Monday, September 24, 2007

Rumi on Love

Category: SOUND

When the Lover saw the dagger of Love in the hands of the Beloved,
Without fear and oblivious of danger he ran towards it.
And when the Lover saw the dagger aimed at him,
He felt it compulsory to offer his head towards the knife.
O truly Beloved, in Your remembrance Love seems good to me
And till Qiyamat I want to continue uttering this cry in madness.
When the self has claimed to be a wild duck,
Then when the storm of calamities descended what complaint could it have?

0 Foolish One, do not command the nightingale towards silence For when it remembers the garden, its complaints
will come on the lips.

When Love pulls the strings of its bow,
Many are the souls that become sold for a small price.

From afar love seems like being bloody
So that insincere lovers do not tread this path.
This bloody appearance is a guard
Against insincere and half-baked lovers, not to come this way.

0 Beloved, let it not be the good fortune of your enemy, to be destroyed by your sword,
May the heads of friends remain safe, for you to try your sword on them.

For the sake of the love of my Beloved,
I am in love with suffering pain and sorrow.


This is what is called True Love. What a sad state of affairs that today people look at sensual love and call it love. That is not love. The love that comes from metaphorical beauty is not really 'ishq'. It is jisq' (transgression), which is caused by overeating. If a person has to go without food for a few days he will forget his love and ask for bread. But the Divine Love, because it is placed within the essence of man, even if no worldly needs are acquired, no change comes about in the Lover and his Love does not decrease. Love is actually a name for that kind of surrender that Allah, the truly Beloved is the Doer of everything and the servant is he who is pleased and satisfied with all that He does.

-Hakim Akhtar

No comments: