A Moth To the Flame In this Mad World

I was lying in bed last night after finishing A Moth to the Flame: The Life of the Sufi Poet Rumi by Connie Zweig (recommended by zaadzster Julian) earlier that day and 50 pages of SES Ken Wilber before turning off the lights (almost done!). I was contemplating the role of suffering in evolution and love while witnessing my fleeting thoughts. Donnie Darko's sounds came in and out from above my room as I pondered. Mad World as composed by Gary Jules drifted its haunting yet captivating melodies through the floor...

All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Made to feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world ... world
Enlarge your world
Mad world

What a brilliant song...it captures the fragility and seeming spuriousness of life. The utter mediocrity of the modern life seeps into our waking consciousness every now and then and we realize that we're going nowhere. The man of modern life suffers not from the hardship of physical struggle with the earth but from the psychological torment of not evolving and not loving. Instead we consume...over and over and over again in the name of capitalistic narcissism. Our new clothes and toys and cars are empty; they do not satisfy. What is this suffering? What sustains us? Where is this all going...?

"All of your sorrow exists for one reason - that you may end sorrow forever." - Rumi

This quotation agrees well with the idea of being born in limitation in order to discover the limitless. But oh the pangs of separation from infi-ternity! To not be able to love other people because we love ourselves burns our hearts and destroys the natural vivacity and spontaneity of love-as-being. We must shed the love of self. It is the goal of Sufism - fana = annihilation (of ego).

"And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had"

In some strange way this part of the song relates directly to what A Moth to the Flame is about: the agony yet necessity of dying to the self. There is a nihilistic freedom to death, but from a spiritual perspective it is a submission; a surrender to God. Islam = submission. But Rumi says that we must not surrender ourselves to sharia (Islamic law), or even tariqa (inner path), but to the immediate immanence of God-consciousness. Of course he knows quite well that through sharia and tariqa one may cultivate the ability to perceive God-consciousness, but ultimately we must destroy every indirect bridge to God.

"This sanctuary is not what you seek. The holiness of the human heart  - that is the real mosque. The moment we proclaim His name, the domes and minarets dissapear. He alone remains."

He/She/It/transgendered God alone remains before and after this universe and individual consciousness. And after annihilation, baqa = remaingness (of God). The ground of being, this emptiness, is the remaingness of God-consciousness.

The man of God
    is drunk, but drinks no wine;
He is full, but eats no meat.
The man of God
   spins with ecstasy,
   and doesn't care about food or sleep;
He is a king beneath a simple cloak,
A diamond amidst the falling ruins.
His wisdom
   is born of the supreme truth,
   not from the pages of a book.
   He is beyond faith and doubt,
   he knows not right or wrong.
The man of God
   has bid farewell to Nothingness (causal consciousness)
   and has returned in all his glory. (nondual consciousness)
   - Rumi

What an amazing book: A Moth to The Flame . I will blog more about it...