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He finally found a white-haired old man who seemed to understand what he was saying. He’d continued to repeat the word “dervish” and was beginning to grow tired. He had six more days here, maybe he’d take advantage of the fact that he was there and see the bazaar, but the old man drew closer and said:
“Darwesh.”
Ah, that must have been it, he’d been pronouncing it wrong the entire time. As though to confirm his suspicion, the man began imitating the dance of the dervishes. The man’s expression changed from surprise to condemnation.
“You Muslim?”
Paulo shook his head.
“No,” the man said in English. “Only Islam.”
Paulo stepped in front of him.
“Poet! Rumi! Darwesh! Sufi!” he said, also in English.
The name Rumi, as the founder of the order was called, and the word poet must have softened the old man’s heart. Though he pretended to be annoyed and unwilling, he grabbed Paulo by the arm, dragged him out of the bazaar, and brought him to the spot where Paulo found himself at that moment, in front of a house that was nearly in ruins, unsure exactly what to do other than knock on the door.
He knocked several times, but no one answered. He turned the handle, the door was unlocked. Should he go in? Could he be accused of trespassing? Wasn’t it true that abandoned buildings had wild dogs looking after them to keep out the homeless?
He opened the door a crack. He stood there waiting to hear dogs barking, but instead he heard a voice, a single voice in the distance, saying something in English that he couldn’t make out, and he immediately noticed a sign that he was in the right place: the smell of incense.
He made a great effort to discover what the man’s voice was saying. He couldn’t make out a thing, the only way was to go inside—the worst that could happen was that they’d turn him away. What was there to lose? Suddenly, he was about to realize one of his dreams: to connect with the dancing dervishes.
He had to take the risk. He walked in, closed the door behind him, and when his eyes had adjusted to the relative darkness of the place, he saw that he was in a completely empty coach house, painted entirely in green, the wood floor worn by the years. A few broken windows allowed the light to filter in and made it possible to discern, in a corner of that space which seemed much larger inside than it had from out front, an old man sitting on a plastic chair talking to himself, which he stopped doing as soon as he noticed the unexpected visitor.
He said a few words in Turkish, but Paulo shook his head. He didn’t speak Turkish. The man shook his head, too, demonstrating his displeasure at the presence of a stranger who’d interrupted something important.
“What do you want?” he asked with a French accent.
What could Paulo say? The truth. Dancing dervishes.
The man laughed.
“Perfect. You came here just as I did when I left Tarbes—a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere in France with a single mosque—in search of knowledge and wisdom. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Do what I did when I found one of them. Spend a thousand and one days studying a poet, memorizing everything he wrote, answering any questions anyone ever has with the wisdom of his poems, and then you can begin your training. Because your voice will have begun to mix with that of the Enlightened One and the verses he wrote eight hundred years ago.”
“Rumi?”
The man bowed upon hearing the name. Paulo sat on the floor.
“And how can I learn? I’ve already read much of his poetry, but I don’t understand how he put it into practice.”
“A man in search of spirituality knows little, because he reads of it and tries to fill his intellect with what he judges wise. Trade your books for madness and wonder—then you will be a bit closer to what you seek. Books bring us opinions and studies, analyses and comparisons, while the sacred flame of madness brings us to the truth.”
“I’m not carrying many books. I came as a person in search of an experience—in this case, the experience of dance.”
“This is a search for knowledge, not dance. Reason is the shadow of knowledge of Allah. What power does the shadow have before the sun? Absolutely none. Come out from the shadow, go to the sun, and allow its rays to inspire you, not words of wisdom.”
The man pointed to a spot where a ray of sunlight had entered, some thirty feet from his chair. Paulo walked over to the place indicated.
“Salute the sun. Allow it to fill your soul—knowledge is an illusion, ecstasy is the true reality. Knowledge fills us with guilt, ecstasy allows us to be one with He who is the Universe before it existed and after it has been destroyed. The search for knowledge is an attempt to wash oneself with sand when a well of clean water can be found right next to us.”
At that exact moment, the loudspeakers mounted in the mosque towers began to recite something, the sound filled the city, and Paulo knew it was the call to prayer. His face was turned to the sun, a lone ray visible on account of the dust, and he knew from the noise behind him that the old man with the French accent must have fallen to his knees, turned his face toward Mecca and started to pray. Paulo began emptying his mind; it wasn’t so difficult, not in that place bereft of any ornament—not even the words of the Koran written in that script that looked like a painting. He had reached total emptiness, far from home, his friends, the things he’d learned, the things he still wanted to learn, from good or evil, he was there. Just there, in the moment.
He bowed, and then lifted his head again, keeping his eyes open, and he saw the sun was speaking with him—it wasn’t trying to teach him anything, merely permitting its light to flood everything around him.
My loved one, my light, may your soul persist in unending adoration. At some moment you will leave the place you are now and return to your own people, because the time to renounce all has not yet arrived. But the Supreme Gift, called Love, will make you an instrument of My words—the words I’ve not spoken but which you understand.
The silence will teach you if you give yourself up to the Great Silence. This silence may be translated into words, because this will be your destiny, but when this happens, seek no explanations, and urge others to respect the Mystery.
