PNTV: Rumi Daylight by Rumi (#64)

Hey, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we're going to do Rumi's poetry in a collection called Rumi Daylight. And I actually picked this book up in 2001 in the middle of the Mediterranean. I was on a boat going from one island to another. And traded a Dan Millman book for this book. And had never heard of Rumi before and fell in love with it. And this was in 2001. I was traveling in the Middle east and wound up going to Turkey, where Rumi lived and died in Konya, Turkey. He was born in Afghanistan, lived in Konya, Turkey, which was then the capital of the Seljuk Empire, which was the dominant empire of his era. And he was one of the leading figures. He was a professor of religion and at the leading university in Konya, Turkey. Pretty cool stuff. Fun to see his tomb. And on that same trip, I wound up studying Jesus in Jerusalem and Socrates in Athens. And Marcus Aurelius in the Danube of Hungary region. Really, really fun trip. 2001 kind of kicked off a lot of this stuff for me. Let's get back to Rumi. So Rumi, Sufi mystic, Sufi poet. For those who don't know, Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam. And I want to kick off the exploration of some of our favorite big ideas here with an idea of self mastery and jihad. So self mastery is a huge theme throughout Rumi's work and throughout all these great teachers. And he describes it beautifully. He says, the lion who overcomes the enemy's ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself. So it's a way greater victory to overcome our own frailties, our own fears, our own insecurities, our own fears and hatreds, etc. Than overtaking an enemy. It's a really powerful way to look at things. And it's interesting because the word jihad actually means to strive against, to struggle with, right? And there's a lower, a lesser jihad, an external jihad, and then a greater jihad, an internal jihad. Really a lesser holy war and a greater holy war. There's the external, lesser jihad against oppressors and against those outside of ourselves, which is all we think about when we think of jihad. But there's actually a greater holy war, which is the war within ourselves, the battle within ourselves, to master ourselves, to conquer those kind of smaller selves. And to really plug in and express the highest within ourselves. That's the greater holy war. The greater jihad isn't that cool. Fell in love with that idea. And from that vantage point we could say that Rumi was one of the greatest Jihad warriors and so were all of these great teachers. Socrates describes the same way. He says the greatest combat is the combat we have between our higher and our lower selves. The Bhagavad Gita, which we're going to do probably tomorrow, is basically that the Bhagavad Gita is set up on a battlefield. It's a metaphor for life. It's a story of a family fighting another family, A warrior that doesn't want to go to battle. And God basically comes in and says, you've got to do that battle. And it's a metaphor for our higher selves and our lower selves. And we've got to be willing to step up and develop the self mastery to bring our highest selves into the world more consistently. Really powerful idea. We're going to keep on talking about it throughout these notes and throughout these episodes and we'll talk about a little bit more right now. So Rumi also says, in addition to the lions overcoming themselves, he says, the intelligent want self control, children want candy. The intelligent want self control, children want candy. In the note, I jokingly say, can't we have both? And, well, you know, maybe we can. But the point here is we want to look at what we can do to become our highest selves. When we look at the self development literature, in my opinion, too often the focus is on the things we can have. I want to have this faster car, this bigger house. Let me put that on my vision board. I want to have this body or whatever it is, more money in the bank. All the have, have, have goals. That's a lot of candy. The fact is, candy isn't what leads to actualization, it's not what leads to happiness. We talk about that in the positive psychology episodes and notes. What leads to happiness is self control. It's becoming the type of person that can consistently live with love, with appreciation, with joy, with kindness, with generosity. And in the program I'm developing right Now, Optimal Living 101, the focus we need to have goals. Those are really important. But the focus is less on having goals or doing goals, and more on being goals and creating goals. So how do we become. How do we be the type of human we want to be and let these things, the wonderful experiences and the wonderful toys and candies, come as a byproduct, not as the focal point of our life. At best, they're means to an end to support us in our actualization. But they're not ends in themselves. Again, we know this scientifically and psychologically. Less than 10% of our happiness comes down to our wealth and all the trappings we have of success. The bulk of it is going to be how we perceive the world, which is only shaped through self control. So the intelligent want self control, children want candy. So let's mature ourselves and go for the self control. Deep breath. Alright, so another big idea that I dig here, roomie says very simply, patience is the key to joy. Patience is the key to joy. You might find. I certainly find that I get stressed. Really one of the few times I get stressed is when I now is when I need things to happen. Now, when I step back and I have spaciousness and I commit myself to the process and. And I commit myself to doing great work, consistently, to honoring my rituals of meditation, exercise, good nutrition, gratitude, creative expression, journaling, things like that. And I know that all great things take time. I quote Epictetus here, another great old school thinker who says all great things take time. If you tell me you want a fig, I tell you there must be time. First you need to plant the seed. Then it needs to germinate and sprout. Then much longer, much later, it will start to fruit, start to blossom rather, then the fruit will ripen and then you can have it. But if you plant the seed and then dig it up the next day and wonder why you didn't get the results you wanted, that usually tied to the candy, the have goals, you're going to suffer, right? I certainly suffer when I do that. So what we want to do is first of all, go for the long term, being goals, the highest goals. We want to be the actualizing goals and to be the type of human being we want that naturally attracts this stuff. And then be patient, diligently, patiently, persistently, playfully do what we need to do. Take the next step, let the results take care of themselves. Patience is the key to joy. I love that idea. He's got some awesome ideas that are just lyrical in how he communicates them about the power of challenges. He says, if you are irritated by every rub, how will you ever be polished? So if you're making a mirror and you got to rub it in order to make it polished so you can see a reflection of your highest self. If you're irritated by every rub, how will you ever be polished? You're not going to be. But we can look at life's challenges as opportunities to grow. And when we do that, we have extraordinary opportunities to, as he says, boil the scum away and he says, literally beautiful quote. He says, this discipline and rough treatment are a furnace to extract the silver from the dross. This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away. Isn't that amazing? This testing, life's challenges boil the scum away. Isn't that cool? And purifies us so our higher selves can come out. Love that. We've got some other great ideas in the note. You can check out one other idea here. He says, God turns us from one feeling to another, one feeling to another, so that we have two wings to fly and not one. Isn't that a beautiful idea? Oftentimes we find ourselves kind of spun around. We think, this one day, then this the next day. This one day, this the next day, God turns us from one feeling to another so that we have two wings to fly, not one. We get clarification on our values. Anytime I'm challenged and I'm like, oh, I thought I was clear. I realize that really what's happening is a values clarification process. I'm getting two wings and I can find that middle path. I can find my own dynamic equanimity in the midst of that challenge and unknown. Really cool idea. He also says, travelers, it is late. Spare no effort of your wings. Live. Life is brief. Let's go out and rock it. He says one more thing. Finally, he says he is. A letter to everyone you open says, live. Isn't that beautiful? Live well. Here's to our highest selves. Hope you dug it. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. And as always, have an awesome day. See.