Home About us Contact us Tell a Friend Print this page Site map

EVEN THOUGH YOU TIE A HUNDRED KNOTS –
THE STRING REMAINS ONE*

REMEMBERING RUMI**

Whenever we fail or suffer, we dash to figure out what has happened.  Cause after cause comes to the inquiring mind; yet in reality, the reason is one, only one.  With admirable incisiveness, Rumi put it this way:  “Even though you tie a hundred knots – the string remains one”.  Given yarn, every one of us keeps on tying knots; and while this goes on, the mind’s eye sees a web of many strings.  This criss-cross mental scene, taken for real, generates confusion and panic.  And the prey is caught in the web.  Who is prey?  Us.  Who spun the ensnaring web? Us.

The process is familiar – ancient as humanity itself – and like an amoeba, it perpetually reproduces itself.  Here is what happens:  As we go about our daily chores, we encounter the expected and unexpected.  Generally, we hail or tolerate the first, cheer, loathe, or dread the second.  This is precisely where the problem begins and naturally the logical place to dispose of it:  by acceptance – acceptance of outcomes, all outcomes, whatever they are.  Acceptance is not surrender, is not defeat.  Recognizing and accepting facts and indicators is victory, an honest, unbiased compass always pointing the right direction.

 * Abstracted with permission from “Coping and Beyond A Surgeon’s Reflections On Medicine, Science, Art, & A Life Worth Living” published by DeVorss and Company.

 ** Jal al-Din al Rumi, born in Balkh in present day Afghanistan, died in 1273.  A great – possibly the greatest-Sufi poet, “Spiritual Couplets” influenced Islamic mystical thought and literature.  Shortly after his death, his disciples formed the Mawlawiyah Sufi order, known in the West as the Whirling Dervishes.

Planning and effort we can control; results, we cannot.  Many elements, myriad events seen and unseen, shape results.  In large measure these forces cannot be influenced by us.  Given this fact, the cry-babies of the universe must stop their crying and save this passionate tears for their unfulfilled, glorious communion with life, its music, its poetry, and the unforgotten great works of art.