Shah
'Abdu'l‑Latif (1689‑1752), born in Hyderabad, Sind, joined a group
of wandering yogis and later settled in Bhit, where his tomb is still a revered
shrine. His verses in Sindhi, composed according to Indic rules of prosody and
sung to Indian melodies, remain immensely popular today.
From
unity came multiplicity, multiplicity is all union,
Reality
is one: do not be mistaken!
He
is "Mighty in His Greatness," He is all Beauty,
He
is the image of the beloved, He is perfection of loveliness,
He
Himself becomes master and disciple, He is all imagination,
And
through Him the state of all things becomes known.
He
is this, and He is that, he is God, and He is death,
He
the Beloved, He the breath, He the enemy, and He the helper. (p.193)
Those,
whose body is a rosary, the soul a bead of the rosary, the heart a
tanboura
They
play on the strings of the secret of unity:
"He
is One, has no companion"‑thus they sing
For
those sleep is fitting, slumber is worship for them. (p. 194)
The
Sufi is without religious form; nobody has understood him;
He
struggles deep in his interior, his foot has no trace,
For
him who has enmity with him, he has become a helper. (p, 201)
The
Sufi has cleaned and washed off the pages of existence,
Then
he has been granted during his life the vision of the friend. (p.203)
If
you put a cap on your neck, then become a real Sufi: Reaching the
goblet of poison, drink the full glass;
The
place (of honor) will be of those who have reached the (mystical) state. (P.
204)
The yogis pack their bags with hunger, and prepare
themselves for oblivion or bliss.
They do not desire food but greedily pour thirst in
their cups and sip it.
They flog their minds until they are like beaten
flax,
Thus they wade through the wasteland and at last are
near liberation.
Take advantage of their presence, be with them and
enrich your experience.
Soon they will go on a journey to the distant land
of which they think,
Leaving this world of pleasure and reaching the holy
Ganges,
They wear only a loin‑cloth and need no sacred
baths.
They hear
the subtle call that sounded before the advent of Islam.
They sever all ties and meet their guide,
Goraknath.(1)
The yogis become again the Whole, their only
concern;
Whose seat is Nothingness, I cannot live without
them,
Where there is no heaven and no trace of the earth,
Where the moon and the sun neither rise nor set.
Thus far have the yogis set their tryst with Supreme
Knowledge,
And they see the Lord in Nothingness.
Bullhe Shdh
Bulthe
Shah (1680‑1752) is one of the most admired Punjabi Sufi poets. He also
wrote treatises in Persian prose and was drawn to the philosophy of Vedanta.
[Adapted
from L. R. Krishna, Panjdbf Sufi Poets, pp. 85‑861
Neither
Hindu nor Mussalman, let us sit and spin, abandoning the pride of religion.
Neither Sunni nor Shi’a, I have taken the path of peace and unity. Neither
hungry nor full, neither naked nor clothed Neither weeping nor laughing,
neither exiled nor settled Neither a sinner nor pure, I do not walk in the way
of sin or virtue. Bullhe! In all hearts I feel the Lord, So I have abandoned
both Hindu and Muslim. Love and Law are struggling: I will settle the doubts of
your hearts holy sit, the questions of Law and the answers of Love.
Law
says: go to the mulla and learn the rules and regulations;
Love
says: one letter is enough, close your books and put them away.
Law
says: perform the five baths and worship alone in the temple;
Love
says: what's this veil for? Let the vision be open.
Law
says: go inside the mosque and perform the duty of prayer;
Love
says: go to the tavern, read the naphal' drinking wine.
Law
says: let us go to heaven, we will eat the fruits of heaven;
Love
says: we are the keepers and will ourselves distribute the fruits.
Law
says: faithful one, perform the haji, cross the bridge;
Love
says, the kacaba is the door of the Beloved, from there I will not stir.
Law
says: we put Shah Mansar 3 on the stake;
Love
says: through you he entered the Beloved's door.
The
place of Love is the highest heaven, the crown of creation; Out of love He has
created Bullha, humble, and from dust.
Waris Shah
Waris
Shah (1730‑1790), who wrote in Punjabi, uses, as mystics do in most
religious traditions, the language and metaphors of earthly love. The Divine
Beloved is mate; the soul longing for union is female.
[Adapted
from R. K. Kuldip, Waris Shah, pp. 60‑61]
Ever
new, ever fresh is the Spring of Love!
Ever new, ever fresh is the Spring of Love!
When
I leamt the lesson of love,
My
heart dreaded the sight of the mosque.
I
went into the idol temple,
Where
a thousand horns were blowing.
When
I grasped the hint of love,
I
beat and drove out all senses of "I" and " You”,
Both
my heart and vision became clear.
Now
in whatsoever direction I look, I see only the Lord.
I
am tired of reading Vedas and Qur'ans;
My
forehead is worn by constant prostrations in the mosque.
But
the lord is neither at Hindu shrines nor at Mecca,
Whoever
found him, found him in the light of his own beauty.
Burn
the prayer mat, break the bucket,
And
do not touch the beads or the staff.
The
lovers are proclaiming at the top of their voices,
"Give
up the lawful and eat carrion."
I
have lived all my life in a mosque,
But
my heart is still full of dirt.
I
had never vowed for the prayer of unity of God
Now why do I rave and cry.
Love
has made me forget to prostrate myself before you,
Now
why do you quarrel with me in vain?
Waris
is doing his best to keep silent about it,
But
love says "Kill‑‑destroy all show and formality."
Khwaja Mir Dard
Dard
(1720‑1785) was the son of a Naqshband‑i teacher of Delhi. He
became an ascetic and was recognized as a spiritual leader of both the
Naqshband‑i and Chishti orders. Although he wrote both poetry and learned
prose in Persian, he is best remembered as one of the great "pillars"
of Urdu poetry. Here he expresses a familiar theme in Urdu mystical poetry: the
pain that comes from loving the Divine.
[From
Divan‑e Dard, pp. 82‑83, trans. by Margaret Mazici]
If
someone has not seen you here on earth,
It
makes no difference if he sees the world or not.
Compressed
so tight with sorrow is my rosebud‑heart
That
no one yet has ever seen it open.
Ah,
you strange one, you solitary mystery,
Never
have I seen another such as you.
What
pain and misery, what trials and disgrace!
Within
your love, there's nothing that I haven't seen.
My
scars have made me like a tree of lights,
And
yet you never came to see the show.
Your
negligence has brought me to this pass,
But
you've never looked, never looked my way.
The
veil across the Beloved's face was nothing but myself:
When
my eyes opened, I did not see the veil.
Oh
Dard! Night and day, I am at his door,
Whom
no one here has ever seen or understood.
NOTES
i.
A famous leader of the Nath sect.
2.
Noncompulsory prayers.
3.
Mansur Hallaj, a mystic put to death for heresy in 922.