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.