distance dissolving

Look again, and see how much I need you;

Watch the long nights that I lie here awake.

No, I am wrong: the distance between us

Will not let me live to see you again.

#1783: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Search word: see

I've returned to the idea of seeing because I've been seen through by the businessman at the faithfreedom.org forum (THHuxley starting with "You know, Cutie."). That announcement came just a couple of hours after I announced here the identity of CuteCoot and Arizona. I have an eerie feeling of being watched now, as if by the eye in the woodcut I posted up a couple of days ago. I have a hostile relationship with this businessman: we despise each other, we piss on each other. I have a loving relationship with my saint here: nothing jars, peace reigns. The two, somehow, must be "married". Don't ask me why.

Both, of course, lie within me. My inner saint reaches out to Rumi and embraces a dear brother. We understand each other so very well. My inner businessman chortles with cynical laughter. But he has been assured, in private, that I will give time to his demands. For now, my exclusive lover is Rumi and the businessman must needs wait.

Today's verse is yet another mind-splitting Zen-like apparent conundrum. Where the hell is Shams? Is he at a great distance? Or is he very very close indeed? Does Rumi need him? Or is Shams so much a part of him that "need" seems superfluous? Why would I "need" something that I already have? I can't "live to see you again" if you are ever present, can I?

And yet I know, because I've been there like anyone that has longed for a lover, that the longing is so close, so intimate, that the lost lover does indeed feel present. It is the longing itself that reminds me of that presence. It is my daily reminder. If I didn't suffer this illusion of distance, I would not come to know of the eternal presence where distance evaporates altogether.

Why does all this matter? I don't know, God only knows. Maybe saints, at least, have intimations. Would a businessman even know he didn't know?