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Rumi vs. Freud at the House of Literati
15 Feb 2012 15:44
Comparing Rumi with Freud, Parviz Abbasi Dakani termed Mawlana Rumi as the pioneer of psychoanalysis and added: like Freud who started his psychoanalysis with conversations, Rumi also began his tales in Masnavi with conversations.
IBNA: During the fourth session of 'In Mawlana's Presence' series held on Tuesday evening (February 14) at the House of Literati, Abbasi Dakani elaborated on the first tale of Masnavi Ma'navi.
"In my opinion, the king in the first tale is a symbol of human spirit. In other words, human soul is manifested in the form of a king, while the Goldsmith stands for the world," he said.
He continued: "From the viewpoint of the mystics, human beings have a set of experiences before coming to this world that Quran refers to them as 'Alast experiences' and Rumi as 'Alast' period."
Yet the first mystic who has mentioned this is Sheikh Jonaid Baghdadi. In his opinion, God has manifested Himself to human beings in alast period.
Dakani went on to say that Rumi constantly reminds mankind of his alienation in the present world. Plato has also mentioned human experiences before arriving in here. A second glimpse on the story also shows that it is a tale of the soul's domination over the body. It also reveals that in spite of the seeming subjugation of women as second genders to men, woman dominates over men from a romantic outlook.
Rumi and Freud
Abbasi Dakani then mentioned psychoanalytical points in Rumi's poetry as the most outstanding feature and added: "Freud began psychoanalysis through conversations and so does Mawlana Rumi in Masnavi. Abdolhossein Zarrinkoub has also pinpointed this in his interpretation."
"The physician's conversation with the maid (Kanizak) is a Freudian method of psychotherapy. Therefore, it would not be unbelievable if we call Rumi as the pioneer of psychoanalysis," he added.
Rumi and Sciences
According to Dakani, there are three meanings for science: first, to know as opposed to not knowing; second, as a branch of human premises; and third, as an experimental science against the non-experimental. Mawlana has stated in a line that trifles addressed in geometry, or astrology, philosophy or medicine that are earthly matters cannot take us to heavens. He divided sciences to the horizontal and the vertical and believed that some sciences are meant for the earthly and some others for the other world.
Rumi and Self-knowledge
Then Abbasi Dakani said: "Contemporary man can conceive the outer world but not the inner world. He has knowledge of details of this world but incapable of knowing himself. In other words, he has mastered over the universe and instead lost his own self. Mawlana has pointed to these issues in his poetry and states that the main job of a mystic is knowledge of the self and without this, knowledge of the world would be meaningless.
Rumi and Dreams
Indian mystics believe that dream is a threshold to the invisible world, said Dakani; "the significance of dreaming is that well-prepared souls can step into the invisible world in their dreams and one can even reach a state that his waken world would resemble his dreams."
"What we see in dreams, the mystics find in real world and it is known that most of human problems could be resolved in dreams. Mawlana also remarks that dreams of the mystics differ with those of common people".
The session concluded with questions and answers regarding the nature of dreaming and the main differences between fancy and dreams.
The fourth session of 'In Mawlana's Presence' series was held on Tuesday evening (February 14) at the House of Literati.
