Rumi

Student: I was reading this in Rumi, and I know that you and I share a fondness for his poetry. We have been talking a great deal about beliefs and language and messaging.

Rumi has a story about God talking to Moses. “I want burning, burning! Those who pay attention to ways of behaving and speaking are one sort. Lovers who burn are another.”

Barbara: He is making a distinction between the philosophers and those who recognize themselves as life itself. Life is using its creation as kindling for its own eternal and infinite fire. We are kindling for life, we are part of the great fire. We can philosophize, as we have done, in the course of these interviews. We can develop theories, we can develop concepts, we can get the mind to understand itself, but in the end it is all part of the burning process, all part of the great force of life.

From that point of view, we are wits, we are lovers, we are zealots. And philosophy is just a game that the mind plays.