Contemplating Hafiz: Voice of the Unseen Mystery

How did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of Light against its being. ~ Hafiz

 

 

 

 

Legend of Hafiz

Shamseddin Mohammad Hafiz Shirazi, better known by his pen name: Hafiz, may Allah be pleased with him, was twenty one years old in 1341, and was still working in the bakery and studying at night. He had memorized the Koran and had adopted the pen-name for the occasional poem that he wrote but until this time had not gained much success as a poet. He had become skilled in jurisprudence and had learnt all the sciences, including mathematics and astronomy. For the past ten years he had been constantly studying all of the great poets and the lives and works of the great Spiritual Masters.

Then, one day at the bakery, one of the workers who delivered the bread was sick, and Hafiz had to deliver the bread to a certain quarter of Shiraz where the prosperous citizens lived. While taking the bread to a particular mansion, Hafiz’s eyes fell upon the form of a young woman who was standing on one of the mansion’s balconies. Her name was Shakh-i-Nabat which means ‘Branch of Sugarcane’. Her beauty immediately intoxicated Hafiz and he fell hopelessly in love with her. Her beauty had such a pro- found effect on him that he almost lost consciousness. At night he could not sleep and he no longer felt like eating. He learnt her name and he began to praise her in his poems.

Hafiz heard that she had been promised in marriage to a prince of Shiraz and realized how hopeless was his quest for her love. Still, the vision of her beauty filled his heart, and his thoughts were constantly with her. Then one day he remembered the famous ‘promise of Baba Kuhi.’ Baba Kuhi was a Perfect Master-Poet who had died in Shiraz in 1050 A.D., and had been buried about four miles from Shiraz, at a place called ‘Pir-i-sabz,’ meaning ‘the green old man,’ on a hill named after Baba Kuhi. The promise that Baba Kuhi had given before he died was that if anyone could stay awake for forty consecutive nights at his tomb he would be granted the gift of poetry, immortality, and his heart’s desire. Hafiz, interested in the third of these three, vowed to keep this vigil that no one had yet been able to keep.

Every day Hafiz would go to work at the bakery, then he would eat, and then walk past the house of Shakh-i-Nabat, who had heard some of the poems that he had composed in praise of her. She had noticed him passing her window every afternoon, each day more weary, but with a fire in his eyes that had lit the lamp of her heart for him. By this time Hafiz was in a kind of trance. Everything that he did was automatic, and the only thing that kept him going was the fire in his heart and his determination to keep the lonely vigil.

Slowly he dragged his tired, small ugly body towards the mansion of Shakh-i-Nabat. She saw him coming and left the house; on meeting him, she declared that she preferred a man of genius to the son of a king. But Hafiz could not stop, for all that he was conscious of was that he had to light the lamp for the fortieth time and keep awake until morning. He tore himself from her and stumbled towards the hill.

Early the next morning the Angel Gabriel (some say Khizer) appeared to him. Gabriel gave Hafiz a cup to drink which contained the Water of immortality, and declared that Hafiz had also received the gift of poetry. Then Gabriel asked Hafiz to express his heart’s desire. All the time that this was happening, Hafiz could not take his eyes off Gabriel. So great was the beauty of the Angel that Hafiz had forgotten the beauty of Shakh-i-Nabat. After Gabriel had asked the question, Hafiz thought: “If Gabriel the Angel of God is so beautiful, then how much more beautiful God must be.” Hafiz answered Gabriel: “I want God!” On hearing this, Gabriel directed Hafiz to a certain street in Shiraz where there was a shop selline, fruit and perfumes that was owned by a man named Mohammed Attar. Gabriel said that Attar was the Perfect Master, a God-realised soul, who had sent Gabriel for Hafiz’s sake, and that if Hafiz would serve Attar faithfully, then Attar promised that one day Hafiz would attain his heart’s desire.

The Angel left Hafiz as he made his way through the waking city to the shop of the man who was a Perfect Master and who was awaiting his arrival. On entering the shop, Attar embraced Hafiz and congratulated him on keeping the vigil and accepted him as his disciple. He told him to be patient in his quest, to obey him explicitly, to keep on writing poetry and to keep Attar’s identity a secret. Throughout the whole of Hafiz’s Divan (collection of poems) there is not one mention of his Master’s name, but Hafiz is con- stantly singing his praises and in one poem refers to him as ‘Rose coloured’…

…Hafiz returned to Shiraz vowing that he would never again leave the city that he loved and never again leave his Master, Attar. During the foll- owing year, 1380, Hafiz constantly complained that he had not yet rec- eived the gift of God-realization that Attar had promised him thirty nine years previously. Again Attar told Hafiz to be patient and in reply Hafiz wrote ghazal 490; couplets 6 and 8:

Bitter is this patience and so fleeting is this life of mine.
How long will I experience this, how long will I remain.

Hafiz, why do you complain if it is Union you desire?
In season and out, griefs cup of blood you must drain.

One day in 1381 Hafiz went to visit Attar. Hafiz’s patience had come to an end. When he was alone with Attar he began to weep and when his Master asked him why he was weeping, Hafiz through desperation cried out: “What have I gained by being your obedient disciple for nearly forty years?” Attar replied: “Be patient and one day you will know.’,’ Hafiz cried: “I knew I would get that answer from you,” and left the room.

it was exactly forty days before the end of their forty year relationship. Hafiz went home and entered a circle that he drew on the ground. Through love and desperation he had decided to enter self-imposed ‘Chehel-a-Nash- ini,’ in which the lover of God sits within a circle for forty days and if the lover of God can succeed in this difficult practice, God will grant what- ever he desires. The love and strength and bravery of Hafiz was so great that he succeeded in never leaving the circle, no matter what God had in store for him.

On the fortieth night Attar again sent to him the form of the Angel Gabriel as he had done forty years earlier, who asked him what was his heart’s desire. Hafiz replied: “My only desire is to wait on the pleasure of my Master’s wish.”

Before dawn appeared on the last day Hafiz left the circle and rushed towards the house of his Master, Mohammed Attar. Attar met him at the door and embraced him, gave him a drink of two year old wine and made him God-realized. Hafiz had finally attained his heart’s desire after forty long years.

For forty years I suffered difficulty and anguish, and finally I
Was to find the outcome in wine that for two years was aging.

Immediately after Hafiz regained normal consciousness, after gaining Realization of his own True Self, he composed the following poems which are three of his most famous ghazals. Ghazal 192 couplet 1:

Separation day and severance night from Beloved at last is ended;
This grief, as lucky star has passed and my fortune cast, is ended.

Ghazal 217 couplets 1, 6 and 8:

Praise be to God what wonderful wealth’s given to me tonight;
Because my Divine Beloved came to me, quite suddenly, tonight.

My blood will write ‘I am The Truth’ (Anal Haq) on the earth,
If like Mansur they kill me on the gallows mercilessly tonight.

All the time I’m frightened that Hafiz will be lost, obliterated;
Because each moment I’m in possession Of such ecstasy tonight.

Ghazal 218 couplets 1, 3 and 13:

Last night before dawn, freedom from all suffering They gave me;
In the darkness of night, Water of Life-everlasting, They gave me.

What a fortunate dawn and joyful night was that Night of Power
When the Supreme Authority of God’s Commanding They gave me.

Hafiz, rejoice, rejoice then thankfully scatter the sugar of thanks:
Realization of the Divine Beloved, sweetly swaying, They gave me.

During the remaining eight years of his life, Hafiz wrote half of the poems that bear his name. He no longer wrote of his desire for the Beloved, for now he was the Beloved. He wrote of the Unity of God, of the temporality of the world and its works and of the stages of the Path to God-realization and, he gave advice to others how to best avoid the traps of the Path. The poems written after Realization are written from the Authority of Divine Knowledge and have a Perfect detachment and Merciful involvement that sets them apart from the other poems that were written from various stages on the road to Truth.

- An excerpt from the introduction to Paul Smith’s translation of the divan of Hafiz (Credit)

Jaan di, di hui ussi ki thi!

Sometimes we fail to realize the duties we have as a vice-gerent of God on Earth. While watching the Hum TV drama serial, Parsa, I came to realize that how important our life is. By taking our own decisions, doing whatever we want and disobeying our parents leads us to a path where there’s no turning back. It’s like a road where you reach at the end just to realize that there’s nothing beyond this point.

Basically, what happens in the drama is that a Muslim girl marries a Christian guy which leads to the death of her father due to that shock and it goes on. And to be honest, it is not just a drama, it is a story to which everyone can relate to.

After reaching the end point where there’s NO turning back, one only can only wish if this or that had not happened. The feeling of regret takes your life slowly. Anyway, I don’t want to get too emotional here, however, I do want this message to get across. People should realize the duties they have been sent with before the opportunities slip under their very nose. The shair which inspired me tonight to write this post is by Mirza Ghalib:

Jaan di, di hui ussi ki thi

Haq to ye hai, ke haq ada na hua!

I know this might be a boring & a random post but I had to put it out there.

A Muslim Sufi is different from a Western Spiritualist

A closer knowledge of the subject will convince a discriminating observer that a Muslim Sufi is quite a different man from a Western Spiritualist. The Western Spiritualist has no faith to start with, no set of beliefs to guide him, and no fixed goal to direct his steps. His work is experimental throughout.

Bred and brought up in an atmosphere of doubt and distrust, he starts with scepticism and winding his way through a long and circuitous route of doubts, delusions, experiments, surprises, and disappointments, he very often finds himself stranded in the midst of unexplored fields.

He imposes upon himself a double duty. He is his own leader and his own follower. He does not want to be guided by the experience of others. With him, it is not a question of realisation, but of test. He has nothing to realise, because he has no faith to stand by. He has first to find out the truth and then test it.

His initial estrangement from spiritual subjects, makes him an easy prey to foreign influence. Some of the very ancient and antiquated Eastern religions, which have lost their original glamour and primitive glory, possess a novelty for him and attract him easily. His materialistic tendencies clog his footsteps during his spiritual march and beset his progress at every turn. Development of will, concentration, and other spiritual powers, are readily employed by him to secure some brilliant worldly success. Any valuable information, obtained from a higher source, is willingly utilised for a materialistic end. Higher attainments are ungrudgingly employed to secure lower ends.

Instead of sacrificing the low for the high, he thoughtlessly rushes in the opposite direction and feels no compunction in sacrificing the high for the low; not knowing probably, the extent of damage he is thereby inflicting upon his own talents.

These earthly tendencies keep him earth-bound and, instead of moving on and fast, he finds himself entangled in the meshes of “communion with the dead”, where he is very often baffled by the inconsistencies of the results. Having no proper standard of judgment, he cannot draw a correct line of distinction between the spirits belonging to this side of the grave and the spirits belonging to other side of it, and the result is a hopeless confusion.

Table-turning, planchettes, telepathy, tele-’vision’, and his similar other achievements only tend to tie him down to earth, instead of helping him to soar into the heavens of spirituality. Spiritualism in the West, has come to have quite a different meaning from the one indicated by the spiritualism of the Sufi.

The whole article is originally published at Moon over Medina. Only part of it is posted here.

Aik Alif

Cross-posted from mysticsaint.info

Parh parh ilm te faazil hoya
Te kaday apnay aap nu parhya ee na

(You read to become
all knowledgeable
But you never read yourself)

You read so many books
to know it all,
yet fail to ever read your
heart at all.

 

Bhaj bhaj warna ay mandir maseeti
Te kaday mann apnay wich warya ee na

(You run to enter temples and mosques
But you never entered your own heart)

You rush to holy shrines to play a part,
Would you dare enter the shrine of your heart

 

Larna ay roz shaitaan de naal
Te kadi nafs apnay naal larya ee na

(Everyday you fight Satan
But you never fight your own Ego)

You are quick to attack the evil one,
yet pride is a battle you have not won.

 

Bulleh Shah asmaani ud-deya pharonda ay
Te jera ghar betha unoon pharya ee na

(Bulleh Shah you try grabbing that which is in the sky
But you never get hold of What sits inside you)

You grab for a star you can control,
yet fail to grasp the light in your soul.

 

Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)

Let the race end, my friend

Ilm-oun bas kareen o yaar
Ik Alif teray darkaar

(Stop seeking all this knowledge my friend
Only an Alif is what you need)

Stop trying to be the one who knows,
for ‘God is One’ you need to know.

 

Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)

End the race, my friend

 

Allah Sayyaan Allah Sayyaan
(God is the Master, God is All)

God is All we need! God is All!

 

Nee main jaanaa Jogi de naal

(I shall follow the Yogi {ascetic/sufi})

Follow the wandering dervish!

 

Jo naa jaane, Haqq ki taaqat
Rabb naa devey us ko Himmat

(Those who deny the Strength of Truth
Lord does not give them courage)

If you deny the power of all that’s true,
God will not grant strength to you.

 

Hum Mann ke darya mein doobey
Kaisi nayya? Kya manjhdhaar?

(We have drowned in the river of Self
the boat and the flowing waters do not matter)

We are lost in this river of self,
no boat or streams are of any help.

 

Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)

End the race, my friend

Ilm-oun bas kareen o yaar
(Stop seeking all this knowledge my friend)

Stop trying to know it all, my friend.

 

Allah Sayyaan Allah Sayyaan
(God is the Master, God is All)

God is All we need! God is All!

- English Translation and Lyrics originally in Punjabi | English in bracket is approximate literal translation. A more poetic rendering inbold by Naomi.

> Download the audio as mp3.

In the life of Bullah Shah, the great saint of Panjab, one reads a most instructive account of his early training when he was sent to school with boys of his own age. The teacher taught him Alif, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. The other boys in his class finished the whole alphabet while he was mastering the same letter. When weeks had passed, and the teacher saw that the child did not advance any further than the first letter Alif, he thought that he must be deficient and sent him home to his parents, saying, ‘Your boy is deficient, I cannot teach him.’

The parents did all in their power for him, placing him under the tuition of various teachers, but he made no progress. They were disappointed, and the boy in the end escaped from home, so that he should no longer be a burden to his own people. He then lived in the forest and saw the manifestation of Alif which has taken form in the forest as the grass, the leaf, the tree, branch, fruit, and flower; and the same Alif was manifested as the mountain and hill, the stones and rocks; and he witnessed the same as a germ, insect, bird and beast, and the same Alif in himself and others. He thought of one, saw one, felt one, realized one, and none else besides.

After mastering this lesson thoroughly he returned to pay his respects to his old teacher who had expelled him from school. The teacher, absorbed in the vision of variety, had long ago forgotten him; but Bullah Shah could not forget his old teacher who had taught him his first and most inspiring lesson which had occupied almost all his life. He bowed most humbly before the teacher and said, ‘I have prepared the lesson you so kindly taught me; will you teach me anything more there may be to learn?’ The teacher laughed at him and thought to himself, ‘After all this time this simpleton has remembered me.’ Bullah Shah asked permission to write the lesson, and the teacher replied in jest, ‘Write on this wall.’ He then made the sign of Alif on the wall, and it divided into two parts. The teacher was astounded at this wonderful miracle and said, ‘Thou art my teacher! That which thou hast learnt in the one letter Alif, I have not been able to master with all my learning,’ and Bullah Shah sang this song:

Oh! friend now quit thy learning,
One Alif is all thou dost need.
By learning thou hast loaded my mind,
With books thou hast filled up thy room.
But the true knowledge was lost by pursuing the false,
So quit now, O friend, the pursuit of thy learning.

Every form seems to be derived from another, all figures being derived from Alif, which is originally derived from a dot and represents zero, nothingness. It is that nothingness which creates the first form Alif. It is natural for everyone when writing to make a dot as soon as the pen touches the paper, and the letters forming the words hide the origin. In like manner the origin of the One Being is hidden in His manifestation. That is why Allah, whose name comes from Alif, is hidden under His own manifestation. The same form of Alif is the figure one in English, and in both aspects this form reveals its meaning. This meaning in its various forms is seen in all aspects of nature. As Omar Khayyam says:

A hair perhaps divides the false and true; Yes, and a single Alif were the clue,
Could you but find it–to the treasure house, And, peradventure, to the Master too.

My soul said, ‘I desire the mystic knowledge: Teach me if it be in thy power.’
I said, ‘Alif.’ She answered, ‘Say no more; If one is at home, a single letter is enough.’

> Reference:

Aik Alif | Bulleh Shah

The way of Illumnation

Realization: Why are you crying?

Cross-posted from Paulo Coelho.’s Blog:

A man knocked at his Bedouin friend’s door to ask him a favor:

“I want you to lend me four thousand dinars because I have a debt to pay. Can you do that for me?”

The friend asked his wife to gather together everything they had of value, but even so it was not enough. They had to go out and borrow money from the neighbors until they managed to get the full amount.

When the man left, the woman noticed that her husband was crying.

“Why are you sad? Now that we’ve got ourselves in debt with our neighbors, are you afraid we won’t be able to repay them?”

“Nothing of the sort! I’m crying because he is someone I love so much, but even so I had no idea he was in need. I only remembered him when he had to knock on my door to ask me for a loan.”

This is something we need in today’s world. That Realization. A soft corner in your heart for everyone. Please come out and help your brethren who are in need today. Withholding the money and not giving it to the poor and the needy of our society thinking what will this penny do. Ah! You’re wrong. Please remember that every drop that is poured into ocean makes it an ocean. Otherwise it would be nothing. Pour whatever you can. Giving a large sum of money doesn’t matter unless you feel the urge and the willingness in your heart . Spend in His way, but generously!

Here you are – those called to spend in the Way of God, yet among you there are some who withholds (out of their own greed and miserliness). And whoever withholds, only withholds from his own self. God is Self-Sufficient (Ghaniy), while you are needy (fuqara).
- The Quran 47:36-38