My Letter To The Troops- No.4

From Journal Entry 7/31/2012

Dear Sir or Madam,

When I discovered Rumi I knew I had found a treasure.  Rumi describes the vast regions of the heart that one must explore when one is on the path to Divine Love.  There is madness, elation, and revelation on the journey.  At times one feels deep despair, utter hopelessness, and other times pure ectasy.  Rumi has found a way into Love and through his writing he leaves the reader with a glimpse of Eternity.
Like Rumi, I have fallen in love with Love.  It is my sincere hope that other pilgrims of Love will stay on the path to Divine Love.  Only love can dissolve the hate in this world.  Love never dies, it transforms the world around you.

God Bless,

Madison Meadows

P.S.  Enclosed is Rumi's Parable, The Serpent

   A wise man was riding by at the moment when a serpent entered the mouth of a sleeping man.  The horseman saw it, hurried to try to scare the serpent away, but it was too late.  His vast intelligence revealed to him what he had to do: he gave the sleeper several fierce blows with a club, which made him wake up and run away and hide under a tree.  Rotten apples from the tree lay on the ground; the horseman cried out, “Eat them at once!” and gave the man so many apples to eat that they tumble out of his mouth.

   Why are you attacking me like this?”  the unfortunate man kept howling.  “What did I do to you?  If you have a fatal grudge against me, strike me once with your sword and kill me!  How terrible was the moment I came into your sight!  Happy is the man who has never seen your face!”

   Every time the man went on to pronounce a new curse, the horseman went on beating him, saying, “Keep running!”  Blows rained down on the man and he ran and ran, sometimes falling on the ground.  He was exhausted, worn out; his face and feet were covered with a thousand wounds.  Until nightfall, the horseman made him run in all directions, until at last a vomiting possessed him, caused by bile from the apples he had eaten.  Everything he had eaten, good or bad, spewed out of his mouth, including the serpent.  When he saw the serpent leap out of his body, he fell to his knees before the holy man; his sufferings abandoned him the moment he grasped the full horror of the long black snake.

   “How could I have known it?” he gasped to the horseman.  “You are the Gabriel of Divine Mercy!  I was dead; you gave me back life.  You looked after me as mothers do their children.  Happy is the man who sees your face or who appears suddenly before your house!  Don’t punish me for what I said; it was my madness speaking!  If I had known anything of what you were up to, how could I have said such stupid words?”

   The horseman replied, “If I had given you any idea of the danger you were in, you would have died of a heart attack; if I had described the characteristics of the snake, terror would have made you faint and die.  Didn’t Mohammed say, “If I described openly the enemy in your souls, even the hearts of the brave would be shattered.”  Shattered in this way, a person would not continue on his Path or bother about any work and in his heart neither perseverance in prayer would remain, nor any strength in his body for fasting and ritual prayer.  He would become helpless like a mouse before a cat; he would grow crazed like a lamb stalked by a wolf.  No power to complete his plans would remain in him.  This is why I took care of you without saying anything.  If I had spoken to you about the snake, you wouldn’t have been able to eat what you had to, and so you wouldn’t have been able to vomit it out.  I heard your insults and continued doing what I had to do:  I prayed continually under my breath, ‘Lord save this man!’  I did not have permission to speak of the reason for what I was doing, and it was not in my power to abandon you.  Because of the grief in my heart, I said continually what the Prophet said at the battle of Ohod when he was wounded, ‘Guide my people, Lord; they know nothing.’”

   The man who had been saved from so much misery fell to his knees and cried out to the horseman, “You are my joy, my good luck, my treasure; God will reward you as you deserve!  The poor being I am cannot know how to thank you.  God will thank you, my guide:  I do not have the power to do so.”

   I have told this parable to illustrate the “enmity” of the wise and to show that their “poison” is the satisfaction of the soul.

Reference~ Teachings of Rumi by Andrew Harvey