God in the question

You are water; we are all plants that drink.

We are all beggars; you are the king.

We are all voices; you're the one who speaks.

Why don't we all follow? It's you who seeks.

#1621: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Search word: plan

I am making plans to write a novel during November (with the help of nanowrimo.org) and plan yielded plant. I'm taking that as an augury that something will grow from the seed I will plant.

I often have the feeling that it doesn't matter which verse I land on, Rumi will be saying the same thing he has been saying in every other verse. In this verse, he takes this a little further and claims that there is but one source, one person, one "you", who is really doing all the speaking through each of us. Every word I write, every single thing I say, is The One speaking through me.

This is the strongest statement of Islam from Rumi that I have yet encountered, the first three lines being as nice a summary of its essential message as one could hope to find. There is, however, the Zen-like twist at the end. Like many such twists, this is the entry point where the ego and the intellect are confused, where the mind plummets into the abyss. Whenever I seek to understand, my motivation comes from God, from "you", from the water table below. It is God who is seeking through us. We dive ever deeper when we ask what it is that God is seeking. Is His omniscience not already complete? Is it true that, deep down, He needs us as much as we need Him? Is He, after all, the one who is asking these very questions?

Ah, when seen that way, God is so very very close, is He not?