Two snapshots from different cultures, hundreds of years apart. Rumi was a Sufi mystic in the thirteenth century. The Chandogya Upanishad is a Hundu text dating from between the 6th to 8th century (per Wikipedia). Yet, each quote is so similar. Let’s begin with Rumi:

The Clear Bead at the Center changes everything. There are no edges to my loving now. I’ve heard it said, there’s a window that opens from one mind to another. But if there is no wall there is no window, and if there is no window, there is no need for a latch.

Rumi

Rumi writes of a “Clear bead at the Center, which he proclaims “changes everything.” Likewise, the sages of the Upanishads write of a “secret dwelling” that holds the “fulfillment of our desires.”

In the city of Brahman is a secret dwelling, the lotus of the heart. Within this dwelling is a space, and within that space is the fulfillment of our desires. What is within that space should be longed for and realized. As great as the infinite space beyond is the space within the lotus of the heart. Both heaven and earth are contained in that inner space, both fire and air, sun and moon, lightning and stars. Whether we know it in this world or know it not, everything is contained in that inner space.

The Upanishads, Eknath Easwaran translation (The Chandogya Upanishad)

Reading these two passages together gives me faith. Faith that the spiritual path – the path to the Clear bead at the Center and the path to the secret dwelling in the city of Brahman – has been traversed before. Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī and the sages of the Upanishads have traveled this path and come back to tell us what they saw. It is the same path referred to in the Katha Upanishad, which reads:

Get Up! Wake Up! Seek the guidance of an illuminated teacher and realize the Self. Sharp like a razor’s edge, the sages say, is the path, difficult to traverse.

The Upanishads, Eknath Easwaran translation (Katha Upanishad)

Trusting that it is possible to traverse this path, having studied the teachings of trustworthy sages, gives me the faith needed to continue down the path set by Rumi and the Sages of the Upanishads.