The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of a bright world dies

When day is done.

****

The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done.

Francis William Bourdillon

Truly,  LOVE  is  the  sole  universal  experience. In modern times, we all  know  Human Love, but can we cross over to  Divine Love, as the Sufis seemed to do?
A song ,i wrote….(Surya Rao Maturu)

THE   DANCE    OF  SHIVA
========================

 FRIENDS,  I sing you the Song  of Shiva
 The  ancientest   God on Earth.
 He,
 Who dances the Nat, dusk to dawn
 Atop Mount Kailasa,every night;
 Night after night.
 He cannot  stop ,now or ever.
 He dances on the Dance of Shiva.

 Yonder back in time,
 When the Devas and Asuras,
  churned the Ocean of Desires, for Nectar,
 Out came Hemlock Primieval,
 Deadlier than the deadliest Death.
 All fled,
 No one to save life on earth,
 But for Shiva, the Tribal God. (more…)

Who I am

I know not who I am,
I am neither a believer going to the mosque
Nor given to non-believing ways.
Neither clean nor unclean,
Neither Moses nor Pharaoh.
I know not who I am.

I am neither among sinners nor among saints,
Neither happy nor unhappy,
I belong neither to water nor to earth.
I am neither fire nor air,
I know not who I am.

Neither do I know the secret of religion,
Nor am I born of Adam and Eve.
I have given myself no name,
I belong neither to those who squat and pray,
Nor to those who have gone astray.
I know not who I am.

I was in the beginning; I’d be there in the end.
I know not any one other than the One.
Who could be wiser than Bulleh Shah
Whose Master is ever there to tend?
I know not who I am.

Come my Love, take care of me

Come my Love, take care of me,
I am in great agony.
Ever separated, my dreams are dreary,
Looking for you, my eyes are weary.
All alone I am robbed in a desert,
Waylaid by a bunch of waywards.

The Mulla and Qazi show me the way,
Their maze of dharma that is in sway.
They are the confirmed thieves of time.
They spread their net of saintly crime.

Their time-worn norms are seldom right,
With these they chain my feet so tight!
My love cares not for caste or creed.
To the ritual faith I pay no head.

My Master lives on yonder bank
While I am caught in the gale of greed.
With his boat at anchor, He stands in wait,
I must hasten I can’t be late.

Bulleh Shah must find his love,
He needn’t have the least fright.
His Love is around, yet he looks for him
Misled in the broad daylight.

Come my love take care of me,
I am in great agony.

**************

Strange are the times!

Crows swoop on hawks
Sparrows do eagles stalk
Strange are the times!

The Iraqis are despised
While the donkeys are prized
Strange are the times!

Those with coarse blankets are kings;
The erstwhile kings watch them from the ring.
Strange are the times!

Its not without reason or rhyme,
Strange are the times

Says Bulleh, kill your ego
And throw away your pride.
You need to forget yourself
To find Him by your side.

It’s all in One contained

Understand the One and forget the rest.
Shake off your ways of an apostate pest.
Leading to the grave to hell and torture,
Rid your mind of dreams of disaster.
This is how is the argument maintained,
It’s all in One contained.

What use is it bowing one’s head?
To what avail has prostrating led?
Reading Kalma you make them laugh,
Absorbing not a word while the Quran you quaff.
The truth must be here and there sustained,
It’s all in One contained.

Some retire to the jungles in vain.
Others restrict their meals to a grain.
Misled they waste away unfed
And come back home half alive, half dead.
Emaciated in the ascetic postures feigned,
it’s all in One contained,

Seek your master, say your prayers and surrender to God,

It will lead you to mystic abandon
And help you to get attuned to the Lord.
It’s all the truth that Bulleh has gained.
It’s all in One contained.

Bulleh Shah, a renowned Muslim spiritual leader of the sub continent of Indo-Pakistan, was a Punjabi Sufi poet. His spiritual master was Shah Inayat Qadiri of Lahore and because of this Bulleh was referred to as a saint or spiritual leader. Bulleh’s real name was Abdullah Shah, but he was known as Bulleh to his family and that was the name he chose to use as a poet. (more…)

Dear soul, Love alone cuts arguments short,
for it alone comes to the rescue when you cry for help against
disputes.
Eloquence is dumbfounded by Love: it dares not wrangle;
for the lover fears that, if he answers back,
the pearl of inner experience might fall out of his mouth.

Rumi – translation by Camille and Kabir Helminski
“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”
Threshold Books, 1996

Spring is here, friends.
Let’s stay in the garden
And be guests to the strangers of the green.

We’ll fly from one flower to the other,
Like bees making the six corners
Of this earth’s hives prosperous.

An envoy came from this fortress
And said, “Don’t beat the drum secretly.
With our yells, we would tear down the place
Where that Love’s drum is beating.”

Hear that voice which comes from the sky,
“Rise, all insane ones.
I sacrifice my Soul to the insane.
Let’s scatter our Soul today.”

Let’s break all the chains.
Every one of us is a blacksmith.
Let’s go to the fireplace where the pincers are.

Let’s fan the flame of the Heart’s fire
Like the furnace of blacksmiths.
So we can have iron Hearts
Under our control with breath.

We’ll put fire in this universe,
Incite riots in the sky,
Make his sober, resisting mind
Turn around, become dizzy like ours.

We are like a ball, without hands and feet,
Sometimes at the end
And sometimes at the beginning of the square.
Who told you we could do what we want?
Who told you we are independent?

No, no. We are like a club
In the hand of the Sultan.
We send hundreds of thousands of balls
To His feet.

Let’s be silent. Silence is made
With some material like craziness.
His mind is such a fire
That we hide this fire by wrapping it in cotton.

– Translation by Nevit O. Ergin
“Divan-i Kebir” — Meter 1
Walla Walla, Washington: Current, 1995.

Well, this evening I was bored with my writing. To amuse myself I assembled this little poem.

This was just another day
humdrum, ordinary, plain
save the few words
of assurance ..
nameless affections
and vacant moments.
So I picked up
a moment, casually
and put it away
in my silly pocket.

I am home now
looking for it;
and just found out
that the crumpled moment
has grown into a premonition
of things to happen
of words that could be said
or left unsaid.

So I have folded that moment
neatly and gently
and placed it in a book
that I intend to read
but might not actually read.

And yet, tomorrow
I want to see what happens to it.
Will it gaze at me,
with a sardonic smile
and inquire: “Are you looking for me”
Again?

Raza Rumi – April 18 – 11 pm

Amir Khusrau

I am a pagan (worshiper) of love: the creed (of Muslims) I do not need;
Every vein of mine has become (taut like a) wire; the (pagan) girdle I do not need.
Leave from my bedside, you ignorant physician!
The only cure for the patient of love is the sight of his beloved
other than this no medicine does he need.
If there be no pilot on our ship, let there be none:
We have God in our midst: the pilot we do not need.
The people of the world say that Khusrau worships idols.
So I do, so I do; the people I do not need,
the world I do not need.

I rediscovered this exquisite poem by Parveen Shakir after years. This is an intense love poem of rare beauty. It is composite, taut and melodic. I have tried to translate it – however, the impossibility of a translation haunts me..

More so, the reality of days gone by, the visions lost haunts me even more..

Dedicated to those who stand by the sea of evening colours and moods and want to merge with their expanse. And, to someone who lives with time present and time past with equal ease..

yay haseen shaam apni

yay haseen shaam apni
abhi jiss meiN ghul rahi hai
teray parahan kee khushboo
abhi jiss meiN khil rahay heiN
meray khawab kay shagoofay
zera dair ka hai manzar

zera dair meiN ufq par
khilay ga koi sitaara
teri simt daik kar woh
karay ga koi ishara
teray dil ko aayay ga phir
kissi yaad ka bullawa
koi qissa-ay judaaee, koi kaar-ay naamukamal
koi khawab-ay naa shagufta, koi baat kehnay wali

humeiN chaahiyay tha milna
kissi ahad-ay mehrbaaN meiN
kissi khawab kay yaqeeN meiN
kissi aur aasmaaN par
kissi aur sarzameeN meiN
humeiN chahiyay tha milna…

Here is the odd translation rendered by this blogger.

This melting evening of ours
Where everything dissolves
the scent of your clothes
the blossoming
sprouts of my dreams
All dissolves

A deferred vision, this is

In a little while,
a star will emerge on the horizon
To gaze at you
Meaningfully…!
Your heart shall then reminisce
the echo of a memory
The tale of a separation,
Of an unfinished moment
Of unblossomed dreams, things unsaid

We ought to have met
In times, considerate
In pursuit of attainable dreams
On a different sky
On a different earth
We ought to have met

Picture by Raza Rumi

A friend, for the lack of a better term (why are we always hankering after labels and identities for some associations that lie beyond the act of defining), wrote this piece for Jahane Rumi. She is a follower of the Sufi creed and this is what created a bond between us that refuses to go away despite the different paths and lives we have led. The connection has stood the winds of time. There is an audio-link at the end as well.

Recently while going through some of my late grandfather’s books, I was struck by a feeble looking Deewan of Khowaja Fareed. Feeble because it bore the date of 1964 for its inclusion in his impressive book collection. Expressing the thrill of holding a book which had travelled 44 years in time to reach me is beyond words. Needless to say with what intensity the book’s contents kept me immersed in them for almost two hours with un -interrupted focus which is a rare event in an ever-reaching-out-to-meet-a-target kind of life style we are used to. (more…)

by Vidya Rao

I was fortunate to be one of the women invited to the first meeting of the Grandmothers’ University at Bija Vidyapeeth early this year. (more…)

Wealth has no permanence: it comes in the morning, (more…)

My young friend, Salman Chishty, from Ajmer (India) wrote this piece for the HT on the eve of Rumi’s birth anniversary. (more…)

This little poem by the famous Turk poet Aziz Nesin was left on Jahane Rumi by Sherry – I love it so much that I am re-posting it here -

You made me wait so long, so long that
I got used to missing you
You came back after a long time
I now love longing for you more
than I love you

(translated by Suleyman Fatih Akgul)

In every gathering, in any chance meeting
on the street, there is a shine,
an elegance rising up.

Today, I recognized that that jewel-like beauty
is the presence, our loving confusion,
the glow in which watery clay
gets brighter than fire,

the one we call the Friend.
I begged, “Is there a way into you,
a ladder?”
“Your head is the ladder.
Bring it down under your feet.”
The mind, this globe
of awareness, is a starry universe that when
you push off from it with your foot,

a thousand new roads come clear, as you yourself
do at dawn, sailing through the light.

– Version by Coleman Barks
“Say I am You”
Maypop, 1994

courtesy