Rumi,Vedanta and Buddhism

The taboo against, and more importantly the stereotyping of, the
Indian religious and spiritual-philosophical traditions in the Muslim
societies have throughout the ages kept most Islamic adepts away
from learning about them, and even those who did learn about them
from mentioning them in their writings. Even though when some
Indian fakirs traveled in the Afghano-Iranian world, interchanges of
ideas and cross-influences did occur in practice between them and
the Muslim mystics and philosophers, the Indian names and systems
of thought remained unmentionable in Islamic writings. The origins
of some of the practices, or at least their similarities to Indian spiritual
practices, have only recently been mentioned in certain academic
studies. It goes without saying that the presence of the Sufi Muslims
in the Indian subcontinent has exercised its socio-cultural and spiritual
influences.
The great eleventh-century astronomer and polymath scientist Abu
Rayhan al-Bıˉrunıˉ—one of the earliest scholars in the Islamic world1
to study Sanskrit—impartially studied and published his comprehensive
work on the Indian religions, especially Patanjali Yoga. Bıˉrunıˉ’s
genius and the knowledge required to compare various Indian systems
of philosophy with Sufi, Greek, Christian, and Manichaean systems
have been considered unequalled.2
Bıˉrunıˉ wrote about the Muslim ignorance of other people’s religions
and intellectual traditions, especially the ones from India, which
had been suppressed because of religious dogma and deceptive stereotyping.
Not liking the malignant lies about other religions, Bıˉrunıˉ
gave five psychosocial reasons for such deceptions and perpetuation of
lies in the Muslim world: to benefit one’s nation and family; liking or
hating a class of people outside one’s own by obligation; for profit or
simply being afraid of telling the truth; because one’s nature is deceitful;
or because of one’s ignorance and blindly repeating what others
have said.3 Until the lie is eliminated, Bıˉrunıˉ believed, the inventor of
the lie would remain a conduit to sustain the ignorance of his audience.
Bıˉrunıˉ even used a Koranic verse to warn those Muslims who
would lie to their audience: “Speak the truth, even if it were against
yourselves.” (Sura 4:134)4 For doctrinal and authoritarian reasons, the
dogmatic preachers and theologians of Islam (like their counterparts
in other religions) wished for no knowledge of what they perceived as
non-believer religions to reach Muslims. Bıˉrunıˉ himself experienced
an absurd scenario when his invention of a tool to calculate the time
of the day and time for prayer was turned down by the imam of the
mosque in Ghazni on the grounds that it had been handed down by
foreigners (non-Muslim Greeks). Bıˉrunıˉ responded with disdain, saying:
“It is an idiot who does not allow the use of scientific inventions
because they have been handed down to us by strangers. The Greeks
walk and eat like us. So it is necessary for us to give up walking or eating
because the Greeks do the same thing.”5
The tolerant cultural conditions of the eighth through ninth centuries,
before the rise of the iconoclastic and religiously intolerant
Saffaˉrid and Ghaznavid dynasties, not only allowed wandering ascetics
to interact with Buddhist, S´aivite, and Manichaean monks, but
also provided a medium of inter-borrowing and teaching in eastern
Iran and Khuraˉsaˉn. According to the account of Fad. aˉ’il-i Balkh (composed
around 1214), Abu Mu‘aˉd Khaˉlid (d. 814) (a contemporary of
Shaqıˉq Balkhi) is reported to have openly taught kufr (non-Islamic
doctrine), for which he was forced to leave Balkh for Tirmıˉdh and
later Ferghaˉna.6 There were even those such as Šaddaˉd b. Hakıˉm who
in their teachings rejected religious piety and endorsed more of an
internal awakening; some of these individual mystics visited India and
Central Asia, including Najjaˉr ad-Darıˉr (d. 1117), who wrote about
it (Da’wat al-hind).7
The earliest hint about advaita Vedanta and its intermingling with
Islamic mysticism is the renowned Baˉyazıˉd’s (d. 874) expression of
some non-dualist notions. Some have held the opinion that Baˉyazıˉd’s
master, Abuˉ ‘Ali Sindıˉ, an Indian (Vedantist) who apparently converted
to Islam, may have been responsible for his disciple’s unconventional
Vedantic-Buddhist learning and pronouncements.8 The expression
Tat Tvam Asi in Upanishadic tradition alludes to a spiritual perfection
and state that is philosophically expressed: “I am the finest essence of
that truth, called ‘this’” or “I am that”9—a practice that is believed
to have found its way from Upanishad and Vedanta to Islamic mysticism
via Baˉyazıˉd.10 In a psychological parallel, god-consciousness
could be the same as the nirvanic state,11 empty of one’s self and all
instinctual desires. Baˉyazıˉd’s utterances “unmistakably” echoed those
of the Vedantic, particularly Upanishadic, declarations:12 “I am Allah”
(anal-Allah) and “How majestic is my state!” For thirty years, according
to Hujwıˉrıˉ (d. 1077), he dedicated his spiritual life to practicing
self-mortification.13 Until then, an ascetic declaring he was “god” was
unknown in the Islamic world. In Islam there was no parallel to the
Upanishadic Brahman as the impersonal god.14 Baˉyazıˉd, having liberated
his mind, declared that he was in possession of the divine secret
and exempt from the prophet’s laws.15 Baˉyazıˉd’s Vedantic utterance,
“I sloughed off my-self as a snake sloughs of its skin, and I looked
into my essence and saw that ‘I am He,’” is attested as an Upanishadic
analogy
Baˉyazıˉd has been a subject of debate among several Orientalists
for mystical utterances that paralleled those in the Indian Patañjali’s
Yogasutra, in which rigorous yoga combined with meditation aimed
to reach the highest perfection of self. In 1946, Martino M. Moreno
published the detailed and interesting article “Mistica musulmana e
mistica indiana,” and in 1960 Robert Charles Zaehner published the
book Hindu and Muslim Mysticism. Both authors argue that certain
early Sufi experiences, as well as Baˉyazıˉd’s experiences, were influenced
by an Indian system of philosophy as well as by Buddhism. Moreno
points out that the Buddhist influences on Baˉyazıˉd should not be
ignored.17 Moreno and Zaehner, however, emphasize the influence
of Indian Vedanta more than Buddhism on Baˉyazıˉd’s spiritual formation.
However, R. A. Nicholson would like to attribute the spirituality
of Baˉyazıˉd to Gnosticism and pantheism, which was prevalent during
Sassanid times.18
Outside of theory, Baˉyazıˉd’s harassment in and eventual expulsion
from his hometown was a practical manifestation of the conflict
between the ascetics of the time and the theologians of Islam. Despite
these disagreements, most of Baˉyazıˉd’s statements were equated
with intoxicating mystical states and justified within the Islamic
context of mi‘raˉj, the prophetic nocturnal journey to heaven,19 but
in fact they meant attaining enlightenment, as Rumi, in defense of
Baˉyazıˉd, also asserts in his poetry (M: IV: 734–76). Surprisingly,
none of the later Islamic theologians seems to have objected to this
experience and its articulation as blasphemous. ‘Attaˉr (d. ca. 1220)
writes of this nocturnal journey in his Tadkarat ul-Aulı ˉyaˉ (Biography
of the Saints) that Baˉyazıˉd recounts, “I became awakened and
all that was hidden became known to me . . . I used the eye of the
truth. The whole time He was worshipping me not I. I had assumed
I was worshipping Him . . . but I was ripped from my selfhood and
was given another existence . . . all my impulses and worldly ego
(nafs-i ‘amaˉre) left me. I was then crowned with virtues.”20 Since
Baˉyazıˉd’s internal experience of ascension (mi‘raˉj) is so similar to
the nirvanic experience of the Buddha, Zaehner has also pointed
out the resemblances between certain sayings of Baˉyazıˉd and a Buddhist
text (Udaˉna).21
It was the famous Sufi of Baghdad, Junayd (d. 910), who actually
converted Baˉyazıˉd’s mysticism and brought his and all the other
eccentric mystical practices to a level that was more conventional and unthreatening to Islam, which would not contradict hadˉıth jurisprudence,
the Koran, and conformist spirituality.22
‘Attaˉr also provides accounts of the experiences of other mystics
after Baˉyazıˉd. For example, Abul-Hassan Kharaqaˉnıˉ’s (d. ca. 1033)
original words in articulating his highest spiritual experience are
epitomes of the nirvanic state or moks¸a —an expression of union
with the highest reality and non-dualistic state. “I longed for the
Supreme to render me the way I truly am. I was then shown to my
true self. As I saw myself asking, ‘Is this real me?’ the voice said
‘Yes’; then I asked, ‘Why has there been much fluctuation in my
state?’ The voice said, ‘They are your other selves and this is your
true self’ . . . as I had a sighting of my existence, my non-existence
surfaced. As I saw my non-existence, my existence opened the way
to the gate of non-existence.” Kharaqaˉnıˉ continues to articulate the
knowledge of his true and empirical self in a well-composed state
of mind. “I am a taster but I don’t exist; I am a hearer but I don’t
exist; I am a speaker but I don’t exist . . . People fast during the day
and pray during the night hoping to reach ‘home’ and I am home
for myself, . . . I shall obliterate heaven and hell.” Kharaqaˉnıˉ’s awakened
state continues with words uncommon to Muslim ears: “Ka’ba
moved around me, the angels prayed to me, I saw a light in which
the highest truth loomed magnificent in the center; I attained the
path of the truth as I left myself.” “The dervish is he whose heart is
clear and whose mind is without worries; he speaks but has nothing
to say and he is free from happiness and anxiety.”23These “heretical”
utterances of Kharaqaˉnıˉ should not be mistaken as something stemming
from scholastic Sufism.
Among all the mystics during the Islamic period, Mansur Hallaˉj
(d. 922) stands out for his boldness and cross-cultural intermingling.
He continued the declaration of “I am He”; he actually travelled to
India and may have imported certain Indian spiritual notions that put
his life at risk in Baghdad. Whether Hallaˉj really made a conscious
effort to introduce certain Vedantic, yogic, Buddhist, and Manichaean
ideas to the Islamic world is not certain; there is only circumstantial
evidence. Born in Fars, south of Iran, Hallaˉj wandered and preached
in Khuraˉsaˉn, where he used to dress in soldier’s uniform, until he
travelled to India and Turkistan around the years 903–905. Upon his
return, he was wearing an “Indian loin-cloth round his waist and a
piece of patched and motley cloth thrown around his shoulders.”24
‘Attaˉr tells us25 about Hallaˉj’s years of travelling to Khuraˉsaˉn and
Central Asia, an experience that later in his life drew him to India,26
China, and Turkistan. Upon his return, he talked about the secret teachings and acquired the name of ‘Hallaˉj al-asraˉr’ (Hallaˉj, the carrier
of the secrets).
In the regions he visited, including the eastern Iranian world, Gujarat,
and Sind, he came across Manichaean, Buddhist, and Brahmanical
populations.27 Upon his return to the Islamic lands, Hallaˉj upheld the
belief in hulul, or divine incarnation in the human soul, and expressed
ideas among which the most radical of all was ana’l-Haqq (I am the
absolute Truth). This and other ideas he held brought him into conflict
with the religious conformists, especially in the city of Baghdad.
Because of his trip to India and Central Asia and his eccentric ideas,
certain free thinkers of the Mu‘tazila school considered Hallaˉj to
belong to the school of “light” and “darkness” of Manichaeism.28 Ibn
Nadıˉm (d. 998) wrote that Hallaˉj claimed to know alchemy (which
he may have learned in Central Asia and India) and something about
every science, but that he lacked the basic knowledge of the Koran,
hadı ˉth, and laws of Islam, and maintained contact with people who
would say prohibited things against Islam.29 Hallaˉj has been claimed
as a Sufi by generations of later Sufis, but during his lifetime he had
differences with Baghdad’s conformist Sufis.30 He seemed rather to
have combined many mystical, philosophical, and religious concepts
he had learned in India, Turkistan, and Khuraˉsaˉn. Some modern
scholars say that Hallaˉj’s ideas about the unification of self in its highest
form stemmed from Indian Vedanta and yoga.31 But the range of
his ideas also covered Sufi notions of Love (‘ishq) and perfect Love
(mohabba), as metaphors for having been awakened to an extraordinary
reality of things.32
When Hallaˉj was arrested, the multiple charges against him included
apostasy; he was eventually executed by the authorities because of the
sociopolitical intrigues against him and similar figures who were seen
as a threat to conventional Islam. ‘Attar came under Hallaˉj’s influence
despite the Sufis’ mixed feelings about him. ‘Attar said this about his
own spiritual exhilaration and that which Hallaˉj experienced: “The
same fire which had fallen into Hallaˉj—has also fallen into my life.”33
After its religious reform, the Naqshbandi Sufi order considered
Hallaˉj’s and Indian Vedantic ideas dangerous to the Islamic system of
thought.34 The eighteenth-century Qaˉdirıˉ Sufi, Shah Inaˉyaˉt Shahıˉd,
asserts that the links between “Hallajian philosophy” and Indian
Vedanta were upheld by ‘Attaˉr and Shams Tabrizi, as reflected in Sindhi
poetry, and that it was for this reason they both were killed by the
jealous mullahs.35
Sufi interest in the Indian spiritual schools peaked from the sixteenth
through nineteenth centuries, during the Mughal period. This period was a fertile cultural medium for externalizing many crossinfluences.
Certain Sufis of India during this period would openly
praise Lord Kris¸na using the words of the Bhagavad Gita, or even
compose poems compatible with Vedanta or Bhakti Yoga.36 (Even in
Iran, the great Safavid-era mystic and philosopher, Mıˉr Findiriskıˉ (d.
1640), believed in the divinity of the Vedas.37) The Mughal prince
Daˉraˉ Shokuh (d. 1659) made a revolutionary and courageous effort
to openly merge the Vedanta philosophy of the Upanishads with
Sufism—an effort, however, that was perhaps rooted in the past.38
Daˉraˉ Shokuh, a mystic as well as a didactic thinker, not only attempted
to merge the two mystical “oceans,” as he put it, and unite the Muslim
and non-Muslim experiences in their highest mystical quest, but
also meticulously compared and described the conceptual similarities
between Sufi ideas and those of the Vedic and Vedantic (Upanishads)
spiritual practices.39 But not too long after his translation of fifty Upanishads
from the Sanskrit into Persian and his reunification attempts,
his fanatical younger brother Aurangzeb accused him of apostasy, had
him executed, and usurped the throne of his spiritually pioneering
older brother.
Intermingling and cross-influences between the mystics of the
Islamic and non-Islamic groups continued on different levels and in
different places. Whatever infiltrated into the practices and writings
of one or the other has gone largely undetected, either because of
the religious fear of expressing it, or because sometimes the indirect
transmission of influences meant there was no precise memory of the
original source.
The intermingling of Central Asian and eastern Iranian mystical
groups with the Tibetan or Indian Tantric, Buddhist, or Vedantic elements
may have become an indirect means of transmission of those
elements to future generations of spiritual seekers and poets. Among
these, Rumi stands out. Both Rumi’s ideas and Shams’ whereabouts
before meeting Rumi deserve a more thorough investigation in the
future.
The Parallels of Rumi with Vedanta and Buddhism

It is difficult to describe in words the content of the non-conceptual
experience of enlightenment that the schools under discussion
variously call the “One,” “Emptiness,” “Non-Self,” “Brahman,”
“S´iva,” or “Love.” There are linguistic distinctions but perhaps not

experiential ones. Rumi’s goal was also to describe the experience of enlightenment. Enlightenment, in Rumi’s discourse, means understanding
the undifferentiated aspect of Love out of which everything
derives its existence. It also means defying the dualism of subjectobject,
and defending the notion that the true nature of everything
is pure consciousness, or even that enlightenment can be experienced
in realizing the permanency of reality behind all impermanency. The
crux of Rumi’s views is that the heart is the compass and Love is the
deepest and highest reality, while our body and conventional intellect
are transient means for tasting existence only superficially.
In this and the next chapter, the task is to compare Rumi’s nondualistic
approach to Love with the non-dualism of advaita Vedanta
and Kashmir Shaivism, including links with Shaivism’s Tantric beliefs
and practices. Then the non-self philosophies of Buddhism and of
Rumi are compared. Other parallel concepts to be examined include
the definition and the experience of nirvana, immortality, veneration
of a female deity, devotion to the guru, and apperceptions of ultimate
reality. Despite their origins in different eras and some philosophical
differences between these schools and Rumi, these are strong and
living traditions that share underlying similarities and a number of
important parallels. To introduce these parallels may enable broader
comparative studies in the future. Although cross-cultural studies
comparing the Islamic and non-Islamic perspectives are still in an
embryonic stage, Rumi’s ideas are too universal to be ignored in favor
of parochial mystical interpretation.
The three Indian schools of advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, and
Kashmir Shaivism developed in diverse regions at different times
with distinctive spiritual and philosophical characteristics. One might
wonder how they could have anything in common with Rumian
experiences and formulations. But through reinterpreting Rumi’s
ghazals and other verses against the backdrop of the fundamental
conceptual beliefs of those schools, it becomes clear that, in Rumi’s
poetry and philosophy, we not only find a number of strong parallels,
but also begin to demonstrate the “unconscious” approach of
various spiritual traditions towards the same goals (i.e., non-dualism
and enlightenment) and the use of similar metaphors to express their
philosophies.
To give a brief overview, the main characteristics shared by advaita
Vedanta41 and Rumi’s writings are non-dualism and the impersonal
principle called Brahman. The concepts found in both Buddhism and
Rumi’s philosophy are non-self and final liberation. And Kashmir
Shaivism and Rumi share concepts of non-dualism, aspects of Tantra,
and the idea of personal as well as impersonal aspects of god (S´iva in Kashmir Shaivism). We will begin with an introduction to each school
before investigating the parallels to each within Rumi’s lyrical ghazals.

1. ADVAITA Vedanta and Rumi
Multiple Brahmanical traditions evolved over the course of three
thousand years from the time when the earliest Vedas42 were composed.
Various philosophical schools also emerged in India. One of
the most significant was advaita Vedanta. Advaita Vedanta, with its
roots going back as far as the eighth century BCE, is the set of teachings
based on the Upanishads as taught orally by the teachers. It was
a non-dualist school that challenged the polytheism of the Vedas and
the dualism of certain belief systems that relied on the distinction
between the worshipper and the worshipped.43 Over time, advaita
Vedanta’s teachings were written down in a few of the earliest Upanishads
(Sanskrit, “to sit at the feet of” a master). The Upanishads
became known as the “secret teachings”44—secret because they were
kept away from the public, perhaps out of religious fear of shifting
from the “polytheism” of the Vedic religious practices of the focus on
Brahman,45 as well as because of the mystical and intellectual intensity
of their subject matter.
The most famous to revive the secret teachings of the Upanishads
and systematize them under Vedanta was Adi Shankara (788–
820). The core of Upanishadic teachings is non-dualism or advaita.
Advaita is a Sanskrit word meaning non-dual (dvait [duo] means
two, while the prefix “a” negates what follows it: non-two). Gradually,
the teachings of the Upanishads were legitimized as part of the
Brahmanical scriptures by the assignment of the name of Vedanta,
meaning the last (anta) part of the Veda. Thus, by this designation
it became Veda-anta, or the last and final teachings of the Vedas,
and therefore implied to be highly significant in its spiritual and
philosophical context.
The primary message of advaita Vedanta was an egalitarian spiritualized
revolution, teaching that all men and women, regardless of
caste, should search inside themselves to be liberated from illusory
perceptions of this material world, as well as from the confusing cycle
of birth and death (samsara). According to the Upanishads and their
interpretation in the advaita Vedanta, there is one single, unchanging
substrate at the heart of all the changing phenomena. There is only
one reality, without a second: the very one that governs the outside
and inside of all the changing structures is hidden from the human
eye and intellect. This subsisting reality lives deep in the human heart.This idea was propagated around 800 BCE, or possibly later, when
the rebellious teachers of northwestern India preached that this single
reality is Brahman, which takes precedence over all other gods
and pseudo-realities.46 These yogis were not satisfied with old Vedic
practices that included exoteric ritualism, blood sacrifice, venerating
objects, worshipping gods, and taking refuge in celestial forces; but
more importantly they opposed any dualistic conceptions. These practicing
yogis remained celibate, practiced non-violence, and fasted in
order to attain inner purity. They articulated how human birth, life,
and death, because of their changing nature, continue to produce
the delusion that the world is real. The process repeats itself without
an end or a specific direction in a broader cycle of existence. The
proposed permanent solution in Vedanta involved internal contemplation
to find the true reality, the inner immortal force (Atman),
without resorting to exoteric ritualism and sacrificial rites. As the Upanishads
developed, they were interpreted as containing a non-dualist
approach, referring to only one real existence (Brahman), all the rest
being fleeting and unreal.
This innovative approach to impersonalizing “god” was very different
from the approach of the Vedic interpreters (pandits) that
acknowledged dozens of personal god(s) with all kinds of anthropomorphic
attributes and powers. The Brahman, an impersonal principle,
was perceived as the absolute state of existence, and everything
else was an illusion (maya)—meaning that the world was both real and
unreal. In other words, advaita Vedanta rejects objective reality, and
Shankara considers mind and matter as a “misreading of Brahman and
nothing more.”47
Although later Upanishadic texts include references to S´iva and a
number of Vedic deities, in general the Upanishadic teaching elaborated
on one single principle, Brahman, and its nature as man’s fundamental
identity—the Self. The Brahman and Self–Atman are one and
the same unchanging reality. “The Atman is absolutely untouched and
untainted by all the colorful changes wrought over it, and retains its
pure majesty unsullied all through.”48
There are two distinct characteristics of advaita Vedanta that are
comparable with Rumi’s ideas. One is the concept of non-dualism: the
Upanishads emphasize that there is no essential difference between
things since all have Brahman at their core; their different appearances
are, so to speak, a case of mistaken identity. The other parallel is
the notion of an impersonalized “god,” or ultimate reality—universal
for all throughout time, with no religious or historical boundaries. It
must be borne in mind that non-dualism and the impersonal Brahman are two sides of the same coin, referring to the existence of one single
reality, not two, which is Brahman.
These two important Vedantic features appear in Rumi’s Divan.
The metaphors and description of the non-dualistic principle are
ubiquitous, as discussed in chapter 5. As was shown earlier, Rumi
expounds on an impersonal god, identified as universal Love or reality,
whose seat is in the human heart. Love is timeless and lives eternally
through all animate and inanimate phenomena. There are a number
of images and metaphors in the Upanishads on the subject of nondualism
and impersonal Brahman that seem to have direct parallels in
Rumi’s Divan.

Brahman-Love and Non-Dualism
Non-dualism from the Upanishadic perspective is embodied in the
changeless Atman/Brahman, a formless and wordless realm. Nondualism
is also extrapolated from the idea that human existence and
its source are one and the same thing. Dualism is a perception of
differences that are illusory on the surface. The material world, with
different shapes, colors, noise, and movements, is in a constant state
of flux, which is juxtaposed against a greater undying and unchanging
Reality, like a moving and changing film on a static white screen.
The coupling of the transient with the non-transient or permanent
represents the superimposing of the physical aspects of this world on
the non-physical Brahman (the greater Self). The spiritual realization
is the discovery of the permanent phenomenon through the awareness
that all the changing things will eventually merge and join the
unchangeable and silent source.
Rumi uses the term Love to describe what the Upanishads describe
as Brahman. It is this Love that transcends all the earthly dualism and
discriminations and transcends time and human sensory and intellectual
judgment. Love is the spring and force of life that remains eternal.
Love, in its impersonal image, is the universal foundation of the world
of multiplicity (whereas in its personal form, Love for Rumi is Shams,
whose face became Rumi’s religion) (D: 1063). The intuitive knowledge
and eventual attainment of unity with the principles of Brahman
or Love impart a permanent joy; lightness and liberation from dualism,
illusion, and grief may occur.
Merging with the ultimate source is a characteristic of non-dualism.
The Mundaka Upanishad says: “As rivers flowing into the ocean find
their final peace and their name and form disappear, even so the wise
become free from name and form and enter into the radiance of the Supreme Spirit [Brahman] who is greater than all greatness.”49 This
idea takes a very similar form in Rumi’s words: “Whether I am a flood
or a river, we are all searching for you—the home for all flowing water
is your sea.” (D: 94) “Move through the shore of water and sand;
journey to attain the gem that you are, the sea.” (D: 3129) Elsewhere
Rumi analogizes bodies as the foam being produced from the
supreme spirit of the sea (D: 3109; M: V: 962; VI: 1252). The gems
are in the bottom of the placeless sea (D: 3072; M: III: 493, 513).
In the Mundaka Upanishad, the knowledge of non-duality is realized
through knowing one’s true source.50 Here the true source is the
principle of Brahman. Rumi also writes: “You are with me and I do
not know about it” (D: 174).
Elsewhere, in the Maitri Upanishad, the text points to Brahman as
real and birth and death as unreal; only the wise can perceive this duality
and convert it to a non-dual state: “Samsara, the transmigration of
life, takes place in one’s mind. Let one therefore keep the mind pure,
for what a man thinks, that he becomes.”51 The Mundaka Upanishad
makes an analogy about the two “selves,” the individual self and the
immortal Self, as two birds on the same tree: “There are two birds,
two sweet friends, who dwell on the self-same tree. The one eats the
fruits thereof, and the other looks on in silence. The first is the human
soul, who resting on that tree, though active, feels sad in his unwisdom.
But on beholding the power and glory of the higher spirit, he
becomes free from sorrow.”52 Rumi formulates two selves, sitting in
the same body: “How close is your being to my being” (D: 1515). “I
am you, you are me; o my companion don’t go away from yourself ”
(D: 1254). “I wish my being would not be aware of anything other
than you—the ‘real’ self (khod) cannot know anything other than your
meaningful existence.” (D: 1946).
It is in the Maitri Upanishad that the magic of Love in attaining
the immortal life of Brahman is praised: “Every step of light and Love
is a step towards a new life . . . Love is joy of the Infinite of Brahman,
it is here and now.”53 Here Love is associated to be identical with
Brahman. The steps towards realizing the knowledge of the Ultimate
Reality of Existence or Brahman, the immortal Self, according to the
Upanishadic yogis, require moving away from petty worldly temptations,
thoughts, and desires. “Soundless, formless, intangible, undying,
tasteless, odorless, eternal, without beginning without end, immutable
beyond nature, is the Self . . . [This] Self is free from impurities, old age,
death, grief, hunger, and desires nothing—this Self is to be realized.”54
Rumi also speaks of the immortality of Love: “My brother, father,
and my ancestry is all Love—the essence of Love (khwı ˉsh-e ‘Ishq) always remains, unlike the essence of ancestry (khwı ˉsh-e nasabıˉ)
(genealogical ancestry).” Rumi’s name and his genealogical ancestry
were obliterated by Shams Tabrizi (D: 3048). No other source other
than (bodiless) Shams is to be the real permanent essence of existence
(D: 3051). “O my dying existence, step aside; o wine bearer, the
immortal goddess (saˉqıˉ): enter!” (D: 34). “There is no other path,
there is no other king, there is no other moon, other than this—all is
mortal.” (D: 2891).
Brahman’s “name is Silence.”55 And Rumi says that despite hundreds
of discourses, being without words, but with Shams, one is in
supreme unity (D: 2967). Rumi puts a great emphasis on the principle
of “Silence” or khaˉmoush to describe the nature of Love or Shams,
as discussed in chapter 5. Silence removes the differentiation of the
words and languages, in the same way it removes the differentiation
among different groups of people. “If I silence myself, the secret of
Love will be revealed, despite the diversity of the masses of the Turks,
Indians, and Kurds.” (D: 3052) Silence could be stimulated by sounds
other than language, particularly music. Rumi used music as a nonverbal
means to awaken in himself the sense of oneness and negation of
all dualities (D: 2962).
The hidden permanent Self in the human shell coexists with the conventional
consciousness of the continuously operating sensory faculties.
The Svetasvatara Upanishad alludes to this state: “When in inner union,
he is beyond the world of the body.”56 The Mandukya Upanishad
describes Brahman/Atman as being in its own pure state. It (Brahman)
is the end of evolution and non-duality (advaita)—Eternal OM. “Brahman
is non-duality and love. He goes with his self to the Supreme Self
who knows this, who knows this.”57 Rumi advocates the notion of One
as the center, the sign, the whole, the hidden, the language, the time,
the place, and the flowing in the “garden of Love” (D: 2994). “Here
there is no room for two, what is the meaning of I and you—consider
these two as one, so long as you are in our assembly.” (D: 2964)
To awaken the dormant consciousness requires meditation, practices,
and a guru who will teach about Brahman, since it cannot be
learned through books or by relying on the intellect and studying.58
Two things are hidden in the mystery of infinity of Brahman: knowledge
and ignorance. Ignorance is knowing only the passage of time
(maya, the illusion) and knowledge is knowing immortality. Brahman
is in Eternity above ignorance and knowledge, as explained in
the Svetasvatara Upanishad.59 Then in Rumi’s words: “In the realm
of Love, knowledge is ignorance . . . its traceless alley is outside of
knowledge and ignorance” (D: 2955). The seat of the highest Self is the heart, as frequently alluded to in the
Katha Upanishad: “Concealed in the heart of all beings is the Atman . . .
Smaller than the smallest atom, greater than the vast spaces . . . In the
secret high place of the heart there are two beings who drink the wine of
life in the world of truth . . . When all desires that cling to the heart are
surrendered, then a mortal becomes immortal, and even in this world
he is one with Brahman.”60 The Mundaka Upanishad also refers to “the
divine city of Brahman in the region of the human heart . . . welling in
the secret place of the heart.”61 Needless to say, in Rumian rhetoric the
heart is the throne of Love. There are many ghazals and verses that can
testify to this effect; it suffices, however, to refer to Rumi’s image of the
heart as the real Ka‘ba, worthy of circumambulation (tawaˉf). “Circumambulate
around the Ka‘ba of the heart, if you have a heart. It is the
heart that is the Ka‘ba of meanings; why are your thoughts engaged
with the mud?” (D: 3103).
The non-dual nature of Brahman is also similar to Rumi’s analogy
of the Sun that is one and without second, yet reflects on many
lakes and appears manifold.62 Certainly Rumi has no shortage of
uses for the metaphor of the Sun for non-dualism, for Love, and for
Shams. “The Sun of your beauty has no second to it (nı ˉstash saˉnıˉ).”
(D: 3047, see also 2672). Rumi’s Sun is the Sun of all beings, the Sun
of Love, the knower of all tales (D: 2995); the Sun of timelessness,
colorlessness; the Sun of all suns, the Sun of permanency, the Sun to
which we all belong; and the Sun is Shams, among many other uses.63
The purpose of the Upanishads was to redirect attention from
being preoccupied with the external gods of the Vedas or the god Prajapati
(in this case the masculine Vedic Brahma), and transfer attention
to the Brahman (neutral gender), the eternal and expanding principle.
The quest of the wise yogis and the buddhas (awakened ones) from
time immemorial has been to find a path to a liberated life.64 “Those
ascetics who know well the meaning of the Vedanta, whose minds are
pure by renunciation, at the hour of departing find freedom in the
regions of Brahman, and attain the supreme everlasting life.”65 For
Rumi the power of Love lies in its immortality (D: 636). The real
world and life is immortality; the tomb is unreal (D: 2593). The continuous
return to the cycle of impermanent existence demands insight
towards liberation (D: 2719).
Sometimes Rumi would resort to affirmation of what non-dual
Love is, and other times he would negate its false dualistic definitions.
The safest description of this unknowable phenomenon is “neither
this, nor that” (na ı ˉn baˉshad na aˉn, D: 577)—a formulation often
noted in Indian philosophy, particularly the description of Brahman referred to as neti neti (not this nor that), as the single nameless reality.
One of the most exuberant claims in Rumi’s writings is “maˉeem:
we are it,” and in the Chandogya Upanishad: “Thou art That.”66 This
means the lovers and the beloved in their union make all dualities of
the living beings and life vanish. In Rumi’s words, nothing perceptible
remains. In the state of having become “that,” he admonishes:
Do not search for me in this world or the other;
Both of these worlds are drowned in the world in which I wander.
(D: 1759)67
Rumi’s understanding of non-dualism68 and his metaphors to
formulate this awareness closely resemble those of advaita Vedanta.
Thus, without his even knowing the content of the Upanishads, Rumi
might be considered a de facto Vedantic philosopher. That the nondualism
of Rumi and advaita Vedanta share parallels to such an extent
is probably not a linguistic coincidence, but represents a common
unconscious search towards redeeming the integrity of certain primordial
views of the world and ultimate reality without personalizing
or dogmatizing it.
2. Non-Self and Liberation in Buddhism: Parallels in Rumi’s Poetry
The concept of non-self (an-atman) is essential in the philosophy and
approach of Buddhism. Strikingly, Rumi’s poetry also contains hundreds
of lines that refer to the concept of non-self (bı ˉ-khwı ˉshıˉ). These commonalities point to fundamental
similarities in the approaches of the Buddha and Rumi towards
how to develop an insightful spiritual path that transcends the conventional
mind and the limitations of geography, time, and culture.
The ideal of Buddhism may be described in various ways from different
angles, but it can be summarized in one single goal: liberation
from one’s own anxious, deluded, and pain-producing mind. One
explanation for the inner struggle of the mind is a false sense of selfhood,
holding to the belief that there is a permanent and unchanging
owner of the self in every body-and-mind complex who can survive
death. What actually exists is only a changing mind-stream imagining
fictitious individual selves focusing on the sensory world, which
the Buddha perceived to be empty of any substantial forms that the
human senses and intellect have the habit of perceiving. The self

under scrutiny, according to the second sermon of the Buddha after his enlightenment69 and according to the great third-century Buddhist
philosopher Naˉgaˉrjuna, has absolutely no real or central foundation.
70 Naˉgaˉrjuna further points out: “to observe the impermanence
of the world is temporarily called the aspiration for enlightenment.”71
Everything, literally everything, is in a constant state of flux and is
thus void of a permanent self; the conventional “self ” is nowhere to
be found ultimately, and has no anchor since all exists in the realm of
impermanence. In Zen literature, it is stated: “in the realm of being
as is, there is no other and no self.”72 This philosophy of “non-self ”
is at the core of Buddhism; from this understanding, final liberation
(nirvana) from the delusion about self, and freedom from the dissatisfaction
of an ever-changing life with mistaken views of the world,
can take place.
In contrast to advaita Vedanta, which considers the final and only
substratum to be Brahman, Buddhism does not place belief in any
fixed existence. The world of forms is in a permanent state of flux and,
therefore, empty of anything that can be substantially given a fixed
identity with the permanent and the ultimate self. Buddhism rejects
the notion of the ultimate self or considering self as divine. The debate
between the Buddhists and Vedantists on the substantiality of the self
and the physical world continues, even though the Buddhist idea of
nirvana and the Vedantic moks¸a both seek liberation from delusion
and from continuous birth and death (samsara).
From the Buddhist perspective, all psychological discomfort and
the predicament of the human condition originate from the gullible
human mind and its sensory faculties. The Buddha rejected
the notion of god(s) or mysterious forces being responsible for
the human condition, and moreover held that god(s) would not
be the source of a solution. Existence, as far as the Buddhists are
concerned, was taken out of celestial hands and put back into the
human hand to be dealt with. The imprint of enlightenment in Buddhist
understanding is inherent and unchanging in everyone, and its
attainment is not necessarily in abandoning the world and going to
live in a hermitage, but it is passing through the worldly and spiritual
states without clinging to them and without taking them to be final
and absolute.73
It is these two Buddhist principles of non-self and nirvana or
enlightenment that find parallels in Rumi’s world. The Buddhist
notion of non-self is a prerequisite to removing the egocentric self,
with all of its anthropocentric views, as a means to entering into a
realm of understanding the non-self or an-atman state. This state
equates with Rumi’s idea of non-self (fanaˉ, bıˉ-khwı ˉshıˉ, or bı ˉ-khodıˉ) that occurs in the process of being absorbed into the realm of absolute
Love.
Rumi perceived the state of Love as the immortal background
behind the familiar world of unrelenting birth and death, and outside
of the sensory world of appearances. In a strikingly similar vein,
in Buddhism the changing world and the cycle of birth and death
(samsara) must be seen against the background of an unchanging
state that is free of the flux and of birth and death, free from the
despair of change, a realm of nirvana—empty, without fluctuations,
and anguish-free. Rumi’s notion of Love can thus be analogous to
the nirvanic state, a permanent state outside of the human sensory
experience. To understand and to attain union with Love (mi‘raˉj,
or ascending from the earthly and sensory conditions, or nirvana)
requires first that one access non-self, or not value one’s own changing
views while in the path of Love, since Love is selfless and formless.
The power of non-self is the means to attain the ultimate stage. One
of Rumi’s ghazals reminds us of this, in a passage that sounds almost
exactly like a description of the Buddha himself sitting under a tree
during a consequential night attaining nirvana:
In the night of ascension (mi‘raˉj), the king from the non-self state
(bı ˉ-khodıˉ)
Journeyed a path that was a hundred thousand years old. (D: 2921)
To transcend the world of dualities demands insight in understanding
and applying the awareness of non-self. In the process, the religious
dualism of believers and non-believers in God is transcended and
loses its hold in the path of non-self. The state of non-self is when the
open, empty, and unchanging space is visualized. This path becomes
an egalitarian and non-discriminatory path to enlightenment, as Rumi
frequently suggests:
A flame would burn down the belief (ıˉmaˉn) and disbelief (kufr)
If you spread the creed (dı ˉn) of non-self (bı ˉ-khodıˉ). (D: 2906)
You move to the right and the left, intoxicated without self (bı ˉ-khwı ˉsh),
Towards a direction that has no left or right. (D: 3142)
The egocentric mind, or “self” in the conventional sense, is the
center where illusory dreams, ideas, and anxieties are shaped and
launched. The Buddha was the main architect who laid out the relationship
between this ego and the human psychophysical aggregates of feelings, body, knowledge, temperament, and consciousness.
All of these five aggregates lack a central self and are in a constant state
of change. Rumi often uses fanaˉ to refer to the waning of the functioning
faculties in favor of a non-self state of mind that can connect
with its non-self source. The field of fanaˉ produces an understanding
through which one’s inner eye is then able to gaze at the Reality of
all realities.
Non-self is another self whose root is the absolute . . . (M: III: 512)
Become extinct; extinct to your selfhood . . . (D: 499)
The shadow of selfhood (khwı ˉshıˉ) becomes extinct (fanaˉ) in the radiance
of the Sun . . . (D: 1938)
Non-being in the world is my creed . . . (D: 430)
During the breath of the non-self state, the moon comes near you;
in non-self the wine of the friend comes closer to you . . . (D: 323)
In some instances, Rumi refers to two sides of the self, even though
they appear to be one and the same thing, like wheat in which the seed
is separated from the chaff at harvest time (D: 524, 832). By paraphrasing
Rumi, the dervishes are fractions of the world but through their
non-self they are the rulers of all existence (D: 572). Dying to an anxious
and material self is a way to break out of the prison of ego (nafs);
this is when one is liberated and lands in the territory of Love (D: 636).
Rumi frequently declares that hearts without the experience of Love
suffer from sadness (D: 499, 505), and the thinking faculty (‘aql), as
the center of self, is accountable for illusory thoughts (D: 132, 1122,
1185, 1849, 1859, 1931). The mind that operates on the five senses
cannot penetrate the realm of non-self, which is permanent and resides
nowhere. The gem of liberation is buried in the layers of our being (D:
648). But Rumi elegantly describes in a ghazal the danger of selfhood
and physicality (smoke) overpowering the non-self (light):
Each moment a call comes to our being,
How long can this pain on earth continue? Liberate yourself!
Those who have supreme awareness (geraˉn-jaˉnaˉn), their pain will be
eliminated
. . . .
Our being is like a flame of light but its smoke exceeds its light;
If the smoke become profuse, there will remain no light in the house.
Once you reduce the smoke you’ll enjoy the radiance of light in you;
From your light both this domain and the other realm will be
enlightened. (D: 26) In order to remove the pain (Sanskrit duhkka; Persian dard) of
existence from the mind, the Buddha recommended shifting the focus
from the self to non-self, a process by which the centrality of the painproducing
self would be shifted to the luminosity of non-self. Rumi
also claimed that selfhood inhibits the awareness of timelessness, a
realm to which human intuitive existence is linked (D: 365). Rumi
formulates it thus: “I become blissful when I negate [my] self, not
when I affirm it” (D: 336).
In the Buddha’s view, attaining liberation was principally the work
of the mind, not the work of the body or its actions. Rumi also rejects
a focus on the body, recommending seclusion in order to distinguish
the donkey-like (khar-gaˉh) body from its non-physical dimension
(D: 832, 3144). Not only the Buddha, but also later Buddhists, such
as the famous fourth-century philosopher Vasubandhu, emphasized
the psychology of the falsity of day-to-day reality, which like the body
seems real but in fact disappears because it lacks a rooted foundation.
The sensory system, or the fleeting self, is incapable of connecting
with the past or the future and thus the human mind is left with the
present time to work with, itself an opportunity to enter timelessness.
This Vasubandhu attributed to the false logic of the self and
the illusion of its continuity, which he refuted. Thus, in the Buddhist
context the permanent self is a dream-like illusion that vanishes upon
awakening (Buddhahood). By the same token, Rumi refers to illusion
or the dream-like state (khaˉb) and its clashing with the awakened
domain (dowlat-e bı ˉdaˉr) or domain of Love: “The moment the illusion
was confronted by the awakened domain, it flew away just like
a sparrow seeing a hawk.” Love and Shams cornered and defeated
the ephemeral dream (D: 501; M: III: 489–90). About the illusion
of past and future time, Rumi, being on the same wavelength with
Vasubandhu, also claims that “a hundred thousand years and one
hour are one and the same [moment]” (M: I: 194; III: 461).
The Buddha stated that the incessant dissatisfaction with life stems
from what he called the three poisons: greed, anger, and delusion. In a
very similar vein, Rumi’s version of hell is one’s own character and the
burning of three tendencies that lead to the darkness of human ignorance:
greed (herss), anger (khashm), and lust (shahvat). When these
three tendencies are reversed, then light, knowledge, and prospering
can occur (M: II: 342; III: 543; IV: 806). Elsewhere, Rumi alludes
to greed, lust, pride, and selfishness, which must be uprooted for the
final liberation (M: V: 825, 921).
We cannot be certain whether Rumi was fully familiar with the
teachings of the Buddha or had ever learned the story of the Buddha’s
starting as a prince and ending up as an ascetic living on alms. However,
Rumi’s poetry contains numerous metaphorical references to the name
bot (the Middle Persian name extracted from the Sanskrit buddh or
buddha)74 as the symbol of beauty, a moon-faced seducer of religious
people, and the beloved.75 And in two ghazals, Rumi allegorizes the
Buddhists, their temple of Nawbahaˉr (D: 2950), and the Bahaˉr of the
idol-worshipper (D: 2043), referring to the Buddhist temple (Vihaˉr
in Sanskrit) in Persian as Bahaˉr76 (of Bactrian origin) or Nawbahaˉr.77
Rumi has several poems that specifically allude to the wandering Buddhist
monks (shaman78 [not shaˉman] in its Central Asian application).
We shall not be afraid of the mouth and teeth of the angel of death,
Since we are alive through the grace of the laughing Buddha (bot-e
khandaˉn) of kharaˉbaˉt.79 (D: 334)
Since you have seen a kingdom and have been a monarch,
Therefore being a king, it’s not fitting to be a beggar. (D: 343)80
If you want to attain a new life, then run away from being a king;
From the poison the antidote will appear.
Under the tree he takes delight about his destiny;
His enlightened existence will be at rest until the end of time. (D: 596)
Why do you keep away from my reach, o moon?
Despite the hundreds [of communities] we are still in your domain,
whether we are idolatrous or Buddhist (shaman). (D: 1838)
Since you are the water of life, there will be no one left (kası ˉ namaˉnad
baˉqıˉ),
And if you are the beautiful Buddha (bot-e zı ˉbaˉ), then everybody will
become Buddhist (shaman). (D: 1991)
Our hearts are monasteries (bot-kadeh), your image [Love] in him is
Buddhism (shamanıˉ),
Each Buddha statue facing a Buddhist (shaman) says: You are me.
(D: 2883)
I do not wish to see my own image, o Buddhist monk (shaman).
I see your face, you see mine.
But he who can see his own nature
Will possess a radiant light beyond what the masses can perceive.
(M: II: 262)

Aligned with the Buddhist concept of nirvana, which refers to
“blowing out” the fire of pain and continuous craving, Rumi calls
Love the water on such a fire in his search for liberation from grief and
suffering (vaˉ-rastam az ‘azaˉb) (D: 309). The non-self of the Buddha
and Rumi aims to release the mind and the heart from delusion, craving,
and the world of impermanency, the three poisons inherent in
human life until their antidote, whether it is called Nirvana or Love,
is found.