Drum sound rises on the air, its throb, my heart.
A voice inside the beat says, “I know you’re tired, but come. This is the way.”
~ Rumi, The essentials of Rumi
Speaker: “I know you’re tired, but come. This is the way.” Apaar is saying, “After reading Rumi, a fear is rising. What if the way too is tiring? Then?”
When did Rumi assure you that the way is not tiring? In fact, all that Rumi is saying is, “You are already tired. That much is known.” You are prone, susceptible, vulnerable to tiredness. It is well-known. And somebody who is already tired is being invited to walk away. For sure, he will get only more tiredness. So there is no uncertainty.
You are asking, “What if the way too is tiring?” There is no doubt. Why are you feeling fifty-fifty? It is hundred percent certain, that only more tiredness is going to be there, only more tiredness. Rumi is honest. He won’t hide these things. He is saying, “It is tiring, obviously.”
But something more important than your weariness , your fatigue, something more compelling than your tiredness, would pull you. That thing has come in the shape of Rumi, for now. And that’s the whole beauty of it. Not tired, anybody would like to have a stroll. It is pleasurable. “I am not tired, and just have had dinner. Let’s go for a night walk.” There is nothing in that walk.
But it becomes special when you are tired, and you have no reason to walk, yet you find yourself running. And you are not deceiving yourself; you are not hiding it from yourself that you are tired. “Yes, obviously I am tired. But there is something more important than this. I have to run.”
What is more important than this? Well, if there were a reason to walk, there could be a bigger reason to not to walk. Every reason can be defeated by a bigger reason, because reason always has its limits and boundaries. So whatever is done for a reason, can never be immense. It would always be petty. One reason would compel you to do something, another reason would come in your way, and tell you to not to do it.
So what is the reason to walk? There is no reason; just madness. And Rumi is mad, always drunk. He has no taste for water at all. He says, “Either give me wine, or give me nothing. Leave me alone.” Only such a madman, can walk without reason.
So rest assured, there is a lot of tiredness. The question is not at all about tiredness. The question is – do you know something bigger than tiredness? Tiredness is assured, guaranteed. So relax your heart! There is no need for your mind to be uncertain about tiredness. Tell your mind to relax. Tell it, “Tiredness is certain,” then come to the bigger question. “Do I only know the mind? Do I only know tiredness? Or, do I know something of the Heart? Do I know something beyond tiredness?”
Remember, ‘beyond tired’ does not mean ‘not tired’. ‘Beyond tired’ means ‘tired, yet not tired’. You will have to appreciate the subtle difference. If you are not tired, then you can get tired. These are dualistic stages. The one who is not tired in the morning, will be tired by the night. But the one who is ‘not tired’, even when ‘tired’, will never be tired.
‘Not tired’ when not tired, and ‘not tired’, even when ‘tired’.
And this ‘not tired’, remember, is not the same as the ‘not-tiredness’ that you feel in the morning. It is not physical, it is not mental. When I am saying, “Not tired” or “beyond tired,” I mean – beyond tiredness. This is not the relaxation that you experience when you wake up after eight hours sleep. I am not talking of that relaxation. I am talking of something within in your heart, that refuses to not to walk towards your love, even when you are deeply tired.
You are deeply tired. In fact, your body may be shredded, you may have been reduced to a mass of wounds, and yet you are walking, yet you are walking. That is ‘beyond tiredness’. Kabir says, “ Zarra Zarra ho rahe, tab hu na chade khet (You have been shredded into pieces, yet you do not leave the field).”
So you have been really shredded down, zarra zarra , into pieces. You hardly are in one piece, physically, and yet you refuse to give up. You cannot give up. You are ‘that’. How will you give ‘your self’ up? Something so dear, something so intrinsic, that it is improbable, impossible, un-doable, that it can be dissociated from you.
That is the question. Do you know something of ‘that’? Is there anything in your life, that is so precious, that you cannot separate from it, come what may? If ‘yes’, then this is the way. (Laughingly) If ‘no’, go and sleep, you are tired.
