Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Certainty

How long will you say, "I will conquer the whole world
and fill it with myself"?
Even if snow covered the world completely,
the sun could melt it with a glance.
A single spark of God's mercy
can turn poison into springwater.
Where there is doubt,
He establishes certainty.

... Mathnawi, Mevlana Rumi

Friday, September 25, 2009

My Heart

"For thirty years I sat watching over my heart. Then for ten years my heart watched over me. Now it is twenty years that I know nothing of my heart and my heart knows nothing of me" ... Junayd al-Baghdadi

"I know nothing, I understand nothing, I am unaware of myself. I am in love, but with whom I do not know. My heart is at the same time both full and empty of love" ... Farīd ud-Dīn ‘Attār

Setting Sun

The word is full of beautiful things until an old man with a beard came into my life and set my heart aflame with longing and made it pregnant with love. How can I look at the loveliness around me, how can I see it, if it hides the face of my Lover?

... Persian song

The Song Of The Reed

Now listen to this reed-flute's deep lament
About the heartache being apart has meant:

'Since from the reed-bed they uprooted me
My song's expressed each human's agony,

A breast which separation's split in two
Is what I seek, to share this pain with you:

When kept from their true origin, all yearn
For union on the day they can return.

Among the crowd, alone I mourn my fate,
With good and bad I've learned to integrate,

That we were friends each one was satisfied
But none sought out my secrets from inside;

My deepest secret's in this song I wail
But eyes and ears can't penetrate the veil:

Body and soul are joined to form one whole
But no one is allowed to see the soul.'

It's fire not just hot air the reed-flute's cry,
If you don't have this fire then you should die!

Love's fire is what makes every reed-flute pine,
Love's fervour thus lends potency to wine;

The reed consoles those forced to be apart,
Its notes will lift the veil upon your heart,

Where's antidote or poison like its song,
Or confidant, or one who's pined so long?

This reed relates a tortuous path ahead,
Recalls the love with which Majnun's heart bled:

The few who hear the truths the reed has sung
Have lost their wits so they can speak this tongue.

The day is wasted if it's spent in grief,
Consumed by burning aches without relief--

Good times have long passed, but we couldn't care
When you're with us, our friend beyond compare!

While ordinary men on drops can thrive
A fish needs oceans daily to survive:

The way the ripe must feel the raw can't tell,
My speech must be concise, and so farewell!

... Mathnawi, Jalalludin Rumi

O Captain My Captain!

To my beloved captain:

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

... Walt Whitman

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead,
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
... W H Auden

Al-Fatihah

A heartwrenching and heartbreaking day on the demise of my shaykh, my father, my guide, my friend, my pillar, my strength and mostly my الشمس as he returns to The Most Beloved. He is a true gem with a pure and beautiful soul. All that is good in me is due to his loving embrace when he took me in, for I would still be a lost soul without him in my life. I am absolutely blessed to be loved unconditionally by him, even when others have left. Through him, I found beauty - in myself, in life, in others, and especially in Him. He is my saint. I have been fortunate to have repeatedly conveyed to him his special place in my heart. Today, 20 years after my real father met the Lord, my spiritual father joined him. Even if you do not know this extraordinary person in my life, please join me in reciting Al-Fatihah...

"(To the righteous soul will be said:) "O (thou) soul, in (complete state of) rest and satisfaction! Come back thou to thy Lord, well pleased (thyself), and well-pleasing unto Him! Enter thou, then, among My devotees! Yea, enter thou into My Heaven!" ... al-Fajr 89:27-30

"Nor can a soul die except by Allah's leave, the term being fixed as by writing. If any do desire a reward in this life, We shall give it to him; and if any do desire a reward in the Hereafter, We shall give it to him. And swiftly shall We reward those that (serve us with) gratitude" ... ali-Imran 3:145

"Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods, or lives, or the fruits (of your labor), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere; Who say, when afflicted with calamity: "To Allah We belong, and to Him is our return":- They are those on whom (Descend) blessings from Allah, and Mercy, and they are the ones that receive guidance" ... al-Baqarah 2:155-157

"Not a single lover would seek union,
If the Beloved is not seeking it" ... Mevlana Rumi

"The flower fades, but its fragrance lingers in the hearts of all those who touched it" ... The Writing on the Water, by Muhyiddin Shakoor.



Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Years Shall Run Like Rabbits

... 'The years shall run like rabbits,
For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages,
And the first love of the world.'

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
'O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day...

... As I Walked Out One Evening, W H Auden

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

For my beloved Shzak:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

... Dylan Thomas

Among The Multitude

Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not--that one knows me.

Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.

... Walt Whitman

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Self Pity


I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

... D H Lawrence