of self knowing came into being. It is also great how on both occasions the more civilized and better off man learned the greatest deal from he who was supposed to b below him. Rumi and a wonderer from the streets and Arjuna, the warrior and great leader who learns from his chariot driver. Both stories share a special time in which not even time itself existed and all that existed was knowledge and friendship. And so now after sharing Rumi’s story I will go into the two poems that I have chosen. The first is There’s Nothing Ahead by Rumi.
Lovers think they’re looking for each other,
But there’s only one search: wandering
this world is wandering that, both inside one
transparent sky. In here
there is no dogma and no heresy.
The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said or did
about the future. Forget the future.
I’d worship someone who could do that.
On the way you may want to look back, or not,
but if you can say There’s nothing ahead,
there will be nothing there.
Stretch your arms and take hold the cloth of your clothes
with both hands. The cure of pain is in the pain.
Good and bad are mixed. If you don’t have both ,
you don’t belong with us.
When one of us gets lost, is not here, he must be inside us.
There’s no place like that anywhere in the world.
The second example is a small piece from the Bhagavad Gita and it says;
You have the right to your actions,
But never to your action’s fruits.
Act for the actions sake.
And do not be attached to inaction.
Self-possessed, resolute, act,
without any thoughts of results,
open to success or failure.(2.47-48)
I don’t know where I could start to explain the similarities in these poems and why I like them but I will try. First off they are basically sending the same message to me. This will be hard to explain. The second one puts it more into the right words form me. Both poems say things that you and I might think to be wrong if they are not looked into further. Take the first poem it states that the cure of pain is in the pain itself. And I tie that with act for the actions sake on the second poem. Because when you feel pain it itself is its own cure and salvation. The pain is the action and what comes after that is feeling good. So good is the actions fruits. So the cure for the pain is the pain itself for you have a right to it and not to the fruits of it. With pain you are free for you act without any thoughts of results, open to success or failure. And that is close to me because I too sometimes act for tae actions sake and not for the results for I am always open to success or failure.
Another similarity is that they both make people feel confused I bet. How can pain be the cure and how can I not have a right to may action’s fruits, you might say to yourself why would I act then. Well when you suffer you learn without trying to learn and when you don’t enjoy your actions fruits you are not a slave to the fruits themselves and you can easily just act and back away and take any importance from something that might entrap you.
Both these poems have a spiritual side to them and it makes me think that they both hade a common bond, and extra force helping them out, something that is only found through searching for it. And you can only realize that you need to search for it when you denounce all that you believe in and embrace it all at the same time and as a result all that comes out is unplanned and reinforced.
So these are some of the similarities I found and I’m sure there are plenty more because there always is and the journey is never ending .