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A Liquor Never Brewed: Spiritual Intoxication

© Linda Sue Grimes

Wine of the Mystic: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, A Spiritual Interpretation

In 1920 Paramahansa Yogananda was invited to speak at the International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston; his speech was an outstanding success, and the great yogi spent the rest of his life in the USA lecturing, writing, and founding and directing his organization, Self-Realization Fellowship, to spread his teachings. In addition to his mission of disseminating his spiritual teachings, this Indian-American composed some of the greatest poetry ever penned on American soil. His book of poems, Songs of the Soul, testifies to his mastery of the art of poetry. All of this writings demonstrate that mastery, even the pedagogical lessons that hold his teachings.

A further amazing achievement of this great Indian-American is his interpretation of Edward FitzGerald's translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He shows how this poem has been misinterpreted, and his correction is a valuable addition of knowledge to the literary field.

Emily Dickinson's famous poem "I taste a liquor never brewed" comes to mind when thinking about the subject of Omar Khayyam's rubaiyat; in her poem Emily relates the intoxicating joy she feels at being alive and aware of the Divine juice that flows through the spiritual veins of the devotee. And the great yogi Paramahansa Yogananda, through his spiritual interpretation of Omar's great work, shows how the Sufi mystic was intoxicated with the love of God, not literal wine, as he put down his devotional songs to the Divine.

Paramahansa Yogananda's spiritual interpretation of Omar Khayyam's quatrains, Wine of the Mystic: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, was published in book form in 1994. In 1995 it won the Benjamin Franklin Award for the best book of the year in the field of religion, and in 1996 Body Mind Spirit recognized it with the Award of Excellence for "its outstanding contribution to personal growth and spirituality." Working from the original Persian and with a Persian scholar, Yogananda completed his translation and spiritual interpretation in the early 1930s. He made his own English translation then compared it to Edward FitzGerald's. Finding Fitzgerald's version richer in poetic qualities, the yogi decided to utilize FitzGerald's translation for the basis of his interpretation.

Yogananda's interpretation originally appeared serially from 1937 to 1944 in Self-Realization Fellowship's magazine. Then an expanded version was published in the magazine between 1971 and 1990. With this book, his spiritual interpretation with commentaries appears for the first time in book form. This book contains much useful information in its introductory material. The fame of The Rubaiyat rests primarily on misunderstanding. Instead of being the wild ravings of an atheistic wine bibber as is often believed of Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat (meaning "quatrains") is the work of a Sufi mystic, and "wine" is a metaphor for divine love.

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