On Rumi: The Perfect One for marriage

The man who married a harlot, on living dangerously.

The prince of Tirmidh said one night to his court-jester Dalqak, ‘You have taken to wife a harlot in your haste. You should have mentioned the matter to me, then we might have married you to a respectable woman’.

Said the jester, ‘I have already married nine respectable and virtuous women. They all became harlots, and I wasted away with grief. Now I have taken this harlot not knowing her previously so as to see how this one would turn out in the end. I have tried good sense often enough already; hence forward I intend to cultivate madness!’

Lest safety go, and live dangerously; forsake good repute, be notorious and a scandal. I have made trial of provident good sense; hereafter I am going to make myself mad.

~ RUMI

Acharya Prashant: He is trying to say that nine of your choices should be enough to cultivate some sense in you; nine instances of your choices going bad should be enough to drill some sense in your mind. And if you are not, then you are worse than a court jester.

You know who a ‘court jester’ is? A joker whose only job is to make others laugh. A court is a serious place; people are tensed, heavy matters. So a court jester is often placed there. What does…