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The Rumi Secret
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My heartfelt appreciation to Coleman Barks, for his generous permission to use his translations of Rumi throughout this book and website. Coleman's many wonderful books are listed in the Bibliography of the book. You may also find his books on Amazon.com. Though many excellent translators have helped to bring Rumi to English-speaking readers, the author shares the opinion of many that Coleman Barks has been the most instrumental in making the incomparable and ecstatic wisdom of Rumi accessible to us. The magnitude of this gift is really beyond description!
by Hugh Prather
It is difficult to write about beauty. It is perhaps impossible to describe a poem. Music is also beyond words, as are art and dance. And certainly the experience of the Divine is merely mocked by sentences.
In The Rumi Secret, Victoria Lee avoids using words, or more precisely, she avoids using them as they are all too commonly used. Words tend to lessen whatever they are applied to. They define, and reality cannot be defined.
Yet somehow, Dr. Lee takes words—mainly words about her most profound personal experiences—and through them creates a resonance within the reader. We feel understood because we realize that here is one who has lived a life that is like our life.
Rumi looked into the shared heart of people of faith and saw equality. He attended the worship services of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and other religions; he said that there is but one altar, the love within us that extends from God.
Many who pick up this book will already be familiar with Rumi’s vision. They already know that like beauty, art, dance and music, Rumi’s words function within a different level of reality, that Place within us where we are not alone. His words are commonly referred to as poems, but clearly they are far more than that.
Taken as a whole, Rumi’s work is sacred scripture, and its sacredness is respected by Dr. Lee. Never does she try to interpret what is ineffable.
The value of this book—and it is considerable—is in demonstrating that there is no subject which is immune to the light that pours from Rumi.
When I first read The Rumi Secret, I was in awe of the richness and diversity of human experience that Dr. Lee had incorporated into a single volume. Her insights into grief, sex, sickness, religion, communication, emotions, marriage, death and numerous other subjects are profound within themselves and could stand alone as a valuable book.
Yet coupled with the writings of Rumi, she has created something timeless, yet full of time, something mystical, yet purely practical.
And I discovered something else. This book can be opened at random, and like a few other great and beloved books, it always seems to provide exactly what is needed at the moment.
So hold this little volume gently. It contains transformation.
Hugh Prather is the author of more than 16 books on spiritual subjects, many written with his wife Gayle. His first book, Notes to Myself, has sold more than 5,000,000 copies.
Foreword by Hugh Prather
Author's Preface
Part I: How This Book Can Help You
Welcome to Members of 12-Step Programs
Part II. Poetry and Commentary
1. Becoming a True Human Being
2. Rumi Feeds Our Hunger for Love
3. Seeing the Beloved in Every Child’s Eyes
4. A Spiritual Life That Brings Daily Joy
5. Grief: the Ultimate Deepening
6. Apologies and Healing
7. This is How a Human Being Can Change
8. New Love: Glimpses of the Possible
9. The Lessons of Romantic Love
10. What Goes Wrong With Romance
11. The Joyful Inner Work Love Requires of Us
12. Finding a Beauty Beyond Imagining
13. Mystical Joy, Whatever Our Belief or Unbelief
14. Keep Digging Your Well
15. Anger: An Honored Guest
16. Forgiveness as a Spiritual Practice
17. Forgiving Our Parents
18. Giving Up the Need to Change Our Partner
19. Forgiving Partners
20. A Partner’s Inherent Mystery
21. Addiction: Barrier to Life’s Best Joys
22. Addiction and Healing: All Are Vulnerable
23. Alcohol: One Privileged Person’s Story
24. Food Addiction: Barrier to Soul-Music
25. Telling the Truth Can Lead to Breakthroughs
26. Sacred Sexuality
27. Sex Opens the Door to Deep Connection
28. Getting In the Mood
29. No Libido I
30. No Libido II
31. Sex As Metaphor for Seeking the Beloved
32. Family Breakups
33. Betrayal
34. What to Do When We Don’t Know What to Do
35. Cancer Strikes
36. Mother Death
37. Fearless Dying: Rumi Shows the Way
38. Spiritual Practice: Consistency is the Essence
39. The Vastness Within
40. Overwhelming Gratitude
Part III: Applications: The Work of Rumi
1. Opening to the Love That Surrounds Us
2. Anger: Acknowledging and Releasing
3. Forgiveness: Love’s Essential Tool
4. Relationships and Soul-Growth
5. Epilogue
Part IV: Appendix
Resources and Links
Bibliography
About the Author
Contact Page
Order Page
Acknowledgements
I am Victoria Lee, a clinical psychologist who has been deeply touched by the wisdom of Rumi. My academic training–my doctorate and two masters degrees–taught me a great deal, but also left me spiritually hungry. I learned at my mother’s knee that the spiritual part of life is by far the most important. It’s in that arena that I’ve found the most joy, the most meaning, and the mandate to find ways to serve.
Being a psychologist and psychotherapist has given me the opportunity to share the journey of many treasured patients. I’ve worked primarily in individual and couple counseling, sex therapy, and group therapy, as well as in individual counseling with children and teens. My first book, Ecstatic Lovemaking (originally called Soulful Sex), was an effort to show that understanding sex as a sacred enterprise takes nothing away and can greatly enhance the quality of experience and passion people enjoy. After that book, I focused on my practice again, and on meeting certain personal challenges, such as the death of my mother, and my own illness with Graves’ Disease (now cured, I’m blessed to say).
Once I started reading Rumi and writing about him everyday, I was “burnt and then I as cooked,” as he once said. His words, his tenderness, and his teachings pierced my soul to its depths. I felt his truths in my core: We are here on this planet for our own and others’ soul-growth. Forgiveness, compassion, and love for all of the human famlly must be our goal; identifying and committing to the contribution we’re here to make is our greatest privilege.
“Love is the religion, and the universe is the book.”
I wrote this book because I've been incredibly blessed by a long period of reading Rumi everyday. After you read him enough, he gets right inside your heart and soul! Your inner joy starts shining in the eyes of every human being you meet; along with Rumi, you want to say to them all: Inside you are sweet beyond telling! There is a sun in everyone. The stunning beauty of flowers, poems, animals and human imperfection starts resonating in your heart like a symphony. Put a bouquet of roses and lilies on your desk like I just did, and a flood of gratitude for life's blessings overwhelms you. How to say this to one who denies it? We are made of the sky's cloth and everything is soul and flowering.... Everything is soul and flowering! None of this means we get to skip suffering, making mistakes, unbearable loss, or death. With Rumi as your guide though, you really don't mind. He shows you how it's actually possible to celebrate your pain, because that very pain is what makes possible the deepest experience of your essential joy. Even the final loss of this phenomenal cage we call our bodies is not to be feared. Death is something to meet with courage and curiosity, and Rumi knows the way. Meanwhile, we get to struggle--or not--with our fears, our conflicts, our problems with others, our self-hate, our environmental and military anxieties, and our tendency to whine and criticize rather than celebrate. We also get to laugh, make love, make dinner with friends, hug babies, admire trees, pet dogs, plant tomatoes, sing, dance, do good in the world, and start everyday with poetry. Be warned, if you read Rumi for 100 days or less, you may find yourself unable to stop! By integrating Rumi with my own knowledge gained as a psychotherapist, I hope this book may illuminate new ways to apply Rumi's wisdom to your own challenges and joys. Whatever they are, I promise you that Rumi's contribution will be profound.