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5

The Human Spirit

A bird flies in the atmosphere of the Unseen.

Its shadow falls on a patch of the Earth.

The body is the heart’s shadow’s shadow’s shadow;

How could the body merit the heart’s exalted rank?

A man lies asleep, his spirit shining in Heaven,

Like the sun, while his body is lying in bed.

His spirit is hidden in the Void, like a fringe [inside a garment];

His body is tossing and turning beneath the blanket.

Since the spirit, being from my Lord’s Command, is invisible,

Any likeness I may pronounce belies the truth of it.

(M VI, 3306–3310)

One of the major themes of the final Daftar (Volume) of the MathnawÏ is the uniqueness of the human state. In these lines R‰mÏ presents a series of arresting visual images to evoke the distance and disparity between the bodily and spiritual aspects of the human being. The body is ‘the shadow of the shadow of the shadow’ of the heart, like a shadow cast on the Earth by the bird or the spirit as it flies in the realm of the Unseen. Asleep in his bed, a man tosses and turns, while far away his spirit shines in the heavenly realms. Citing Qur’an 17: 85, the poet reminds us that the spirit (r‰^) is something beyond the reach of sense-perception. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, was instructed to tell those who asked him about the spirit, that it is min amr RabbÏ. This is generally translated, literally, as ‘from my Lord’s Command’ and is understood as signifying that the spirit is an entity whose nature is mysterious and fully known only to its Creator. According to the Qur’an, God ‘blew’ something of His spirit into our forefather, the Prophet Adam (peace be upon him); the attribution of the spirit to Him signifies not that it is divine but that it is among the most noble and wondrous of His creations.

The poet is not suggesting that the sleeping man is already living in Paradise while in this world. The message is that God causes the soul to pass away in its sleeping state, as Qur’an 39: 42 expresses it, then returns it to the body upon its awakening, unless He has decreed that it is to die. While mind and body are asleep the soul may roam the realm of the Unseen, whether confined to the domain of psychic phenomena and experiencing mundane or bizarre dreams or rising to the domain of spiritual ‘unveilings’. R‰mÏ describes this in one of his poems (DÏw¥n, vol. 2, p. 229; ghazal 943):

At the hour of the night prayer, when the sun has fully set,

The senses’ pathway closes; that of the Unseen opens.

The angel in charge of sleep then starts driving spirits forward,

The way that a shepherd does while watching over his flock,

Beyond time and space, towards the pastures of the spirit;

What cities and what gardens he shows to them over there!

The spirit beholds a thousand amazing forms and people,

When the imprint of this world is excised from it in dreams.

You would say that the spirit had always dwelt in that world;

It does not recall this world, or grow weary of that one.

It feels so free from the burden and load that made its heart quake

While here, that no such worries gnaw at him any longer.

R‰mÏ often speaks of sleep and dreams and their significance and connection with death. They are unmistakably signs and portents – aspects of the Unseen – that everyone experiences. And our real identities do not reside in our bodies:

‘The body is the heart’s shadow’s shadow’s shadow;

How could the body merit the heart’s exalted rank?’