Posts Tagged Peace

Nizamuddin Auliya – for Marta Franceschini

5 January 2007

My post on the pictures of Nizamuddin Auliya’s dergah (shrine) attracted a visitor whose devotion to the great Nizamuddin is quite touching. Marta wrote:

“…picture of the Dargha is next to my bed, first thing I see in the morning and last in the evening. …. No one ever loved me like he does. To experience the power of his love is something impossible to express with words, something that has changed complitely the prospective of my life.”

Commenting further on the pictures, Marta said:

“…..The best gift for Christmas. I am not muslim, nor christian, or anything else, but however my heart is full of love for God which, I am sure, is One and Overwhelming. And does embrace me all time long. If my presence doesn’t offend anyone in your site I will be glad to come back again, and possibly talk to anyone close to the Great Chisthy Saint.”

Her full comment can be found here

I visited this remarkable place recently spending my evenings and all the spare time at the shrine. I have met more and more people at the dergah including a devotee who also runs the Sufi Inayat Khan Center nearby. I will write more about that later.

Now that I have had some time to sort out my pictures, I am posting a few more here. These are dedicated to Marta and I hope she will find them inspiring again…

And this is the last one – the renovated mosque that looks ethereal in the night time.

The Universalism of Kabir

30 July 2006

Troubled by the ongoing middle east crisis, the destruction of Lebanon and the acrimony generated by the tragic Mumbai blasts, I am reminded of this poem by Kabir:

Allah and Rama

If Khuda inhabits the mosque,
then whose play-field is the rest of the world.

If Rama lives in the idol at the pilgrim station,
then who controls the chaos outside?

The East is Hari’s domicile, they say,
the West is Allah’s dwelling place.

Look into your heart, your very heart:
That’s where Karim-and-Rama reside.
All the men and the women ever born,
Are nothing but Your embodied forms:
Kabir’s a child of Allah-and-Rama
They’re his Guru-and-Pir

(translated by Vinay Dharwadker in Kabir: The Weaver’s Songs)

A miniature painting of Kabir, c.1825

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