Rumi, one of the figures in the Islamic Sufi tradition, never stopped inspiring me. He once wrote: “Run from what is comfortable. Forget convenience. Live where you are afraid to live. Destroy your reputation. Be controversial. I have tried to live wisely. From now on, I will be crazy. "
Rumi voice echoed loudly in our times. An age where people live looking for comfort in all things, even to the comfort of life after death. An era where people lick left and right to maintain and enhance their reputation. An age where people seek safety, live cowards, and submit to the oppression of common sense.
Anti Establishment
It seemed, Rumi realized, that comfort is the enemy of life. The essence of life is continuous creation or creativity. Comfort will make life rotten. He imprisons people in the pleasure that sucks his life continuously and slowly.
Comfort makes people fall asleep. His consciousness decreased. He became weak and slow. Conversely, challenges and problems will keep people aware and awake. This is the real essence of life.
Forget security too. In this fragile life, there is no security. All the available technology and money can protect us. However, in the face of death, sickness, and disaster, everything seemed useless.
Every second, death is always in sight. Life is like an egg on the edge. He is very fragile. All knowledge and experience can disappear in the blink of an eye when the head hits hard enough.
Accepting this vulnerability is wisdom. Experiencing and accepting uncertainty is a certainty. This is where people can truly take refuge, and find peace. I remembered the words of Ajahn Brahm, a Buddhist master from England, “relax, nothing is in control. Take it easy, there is nothing we can control in this life. "
Rumi also invites us to leave the house which gives a sense of security and comfort. He invites us to live in a place that invites great fear. Fear is humanity's greatest enemy. It can only be surpassed by being faced completely.
In this way, even fear can show its true face. Fear is nothing more than fake. It is just a physical sensation that is easily lost in the change. With this understanding, people can get out of fear, and live in real peace.
Destroy Your Reputation
Destroy your reputation, so asked Rumi. Reputation is what other people think of us. Its nature is constantly changing, and very fragile. Living on your feet is life in prison.
Rumi wants to free us from what is apparent. He wants us to continue to renew ourselves. We must not be trapped and attached to a certain role or identity. Only then, we live to the fullest.
Rumi also invited us to become controversial human beings. This means that we are ready to dismantle existing traditions. We are ready to question the old, decaying views. And we're also ready to be hated, for doing it all.
We are ready to be known as the rebels. We are prepared to be seen as unruly, messy. It is all done to expose the hypocrisy and rottenness of the existing way of thinking. In fact, like the great thinkers of history, we are ready to be misunderstood and killed for it.
Living in Whole Life
Nietzsche, a German thinker, would have learned a lot from Rumi. Both of them emphasized that we must not live as cowardly humans. We can't just go with the flow, without being critical. We must not live comfortably and safely in our shallowness. And we also should not be locked in by fear which is a fraud.
In this sense, we need to be "crazy". We need to question the way most people live. We need to question widespread and profound superficiality and ignorance. It is precisely crazy that we become completely sane. We become human beings who live in all their colors.
We say YES! on life. What are you waiting for?
Nice one