The parrot, looking in the mirror, sees Itself, but not its teacher hid behind, and learns Human speech, while it thinks a bird of its kind is speaking to it.
So the disciple full of self sees nothing in the Teacher but themself. The Universal Reason eloquet behind the mirror of the Teacher's teaching - the Spirit, which is the Mystery of the Human - they cannot see. Words mimicked, learned by rote, That's all. A parrot that one, no intimate-friend!
*Rumi, "Rumi. "The Blind Follower." In A Rumi Anthology. Trans. Reynold A. Nicholson. Modern-language adaptation by Brian K. Wilcox.
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The poet, Rumi, employs the tradition of parrots trained to speak. A mirror would be placed before a parrot. A curtain would be placed behind the mirror. The trainer would hide behind the curtain and talk to the parrot. The parrot, seeing itself in the mirror, would think another parrot was talking to her. It would mimic the 'other' parrot.
Rumi speaks of those who are present to learn from a human, spiritual teacher. They do not discern the teacher is a mouthpiece of the 'hidden' Teacher - Spirit. Not discerning the wisdom within the surface teachings, for they are not receptive to the spiritual insight given through the human Teacher, they remain on the surface of the teaching.
These persons appear to be religious or spiritual. They can repeat teachings. they can tell of teachers or leaders they have been taught by. They can tell of books read, workshops attended, pilgrimages traveled, and practices practiced, but they are "no intimate-friend," says Rumi. Here, we can read this as saying, "no intimate friend" among the friends - friends referring to the fellowship of those awake to the hidden Teacher and wisdom, not merely the outer teachers and their teachings.
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A Jesus Saying reads - "Not everyone who says to me, 'Teacher, Teacher,' shall enter the reign of the heavens (or, heavenly, or subtle, realms)" (Gospel of Matthew 7.21). In Rumi's imagery, human parrots say the right things. Still, they are not intimate with the Beloved of the Heart, and their hearts do not resonate with those who experientially know-in-love the Way - the hidden of forms arising from Subtle Realms. For one to discern such, one undergoes a transformation - not merely a conversion to a religion or spiritual group - from everyday intelligence to spiritual intelligence and its subtle, perceptive capacities.
So, we read in the Christian Scriptures, I Corinthians 2.14-15 (GNT) -
Whoever does not have the Spirit cannot receive the gifts that come from God's Spirit. Such a person really does not understand them, and they seem to be nonsense, because their value can be judged only on a spiritual basis (i.e, spiritually). Whoever has the Spirit, however, is able to judge (i.e, discern, recognize, decide) the value of everything, but no one is able to judge him.
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I compare spiritual intelligence, with its perception capacity, to the transistor radios of my youth. The radios, invented in 1947, had a vertical number line, with gradations marked by vertical lines between. My brothers and I found a rock music station we liked out of Chicago. To listen to it - say, station 97.7 -, we would turn a knob that moved a vertical needle across the number line. If we did not position the needle at just the right place, we would hear music, but it would have static. When we placed the needle correctly, the music came through clearly. Of course, without being near the correct position, the station was not heard at all. Also, we could not get music from stations whose signal was not strong enough to connect with our radio. Stations had different signal strengths, so differing extents of geographical coverage. This was popularly called tuning into a station.
So, with spiritual insight. We get tuned into Spirit by Spirit. The more in-depth we are tuned into Spirit by Spirit, the finer our perception becomes. We 'hear' and 'see' and 'sense' things others do not. They do not understand when told of these perceptions. Some may think we are fanatics, deluded, or mad. Many will interpret them at their capacity of perceptive capacity, and, so, pull them down, so to speak, to where they can tune into. They may use the same words but communicate a different understanding - one less subtle or not at all subtle. This has been done with many spiritual teachings, including much of what is attributed to Jesus in the Christian Scriptures.
So, a Jesus Saying instructs, "Do not give what is holy to dogs - they will only turn and attack you. Do not throw your pearls in front of pigs - they will only trample them underfoot" (Gospel of Matthew 7.6, GNT). We need to be careful what we share, when we see what others cannot see.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2023. Permission given to use photographs and writings with credit given to copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
