RUMI says, ”I have met people who are beautiful, intelligent, rich and gracious, who seem to have everything, but lack the mysterious sincerity you need for the path.
And I have met people who have nothing, neither elegance, beauty or attractive intelligence and yet the pearls sat on the palm of their hands, because of the love, that was in their hearts.
The passionate and all-consuming love of God is the immortal element within us that gives us courage and skill to find the pearl.
Without it, we may find and own everything else, but what are other jewels compared to this pearl.
All Worlds and heavens together are worth far less, being just passing shadow of its eternal luster.”
Therefore, the essential quality one needs on this journey is the all-consuming passion to both love and be loved, an impersonal love that is beyond life and death and belongs to the soul.
One needs both a strong physical and a spiritual heart to absorb this energy.
Sufism reclaims the primary energy of love, because it nourishes you and feeds your soul and takes you back to God.
Shibli was asked how do you experience God and he replied, “I experience God, the way a child learns his being in the Mama’s lap, a deep inner feeling that you are safe, loved and protected.
” Rumi says, “We are all standing knee deep in water and dying of thirst.
” We run around spiritually hungry wondering where to find God.
In fact we are that fish in water to whom that water is invisible and the only way that fish could possibly realize how thoroughly immersed we are in God’s presence, in divine rahma, if it was possible to be taken out of the presence of God just for a second.”
The Sufis say take one sip from the wine of divine love and you are lost forever, because it is so portent.
You become a participant into God’s love story the mysterious way in which He creates love in creation and then draws it back to Himself.
Rumi says, “In the end the man tires of everything except heart desiring soul’s journey.
Sultan, Saint, Pickpockets love has everyone by the ear dragging us to God by secret ways.
I never knew that God too desires us” Sufism is not really a path, but it is a way to be with God, to love God and to be loved by God.
The Sufi mystics lived this type of life and uncovered the secret of what it really means to be a human being.
The secret of existence is to know this heartache, the yearning for God, to find the spark, which glows in all the darkness around it.
It is gift of those people, God unruly friends, those who lived and died in their love and longing for God.
For Sufis the longing they express is the homesickness, to go back to God, because of the feeling of love in their heart.
“If you would say, “die.
” I would die in full obedience, and would say “Welcome to Him who calls me to death.” –Jami.
This is the quality of love, you need to see the vastness of Divine Ocean, where the sun never sets, but the infinite ocean of love can be contained in the human heart.
God says in Hadees Qudsyee, “The heavens and earth cannot contain me, but the heart of my devoted servant can.
” It means that the infinite ocean can be contained in as a little a space as human heart.
Attar says, “When love comes, reason disappears, reason cannot live with the folly of love.”
You can be drunk with the spiritual love, like one gets drunk with alcohol.
That is why the tavern is known as place of drunkards.
A Mystic asks, “Who do you think I am a drunkard, a love sick fool, a slave of my senses, made senseless by desire, understand I have risen above all of that.
I am the king of love and majesty, love is the essence of my being, love is fire and I am wood burnt by the flame.
Love has moved in and adorned the house, myself tied up in a bundle and left in a corner.
You imagine that you see me, but I no longer exist, what remains is the beloved.
” This is the love, which Sufis understand, the annihilation, the incredibly painful, sweet and bitter pill, that makes you a lover of God.
It is not love in which you desire something, but love, which puts your head onto the ground and makes you forget yourself, lost in love.
You want nothing for yourself, because you feel you have been given everything.
This is the love, which can be given to somebody else to wake up somebody’s heart, to make him or her realize that they can take the journey back to God.
Sufis say what matters is not having love, but wanting love, don’t look for water, but be thirsty.
If the magnet was not loving, how could it attract the iron with such longing, if love was not there the straw would not seek the amber.
The mystics see everything in this world moves because love is there, even the atoms move on the axis of love.
Love is the foundation of light, and the Sufi when he does zikar immerses himself in this love.
Al-Ghazali confirms that it is imperative for God to enable humanity to love Him in the first place.
“The interpretation of the utterances transmitted about God’s love for His servants refers to the removal of a veil from the heart, enabling a person to draw near to Him, and God is willing that from eternity.”
—The writer is author of various books based in Rawalpindi. (muhammadtahir50@hotmail.com)
