Essay Questions

Describe the “Unseen Power” that Rumi alludes to in “The Unseen Power”.

Rumi writes, “We are the flute, our music is all Thine;/We are the mountains echoing only Thee;/And movest to defeat or victory;/Lions emblazoned high on flags unfurled-/They wind invisible sweeps us through the world.” The application of ‘we’ suggests that Rumi is speaking to the entirety of humanity. The ‘unseen power’ refers to God who manifests by way of wind and surreptitiously superintends all the going-ons in the cosmos.

Which world is Rumi referring to in “Gone to the Unseen”?

Rumi writes, “At last you have departed and gone to the Unseen./What marvelous route did you take from this world?/ Beating your wings and feathers,/you broke free from this cage./Rising up to the sky you attained the world of the soul./You were a prized falcon trapped by an Old Woman./Then you heard the drummer's call/and flew beyond space and time.” These lines conjecture that the subject is departed. The ‘unseen world’ denotes the world of the dead that cannot be comprehended by the living. Dying is comparable to utterly breaking free from the cage of being, so that the rupture of the cage certifies an individual’s ability to hover into the concealed world.