Rumi's poem 'The Ruby'
The Ruby
At breakfast tea a beloved asked her lover,
"Who do you love more, yourself or me?"
"From my head to my foot I have become you.
Nothing remains of me but my name.
You have your wish. Only you exist.
I've disappeared like a drop of vinegar
in an ocean of honey."
A stone which has become a ruby
is filled with the qualities of the sun.
No stoniness remains in it.
If it loves itself, it is loving the sun.
And if it loves the sun, it is loving itself.
There is no difference between these two loves.
Before the stone becomes the ruby, it is its own enemy.
Not one but two exist.
The stone is dark and blind to daylight.
If it loves itself, it is unfaithful: it intensely resists the sun.
If it says "I," it is all darkness.
A pharoah claims divinity and is brought down.
Hallaj says the same and is saved.
One I is cursed, another I is blessed.
One an enemy of the light, the other a reflector of it.
In its inmost consciousness, not through any doctrine.
it is one with the light.
Work on your stony qualities
and become resplendent like the ruby.
Practice self-denial and accept difficulty.
Always see infinite life in letting the self die.
Your stoniness will decrease; your ruby nature will grow.
The signs of self-existence will leave your body,
and ecstasy will take you over.
Become all-hearing like an ear and gain a ruby earring.
Dig a well in the earth of this body,
and even before the well is dug,
let God draw the water up.
Be always at work scraping the dirt from the well
To everyone who suffers,
perseverance brings good fortune.
The Prophet has said that each prostration of prayer
is a knock on heaven's door.
When anyone continues to knock,
felicity shows its smiling face.
The light which shines in the eye
is really the light of the heart.
The light which fills the heart
is the light of God, which is pure
and separate from the light of intellect and sense.
Masnavi I, 1126-1127
translated by Kabir Helminski
The notion of transparency of mind is found in the Yoga SUtra YS I.41
क्षीणवृत्तेरभिजातस्येव मणेर्ग्रहीतृग्रहणग्राह्येषु तत्स्थातदञ्जनता समापत्ति:
Arising from the thinning of vRttis or thoughts, like a crystal or jewel (or Ruby!), in the grasper, the act of grasping and the object to be grasped [here grasp can be taken to be know, so knower or mind, the act of knowing and the object of knowledge], That [Consciousness] abides as That making clear the equivalence of these three: this is samApatti.
Chip Hartranft translates samApatti as 'coalescence'. Note also the coalescence or samApatti implied in Rumi's lines:
"From my head to my foot I have become you.
Nothing remains of me but my name.
You have your wish. Only you exist.
I've disappeared like a drop of vinegar
in an ocean of honey."
A remarkably transparent mind is one of the hallmarks of a mind well on the path. For such a mind, it seems to me that it is not a matter of whether it will reach the Chosen Ideal, but rather it is merely the details of when and where this will happen. When most people are questioned closely about anything related to their notion of self they usually become defensive, whereas one with a disarming transparency of mind and confidence in one's true Self maintains their calm composure with a certain gravitas. People often mistake humility for lack of self-confidence but these are two very radically different things. In today's world humility is so rarely found that people can only think it is lack of confidence, which of course completely misses the mark.
In time the sincere sAdhaka becomes very good at explaining things related to sAdhanA in simpler terms that can be easy to assimilate for a wide variety of beginner minds. This is a gift, and this teaching reinforces sAdhanA. In time the sAdhaka starts to speak in their 'own voice' showing that the mind has assimilated these concepts that are explained to a point where their explanation comes from a personal relation to them, and not a mere memorization of abstract comcepts.
In the beginning the mind is such an interesting combination and variation of authenticity and defensiveness, insight and delusion, faith and despair and doubt. With sAdhanA practice it becomes transparent as a crystal.
