Listening to Orpheus (17)
(A word to the effect of counting. I don’ have a system. Some of the postings in this category I consider auxiliary in terms of developing the theme and so they don’t get a number. Others again take us a step further and so I count them in. This contemplative discourse “Listening to Orpheus” is all about the descent into the underworld – but even more importantly about the turning around and coming back to the world of form. It is about the forces of life – creativity, death and a passion for life.
My friend Fatima pointed me to this wonderful lecture of Sheik Hamza Yussuf on the occasion of a Rumi convention.
The Living Room 
So typical. Hamza starting off by saying , “I want to start off by saying…..” that he knows nothing about Rumi.
His saying that was followed up by, “I have read his poetry in translation and the Masnawi translated by Nicholson.” How many people would still say that, feel that way, after having read so much?
I mean, how many of us could, sincerely, be able to say something like that? He gives my understanding of how humility can look on the ground a whole new dimension.
I have read the complete (6 volumes) of the Masnawi 3 times and I can assure anybody who listens to this that Hamza has more understanding of who Rumi was, and what he was trying to convey, than I ever will. So he is going to speak of something else at this Rumi Commemoration.
This unique gift to human beings Language. Words (he just loves words…really)………and poetry …..the highest and most subtle form of human communication. The Masnawi in Persian is an epic poem. The Qur an in Arabic is in poetry not prose..
A modern example: Rilke who is touching and powerful in translation. How much more so in German? Guess one would have to be German to know the full import of that. And, just because someone is German, or Persian or Arabic does not mean that they will necessarily “get it”.
It sort of raises a question doesn’t it?