The Tavern

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by EvilPoet, Oct 15, 2002.

  1. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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    Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have To Take Me Home

    On The Tavern

    In the tavern are many wines---the wine of delight in color and
    form and taste, the wine of the intellect's agility, the fine port of
    stories, and the cabernet of soul singing. Being human means
    entering this place where entrancing varieties of desire are served.
    The grapeskin of ego breaks and a pouring begins. Fermentation
    is one of the oldest symbols for human transformation. When
    grapes combine their juice and are closed up together for a time
    in a dark place, the results are spectacular. This is what lets two
    drunks meet so they don't know who is who. Pronouns no longer
    apply in the tavern's mud-world of excited confusion and half-
    articulated wantings.

    But after some time in the tavern, a point comes, a memory of
    elsewhere, a longing for the source, and the drunks must set off
    from the tavern and begin the return. The Qur'an says, "We are
    all returning." The tavern is a kind of glorious hell that human
    beings enjoy and suffer and then push off from in their search for
    truth. The tavern is a dangerous region where sometimes
    disguises are necessary, but never hide your heart, Rumi urges.
    Keep open there. A breaking apart, a crying out into the street,
    begins in the tavern, and the human soul turns to find its way
    home.

    "It's 4 A.M. Nasruddin leaves the tavern and walks the town
    aimlessly. A policeman stops him. "Why are you out wandering
    the streets in the middle of the night?" "Sir," replied Nasruddin,
    "if I knew the answer to that question, I would have
    been home hours ago!"

    Source: The Essential Rumi
     

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