The Review Par Excellence

Dear Thyagarajan Sir,

Thank you for sharing this review. The summary looks quiet interesting! I will definitely give it a try to read this book.

 

Dear Thyagarajan Sir,

Thank you for sharing this summary about "The Forty Rules of Love" by Elif Shafak. I got the book on Saturday and I couldn't keep the book down. I am half way through the book. After finishing my reading, I will write my view of this book. I am planning to write my understanding about the forty rules here in this thread itself. Is it okay to do so?

 

Dear Thyagarajan Sir,

I finished reading the book in less than three days. This book, "The Forty Rules of Love" written by Elif Shafak is so inspiring. I was not able to put down this book for more than one reason. I ended up reading this through the long Memorial Day weekend even to stay away to finishe a portion of the book. The Love between Rumi and Shams is indescribable resulting in transforming Rumi from a person sitting in a pedastal of a Preacher who could teach Quran to the common man and a wealthy man with a family to someone who gets all his name, fame, and popularity shattered into pieces so that he would truly delve into the Love for God. The man of words become a poet and a man of Love. After so many centuries so many of us ready Rumi's poem awestruck with beauty of his words. But here it is explained he neither had an idea of what he was going to say before nor he remembered what was uttered after the poem. He became a true instrument of God to share wisdom through him.
In the next few days, I will take one Rule at a time and share what I understand about what was said about each rule by Shams.

 

Source: "The Forty Rules of Love" - Elif Shafak

"Each and every reader comprehends the Holy Quran on a different level in tandem with the depth of his understanding. There are four levels of insight. The first level is the outer meaning and it is the one that the majority of the people are content with. Next is the Batim - the inner level. Third, there is the inner of the inner. And the fourth level is so deep it cannot be put into words and is therefore bound to remain indescribale".

I compare this with what the ancient wisdom in India talks about how to gain knowledge. There are four methods known as Agamam (Tradition), Upamanam (Comparison), Anumana (Inference) and Pratyuksha (Direct Perception). When scriptures are read or learned through a preacher in a traditional way, literary meaning of what is said taken on the face value without a propery understanding of what is being said. When one dives deeper into the Scriptures, one tends to make comparison with real life experiences and the comprehension of the Scriptures. On the third level where there is a lack of understanding, the divine consciousness helps the mind to infer the meaning of the scriptures at a deeper level. A the fourth level, one can not only comprehend the depth of what is being said in the scriptures but also experience the depth and become one with what is being said. They no longer differentiate the Knower, Knowledge and Known. The True Guru is one who let the students go through all four steps.

The Science describes them as Knowledge through an expert (Authority or interpreter),
Empricism (Knowledge through experience), Reason (Knowledge through reasoning) and lastly Knowledge through instinct (Intiution).

 

"You can study God through everything and everyone in the universe, because God is not confined to mosque, syagogue, or church. But if you are still in need of knowing where exactly His abode is, there is only one place to look for Him; in the heart of true lover."

Source: "The Forty Rules of Love" - Elif Shafak

When one purifies one's heart, God resides in his heart. When the heart finds the fountain of love for the fellow beings, it becomes a dwelling place of God. Heart is the Bank of Love and one has to remove all the restrains that prevents the heart from distributing the wealth of love to the fellow beings.

There was a spiritual speaker who spoke sometime back in our spiritual center. When Draupadi was praying to Lord Krishna to save her from the humiliation in the court of Dhirutarashtra when all her 5 husbands were arrested and became a slave of Duryodhana, She was calling for help from everyone in the court but no one did anything to help her. All her cries fuming with anger went unanswered by anyone including Dronacharya and Bheesmacharya. Finally, she reconciled to the fact and unconditionally surrendered to Lord Krishna seeking His help. First he praised Him saying that the one who was raised in Gokul and performed so many miracles. Lord Krishna immediately went to Gokul. Then, she started praising Him for building a beautiful city called Dwaraka for the cowherds. He immediately when to Dwaraka. After that she praised Him for residing in the hearts of Gopikas and then Lord Krishna went to the hearts of Gopikas. Finally, when she prayed, "Oh Krishna! The one who resides in my heart", Krishna immediately rushed to Dhirutarashtra's court to help Draupadi.

 

Hopefully, this time s a platform for others to read this invaluable book. You probably missed my previous two comments.

 

"The path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. Knowing yourself will lead to the knowledge of God."

Source: The Forty Rules of Love - By Elif Shafak

The source of love is the heart and not the mind. It is always challenge to overrule what our mind tells us using the compassionate heart. When we try to understand God with our mind, it becomes an intellecutal exercise whereas when we try to find God with our heart, it becomes a sincerely effort to love and be loved by God. How do we find that we work with our heart? When we learn to treat every fellow being equally irrespective of their economic or social status? Even those who preach everyday about the scriptures may not be able to realize divinity until and unless they work towards neutralizing their individual existence driven by the body, mind and ego.

The real test is whether we are able to forgive someone, accept each person the way they are, look at the person deep down in the trenches with compassion and help them overcome their ordeal, provide the necessary help to the elders and children who are in need of help, try to heal those who are sick, and so on. The feeling of all are one is an indication of a strong heart.

Lord Rama, even after his wife Sita kidnapped by Ravana and was ready to fight with him to defeat him, allowed Ravana to go back home and return again when he lost all of his weapons in the war. That is precisely showing compassion to even an enemy. Prahalatha despite being raised by Hiranya Kasibu who ruled the entire world but did not believe Narayana is God, he believed in Narayana and continued to recite His name continously despite facing a lot of crisis. That is living with a compassionate heart.