|
Mevlana and The Whirling Dance
Production Date : 1999
Time : 53'
Part : 1
Director - Semra SANDER
Producer - Semra SANDER
Script - Semra SANDER
Directory of Photography - Yavuz TÜRKERİ
Music - Can ATİLLA
Editing - Soner TUNUSLU
Adviser - Timuçin ÇEVİKOĞLU
Photography - Ozan SAĞDIÇ
Synopsis
There is such an ecstasy in the submission and orphan-like leaning on the right
arm of the Mevlevi dervish performing the whirling dance. The whirling dance is
impressive, because even a person without the slightest knowledge of the Mevlevi
teachings and practices, immediately perceives that the whirling dance indicates
an entirely different world.
In fact, the whirling dance and Mevlana are the door opening to a truth beyond
our known and accustomed world. This 53-minute documentary film tries to open
this door.
Produced-Directed and Written By: Semra Sander
Camera: Yavuz Türkeri
Music: Can Atilla and the Traditional Whirling Dance Music
Programme Consultant: Timuçin Çevikoğlu
Photographs and Rubaiyat Translation: Ozan Sağdıç
MEVLANA AND THE WHIRLING DANCE
Even a person who does not have the slightest knowledge about the Mevlevi order
immediately perceives that the performance of the Whirling Dance Ceremony points
to a completely different world.
In fact, the Whirling Dance Ceremony is a door opening to a reality beyond our
known and accustomed world and reflects the philosophy of Mevlana, who is
accepted in the world as perhaps one of the greatest of the Sufis. After
Mevlana's death, the Whirling Dance Ceremony has been connected to rules by his
son and grandson and has assumed its present-day form.
Thus, this 53 minute documentary program called Mevlana and the Whirling Dance,
explains in a clear and understandable manner, to the extent possible, Mevlana's
philosophy and the symbolic meaning of the Whirling Dance Ceremony organized in
accordance with this philosophy, by also referring to the story of Mevlana's
life. In this manner, the audience can also obtain information on mysticism
besides the philosophy of Mevlana and the symbology of the Whirling Dance
Ceremony.
According to Mevlana and Islamic Sufism, there is something called secret that
is hidden in the heart of every person. This secret is the thing that Yunus Emre
referred to as "There is an ego in me, within myself". This secret is not given
to every person. This secret can only be reached thanks to lengthy efforts and
kind deeds.
In the Classical Greek civilization, what is meant by the expression "KNOW
THYSELF", that is written at the entrance to the Delphi Temple, is for people to
become acquainted with this secret that is hidden in the heart. It is not in the
known meaning for a person to know himself psychologically.
What we have attempted to understand and open up is a secret as the name implies.
There are those who have reached this secret, but they are tongue-tied. They are
tongue-tied because they assume the state of knowing what is not known, but as
they do not know what is not known, there are no words to describe it.
Perhaps because of this Mevlana chose poetry, dancing and music to be able to
describe what is undescribable.
This documentary called Mevlana and the Whirling Dance attempts to open up this
unknown door and descend to the essence of Mevlana's philosophy which
constitutes the Whirling Dance Ceremony.
Produced - Directed and Written by: Semra Sander
Camera: Yavuz Türkeri
Edited by: Soner Tunuslu
Narreted by: Mehmet Atay
Music by: Can Atilla and the Traditional Whirling Dance Music
Program Consultant: Timuçin Çevikoğlu
Photographs and Rubaiyat Translation: Ozan Sağdıç
English Translation : Ellen Yazar
Duration: 53’ 07”
NOTE: This program received the Television Documentary Award from the Writers'
Union of Turkey in 2000.
Mevlana and Sufism
There is such an ecstasy in the submission and orphan-like leaning on the right
arm of the Mevlevi dervish performing the whirling dance.
The whirling dance is impressive, because even a person without the slightest
knowledge of the Mevlevi teachings and practices, immediately perceives that the
whirling dance indicates an entirely different world.
In fact, the whirling dance and Mevlana are the door opening to a truth beyond
our known and accustomed world.
Come and let’s try to open this door part way.
There is something hidden in every human being’s heart given the name of
“secret” according to Mevlana and Islamic Sufism.
This secret is not given to every person. It can only be reached by lengthy
efforts and kind deeds. This secret is what the great Turkish mystical poet
Yunus Emre meant when he said. “There is a self in me, within myself”.Indian
philosophy and mysticism gave the names of Sublime Self, Real Self or Atma to
this secret. The expression “KNOW THYSELF”, written at the entrance to the
Delphi Temple in Classical Greek civilization, calls people to know this secret
self-hidden in the heart.
Throughout history, many civilizations, many religions, many spiritual teachings
and philosophies, the spiritual essence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islamic
Sufism, have always struggled to make known the internal unknown self.
What we have tried to understand and open up is a secret. Some persons who have
reached this secret are tongue-tied, because they assume the state of knowing
what is not known. As they cannot know what is not known, there are no words to
describe it.Perhaps because of this Mevlana chose poetry, dancing and music to
describe what is indescribable. However, before he was called Mevlana as a title
of respect, he was Jalaluddin Rumi. He taught at the madrasa, and gave sermons
at the mosque. His hands were kissed and his prayers were received. He was a
respected, contended Sufi and a very beloved scholar. According to Mevlana, the
evolution of human beings has not yet been completed, because human beings were
created to be mature, perfect and complete.
To be the Perfect Man does not mean to become a person who is good, ethical,
philanthropic and full of love. As long as there is the ego, even to think that
we can have these attributes is to deceive oneself, because the ego cannot see
beyond it’s own selfish and urgent interests. To be the Perfect Man means to
abandon all known positive and negative feelings, thoughts, actions and habits,
in short, to set aside being a person and to take on the unrecognized and
unknown consciousness, formation, existence and essence different from the ego.This
change starts in the hidden secret in the heart of persons with the shining of
the divine fire and light.
This is a complete transformation in the mind, in the brain cells and in the
atoms of the body. This is a transformation into an existence where the body
becomes lighter and transparent, the curtain is raised, the views become
definite, everything is seen and known and is an existence that can exist
everywhere.Briefly, human beings have a spiritual structure that is not a part
of this world and universe. According to Sufism, this spirit forms the real self
of human beings and it descended by degrees to this universe from other worlds,
from the world of spirits and angels and it became apparent by wearing the
bodily apparel of this world and universe.It is very natural for the spiritual
presence not belonging here to yearn for its homeland. Human beings are equate
themselves with their own body in the concrete world, and there is actually the
longing of separation behind the yearning felt for goods, property, position,
fame and power.
One day this pain of separation envelops and embraces the self so much that it
starts crying and lamenting from the complaint. How could it not cry, the place
left behind is the presence of the Unity, Almighty God. Thus, the reed flute is
the symbol of this soul that has separated from its real homeland.It is for this
reason that the famous poem of Mevlana’s starts by saying, “listen to the reed
flute, how it complains”.
The reed flute, with its melancholy, sad and moving sound, is expressing it’s
yearning to God to be reunited with the reed bed from which it was separated.
The stages passed until entering into the shape of human beings after abandoning
the presence of God with the command of the spirit “be!”, resemble the stages
passed from the breaking off of the reed from the reed bed until it enters the
shape of the reed flute.
God created from Himself all the creatures from the single-celled to the most
complex, but He only blew from His own soul to humans. The breath blown into the
reed flute expresses this. The inside of the seed flute is empty. It only makes
a sound with the breath blown into it, while one end of the reed flute is open,
the other end is in the mouth of the musician, and if he were the perfect man,
then the sound heard from the open end would be the sound of God. Humans are
also an instrument, like this reed flute, whenever a human confronts a perfect
man, a real sheik, then he will become a human like a human, and will be emptied
by being saved from himself. He becomes God's voice, God's mirror, and ascends
and reunites with his God, and completes his evolution.The Whirling Dance
ceremony relates the story in Islamic Sufism of the creation of the Almighty
spirit called the Light of Muhammad that starts with the command, “Be thou!” –
“be!”, the start of the descent and later the ascent towards becoming a perfect
man.
Mevlana, who realized the union of existence and unlimited void, perhaps
experienced a bang by him in which all the secrets were scattered around when he
started to whirl at the Jewelers Market in Konya, 700 years before our time.
Mevlana, who is known as Rumi in the West, neither established a tariqah during
his life nor set the whirling dance to the rules of today. He only would revolve
and dance without following any rules as he felt from within when he entered
into ecstasy. The whirling dance for him was:
“A path going to the heavens, a door opening to the heavens
A flight from life to death, a flying away from death to immortality.”
How beautifully Mevlana expressed in the following few words, the nothingness of
human beings worldly values:
“The Indians, the people of Kipchak, the Byzantines and the Abyssinians!
All of them are alone in their graves and have the same color, how nicely they
are lying there.”
However, on the other hand, for Mevlana, human beings are creatures who carry
the divine light in their hearts and who can reflect God in the mirrors of their
hearts. This is why Mevlana loved people; not that because they were humans or
for the contributions they made to society.
“You that is a copy of that sacred book,
You are the mirror of art in creation.
Whatever you wish, wish it from yourself, find it in yourself.
Whatever you look for is yourself and that is you.”
Source - rc2249.ce.uiuc.edu/tsa/mevlana.htm
There is such an ecstasy in the submission and orphan-like leaning on the right
arm of the Mevlevi dervish performing the whirling dance. The whirling dance is
impressive, because even a person without the slightest knowledge of the Mevlevi
teachings and practices, immediately perceives that the whirling dance indicates
an entirely different world.
In fact, the whirling dance and Mevlana are the door opening to a truth beyond
our known and accustomed world. This 53-minute documentary film tries to open
this door.
Produced-Directed and Written By: Semra Sander, Camera: Yavuz Türkeri, Music:
Can Atilla and the Traditional Whirling Dance Music, Programme Consultant:
Timuçin Çevikoğlu, Photographs and Rubaiyat Translation: Ozan Sağdıç
Source - TRT Web Page, trt.net.tr
|