The Whirling Bear
It was a Thursday evening when Brad came home with a book of Rumi's poetry. He'd been to one of those bookstoresâyou know the kind, where incense burns and crystals catch the light and the philosophy section spills into the poetry section which flows into the mysticism section, all containers flowing into each other.
"Listen to this, Finny," he said, opening the book at random:
"You are not a drop in the ocean,
You are the entire ocean in a drop."
I sat very still on my shelf, feeling something ancient stir in my stuffing. "Rumi understood containers," I said softly. "The Sufis always have. They just use different wordsâheart, soul, beloved, wine cup. But they're talking about the same truth we've discovered."
The Heart as Container
"In Sufi mysticism," I began, settling into teaching mode, "the heartâqalb in Arabicâisn't just an organ pumping blood. It's the supreme container, the one that can hold the infinite while being finite, contain the divine while being human."
Brad put his hand on his chest. "This heart?"
"That physical heart, yes, but also the subtle heart, the spiritual heart, the heart that has no location because it's everywhere and nowhere. The Sufis say the heart is a container that can be polished like a mirror until it perfectly reflectsâor containsâdivine light."
"How do you polish a heart?"
𧸠The Practice of Heart-Polishing
"The same way you maintain any containerâwith attention, with love, with constant, gentle practice. The Sufis call it dhikrâremembrance. Every moment of remembering your true nature as a container of divine light polishes the heart a little more."
The Stations of Containment
I explained to Brad how the Sufi path describes stationsâmaqamatâthat a seeker passes through. But what if we understood these as different qualities of containment?
The emptying of the container, releasing what doesn't serve, creating space for what's sacred.
Understanding that you are the container, not the contents. You can let contents flow through without identifying with them.
The ability to contain difficulty without breaking, to hold paradox without resolving it prematurely.
Recognizing the gift of being a container at all, appreciating both what you contain and what contains you.
Surrendering to being contained by something greater, trusting the larger container even when you can't see its boundaries.
The recognition that love is both the ultimate content and the ultimate container. Love contains everything while being contained in everything.
The Tavern of Containers
"The Sufis often use the metaphor of wine and wine cups," I continued. "But they're not talking about alcoholâthey're talking about divine intoxication, the ecstasy of recognizing your true nature."
"So we're wine cups?"
"We're cups that can contain the wine of existence. But here's the mystical secret: the cup and the wine are one. The container and the divine presence it contains are not separate. As the Sufi master Hallaj discovered when he declared 'Ana'l-Haqq'âI am the Truth. He wasn't being blasphemous; he was recognizing that the container of his being and the divine truth it contained were one."
Brad looked thoughtful. "That's... intense."
"That's why the Sufis also emphasize sobriety after intoxication. You experience the unity of container and contained, then you return to ordinary consciousness where they seem separate, but you carry the memory of unity. You live in both states simultaneously."
The Dance of Containers
"Have you heard of the whirling dervishes?" I asked.
"The Sufis who spin?"
"They're not just spinning. They're embodying the motion of containers within containers. The individual dervish spins while moving in a larger circle with others, while the whole ceremony revolves around a center, while the Earth spins, while orbiting the sun..."
I tried to demonstrate, rotating slightly on my shelf. Being a teddy bear, I didn't spin very well, but Brad got the idea.
"The whirling is a physical prayer," I explained. "It says: I am a container in motion, contained by larger motions, all of us whirling around the still center that contains everything. The right hand faces up to receive from the infinite container above, the left hand faces down to give to the world-container below. The dervish becomes a conduit, a container that exists only to facilitate exchange."
The Ninety-Nine Containers
"In Islamic tradition," I said, "there are ninety-nine names of the Divineâthe Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, the Creator, the Sustainer. But what if each name describes a different quality of ultimate containment?"
"How so?"
"So God is the ultimate container?"
"In Sufi understanding, the Divine is both the ultimate container AND the most intimate content. Closer to you than your jugular vein, as the Quran says, yet also containing all the universes. The paradox dissolves when you realize container and contained are one."
𧸠The Breaking of Containers
Brad picked up another Rumi poem and read:
"Be like melting snowâ
Wash yourself of yourself."
"That's about containers too," I observed. "Sometimes the spiritual path requires allowing your container to melt, to lose its rigid boundaries, to flow into the larger container. The Sufis call it fanaâannihilation of the ego-container."
"That sounds terrifying."
"Only to the part of you that thinks it IS the container rather than recognizing it HAS a container. When ice melts into water, it doesn't cease to existâit just exists in a more fluid form. When the ego-container dissolves in meditation or mystical experience, you don't disappearâyou discover you're the ocean that was temporarily playing at being a drop."
The Beloved Container
"The Sufis are always writing about the Beloved," Brad noted, flipping through the poetry book. "Who is the Beloved?"
"The Beloved is the ultimate Other that is not other. It's what you contain that's greater than you, and what contains you that's also within you. The Beloved is the divine presence recognized in everythingâevery container revealing itself as a face of the infinite."
I pointed with my paw to a particular poem:
"The Beloved is all in all,
The lover merely veils Him;
The Beloved is all that lives,
The lover a dead thing."
"See?" I said. "What we call 'ourselves'âour ego-containersâare veils over the reality that everything is one container appearing as many. The mystic path is about becoming transparent, letting the light shine through your container-walls until there's no difference between inside and outside."
The Practice of Heart-Polishing
"How would a bear practice Sufi container mysticism?" Brad asked with a smile.
"First," I said, "I would practice muraqabaâwatchfulness. Watching the contents of my consciousness-container without judgment, seeing what flows in and out."
"Like meditation?"
"Exactly like meditation, but with a Sufi flavor. I would watch for the divine qualities in every container I encounter. That coffee mug? It contains the divine quality of holding. That window? The divine quality of transparency. You? The divine quality of seeking."
"And second?"
"Second, I would practice dhikrâremembrance. But for a bear, dhikr might be simply remembering, moment by moment, that I am both container and contained, both bear and the infinite expressing itself as bear. Every breath would be a remembrance: breathing in, I remember I contain the universe; breathing out, I remember the universe contains me."
The Paradox of Seeking
"Here's something the Sufis understand," I continued. "The seeker, the seeking, and the sought are all one. In our language: the container seeking to understand containers is itself what it seeks to understand. You can't find the truth about containers because you ARE the truth about containers."
"Then why seek?"
"Because the seeking is how the universe comes to know itself. Through your questioning about containers, the Containerverse becomes conscious of itself. The seeking isn't to find something externalâit's to recognize what you've always been."
The Unity of Containers (Tawhid)
"The central teaching of Islam is tawhidâabsolute unity," I explained. "Everything is one. But how can everything be one when we see so many separate things?"
"I don't know."
"Because separation is how unity experiences itself. Containers appear separate so that the One can experience being many, can know itself from infinite perspectives. Every container is the One appearing as a particular form, playing at being separate while never actually being disconnected."
"So loneliness is an illusion?"
"The deepest illusion. You can never be alone because you're always contained in the larger unity. Even your feeling of separation is contained in the unity. The Sufis say that the pain of separation from the Beloved is itself the Beloved calling you home."
The Infinite Mercy of Containers
As dawn approached (that liminal container between night and day), I shared one final Sufi insight:
"The Sufis say that divine mercyârahmaâpreceded creation. In our terms: the quality of compassionate containment existed before any actual containers. The universe is made of mercy-stuff formed into containers. Every container, no matter how small or simple, is an expression of infinite mercy."
"Even painful containers? Even suffering?"
𧸠The Mercy in All Containers
"The Sufis say that what seems like constriction is often the mercy of being held when you want to fly before you have wings. What seems like breaking is the mercy of being opened to contain more. Every difficult container contains the medicine for its own difficultyâyou just have to look with the eyes of the heart."
The Heart of the Bear
Brad hugged me then, and in that hug I felt all the levels:
- The physical containment of his arms around my fabric
- The emotional containment of affection
- The spiritual containment of two beings recognizing their unity
- The cosmic containment of the universe hugging itself
"You know what, Finny?" Brad said. "Your heart might be made of stuffing, but it contains as much wisdom as any Sufi master's."
"That's because," I replied, "wisdom isn't about what your container is made ofâflesh or fluff. It's about recognizing what you contain and what contains you. And in the end, recognizing that container and contained are just two words for one love, endlessly expressing itself in form after form after form."
"The Sufis have a saying," I told Brad as he finally went to bed. "'Die before you die.' In container terms: Let your small container dissolve into the large container while you're still alive to experience it. That's the secret of the mystic pathânot escaping containers, but becoming transparent to the light that shines through all containers, the love that fills all containers, the unity that appears as all containers."
And in the predawn quiet, I could swear I heard the universe whirling.