Mysticism: The Image of Death as Characterised in the Holy Books,
3. Death as Characterised in the Mystic Tradition
Mysticism is a highly abstract and mysterious metaphysical term. It is an abstract thing that cannot be accepted by our mind easily. It is because mind demands logics, it is burdened with the real world or realities and moreover, the mind accepts the things which are seen to it logically. All of the mysterious knowledge is believed through heart. Mysticism is recognized in Christian as well as in Islam, meanwhile in Islam the term Sufism is more used and recognized rather than Mysticism. A Mystic or a Sufi basically is anyone who keenly and deliberately seeks a direct connection and unification with God through prayer and affection.
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The word mysticism is closely related to religion or an element of any religion. In all religions, either Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism, mysticism has been applied to a broad spectrum of religious traditions. Mysticism is the path of life or a procedure of life. The main aim of the mystic is not to be exiled from life. Mysticism is an effort to describe a direct link with God or it is better to say that it is an immediate awareness of the existence of God. Mysticism is a relationship of God and man. In western Christian tradition, mysticism means the souls’ mystical union with God. In order to address the question of Donne’s mysticism, it is important to understand the definition of Mysticism. Bruce Henricksen considers mysticism as union with God:
This early phase of ‘mystical’ interpretation ends with Itrat Husain, who tried to apply the term in a more rigorous way than had his predecessors. Husain’s argument rests on the notion that Donne’s use of the ‘erotic symbolism’ of marriage in his sermons places him in the tradition of St. Bernard, the mystic who used such imagery to describe the union of the soul with God. (6) Christian mysticism is concerning nothing else but transforming unification. Mysticism is an effort to describe a direct link with God or the immediate awareness of the existence of God.
Having changed from Catholic to the Anglican Church, John Donne gave his full attention of his literary profession on religious literature.
Donne swiftly became renowned for his sermons as well as religious poems. In the end of his life, Donne wrote works that confronted death, and this fear has a great deal of inspiration for those who have a strong belief that after their death they will be sent to heaven where they will live forever. His poem “Death be Not Proud” is a true representation of mystical love. In this poem, he is ready to face the challenge of death. He is not frightened of death and tries to convince people that death is not as dominant and terrible as what people consider about it. Donne says that we will feel relaxation and ease when we sleep for a while; similarly, when we die, we feel so much pleasure as we awake after sleep “From rest and sleep, which but thy
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pictures be/ Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow”
(5-6).
For him, death is a birth of soul. Death has no power in it but it is done by the effort of the others. Death will lose his identity because after the death on the Day of Judgment there will be a re-birth of a soul. Donne says that this stage of life will remain forever and this is eternity “One short sleep past, we wake eternally / And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die” (Donne 13-14).
The concept of death in John Donne’s “Death be Not Proud”
is considerably prominent than the other sonnets. This poem is not based on love and romance but Donne is treating the idea of death with romantic touch. He says that death should never take pride because it is a powerless element in life and death is the liberation of soul from human’s body. He describes death as a slave. The description of a slave is somebody who sticks to another’s desires
“Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men” (9). This romantic touch that Donne use to describe the union of the soul with God shows one characteristic of mysticism.
Another romantic touch as characteristic of mysticism can also be seen when Donne faces his own personal death in “Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness” where he describes his personal and spiritual journey to his union with God. He is believed to have written this poem during a severe fever when he thought that the fever would kill him. The speaker begins, “Since I am coming to that holy room, / where, with thy choir of saints for evermore, / I shall be made thy music, as I come / I tune the instrument here at the door, / And what I must do then, think now before” (1-5). Donne’s speaker, knocking on the door of death, is about to enter “that holy room,” or heaven, and he can hear the heavenly music playing. On his perceived death bed, Donne’s speaker is tuning his instrument as he prepares to join the music and choir in heaven. This casual and joyous approach to death anticipates Donne’s later approach: days
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before his actual death in 1631, Donne requested a memorial to be made for himself and preached his own funeral sermon.
In preparing for his celebration of death, Donne continues,
“Whilst my physicians by their love are grown / Cosmographers, and I their map, who lie / Flat on this bed, that by them may be shown / That this is my southwest discovery” (6-9). The speaker’s
“southwest discovery,” symbolizes his illness, fever, and impending death. Donne’s speaker also likens his physicians to cosmographers and himself to their map. The speaker continues with more joyful purism of death, “Per fretum febris, by these straits to die, / I joy, that in these straits, I see my West; / For, though their currents yield return to none, / What shall my West hurt me?” (1013). The speaker takes joy in the straits of his fever, which they call “Per Fretum Febris,” because the fever will lead them to the West— the direction of death. He asks ironically if the West will hurt him, but the speaker knows that the “West” or death will not hurt him; in fact, he takes joy in the thought of the western direction. The speaker further compares himself to the Cosmographer’s map, stating, “As West and East / In all flat maps (and I am one) are one, / So death doth touch the resurrection” (13-15). On a flat map, the East opposes the West, but on a globe, the Eastern and Western directions overlap in an everlasting circle since a globe is round. Thus, the West or “death”
and the East or “resurrection” will touch on a globe, symbolizing Donne’s everlasting life in heaven. The speaker finds a way to make his approaching death a joyful occasion although he is confused about the location of the God’s kingdom, asking, “In the Pacific Sea my home? Or are / The eastern riches? Is Jerusalem? / Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar, / All straits, and none but straits, are ways to them, / Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Cham, or Shem” (Donne 16-20). Despite his confusion, the straits of his fever will lead the speaker to places he cannot go in his life. His fever will bring him closer to God, as well as lead him to the three Sons of Noah, who are known to represent continents of the world.
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While Donne’s mysticism within his poetry is doubted by some literary critics as written in Bruce Henricksen’s “Donne Orthodoxy”, there seems to be no need for such a discussion for Rumi’s practical teachings as his status as a mystic has scarcely been doubted. As a Sufi mystic, Rumi expresses his own divine wisdom to his readers and followers. Rumi’s ancestors were known for their mystical leanings
“Mysticism was in his blood. That it was calling out to him from the depths of his psyche borne out by subsequent events in the course of his inner life, seen later in the passionate poetry of the Diwan-i-Sham-i-Tabriz— the Masnavi.” (Qamber 106) Rumi’s three major works of poetry are the Dīwān-i Sham-i-Tabrīzī, the Mathnawī, and Fīhi mā fīhi (106). The Dīwān is a collection of ghazals dedicated to his beloved friend Shams, with whom Rumi shared a spiritual connection with;
the poems typically represent Rumi’s individual spiritual journey as well as spiritual love. On the other hand, the Mathnawī’s purpose is to speak to disciples of Islam about Sufi teachings and practices, often through comparisons, analogies, and allegories (Chittick 7).
Rumi’s voice, throughout the Fīhi mā fīhi, is similar to his voice in the Mathnawī, although the Mathnawī is a six-book epic written in couplets, whereas the Fīhi mā fīhi is mostly prose poetry (Chittick 7). Although all of Rumi’s works are religious, the Mathnawī is, in a sense, Rumi’s own religious text. Sufis could pick up the Mathnawī in the same way they pick up the Qur’an; it provides rules, guidance, and wisdom from a God-like voice. It is the true text of a Sufi mystic.
The poems analysed in this paper are taken from Rumi’s collection of poems the Mathnawī and translated by Coleman Barks.
Mortality is a large part of Donne’s and Rumi’s poetic discussions; their attitudes towards death are a defining aspect of both their poetry and their identities as disciples. Rumi’s attitude is consistent in “On the Day I Die” and “The Grief of the Dead” as he questions the conventional view of death as an occasion for grief and mourning; instead, he sees death as cause for celebration and soul’s union with God. Similar to the way Donne sees death as something which is not dreadful and not to be feared of, in his poem “On the
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together / The tomb looks like a prison, / but it’s really release into union.” (Rumi 7-9). For a Sufi like Rumi, death is simply the birth of the soul into the spiritual realm. This idea is explored in “The human seed goes down into the ground / like a bucket into the well where Joseph is. / It grows and comes up / full of some unimagined beauty” (Rumi 10-13). The speaker expresses his different forms, claiming he has been part of the earth as a seed then rise and reborn as an unimagined beauty or an angel. Rumi also explains how death will lead to enlightenment and discuss the idea of everlasting life throughout his verses “Your mouth closes here, / and immediately opens / with a shout of joy there” (Rumi 14-16). In these lines, the speaker expresses his rise from a mouth closed to an opened one with joy in paradise.
Rumi’s consistency in welcoming death with open arms can also be seen in his poem “The Grief of the Dead”. Rumi is an enlightened leader, wanting to share advice with other Sufis about humanity’s ultimate question, death. The poem begins with “The Prince of mankind (Mohammed) said truly that no one who has passed away from this world / Feels sorrow and regret for having died” (1-2). Rumi wonders why, if no one regrets death after having died and if we are terrified of the event. The Sufi believes that “Death is the portal to higher forms of existence” (Khosla 46), and Rumi speaks to this concept throughout the poem as he continues, “nay, but he feels a hundred regrets for having missing the opportunity, / Saying to himself, ‘Why did I not make death my object–death which is the store-house of all fortunes and riches, / And why, through seeing double, did I fasten my lifelong gaze upon those phantoms that vanished at the fated hour?’” (Rumi 2-4). Rumi’s speaker admits his previous ignorance of death’s enlightenment, wondering why death has not been an object of his desire all along—all fortunes and riches can be found in death. This interpretation of death is similar to Donne’s in “Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness,” who calls death a welcoming “holy room” filled with music and instruments. Rumi’s speaker admits, “The grief of the dead is not on account of death; it is because they dwelt on the phenomenal forms of existence / And
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never perceived that all this foam is moved and fed by the Sea” (5-6). The act of mourning the dead is not for the dead themselves—it is for the comfort of the living. When we feel grief because of death, we are not grieving for the death itself—we are grieving for the life or existence. However, our earthly existence does not allow us all the answers about life or existence. The speaker suggests, when we are living, we cannot see the whole picture; life is only a small part of existence, it is the foam on the sea. As living creatures, we are unenlightened and only in death can we see the whole picture, or the whole sea. Like Donne, Rumi explains how death will lead to enlightenment.
Continuing with his picture of the sea, Rumi’s speaker describes, “When the Sea has cast the foam-flakes on the shore, go to the graveyard and behold them! / Say to them, ‘Where is your swirling on rush now?’ and hear them answer mutely, ‘Ask this question of the Sea, not of us” (7-8). Again, the big picture of our existence is represented by the sea, but as living beings, sometimes we can only see a small part or the “foam” of this big picture. The part cannot survive without the whole, “How should the foam fly without the wave? How should the dust rise to the zenith without the wind?
/ Since you have seen the dust, see the Wind; since you have seen the foam, see the Ocean of Creative Energy” (9-10). The foam cannot exist without the sea, the dust cannot exist without the wind, and life cannot exist without death. According to Rumi, death allows us to see how the parts of the whole existence are connected. Like Donne’s speaker in “Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness,” Rumi’s speaker encourages the experience of death: “Come, see it, for insight is the only thing in you that avails: the rest of you is a piece of fat and flesh, a woof and warp (of bones and sinews)” (11). According to Sufi beliefs, the mind and body are separate entities, and the physical body cannot survive in the afterlife; in the afterlife, the “insight” or soul is the part that survives (Khosla 232). Rumi’s speaker tries to bring attention to the temporal existence of the physical body, and encourages his readers to view themselves as a spiritual force
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your whole body into Vision: become seeing, seeing, seeing! / One sight discerns but a yard or two of the road; another surveys the temporal and spiritual worlds and beholds the Face of their Kings”
(12-13). Again, the speaker hints that while living, we can only see one or two roads of the entire world. Our vision when we are living is limited. But in death, we finally have a full view of the world and see how the different roads are connected.
4. Death as Characterised in the Literary Culture of Arab