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

I bought a first edition of “Wine of the Mystic” because it’s such a beautiful book. With numerous stunning full-page color reproductions of paintings, gold scrollwork around every page, heavy paper stock, it’s an aesthetically pleasing experience to read it. The subject is Paramahamsa Yogananda’s spiritual interpretation of the first FitzGerald translation of Omar Khayyam’s poem “The Rubaiyat.” Khayyam was an 11th century Sufi, living in Persia. Much of the poem is about wine, which Yogananda sees as a symbol for spiritual understanding, or knowledge of God. Each of Khayyam’s 75 quatrains is analyzed for spiritual symbolism. Then using these symbols, a spiritual interpretation and practical application for everyday life are given. This was the final book of my 2015 reading challenge: a book that you started but didn’t finish. I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning, with its abundance of illustrations, perfect to help me contemplate Yogananda’s interpretation of the verses. Around the 40th quatrain, where I found my bookmark from last time, I started to lose interest. There are few illustrations, and the text seems repetitive and a bit heavy handed in delivering its message to turn away from physical pleasures in favor of the spiritual. Ironically, this part of Khayyam’s poem seems easiest to understand in a more worldly way. A few more images would have broken up the text more and made this section more enjoyable. I did like the last few quatrains and their interpretations, but I had to push myself to finish. At the end, there is an illustrated section with Khayyam’s original poem (the first FitzGerald translation), which is very useful for the reader both before and after reading Yogananda’s commentary. There is also an introduction, written by Yogananda, that introduces the poet and his work along with comments on various translations from the original Arabic. It’s impossible to really know whether Omar Khayyam wrote “The Rubaiyat” to reflect physical or spiritual life. I suspect that, like the best modern poets, he was referencing both, a double meaning that reflects life. Yogananda was a great uplifter of humanity, particularly in the US, and his interpretation is worth considering. Spiritual seekers, art lovers, and fans of “Autobiography of a Yogi” will enjoy this volume. Perhaps the best way to experience it, instead of reading it straight through like I did, is to concentrate on one verse per day, or to pick up the book and contemplate a verse at random when the inspiration hits.