Poet's Corner Section sixteen Miscellaneous verses by Jamiluddin Morris Zahuri |
| Mystical and Religious miscellaneous |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Allah is One
It comes to this when all is said and done,
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One.
From His unity all came when He said ‘Kun’,
‘Become’ He said and all life had begun.
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One.
But ‘become’ is a word with two parts, I see,
Though the first part of course is clearly, ‘Be’,
To it is attached the part that says ‘Come’.
That is to say, ‘Be! Then back to Me come’.
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One.
We cannot refuse either part; it is not a demand!
Written, into every cell and atom, is this command.
So between these two fingers of The Divinity,
That is between Be and Come, Khawaja did see
Shown him by the great Pir Usman Harooni
18,000 worlds spinning, by Allah held effortlessly.
Between these two fingers is everyone.
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One
It is our human destiny, to return to the One,
Who is One, who is One, Who is the Only One.
But between becoming and returning, this see;
A responsibility we have to our own humanity.
With every act of kindness, love or charity,
Made to the best of our human ability,
We become more truly human and alive,
And for this purity we must ever strive.
Thus when the command ‘Be’ becomes ‘Come’,
Our humanity can say, ‘gladly, I come, I come’.
And though from The One we may not hope to hear,
As the Prophets and Saints did, ‘I am pleased, draw near’.
We may hope for this, ‘If a friend of My friend
You really are, My forgiveness to you I send’.
It is not the prayer, or pilgrimage, or money given,
Nor fasting, it is that to be fully human we have striven.
It is our humanity that we bring back to the One,
And it comes down to this when all is said and done.
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One
Daily Grace
The way to be free from idolatry,
Is to live life as it is meant to be;
Receiving as a grace from heaven above,
Each day, a new life, filled with renewed love,
Not for this or that particular thing,
But for the Unity implicit in everything.
Signposts
To pursue the goal of spirituality
You must go beyond this poetry.
It is just an indicator of the Way,
Read it well, but in it do not stay.
If, on returning from the destination,
You want a little gentle relaxation,
Then stay a while and smile with me,
So obvious it will then appear to be.
Baqa
‘Pardon me sir whose funeral is this I see‘,
(The deceased looks very much like me!)
Everyone with attention at his body does peer,
I wonder they see me not standing here.
Ah now this mystery at last I see,
Fana appears but Baqa hidden must be.
In sufi terminology fana - is to extinguish one's own qualities in the Divine qualities -
extinction of the self.
Baqa is that essence which emerges from Fana once one's qualities have become one with
the divine qualities. Thus it could be called the life that follows the death of self.
The Friend
When from my self-hood I disappear,
Oneness in oneness then does appear,
The voices of a myriad souls I hear,
Engaged in the Friend’s work all appear.
This multitude can only be expressed,
By one voice containing all the rest.
The voice of the Friend on all is impressed,
And all know His words are the very best.
The transient, the Friend’s words make enduring,
The way a brick becomes, when laid in a building.
Firm physical evidence in a form convincing ;-
The conclusion many impulses are finally reaching.
A tome such words may become - who knows!
To which, like to a tomb, the devotee goes,
Eternally living words such as Hafiz is singing,
To generations of lovers, Love’s news bringing,
Love’s Difficulty
This love poetry is a consolation for sure,
From the Emperor of Love, it is pure.
In my heart my Self an idol keeps making,
To protect me from a broken heart’s grieving.
You keep smashing it, almost immediately;
It is that grief alone that You love; now I see.
Well Hafiz the poet of Love’s sublime ecstasy,
Said the way of Love never, ever, easy would be;
I will make an idol in my heart of that grief;
So that You will smash it, and give me relief;
Or else absorb me so completely and utterly,
Into the sunlight of Love’s absolute unity,
That there is nothing left at all of me,
Nothing, but that Sun’s permanency.
.
Come Up
‘Come up, come up’, I hear from above,
Then carry me on the wings of Love,
I would dearly like to meet yet again,
The souls of those who make this refrain.
But the only way that I can see,
Is for the Beloved to carry me.
So come O Beloved One, come, please!
Transport me, and no longer tease!
Bibi Raabia’s Way
This implication I find indeed,
In what I hear, see, and read,
About Him for Whose Mercy we sigh.
This is what He seems to imply:
‘Take refuge in Me from Me,
From My Wrath to My Mercy ever flee.
In each you will find only Me;
So ask yourself which you would rather be;
In the paradise of My Gracious smile,
Or in My frown tossing in a different style.
Which you decide makes no difference to Me,
But to you the difference amazing will be.’
All this being so, and those who know,
Will surely say so; this thought in me did grow;
Fruit from the seeds His True Lover’s did sow;
Like Bibi Raabia, the ones who really do know;
That from our ‘self’ we should try to be free.
Since from Him we cannot in any way flee!
The Beloved alone our objective should be;
And if from our ‘self’ His Love makes us free,
We may dwell in Him; and in Him may see,
That His Wrath and His Mercy were really,
Reflections of our own self-hood’s unreality,
For He is not other than Pure Love you see.
This caveat it seems to me I must make,
In case this all leads you to a mistake,
If no guide you have to His Love’s Way,
In His Mercy try always and ever to stay.
Seeking Something More
A sincere seeker on the path of the pure,
Was seen nervously nearing paradise’ door.
Those nearby said, ‘Sir, pray do not worried be,
Light at the end of the tunnel is a certainty'.
He replied, ‘I do not at all doubt this!’
They said, ‘Tell then what the cause is.’
One thought it might be that he trembled from fear,
That at the door he might hear ‘You can’t enter here’.
Another ventured the idea that his trembling might be,
In anticipation of delights waiting for one such as he.
He replied, ‘My nervousness is not caused by any of this,
Neither fear of rejection nor anticipation of bliss.
I am wondering what those inside will say,
When I tell them, in paradise I will not stay;
When I tell them simply what is true,
That I am really just passing through.
It is intimacy with Him Who set this all up,
That is the wine my soul seeks for its cup.’
Secret Service
I am a man with a secret, that I can say,
But a secret has to be kept that way;
Therefore in my heart it will always stay.
It was freely given, and remains ever free,
And contained it can never, ever, be;
But it has chosen freely, to live and to part
With its silence, only in the tent of my heart;
But here is a thing that I can impart,
You have a secret too in your heart.
The Bus Bound for Destiny’s Terminus
Like travellers together on a bus,
That only stops at the terminus;
The end for all is sure and certain,
And on this bus we must remain;
(Try to get off at all they just pack
You into the lost luggage rack).
So let us on this journey use our brain,
And from selfish behaviour ever refrain;
So the conductor will speak of us well
When we reach the place of which we tell.
‘..Excuse Me, Who Exactly are You?’
Please don’t think me in any way rude,
Or disrespectful, intending to intrude,
But I have a question for You,
Please tell me exactly what is true:
You of course are certainly You,
So who exactly are You speaking to?
Or put it another way if I may,
Who do You mean when You say You.
The answer from You -
‘Who am I (if not You)’.
Though a question too,
Your answer feels true,
And comprehensive too,
As one must expect of You.
If to a mirror this tricky question I address
The answer must mirror the question I guess.
In His Mercy
In His Mercy we float serenely
On a great ocean of tranquillity;
In His Wrath we fly fast and furiously,
On wings of hope and fear, sincerely
Praying - and praising furiously;
Till His Mercy, always Oft-returning,
Brings Peace graciously winging -
And an Ark, finally, reaches the land,
And His reality we begin to understand.
Something Solid
Something solid entered my mind today
What exactly it really is I cannot say.
It arrived, like a suitcase long delayed;
Waited for, but also, in a way, unexpected.
It sits in the mind, so real, here, and now,
In every way, yet also eternal somehow.
Someone Asked ‘Who, or What,
(or Where) is Allah?’
(Based on the Hadith in which the holy
Prophet Muhammed asks a simpl
e woman this and she points to the sky -
which he approves)
Had I been more clever or more witty,
I could have answered with this ditty,
(With not the least hint of any irony,
But with just a nod to Gilbert’s* ability).
And said:
‘Essentially,
The identity
Of the Deity
Is the Reality
Of the Ipseity,
Who, creatively,
Brought infinity
Into actuality,
And absolutely
Is not a relativity,
But a Necessity
On which Reality
Depends implicitly’
Or could, without undue levity,
Have been the very soul of brevity
And said:
The Absolute Simplicity
Of infinite complexity:
And the Unity of multiplicity.
In short, a very real mystery
But:
Though it sounds very pretty,
It would have been a great pity
Not to have pointed my finger upward
And opened up heaven’s door.
The Saving Light
When doubts beset me and life seemed grey,
When confusion appeared to reign and chaos seemed near,
When fear confounded me and it seemed vain to pray,
When inspiration failed me and oblivion's threat did appear,
Then this thought of thine, O Sharib, on the tablet of life I read;
"Seek, seek, and ye shall find" it ran!
Then, O Khawaja, to thy grace my thought fled,
And from thence descended an answering gift to this son of
man,
"You will find in the Sun of Tabriz the help you need",
This was its upshot and gist,
And in the call of the broken reed,
I found what I had missed.
God Made me a Cup of Tea Today
God made me a cup of tea today - and drank it!
I said 'O Lord' - He said - if you call me Lord then you are my
servant.
If you call me Friend then you are my friend,
If you call me Beloved then you are my lover.
And if you call me lover then you are my beloved,
I asked if He was not transcendent, far above me,
He said - do you want to put a distance between us?
I am that distance and this closeness,
If you call me 'I' then guess who I am
He gave me a cigarette - and then He smoked it.
He wrote this poem and I asked if it shouldn't have rhymes,
He said - call it blank verse - and smiled inside.
I said I wanted to include the word Love in the poem,
He said - I have already put it in.
He put the poem on the website and He is reading it now with a
smile.
The Open Door
The way the great Khawajas to the people call,
Is to open the door of Love to all,
‘Thou shalt not!’ is not their way you must see,
Can a river be turned away by the sea?
When our little life empties into His Mercy ,
In that ocean of Love where is ‘you‘ or ‘me‘?.
The Masters of the Way
Supreme indifference to the ways of the world,
Supreme reverence for the ways of the Word!
Daily, the Masters of the Unseen, devotion do display,
And the manners of the ignorant do not them dismay.
They show in what they do and what they have to say,
Consciousness of the Reality behind this shadow-play,
Enclosed in Love’s great but hidden power they are,
Glistening raindrops on the petal of a flower they are.
Echoes and phantoms within they pass by,
Above the siren calls of the psyche they fly,
To reach, finally, up to the Real within the Real,
And thus gain, from the Essence, that great seal.
Though deeply Love-drunk in each and every faculty,
Sober and sound in all respects they are seen to be.
So while seemingly as ordinary as anyone can be,
In them the manifestation of Pure Love one can see.
It comes to this when all is said and done,
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One.
From His unity all came when He said ‘Kun’,
‘Become’ He said and all life had begun.
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One.
But ‘become’ is a word with two parts, I see,
Though the first part of course is clearly, ‘Be’,
To it is attached the part that says ‘Come’.
That is to say, ‘Be! Then back to Me come’.
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One.
We cannot refuse either part; it is not a demand!
Written, into every cell and atom, is this command.
So between these two fingers of The Divinity,
That is between Be and Come, Khawaja did see
Shown him by the great Pir Usman Harooni
18,000 worlds spinning, by Allah held effortlessly.
Between these two fingers is everyone.
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One
It is our human destiny, to return to the One,
Who is One, who is One, Who is the Only One.
But between becoming and returning, this see;
A responsibility we have to our own humanity.
With every act of kindness, love or charity,
Made to the best of our human ability,
We become more truly human and alive,
And for this purity we must ever strive.
Thus when the command ‘Be’ becomes ‘Come’,
Our humanity can say, ‘gladly, I come, I come’.
And though from The One we may not hope to hear,
As the Prophets and Saints did, ‘I am pleased, draw near’.
We may hope for this, ‘If a friend of My friend
You really are, My forgiveness to you I send’.
It is not the prayer, or pilgrimage, or money given,
Nor fasting, it is that to be fully human we have striven.
It is our humanity that we bring back to the One,
And it comes down to this when all is said and done.
He is One, He is One, He is the Only One
Daily Grace
The way to be free from idolatry,
Is to live life as it is meant to be;
Receiving as a grace from heaven above,
Each day, a new life, filled with renewed love,
Not for this or that particular thing,
But for the Unity implicit in everything.
Signposts
To pursue the goal of spirituality
You must go beyond this poetry.
It is just an indicator of the Way,
Read it well, but in it do not stay.
If, on returning from the destination,
You want a little gentle relaxation,
Then stay a while and smile with me,
So obvious it will then appear to be.
Baqa
‘Pardon me sir whose funeral is this I see‘,
(The deceased looks very much like me!)
Everyone with attention at his body does peer,
I wonder they see me not standing here.
Ah now this mystery at last I see,
Fana appears but Baqa hidden must be.
In sufi terminology fana - is to extinguish one's own qualities in the Divine qualities -
extinction of the self.
Baqa is that essence which emerges from Fana once one's qualities have become one with
the divine qualities. Thus it could be called the life that follows the death of self.
The Friend
When from my self-hood I disappear,
Oneness in oneness then does appear,
The voices of a myriad souls I hear,
Engaged in the Friend’s work all appear.
This multitude can only be expressed,
By one voice containing all the rest.
The voice of the Friend on all is impressed,
And all know His words are the very best.
The transient, the Friend’s words make enduring,
The way a brick becomes, when laid in a building.
Firm physical evidence in a form convincing ;-
The conclusion many impulses are finally reaching.
A tome such words may become - who knows!
To which, like to a tomb, the devotee goes,
Eternally living words such as Hafiz is singing,
To generations of lovers, Love’s news bringing,
Love’s Difficulty
This love poetry is a consolation for sure,
From the Emperor of Love, it is pure.
In my heart my Self an idol keeps making,
To protect me from a broken heart’s grieving.
You keep smashing it, almost immediately;
It is that grief alone that You love; now I see.
Well Hafiz the poet of Love’s sublime ecstasy,
Said the way of Love never, ever, easy would be;
I will make an idol in my heart of that grief;
So that You will smash it, and give me relief;
Or else absorb me so completely and utterly,
Into the sunlight of Love’s absolute unity,
That there is nothing left at all of me,
Nothing, but that Sun’s permanency.
.
Come Up
‘Come up, come up’, I hear from above,
Then carry me on the wings of Love,
I would dearly like to meet yet again,
The souls of those who make this refrain.
But the only way that I can see,
Is for the Beloved to carry me.
So come O Beloved One, come, please!
Transport me, and no longer tease!
Bibi Raabia’s Way
This implication I find indeed,
In what I hear, see, and read,
About Him for Whose Mercy we sigh.
This is what He seems to imply:
‘Take refuge in Me from Me,
From My Wrath to My Mercy ever flee.
In each you will find only Me;
So ask yourself which you would rather be;
In the paradise of My Gracious smile,
Or in My frown tossing in a different style.
Which you decide makes no difference to Me,
But to you the difference amazing will be.’
All this being so, and those who know,
Will surely say so; this thought in me did grow;
Fruit from the seeds His True Lover’s did sow;
Like Bibi Raabia, the ones who really do know;
That from our ‘self’ we should try to be free.
Since from Him we cannot in any way flee!
The Beloved alone our objective should be;
And if from our ‘self’ His Love makes us free,
We may dwell in Him; and in Him may see,
That His Wrath and His Mercy were really,
Reflections of our own self-hood’s unreality,
For He is not other than Pure Love you see.
This caveat it seems to me I must make,
In case this all leads you to a mistake,
If no guide you have to His Love’s Way,
In His Mercy try always and ever to stay.
Seeking Something More
A sincere seeker on the path of the pure,
Was seen nervously nearing paradise’ door.
Those nearby said, ‘Sir, pray do not worried be,
Light at the end of the tunnel is a certainty'.
He replied, ‘I do not at all doubt this!’
They said, ‘Tell then what the cause is.’
One thought it might be that he trembled from fear,
That at the door he might hear ‘You can’t enter here’.
Another ventured the idea that his trembling might be,
In anticipation of delights waiting for one such as he.
He replied, ‘My nervousness is not caused by any of this,
Neither fear of rejection nor anticipation of bliss.
I am wondering what those inside will say,
When I tell them, in paradise I will not stay;
When I tell them simply what is true,
That I am really just passing through.
It is intimacy with Him Who set this all up,
That is the wine my soul seeks for its cup.’
Secret Service
I am a man with a secret, that I can say,
But a secret has to be kept that way;
Therefore in my heart it will always stay.
It was freely given, and remains ever free,
And contained it can never, ever, be;
But it has chosen freely, to live and to part
With its silence, only in the tent of my heart;
But here is a thing that I can impart,
You have a secret too in your heart.
The Bus Bound for Destiny’s Terminus
Like travellers together on a bus,
That only stops at the terminus;
The end for all is sure and certain,
And on this bus we must remain;
(Try to get off at all they just pack
You into the lost luggage rack).
So let us on this journey use our brain,
And from selfish behaviour ever refrain;
So the conductor will speak of us well
When we reach the place of which we tell.
‘..Excuse Me, Who Exactly are You?’
Please don’t think me in any way rude,
Or disrespectful, intending to intrude,
But I have a question for You,
Please tell me exactly what is true:
You of course are certainly You,
So who exactly are You speaking to?
Or put it another way if I may,
Who do You mean when You say You.
The answer from You -
‘Who am I (if not You)’.
Though a question too,
Your answer feels true,
And comprehensive too,
As one must expect of You.
If to a mirror this tricky question I address
The answer must mirror the question I guess.
In His Mercy
In His Mercy we float serenely
On a great ocean of tranquillity;
In His Wrath we fly fast and furiously,
On wings of hope and fear, sincerely
Praying - and praising furiously;
Till His Mercy, always Oft-returning,
Brings Peace graciously winging -
And an Ark, finally, reaches the land,
And His reality we begin to understand.
Something Solid
Something solid entered my mind today
What exactly it really is I cannot say.
It arrived, like a suitcase long delayed;
Waited for, but also, in a way, unexpected.
It sits in the mind, so real, here, and now,
In every way, yet also eternal somehow.
Someone Asked ‘Who, or What,
(or Where) is Allah?’
(Based on the Hadith in which the holy
Prophet Muhammed asks a simpl
e woman this and she points to the sky -
which he approves)
Had I been more clever or more witty,
I could have answered with this ditty,
(With not the least hint of any irony,
But with just a nod to Gilbert’s* ability).
And said:
‘Essentially,
The identity
Of the Deity
Is the Reality
Of the Ipseity,
Who, creatively,
Brought infinity
Into actuality,
And absolutely
Is not a relativity,
But a Necessity
On which Reality
Depends implicitly’
Or could, without undue levity,
Have been the very soul of brevity
And said:
The Absolute Simplicity
Of infinite complexity:
And the Unity of multiplicity.
In short, a very real mystery
But:
Though it sounds very pretty,
It would have been a great pity
Not to have pointed my finger upward
And opened up heaven’s door.
The Saving Light
When doubts beset me and life seemed grey,
When confusion appeared to reign and chaos seemed near,
When fear confounded me and it seemed vain to pray,
When inspiration failed me and oblivion's threat did appear,
Then this thought of thine, O Sharib, on the tablet of life I read;
"Seek, seek, and ye shall find" it ran!
Then, O Khawaja, to thy grace my thought fled,
And from thence descended an answering gift to this son of
man,
"You will find in the Sun of Tabriz the help you need",
This was its upshot and gist,
And in the call of the broken reed,
I found what I had missed.
God Made me a Cup of Tea Today
God made me a cup of tea today - and drank it!
I said 'O Lord' - He said - if you call me Lord then you are my
servant.
If you call me Friend then you are my friend,
If you call me Beloved then you are my lover.
And if you call me lover then you are my beloved,
I asked if He was not transcendent, far above me,
He said - do you want to put a distance between us?
I am that distance and this closeness,
If you call me 'I' then guess who I am
He gave me a cigarette - and then He smoked it.
He wrote this poem and I asked if it shouldn't have rhymes,
He said - call it blank verse - and smiled inside.
I said I wanted to include the word Love in the poem,
He said - I have already put it in.
He put the poem on the website and He is reading it now with a
smile.
The Open Door
The way the great Khawajas to the people call,
Is to open the door of Love to all,
‘Thou shalt not!’ is not their way you must see,
Can a river be turned away by the sea?
When our little life empties into His Mercy ,
In that ocean of Love where is ‘you‘ or ‘me‘?.
The Masters of the Way
Supreme indifference to the ways of the world,
Supreme reverence for the ways of the Word!
Daily, the Masters of the Unseen, devotion do display,
And the manners of the ignorant do not them dismay.
They show in what they do and what they have to say,
Consciousness of the Reality behind this shadow-play,
Enclosed in Love’s great but hidden power they are,
Glistening raindrops on the petal of a flower they are.
Echoes and phantoms within they pass by,
Above the siren calls of the psyche they fly,
To reach, finally, up to the Real within the Real,
And thus gain, from the Essence, that great seal.
Though deeply Love-drunk in each and every faculty,
Sober and sound in all respects they are seen to be.
So while seemingly as ordinary as anyone can be,
In them the manifestation of Pure Love one can see.
Humanism
Dressed in various styles and different modes,
The human frame to just one basic form holds:
And despite many varied manifestations,
And often conflicting views and explanations,
The characteristics of the human condition,
Do not transgress some form of recognition.
The soul of each with all shares more than this,
Each one of the same divine substance is.
Each one of the same divine substance is.
Love Enthroned
The mind cannot calculate love it seems,
Nor conceive it to be anything but dreams.
The body takes it to be simple sensuality,
While the heart loses its grip on reality:
But there is a place, hidden well for sure,
That can be entered only by the pure,
There sits the throne of a Love so divine,
Its shadow alone is called love’s wine.
Destiny
When Allah requires it to happen – it happens!
The Prophets and saints serve – and it happens;
Other men know only that it has really happened,
Those with insight happily see how it happens.
Intimacy
In prayer, at first, You seemed so very far away,
Some vague transcendent image one could say!
But step by step, nearer and nearer, You appear
Till in intimate communion You seem so near,
That who is praying to whom, becomes confused,
Till to that intimacy I begin to get used.
Yes, You
Time and time again, I turned to You,
Everywhere I turned I found only You,
Whether to East or West, I turned,
Whatever came in sight was,- yes, You,
City streets I walked, containing only You,
People passing by – I saw were all You
This state was not by me somehow earned,
It was an unexpected gift from – yes, You.
Even the street signs spoke only of You,
I looked in a mirror and saw just You,
I thought something of You I had learned
Until You turned me towards – yes, You.
I walked towards and away from You,
I turned corners only to bump into You:
And when toward home I finally turned,
Of course there also I found - yes, You.
Hidden Trove
To love is to be truly alive,
So to deeply love always strive.
In love find the purpose of life,
Not just a husband or wife;
And if you wonder ‘What is it?’
And where and how to get it,
Find one who lives it, constantly,
And in their company always be.
In heart and mind to them joined be,
Even if it is not possible physically
They will show you where it is found.
When the ‘self’ into dust is ground,
In the ruins of the self’s life see,
There that treasure, love, will be.
Soaked
Oh so wild, wet, and windswept the way here has been,
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah:
But the smiling, welcoming, eyes my heart has seen,
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah:
Drives me on, and the warm rain’s embrace of the skin,
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah:
Is the embrace of Your love I am drowning in.
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah – Hoooo.
Does God Exist
He is both within, above, and below,
And encompasses existence, so,
How should we say that He exists,
When existence He does bestow?
To His existence how can we say – no,
When non-existence He does bestow?
The sum total of all this surely must be,
Existence and non-existence Him do show.
La illaha illaallah, there is no God, but God.
Those who beyond those veils go,
Tell us what to them He does show,
On their veracity we have to rely
To tell what it is good for us to know.
Muhammed dur Rasulallah - Muhammed is the Prophet
of God
Yesterdays Gone
Yesterday’s things in yesterday keep;
Today’s meditation should be so deep,
As to dispel everything that went before.
We know this of the One God, for sure,
Though His Unity is continuity supreme,
His manifestation daily new does seem.
A thought derived from the sage of Sanjar,*
May his thoughts from Zahuri never be far.
*Khawaja Muinuddin Hasan Chishti (ra)
Sweet Natured
Be sweet natured and enjoy the sweet love,
Of people you meet, and of heaven above,
The soft-hearted ones receive every day,
Thousands of blessings and give them all away!
Because they know that the more they give,
The better they learn just how to truly live.
Come
The Infinite capacity of Love says implicitly:
Come I am here!
Come willingly,
Come hopefully,
Come lovingly,
Come gratefully,
Come graciously,
Come thoughtfully,
Come freely,
Come peacefully,
Come felicitously:
Or
Come in pain,
Come in a chain,
Come with fears,
Come in tears,
Come disbelieving,
Come repenting,
Come reluctantly,
Come defiantly,
Come hesitating,
Come resisting,
But Come
And lay down your burden
Here.
I Am a Man
I am a man; a man is what I am.
My work every day is not play;
It is to be able to truthfully say,
My humanity I did not betray.
This is my pride, and humility too,
To be able to say this to You :-
I am a man
You surely made me this way,
I am a man
My humanity is how I pray.
A prayer implicitly an answer seeking is,
The answer to man’s humanity is this:
If you to your humanity, are true,
Then true you are to your Maker too.
Live then the way you want to do,
This is the Maker’s gift to you
In the Service of Allah
All praise, service, and adoration to Allah alone are due,
Evidenced, when love of His holy Prophet appears in you:
Loving obedience to His Messenger is surely realised,
When reverence for His Friends becomes actualised;
Respect for His Saints becomes more real to you,
When they lead you to a guide who’s wise and true;
Service of the guide becomes most sincerely applied,
When it becomes evident to you from deep inside,
(And you know it to be a certainty in your own mind)
That the best service of Allah is the service of mankind.
A Brief Story of Time.... Overcome
Would you like a glimpse beyond Time, with me,
Only a glimpse mind! More would be too much to see,
More cannot so easily be born,
It could leave a frail mind far too torn.
Step through this mirror then and look.
There, being written, is The Book.
See there is Adam being made,
And the angels complaining and afraid.
There see Shaitan objecting to prostrate,
And here Adam with Eve repenting too late.
Over there the Last Judgement is underway;
See great Muhammed, the beloved, learning to pray.
Over there Gabriel is giving life to Jesus, see!
There the universe is becoming what it will be,
To your left the Divine assembly sits in parliament,
Right the Abdal meet, summoned by Gabriel's intent.
See in that corner those palaces of light,
Real estate prices there are really a fright!
Out of this world, if you will forgive the joke!
The saints live there - the true inspired folk.
Over there is the Muslim Paradise pure,
And see yonder the hell fire for sure.
Way over there the Hindu heavens see,
And the Buddha's wheel and old Lao Tze.
Want a more local view? There you are, being born,
There a child, there an adult, and here, see others mourn.
Don't look too close or you will be there now!
Don't ask - it just happens that way somehow.
.
That circle of souls are the Holy fold, you in their midst,
With a bag over your head, wondering what you missed.
There are the seven heavens, and above Hafiz smiles,
Mevlana meets Shems Tabrizi here, and there he whirls.
And yonder see the august hall of fame
For those who in the world have made a name.
And behold there flows the 'super highway'
And before us appears the 'straight way'.
I could show you more, much more, but don't ask how,
Let the mirror cloud, and return to what you think is now
To You
O beloved! I look into your eyes, love's Kaaba, and cease to exist,
As if I have dived into the blackness of those pupils and lost my self
In the sea of certainty, till I reach the very core where subsist
The irreducible essences of uniqueness within unicity itself.
And emerging from that 'reality within a seeming dream',
I begin to catch the hidden signs and messages of your face,
At times gentle glances belie harsh words - the lips stern theme;
Or, if by some careless motion on my part, I betray your grace,
The raised eyebrow or slightest creasing of your perfect brow,
Augers a return of the dread veil, and an army releases, to drag me,
Screaming, from your dear presence - confining me to what I know now,
To be the prison, whose walls it appears others can or will not see.
Then when it seems there is no choice, except to endure the unendurable,
By what effortless generosity, beloved, you gently sweep aside concealment,
and, rightly chastised, draw me in again, to the charms memorable,
Of your favouring look, perfectly knowing, so guileless and so innocent.
The Religion of Man
Let Love expand within the heart,
Let the Spirit of Love unite, in the heart
The factions that would like to divide -
Until as one, its praises sound, deep inside.
Let heart, mind, and body fulfill their role,
And, integrating, make man, a whole.
This is the true religion of man
To conform to the Divine Plan
To make the soul worthy to worship,
The One, Who alone is Worthy of Worship,
To make the heart worthy to love
The One, Who alone is Worthy of Love.
This is the religion the Messengers told us about,
This is The Religion of Man without any doubt.
JMZ Jan/Feb 12
What, How, and Why?
As to the What,
Many are the ways of Incomparable You!
Encompassing every kind of uniqueness,
Within Singularity which is what - You do
- somehow.
As to the How,
When I gave up the madness of asking how,
It started to make a different kind of sense
- somehow!
And as to the 'Why'.
Well Love, the self-evident,
Requires to make itself evident
So why would I ask 'why'
anyhow?
When I stopped asking questions of You
I found I knew the answers too,
- somehow!
The Reality of Things
Let’s celebrate the way that things just are, really;
Without blandishment, metaphor, or simile.
This sofa is just a sofa, and this hand just a hand,
This pen only writes what He so carefully planned,
This rose is just a rose, and it is so with everything,
But if to this party the ‘self’ you did not bring,
You will hear that each has its own prayer to Him
And the prayer of each is a unique kind of hymn.
Want to be Wise?
Want to be wise and respected too?
I will tell you exactly what to do,
First, find a fool, and study him well,
Any nearby mirror will be just swell.
You can criticise him in any way you will,
Till your critical faculty’s an empty shell,
But please make sure that he doesn’t depart
Till he has taken every single word to heart.
You will know for sure that this is the case,
When he says he’s not fit for the human race.
Then finally kill him, with kindness of heart,
Let him know that of living he’s just made a start.
Never Closed
One door closes and another opens, people say,
But there is one door open until the Judgement Day,
That it is very rarely used, I cannot gainsay.
To find it you may need to blow some cobwebs away!
Just follow the sign saying ‘To Repentance this way’;
Enter in and turn your dark night into brightest day.
The First Step
If a good penitent, you would wish to be,
It requires you examine yourself critically:
Repentance is the first step on the highway,
To join the company of those who really pray.
If blood is drawn by each and every thorn,
For the redness of the rose, this must be born.
Heat
Love, if you desire me to speak of you,
Then pray what else can I possibly do?
If you light a fire beneath a kettle,
You must surely expect it to whistle,
If golden silence you really prefer,
(And in this to you I gladly defer)
Then please turn the heat down a little bit,
Simmering quietly, silent will I sit.
Dressed in various styles and different modes,
The human frame to just one basic form holds:
And despite many varied manifestations,
And often conflicting views and explanations,
The characteristics of the human condition,
Do not transgress some form of recognition.
The soul of each with all shares more than this,
Each one of the same divine substance is.
Each one of the same divine substance is.
Love Enthroned
The mind cannot calculate love it seems,
Nor conceive it to be anything but dreams.
The body takes it to be simple sensuality,
While the heart loses its grip on reality:
But there is a place, hidden well for sure,
That can be entered only by the pure,
There sits the throne of a Love so divine,
Its shadow alone is called love’s wine.
Destiny
When Allah requires it to happen – it happens!
The Prophets and saints serve – and it happens;
Other men know only that it has really happened,
Those with insight happily see how it happens.
Intimacy
In prayer, at first, You seemed so very far away,
Some vague transcendent image one could say!
But step by step, nearer and nearer, You appear
Till in intimate communion You seem so near,
That who is praying to whom, becomes confused,
Till to that intimacy I begin to get used.
Yes, You
Time and time again, I turned to You,
Everywhere I turned I found only You,
Whether to East or West, I turned,
Whatever came in sight was,- yes, You,
City streets I walked, containing only You,
People passing by – I saw were all You
This state was not by me somehow earned,
It was an unexpected gift from – yes, You.
Even the street signs spoke only of You,
I looked in a mirror and saw just You,
I thought something of You I had learned
Until You turned me towards – yes, You.
I walked towards and away from You,
I turned corners only to bump into You:
And when toward home I finally turned,
Of course there also I found - yes, You.
Hidden Trove
To love is to be truly alive,
So to deeply love always strive.
In love find the purpose of life,
Not just a husband or wife;
And if you wonder ‘What is it?’
And where and how to get it,
Find one who lives it, constantly,
And in their company always be.
In heart and mind to them joined be,
Even if it is not possible physically
They will show you where it is found.
When the ‘self’ into dust is ground,
In the ruins of the self’s life see,
There that treasure, love, will be.
Soaked
Oh so wild, wet, and windswept the way here has been,
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah:
But the smiling, welcoming, eyes my heart has seen,
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah:
Drives me on, and the warm rain’s embrace of the skin,
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah:
Is the embrace of Your love I am drowning in.
Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah – Hoooo.
Does God Exist
He is both within, above, and below,
And encompasses existence, so,
How should we say that He exists,
When existence He does bestow?
To His existence how can we say – no,
When non-existence He does bestow?
The sum total of all this surely must be,
Existence and non-existence Him do show.
La illaha illaallah, there is no God, but God.
Those who beyond those veils go,
Tell us what to them He does show,
On their veracity we have to rely
To tell what it is good for us to know.
Muhammed dur Rasulallah - Muhammed is the Prophet
of God
Yesterdays Gone
Yesterday’s things in yesterday keep;
Today’s meditation should be so deep,
As to dispel everything that went before.
We know this of the One God, for sure,
Though His Unity is continuity supreme,
His manifestation daily new does seem.
A thought derived from the sage of Sanjar,*
May his thoughts from Zahuri never be far.
*Khawaja Muinuddin Hasan Chishti (ra)
Sweet Natured
Be sweet natured and enjoy the sweet love,
Of people you meet, and of heaven above,
The soft-hearted ones receive every day,
Thousands of blessings and give them all away!
Because they know that the more they give,
The better they learn just how to truly live.
Come
The Infinite capacity of Love says implicitly:
Come I am here!
Come willingly,
Come hopefully,
Come lovingly,
Come gratefully,
Come graciously,
Come thoughtfully,
Come freely,
Come peacefully,
Come felicitously:
Or
Come in pain,
Come in a chain,
Come with fears,
Come in tears,
Come disbelieving,
Come repenting,
Come reluctantly,
Come defiantly,
Come hesitating,
Come resisting,
But Come
And lay down your burden
Here.
I Am a Man
I am a man; a man is what I am.
My work every day is not play;
It is to be able to truthfully say,
My humanity I did not betray.
This is my pride, and humility too,
To be able to say this to You :-
I am a man
You surely made me this way,
I am a man
My humanity is how I pray.
A prayer implicitly an answer seeking is,
The answer to man’s humanity is this:
If you to your humanity, are true,
Then true you are to your Maker too.
Live then the way you want to do,
This is the Maker’s gift to you
In the Service of Allah
All praise, service, and adoration to Allah alone are due,
Evidenced, when love of His holy Prophet appears in you:
Loving obedience to His Messenger is surely realised,
When reverence for His Friends becomes actualised;
Respect for His Saints becomes more real to you,
When they lead you to a guide who’s wise and true;
Service of the guide becomes most sincerely applied,
When it becomes evident to you from deep inside,
(And you know it to be a certainty in your own mind)
That the best service of Allah is the service of mankind.
A Brief Story of Time.... Overcome
Would you like a glimpse beyond Time, with me,
Only a glimpse mind! More would be too much to see,
More cannot so easily be born,
It could leave a frail mind far too torn.
Step through this mirror then and look.
There, being written, is The Book.
See there is Adam being made,
And the angels complaining and afraid.
There see Shaitan objecting to prostrate,
And here Adam with Eve repenting too late.
Over there the Last Judgement is underway;
See great Muhammed, the beloved, learning to pray.
Over there Gabriel is giving life to Jesus, see!
There the universe is becoming what it will be,
To your left the Divine assembly sits in parliament,
Right the Abdal meet, summoned by Gabriel's intent.
See in that corner those palaces of light,
Real estate prices there are really a fright!
Out of this world, if you will forgive the joke!
The saints live there - the true inspired folk.
Over there is the Muslim Paradise pure,
And see yonder the hell fire for sure.
Way over there the Hindu heavens see,
And the Buddha's wheel and old Lao Tze.
Want a more local view? There you are, being born,
There a child, there an adult, and here, see others mourn.
Don't look too close or you will be there now!
Don't ask - it just happens that way somehow.
.
That circle of souls are the Holy fold, you in their midst,
With a bag over your head, wondering what you missed.
There are the seven heavens, and above Hafiz smiles,
Mevlana meets Shems Tabrizi here, and there he whirls.
And yonder see the august hall of fame
For those who in the world have made a name.
And behold there flows the 'super highway'
And before us appears the 'straight way'.
I could show you more, much more, but don't ask how,
Let the mirror cloud, and return to what you think is now
To You
O beloved! I look into your eyes, love's Kaaba, and cease to exist,
As if I have dived into the blackness of those pupils and lost my self
In the sea of certainty, till I reach the very core where subsist
The irreducible essences of uniqueness within unicity itself.
And emerging from that 'reality within a seeming dream',
I begin to catch the hidden signs and messages of your face,
At times gentle glances belie harsh words - the lips stern theme;
Or, if by some careless motion on my part, I betray your grace,
The raised eyebrow or slightest creasing of your perfect brow,
Augers a return of the dread veil, and an army releases, to drag me,
Screaming, from your dear presence - confining me to what I know now,
To be the prison, whose walls it appears others can or will not see.
Then when it seems there is no choice, except to endure the unendurable,
By what effortless generosity, beloved, you gently sweep aside concealment,
and, rightly chastised, draw me in again, to the charms memorable,
Of your favouring look, perfectly knowing, so guileless and so innocent.
The Religion of Man
Let Love expand within the heart,
Let the Spirit of Love unite, in the heart
The factions that would like to divide -
Until as one, its praises sound, deep inside.
Let heart, mind, and body fulfill their role,
And, integrating, make man, a whole.
This is the true religion of man
To conform to the Divine Plan
To make the soul worthy to worship,
The One, Who alone is Worthy of Worship,
To make the heart worthy to love
The One, Who alone is Worthy of Love.
This is the religion the Messengers told us about,
This is The Religion of Man without any doubt.
JMZ Jan/Feb 12
What, How, and Why?
As to the What,
Many are the ways of Incomparable You!
Encompassing every kind of uniqueness,
Within Singularity which is what - You do
- somehow.
As to the How,
When I gave up the madness of asking how,
It started to make a different kind of sense
- somehow!
And as to the 'Why'.
Well Love, the self-evident,
Requires to make itself evident
So why would I ask 'why'
anyhow?
When I stopped asking questions of You
I found I knew the answers too,
- somehow!
The Reality of Things
Let’s celebrate the way that things just are, really;
Without blandishment, metaphor, or simile.
This sofa is just a sofa, and this hand just a hand,
This pen only writes what He so carefully planned,
This rose is just a rose, and it is so with everything,
But if to this party the ‘self’ you did not bring,
You will hear that each has its own prayer to Him
And the prayer of each is a unique kind of hymn.
Want to be Wise?
Want to be wise and respected too?
I will tell you exactly what to do,
First, find a fool, and study him well,
Any nearby mirror will be just swell.
You can criticise him in any way you will,
Till your critical faculty’s an empty shell,
But please make sure that he doesn’t depart
Till he has taken every single word to heart.
You will know for sure that this is the case,
When he says he’s not fit for the human race.
Then finally kill him, with kindness of heart,
Let him know that of living he’s just made a start.
Never Closed
One door closes and another opens, people say,
But there is one door open until the Judgement Day,
That it is very rarely used, I cannot gainsay.
To find it you may need to blow some cobwebs away!
Just follow the sign saying ‘To Repentance this way’;
Enter in and turn your dark night into brightest day.
The First Step
If a good penitent, you would wish to be,
It requires you examine yourself critically:
Repentance is the first step on the highway,
To join the company of those who really pray.
If blood is drawn by each and every thorn,
For the redness of the rose, this must be born.
Heat
Love, if you desire me to speak of you,
Then pray what else can I possibly do?
If you light a fire beneath a kettle,
You must surely expect it to whistle,
If golden silence you really prefer,
(And in this to you I gladly defer)
Then please turn the heat down a little bit,
Simmering quietly, silent will I sit.