Arif-Poetry
“Bismillahir Rahmannir Raheem”Al-Hamdu Lillaahi Rabbil ‘Aalameen was Salaatu was- Salaamu ‘Alaa Sayidinaa Muhammadin wa Aalihi wa Asabihi Ajma ‘een (tauheed- risalat- ahkirat and islam-iman-ihsan)
Sufi secrets 8
The mystical poetry of Islam -the aspiration of the soul towards God is expressed, unless we have some clue to the poet’s intention, we are left in doubt as to his meaning.
The Sufis invented this figurative style as a mask for mysteries which they desired to keep secret.
The Sufis adopt the symbolic style because there is no other possible way of interpreting mystical experience.
They can only indicate them symbolically to those who have begun to experience the like. What kind of symbolism each mystic will prefer depends on his temperament and character.
Represents the divine essence manifested through attributes, the One veiled by the Many, Lose your phenomenal self in the rapture of divine contemplation.
No religion is more sublime than a religion of love and longing for God. Love is the essence of all creeds
Love may be phenomenon(pretend) or real(rapture). The phenomenal is a bridge to the Real.
It is true that when Sufi writers translate mystical union into terms of love and marriage, they do not, indeed they cannot, expunge the notion of personality, but such metaphorical phrases are not necessarily inconsistent with a pantheism which excludes all difference.
The love thus symbolised is the emotional element in religion, the rapture of the seer, the courage of the martyr, the faith of the saint, the only basis of moral perfection and spiritual knowledge.
Practically, it is self-renunciation and self-sacrifice, the giving up of all possessions–wealth, honour, will, life, and whatever else men value–for the Beloved’s sake without any thought of reward.
I have already referred to love as the supreme principle in Sufi ethics, and now let me give some illustrations.
Only he whose garment is rent by love becomes entirely unselfish.Religion is founded on unselfishness.
In proportion as the Sufi loves God, he sees God in all His creatures, and goes forth to them in acts of charity. Pious works are naught without love.
Love and knowledge essential in understanding divinity.
“Man’s love of God,” -is a quality which manifests itself, in the heart of the pious believer, in the form of veneration and magnification, so that he seeks to satisfy his Beloved and becomes impatient and restless in his desire for vision of Him.He is cut off from all habits and associations, and renounces sensual passion, and turns towards the court of love, and submits to the law of love, and knows God by His attributes of perfection.
When God loves a man- a bounty like that of the sea, a sympathy like that of the sun, and a humility like that of the earth. No suffering can be too great, no devotion too high, for the piercing insight and burning faith of a true lover.
Islam is the religion of love, inasmuch as the Prophet Mohammed is called God’s beloved (Habib),
Love, like gnosis, is in its essence a divine gift, not anything that can be acquired.
love signifies the passing-away of the individual self; it is an uncontrollable rapture, a God-sent grace which must be sought by ardent prayer and aspiration.
Divine love is beyond description, yet its signs are manifest.
This inner light is its own evidence; he who sees it has real knowledge, and nothing can increase or diminish his certainty.
Hence the Sufis never weary of exposing the futility of a faith which supports itself on intellectual proofs, external authority, self-interest, or self-regard of any kind.
‘otherness’– ‘veils’ to be removed.Enraptured in contemplation of the Beloved.
It is a crime in the lover to regard his love, and an outrage in love to look at one’s own seeking while one is face to face with the Sought.
Remove all beside Him-true love.
Love- is the divine instinct of the soul impelling it to realise its nature and destiny. The soul before the creation of the universe, it lived and moved and had its being in Him, and during its earthly manifestation it is a stranger in exile, ever pining to return to its home.
All the love-romances and allegories of Sufi poetry–the tales of Layla and Majnun, Yusuf (Joseph) and Zulaykha, Salaman and Absal, the Moth and the Candle, the Night-ingale and the Rose–are shadow-pictures of the soul’s passionate longing to be reunited with God.
When I want to talk to Allah I say prayers and when I want that he talk to me I recite quran- Hazrath Ali(ra)
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