In truth everything and everyone
Is a shadow of the Beloved,
And our seeking is His seeking
And our words are His words. . . .
We search for Him here and there,
while looking right at Him.
Sitting by His side, we ask:
“O Beloved, where is the Beloved?”
—Rumi
It is tragically easy to miss the beauty of these lines, if we allow the left brain to rule. Who is the Beloved? Why the pronouns “he, his, him”?
Yet more than seven hundred years ago, rivers of poetry flowed from Rumi that today continue to wash our wounds and slake seemingly unquenchable thirst in our souls. For Rumi, “the Beloved” was the sacred Self. For him, the Beloved was masculine, yet I have no doubt that Rumi would be thrilled if any of us replaced the masculine pronouns with feminine ones—or even neutral ones, if they assist our falling in love with the Beloved.
The first phrase of this poetic fragment is the foundation all that follows. In truth, everything and everyone is a shadow of the Beloved. The Beloved is seeing, seeking, speaking, loving, healing through us.
When was the last time you felt the sacred Self flowing through you into the world? When did you last feel yourself as the conduit of the Beloved’s compassion, justice, mercy, fierce tenderness? Notice that this is not about what the ego experiences but a palpable sensation of something greater, something for which we may even lack words.
We all are the eyes, ears, mind, mouth, hands, and feet of the Beloved on the material plane. And at all times, we are either allowing the sacred to flow and work through us, or we are inmates in the prison of the ego.
In turbulent times, the despairing heart may ask, “Where is the Beloved?” We need only look in the mirror, and we will have our answer.