a lone pillar

Tonight, when love's sorrow is forever and ever,

And the ruby wine is my strength and pillar,

The law prescribes pain and contemplation.

Food and sleep and passion are forbidden.

#1150: From Rumi's Kolliyaat-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Is Rumi setting up the ruby wine of religious ecstasy in contrast to the five pillars of Islam? Is he referring to the sharia or Islamic law? Is he saying that it prescribes pain but forbids the essentials of life? It's hard to say with Rumi. Stout Muslims insist he was a model Muslim and that Islam remains the only path to his wisdom and his kind of enlightenment. Others see him as heretical at least and an apostate at most. Only Rumi knew, in his heart.

I'm feeling numb today, and consequently uninspired. So I'll leave things there.