Reza : I was at yr mom’s house and I saw your old school desk at the store room.
Wife : I thought my father threw it away a long time ago.
Reza : I saw the graffiti you wrote on the desk. Some were interesting..
Wife : Really..?? Like what..?
Reza : Well...I really liked the one you wrote that goes something like...’die before you die’
Wife : Haha..I was in form 5 when I wrote that...
Reza : Didn’t know that you knew ‘Rumi’ . I was ignorant at form 5...just parties for me then..
Wife (bewildered): Rumi who..??
Reza : The Great Persian philosopher, mystic and Sufi. He beautifully explains the saying by our Prophet Mohammad, “To die before you die’. It is actually the destruction of Man’s ego in the quest to go back to God. Most people wait for his body to die the physical death before going back home to God. But Sufis, driven by a constant longing to go back to his beloved or God, wants to experience this consciously while living.
To go towards the journey it is necessary to annihilate the so-called ‘self’ or ego...to surrender oneself totally for the love of The Beloved...' To die before One truly dies '...
Wife : Ohh...I didn’t take it from Rumi..
Reza : Then from where...??
Wife : From a Malaysian rock band, Lefthanded...
AFTERWORD : My wife was correct...Lefthanded really did have tag in their 90s album 'Qabul' but it goes something like 'To live without fighting is to die before you die'. I'm not sure if you can equal the saying to Rumi's BECAUSE I humbly think that what the group was suggesting is that if you do not have a philosophy in life that you would actually be just an empty coccon...without a soul so to speak.
