Discourses of Rumi

226 V DISCOURSES OF RUMIforms? Moreover, that before being born, Jesuswas the creator of the heavens and the earth?Glory be to God, above what the wrongdoersassert!The Christian said: “His body was mere dust.Dust went to dust, and pure spirit to pure spirit.”Rumi said: If the spirit of Jesus was God,where went his spirit? Spirit returns to its Originand Creator. If he was himself the Origin andCreator, where should he go?The Christian said: “So we found it stated, andwe took it as our religion.”Rumi answered: If you find and inherit yourparents’ false gold, black and corrupt, do youmean you will not change it for gold of soundquality, free of alloy and adulteration? No, youkeep that gold, saying, “We found it so.”Or you inherit from your parents a paralyzedhand, and you find a treatment and a physician toheal that hand. Do you accept it? No, instead yousay, “I found my hand paralyzed, and I will notchange it.” Or if you find salt water on a farmwhere your parents died and you were broughtup, but you are shown another farm whose water