Chapter 25: The Man Who Was Told He Would Kill Ali

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Welcome to the Deep Dive.

We searched through fascinating sources to bring you, well, potent knowledge and maybe some surprising facts too.

Today we're jumping into a really profound passage from Rumi's classic, the Maznavi Book One.

A foundational text.

Absolutely.

And this isn't just, you know, ancient poetry locked away.

It feels like a living guide packed with spiritual lessons and insights that honestly feel very relevant today.

So get ready maybe to look at things a bit differently.

Exactly.

And our mission here for this Deep Dive is really to unpack a key story from Rumi.

It perfectly illustrates his core teachings on things like self -mastery, acting with divine intention,

and, well, a kind of radical compassion.

Radical compassion.

I like that.

Yeah.

And the source itself.

It's this incredibly rich poetic text.

So many layers of meanings, symbols.

It's a direct path into Rumi's way of thinking.

Okay.

Let's get right into it then.

The story itself is gripping.

Picture this.

There's a fierce battle going on.

High stakes.

Totally.

And right in the middle is Ali, the commander of the faithful.

He's this figure known throughout history for, well, incredible bravery,

righteousness, commitment to justice.

He was a legendary figure.

Right.

And he's just taking down a really formidable opponent, a powerful warrior, a real threat, just moments of, you can almost feel the tension, you know?

Yeah.

Everyone's watching, waiting for that final blow.

The expected outcome.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But then,

well, here's where it gets really interesting.

Just as Ali is about to strike, something completely shocking happens.

The enemy warrior in this final act of defiance spits right in Ali's face.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

So just take a second.

Think about that.

Your own gut reaction to being spat on, especially in that context.

What would you expect a warrior like Ali to do right then?

Retaliation seems almost inevitable, right?

Fury?

You'd think so.

But Ali's response is, well, it's astonishing.

It's the sheer unexpectedness of it.

Instead of finishing the fight, instead of reacting with that personal anger you'd expect.

What does he do?

He just drops his sword, stops the fight.

Right there.

Drops his sword.

Drops his sword.

It completely flips everything you'd expect about warfare, about honor, you know?

It's so counterintuitive, especially in the heat of battle.

It makes you stop and think, why?

What just happened?

I can only imagine the enemy's reaction.

Oh, completely astonished.

Rumi really captures it.

He quotes the essence of the enemy's question.

Something like, you had your sharp blade right at me, but then you just dropped it on the floor.

What did you see that was greater than finishing me off?

He's genuinely baffled.

Totally.

He's asking, what kind of profound insight, what vision could possibly make someone do that?

Show that kind of mercy right then.

And that, for us, that's the central mystery we're diving into.

It is.

And what's fascinating is how quickly that enemy's astonishment shifts.

It turns into this awe, this recognition of Ali's spiritual stature.

You see something different in Ali.

Exactly.

He starts calling him God's lion, even Moses's cloud, you know, the cloud that miraculously brought food in the desert.

These images hint, they foreshadow, that there are deeper spiritual reasons for Ali's actions.

Something beyond just combat is happening.

It signals a higher purpose at play.

Precisely.

A recognition of that.

So let's put it to you, our listener, what would you have done in that split second?

What kind of insight, what vision could make someone stop a fight they've already won, turn away from immediate payback after such a direct insult?

It really makes you think about our own impulses, doesn't it?

It really does.

What drives our actions.

Okay.

So let's try and unpack this.

What did Ali see?

What was the big reason for dropping the sword, for sparing his enemy?

The enemy just couldn't figure it out.

And Ali's answer?

Well, this is the absolute heart of the teaching in this story.

It's always, without any exception, purely for God's command.

They're never about personal satisfaction or gain or, crucially here, personal anger.

Not for himself?

Never.

He says it so clearly.

I am God's lion, not the one of passion.

My actions testify to my religion.

He basically says, look, if my own anger, my human passion, got mixed into that moment because of the spitting, then striking you down wouldn't have been pure anymore.

It wouldn't be God's will operating through me.

It would be my will, my ego, mixed in.

So his personal feeling would have contaminated the act.

That's a really high bar.

How does Rumi help us tell the difference then between that kind of personal, ego -driven anger and this divine action Ali is talking about?

Well, Rumi implies it's all about the source and the intention.

Where is the action coming from?

And to explain it, Ali uses this fascinating spiritual paradox from the Quran.

You did not throw in you through.

Okay, what does that mean?

It perfectly captures the mystic view.

When your personal will aligns completely with the divine will, your actions aren't just yours anymore.

They become an expression of the divine.

Ali saw himself not as some independent guide driven by his feelings, but as a pure instrument, a channel for God.

He even uses the metaphor of being God's shadow with God as the sun.

It emphasizes this total devotion, this lack of claim over what he does.

So the victory is in that alignment.

Exactly.

True victory for him is aligning his will perfectly with God's.

So if the spitting provoked his ego, his anger, then hitting back would have been his action, not God's.

And that wasn't acceptable.

Wow.

Okay.

And he goes further, right?

He talks about conquering his own rage, calling himself a mountain of forbearance.

Yes, a mountain of forbearance that even the strongest ones, things like rage, greed, lust, they just can't move him.

It's a powerful image of inner stability.

It really is.

And then he says, the sword of my forbearance chopped my rage.

God's anger is a mercy at my stage.

Help us understand that.

How can God's anger be mercy?

That seems contradictory.

That's a really critical point.

Ali isn't saying suppress all feeling.

He's talking about mastering those ego driven passions, that sword of forbearance.

It's not about doing nothing.

It's about the deep inner work that purifies why you act.

Ah, the purification of intent.

Precisely.

So when he says God's anger is a mercy at my stage, he's talking about anger that comes from divine justice.

Unlike our human anger, which is often selfish or destructive, this divine anger is always purposeful.

It's ultimately redemptive, even if it looks like correction.

So it's an anger without self -interest focused on transformation.

Exactly.

It's an anger that seeks to heal or transform, not just punish or destroy.

And it's this incredible self -mastery that allows Ali to act purely, only for God's command, untainted by his own reaction.

This definitely raises a big question for all of us listening.

How much of what we do is actually free from our own passions, our ego, our selfish desires?

What would it even look like practically to conquer our own anger or greed so we could act purely for something higher, to be that kind of clean channel?

It's a profound challenge, a call for real sincerity in our actions.

Yeah.

But then Rumi takes it even deeper, doesn't he?

He adds these layers about perception, about transformation, that go beyond just Ali's first explanation.

This is where it gets even richer, I think.

Absolutely.

The enemy is still questioning Ali, amazed at his insight.

He says something like, your eyes have learned to see the hidden sphere.

Seeing what others don't see.

Right.

And Rumi uses this great analogy, different people looking at the sky.

Some see one moon clearly.

Some see it dimly.

Some maybe see reflections, like three moons.

Same sky, but different perceptions based on their inner state.

Our inner state shapes our reality.

Exactly.

It shows how spiritual insight gives these varied, but much deeper views of reality.

And Ali, he's portrayed as having this unique clarity, almost like being the gate to where God's knowledge is.

He sees dimensions of truth hidden from most people.

And then there's this really powerful idea about transformation.

God turning bad into good.

Even sins into piety.

Yes.

And this is captivating.

Rumi explores how God can transform things that look negative or even outright sinful into something profoundly good.

And now, to be clear, he's not saying sin is good, obviously.

Right.

But he is highlighting God's incredible power to take even misguided starting points, like an enemy trying to kill someone or magicians challenging a prophet and turn them into paths towards deeper faith and surrender.

If the heart opens up to that possibility.

So it's about potential transformation, even from dark places.

Precisely.

He gives these strong examples, like Omar, who was initially one of the Prophet Muhammad's fiercest opponents.

He actually wanted to kill the prophet.

Wow.

But instead, he heard the Quran being recited and was instantly converted, became one of the Moses with their magic.

Right.

To beat him at his own game.

But when they saw Moses's miracle, the snake swallowing their tricks, they immediately fell down in prostration, recognized God's power and basically gave up their lives for their new faith, even facing Pharaoh's threats.

So these really adverse situations, even sinful intentions, they paradoxically become moments of profound spiritual awakening.

Exactly.

Moments of turning towards God of obedience.

It shows God's transformative power works in mysterious ways.

That connects to another line you mentioned about God breaking things to repair them, often making them better.

Rumi says, if he breaks things, in truth, it is repair.

But if we break things, God says, now fix it.

And we don't know how.

What's the purpose behind God's breaking that?

Is it just correction or is it more like dismantling for something better?

Rumi's pointing towards profound surrender and trust here, I think.

The divine breaking isn't punishment like we think of it.

It's transformative.

It's about dismantling our ego, our attachments, the false ideas we have that stop us from reaching our full divine potential.

Like pruning a tree.

Seems destructive, but helps it grow.

That's a great analogy.

It seems like destruction, but it's actually essential for healthier, richer growth.

When we break things, it's usually out of our own ego or ignorance.

And lack the wisdom to truly fix them.

But when God breaks, Rumi suggests, it's always a skillful act.

It's about recreation, achieving a deeper integration, revealing a hidden beauty or a purer form that was covered up before.

A necessary dismantling for a higher creation.

And then there's that other really deep paradox,

deathless death.

Elise sees death not as something to fear, but as sweet manna, a doorway to eternal life.

He sees it as an exile coming home, returning to unity from separations pain.

That's a huge shift from how most of us view death or loss in general.

What does it mean to experience this deathless death in our daily lives?

It doesn't sound like just physical death.

No, exactly.

This perspective completely flips our usual understanding of loss.

Deathless death, in Rumi's context, isn't primarily about the body dying.

It's about the death of the ego, the death of the small, with all its desires and attachments that keep us feeling separate from the divine source.

So dying to the ego is gaining eternal life.

That's the core idea.

When we die to our limited self, our anger, our greed, our attachments, our self -importance, that's when we truly start living an eternal life in connection with God.

For Ali, facing physical death was just another transition, like an exile finally getting to go home, free from the pain of feeling separate.

So in daily life, it's about letting go.

It's about letting go of what limits us.

It's this continuous process, really, of shedding the old, constricted self to embrace a much larger, more connected reality.

Spiritual liberation, essentially.

Wow.

Okay, so these paradoxes Rumi uses good coming from apparent evil, repair from breaking, life emerging from the death of the ego.

How do these challenge our everyday ways of thinking about good and bad, or loss and gain?

Can embracing these ideas help us find transformation in our own difficulties?

See the unseen Rumi talks about.

I think that's exactly the invitation to shift our perspective.

Which brings us to the end of the story.

The Magian warrior converts.

This enemy, who followed a different faith, sees Ali's purity and tears off his Magian girdle, that symbol of his old beliefs.

So moving beyond the story itself, what's the takeaway for us now?

It circles right back to Ali's core explanation to the Magian.

Ali tells him, look, when you spat on me for a split second, it did stir up my own human temper, my personal passion.

It got mixed with God's command.

Ah, that momentary mix.

Yes.

And Ali emphasizes sharing is not allowed in God's affairs, meaning divine action has to be absolutely pure.

It can't be tainted by the self, by the ego, by personal desires, not even by a fleeting moment of personal anger.

That's a profound lesson in keeping intentions pure.

Extremely.

Spiritual integrity.

True divine work can't have our ego mixed in.

And Rumi gives us that metaphor of the yellow glass, right?

A really powerful image.

If we look at the world, or even at holy people, God's friends, through the yellow glass of our own stupid greed or our biases,

our limited understanding, everything looks distorted, yellowish.

We see things through our own filters.

Exactly.

And the message is stark.

Smash such colored lenses to see clearly, to achieve true vision.

It's a direct call for self -reflection.

We have to recognize how our own internal stuff, our filters, stop us from seeing reality or the divine as it truly is.

And he connects this clouded sight, this attachment, to Adam's fall, too.

Not from an apple, but two mouthfuls of wheat?

Right.

A subtle point.

It symbolizes how even seemingly small worldly attachments, small choices driven by ego,

can eclipse our spiritual light, like a full moon being obscured.

It shows how subtly the ego works, how even minor indulgences can pull us away from that state of purity.

It's about the small things mattering.

Very much so.

And ultimately, Rumi drives home the point that mercy's blade is far sharper than iron sword.

It's infinitely more effective in bringing about real deep transformation.

Because Ali's act of mercy worked where violence wouldn't have.

Precisely.

That single act of compassion, born from incredible self -mastery and pure intention, didn't just convert the warrior himself.

Rumi tells us it led to the conversion of nearly 50 of his family, too.

Wow, 50 people.

It just shows the immense ripple effect, the far -reaching power of selfless action when it comes from that pure, divinely guided place.

It proves mercy is way more powerful than physical force and changing hearts.

A testament to love and compassion, really.

So this really invites you, the listener, to think about your own yellow glass.

What personal biases,

maybe unconscious passions or desires you haven't really looked at, might be clouding how you see things, how you perceive purity or truth or even the divine in your own life, and what might happen if you could identify and really work to smash those lenses.

How could that change your reality, your ability to see the world with more clarity?

It's a lifelong practice, isn't it?

It really feels like it.

So this deep dive into Rumi's Musnavi through this amazing story of Ali, it's been quite a journey.

It's such a powerful testament to needing pure intention, the tough but freeing path of mastering our own passions and wealth, the power of seeing the divine hand and everything, even the hard stuff.

Even the spitting.

Even the spitting, yeah.

It's the story that really opens up the unseen depths in every moment and the potential we all have for transformation if we work on that inner purity.

Beautifully put.

And maybe a final thought for you to carry with you.

Where in your life right now can you try to act more purely for a higher purpose?

Consciously try to unmix your own ego, your personal feelings from what you do.

That's a great challenge.

And how might recognizing your own specific yellow glass, your own filters, actually transform your ability to see the world, see God's presence maybe, with much greater clarity and depth?

It could unlock profound personal and spiritual insight.

Something to definitely reflect on.

Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into the timeless wisdom of Rumi.

Keep exploring, keep reflecting, keep uncovering the insights all around us.

Thanks everyone.

We'll see you next time.