Friday, June 4, 2010

A Hidden Grace

"When did God make me hopeful, and when did God shower money and profit on me?
What wisdom was this that the Object of all desire caused me to go forward from my home on a fool's errand?
So that I was hastening to lose the way, and at every moment was being further removed from what I was seeking?
And then God, in his munificence, made that very abberation the means of my reaching the right road and gaining wealth.!"
God makes losing the way an avenue to true faith; God makes going wrong a field for the harvest of righteousness.
To the end that no righteous one may be without fear, and that no sinner may be without hope.
The Gracious One has put an antidote in the poison in order that they may say that God is the Lord of a hidden grace."

Rumi (Vol.6, 4338-4344)

Commentary: We all lose our way. But we won't know the end of this story (of our lives), until the story ends. There are less than 600 verses left in the 6 volumes of the Mathnavi. (The whole work contains over 24,000 verses.) How interesting that at the conclusion of this masterpiece, Rumi is emphasizing the universality of confusion.