The Fur Coat, God, and the Fishermen

There once was the teacher who was so poor that in winter he wore only one threadbare cotton robe.  A river in spate carried a bear down from the mountains, its head hidden in the swirling water.  The children the man was teaching saw the back of the bear and shouted: “Teacher and look over there!  There’s a fur coat in the water!  You are always cold, jump in and grab it!” The teacher jumped in to seize the coat, and the bear, furious, sank his claws into him.  The teacher was trapped. “Teacher!”  the boys shouted, “Grab the coat, or if you can’t, let it go!” “I am letting the coat go,” moaned the teacher, “but it isn’t letting me go.  What can I do?”                 How could God’s fervor ever let you go?  Thank God day and night that we are in His hands and not in ours.  How easily we would give up and turn away from Him, if He didn’t always hold us to him in a passion of ownership. God is like a mother with a child, breastfeeding it to begin with, then weaning it on stronger food, bringing us all through various stages to vision and gnosis.  Here in the world we are like children, compared to what we could be in the other world; God does not leave us here but works on us so that, in the end, we realized this world is like childhood, a stage and no more. You’ve seen fishermen fishing: they never dragged out their fish at once.  When the hook has pierced the fish throat, a fisherman will draw it out little by little, so that they should lose in this blood; and becomes weaker; then he’ll tighten it again, then relax it, until the fish is exhausted and waiting to die.  When the hook of Love falls into a man’s throat, God reels him in gradually so all those twisted faculties and bad blood in him can drain out, little by little.   Harvey, Andrew. Light upon Light: Inspirations from Rumi. (1996) North Atlantic Books: Berkeley California. (p. 133)