Rumi'S Four Essential Practices

RELIGION / POETRY "Rumi speaks with the voice of our own age and our own hearts. Nowhere is this more clear than in this compelling and moving book by one of the most interesting, innovative, and creative spiritual thinkers and practitioners of our time. I recommend Will Johnson's guidance into Rumi's world to all who seek the freedom and joy that Rumi offers." --Reginald Ray, Ph.D., Buddhist teacher and author of Touching Enlightenment The great thirteenth-century Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Rumi began his life as an orthodox Islamic believer but felt that to fully experience complete union with the divine he must abandon institutionalized religion and its prescribed forms of worship. Surrendering his will to his overriding urge for a much more immediate, intuitive, and compelling union with the divine, he found that by manipulating certain behavioral aspects of his physiology--eating lightly, breathing deeply, moving freely, and gazing raptly--he was capable of loosening the rigid confines of the self, thereby overriding its limitations and achieving a transcendent merging with his own divinity. Rumi's message is simple: if you wish to affect the spirit, you must first make changes in the way your body responds to the world. Through clearly written commentary interspersed with Rumi's beautiful poems, this book details his four practices in a very precise way. As such, it is a sweet and open invitation to follow the examples set forth in order to embark upon one's own path of inner illumination. The freshness of Rumi's poetry dissolves the 700 years that separate his life from our own time, making his message as pertinent today as when he walked the streets of Konya, Anatolia (present-day Turkey), reciting his inspiring verse. This book allows us, through Rumi's gentle guidance, to touch the face of God that resides deep within us all. WILL JOHNSON is the author of The Sailfish and the Sacred Mountain, Yoga of the Mahamudra, and the award-winning The Spiritual Practices of Rumi. He is also coauthor, with translator Nevit Ergin, of The Forbidden Rumi and The Rubais of Rumi. He lives in British Columbia.