A very well-known seer, the great Shams-i-Tabriz, went to see Jelal-ud-Din Rumi when the latter was teaching at the university of Qoniya. He was a dervish, and he approached Rumi appearing like a savage. The first thing he did was to seize Rumi's manuscripts and throw them into a nearby tank. Rumi looked at him, wondering at his action in throwing away all that knowledge, and asked him the reason for it. The seeming vagrant said, "Because you have been reading all your life and you should now do something more. You should understand what you are and where you are. Everything in front of you is spelt out in letters, if only you could read them; then you could read life, which is greater than any scripture, better than any tradition that you can be told. It would disclose the secret of all being." Rumi, studying him and his expression and hearing all he said, was so won by him that he wrote down in his diary, "The God whom I have been worshipping all my life has today appeared before me in the form of a man."