Love Dogs by Rumi

Other than the sheer beauty that Rumi is, posting of this poem is solely triggered by the comment on the post underneath.
For dear IYM, when longing is the bridge that connects:




One night a man was crying Allah! Allah!
His lips grew sweet with praising,
until a cynic said, “So!
I’ve heard you calling our, but have you ever
gotten any response?”
The man had no answer to that.
He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.
He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,
in a thick, green foliage.
“Why did you stop praising?” “Because
I’ve never heard anything back.”
“This longing you express
is the return message.”
The grief you cry out from
draws you toward union.
Your pure sadness
that wants help
is the secret cup.
Listen to the moan of a dog for its master.
That whining is the connection.
There are love dogs
no one knows the names of.
Give your life
to be one of them."

Devona Shaw!

What follows underneath is not a translation of this amazing Persian kalaam. The musical piece, however was so much in tune with the frequency within: Devona shaw!
The words come on their own, and I cease to mould them into forms ...


 And there are times when the only way to retain your senses is by losing them.

The only way to keep your head is by letting your hair down; the only way to dance is by losing your feet; the only way to break free is by tightening the chains around; the sole way to maintain that charming form of yours is to melt in that absorbing kiss of the Beloved; the only words that are spoken to your Love are that of silence; and the only harp that plays does so in your bosom.

I want to keep my head, so I let my hair down and whirl in a spiral. There is beginning to an end naught.

I want to dance to the symphony of the Love, so I let my heart guide my moves and the ground embraces my steps naught.

I want to break free from the ordains of the self, so I let me lose on the gallows of Hallaj. Beyond the Self, the self naught.

I want to relish the beauty that is mine, so the vision of me more than in Your eyes, exists naught.

I want to tell You all the pains that my heart endures, so I let myself be the bleeding heart. The words were the sounds, the feel naught.

I want to play all the tunes of my ecstasy, so I beat with my heart. Love brings my melody, the harp naught.

You see, I want to retain my senses, so I stick to my senses, naught.

Since I want to remain sane, so I let myself get crazy.

Perhaps, there is nothing that I do since I so will. Perhaps, its just that I have any choice naught!

Unwinding Self

At times we feel so desolate from the entire universe around us that everything seizes to make any sense. When the sky and the earth knit themselves together so that all the compass needles go berserk and one is left clueless, directionless, like a lost ship now returning to Atlantis.

Nothing makes sense, and sense makes nothing ...

The power to analyze seems to be consumed by the haze of uncertainty, and the ability to rationalize retreats in the face of that sheer void that seems to surround anything and everything. Its smog, everywhere and all around. And my compass needle is crazy. I don't trust it. I don't trust the path. I don't trust my ability to find a path. I don't trust the idea that a path does exist. And I don't trust me.

Whenever I am as lost, as I feel now, in the murkiness of daunting doubts, I return to my point 0 - origin point. Point of total surrender. I align my crazy compass to the One up there and let myself make a camp there, at point 0. I call all my fighting faculties back to myself, I forget the paths and I forget the battles. I just camp there, in a world which is more spiritual than physical. I let myself the luxury of just being a no one in the realm of the Absolute One, and I relish the freedom that shunning all authority brings. I become a lover of the One who needs no lover, and I feel loved. All my wounds heal, my energies build and my faculties nourish, just by that mere act of realigning my compass back to Him.

But this time it has been strange. It seems as if the first thing I lost in the battle is the very compass that had gone berserk. Its a familiar yet unfamiliar land, my steps do not catch up with the changing pace of the landscape and my eyes can not see across this grey sea of haze. The deafening noise of the silent void is devouring all that was left of a lost spirit. I can not reach my point 0, despite the fact that I never had to Reach it! As the poet puts it

دل کے آئینے میں ہے تصویر یار

جب زرا گردن جھکائ’ دیکھ لیا

Dil kay aa'eenay mein hai tasveer e yar

jab zara girdan jhukai, daih lia

(My heart mirrors the image of my Beloved

Its just a bend of neck, that grants me a view)

No compass, nothing to align. Where am I?

I was caught in this endless whirlpool of nothingness, when yesterday I got a few words to which I am hanging on for dear life. These words resonate in this bleak time with the same frequency that had I not lost it, my compass needle would have responded well.

So, here's what I learnt. I hope I did!

When launching into a battle, one should always know where is the EXIT marked, and where is the emergency medical relief camp! This is as important for the soul as is for the body. In this very case, before exhausting my last reservoirs of strength, I should have known where is the refill station: my compass needle.

Hence job ONE: Find your aligning spiritual compass, so that nowhere begins to belong somewhere.

When a self falls prey to doubts; doubts that shatter, and doubts that mar everything that binds one's faith, its never alone a battle of Spirit. Its a battle that soul fights, only when aided by a body which can endure that battle.

Hence job TWO: Focus on revitalizing your health.

When there is no direction to follow and no route to take, when the dreams are forsaken and the realities are stark, when the words ring hollow and when the actions speak naught, just remain sure of one thing and that will make all this abyss fizzle out: your own personal uprighteousness. That uprighteousness comes by cleansing one's system of all the negativities of thought and of action; and this requires harmony - Spiritual as well as physical!

Hence job THREE: Cleanse your system of toxins.

I have stopped fighting and have called my troops back. I spent today, the whole day trying to relocate myself. And I think I have inched somewhere close to my compass.

I hope and pray that all the lost souls find their route maps. Amen

Good night all.

To Be, or Not to Be!

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.


Shakespeare (from Hamlet 3/1)