IN Masanvi, Rumi narrates the story of Lalih Majnun. The King heard about the bewitching beauty of Lalih and desired to see her. Who is this, who has made Majnun mad and he sings such heart rendering songs in praise of her. He called all the girls of that town and thought she would stand out amongst them, but all he could see was ordinary village girls. He then says, “Who is Lalih and Lalih steps forward and says, “I am Lalih, but you are not Majnun.” Rumi says in order to see the beauty of Lalih, you have to learn to look through the eyes of Majnun. Ahmed Ghazali says, “Your eyes have to born again, you have to learn to look through the glance of love, you have to learn to speak the words of love, your feet have to walk the path of love and that is a complete transformation of faculties.”
Rumi says, “You created all this I, You, We, They, just to play the game of adoration with your own self.” “Oh my God our intoxicated eyes have blurred our vision. Our burdens have become heavy, forgive us. You are hidden, yet from East or West, You have filled the world with your radiance. Your light is more significant than the sunrise or sunset. You are the inmost ground of consciousness revealing the secrets we hold. You whose essence is hidden, while your gifts are manifest. You are like water and we are the millstone. You are like wind and we are like dust. The wind is hidden, but the dust in plainly seen. You are the invisible spring and we are the lush garden. All our movement is really a continual profession of faith bearing witness to your eternal power.”
In Masanvi there is another story of the King, the maiden and the Goldsmith. The King falls in love with the maiden only to find that the maiden is sick. That night he has a dream that a physician will come and cure her, but he has to obey his instructions. The next day the Physician comes, checks her pulse and finds that the disease, she is suffering from is one terminal, incurable, contagious disease i.e. love. The physician tells the King that the maid illness was not physiological, but she is love sick, she is in love with a Goldsmith, who lived in her hometown. The Prince calls the Goldsmith and marries both of them and they started living happily after.
After six months the physician showed up again and said now we secretly have to poison the husband. When they poison the husband, he gets very pale, fragile and soon gets incapacitated and loses his appeal. The maid, who was lovesick suddenly started losing her interest in her husband and ultimately abandons him. Here Rumi throws in the punch line and says, “An affection induced by disingenuous motives is not love. It is a scandalous affair that will end in disgrace. This is what happens when you invest all your affection in things, which are transient and temporary in nature, wealth, fame, physical fitness etc. As soon the object of original attraction goes away, the affection will also die out and go away. Choose the love of the living One, who is everlasting, who gives thee the drink of wine that increases life. Choose the love of Him from whose love all Prophets gained power and glory. Give your breaths to the One who already owns your breaths and your moments.”
“Friends, if you get rid of yourself just once, the secrets of secrets would open to you. The face of the Unknown hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception. Knock and love will open the door. Vanish and love will make you shine like a sun. Fall and love will make you rise to the heavens. Become nothing and love will turn you into everything.”
Rumi says intimacy with other people and with God is more about friendship then romance; it is a soul connection, which is first ingredient of love. “What is our love for God based on other than a series of words, a couple of images? We fall in love with that beloved without seeing him. One word, one glance, makes you burn in love and what makes you feel better is another word another glance.” This is the path, which the Sufis take, burn, burn and burn more for the love of the One, Who is everlasting. This disease has no end, the path that has no end, because the beloved has no end. You burn until there is nothing left in you.” Rumi says, “No lover would seek union, if the beloved was not seeking her. When love for God doubles in your heart, have no doubt that God loves you. Have you ever heard the sound of one hand clapping? A thirsty man moans, ‘Oh precious water,’ the water also moans, ‘who wants to drink me.”
Maulana gives the example of Reed flute. Ney has a plaintive, sorrowful sound almost mourning. The reed is separated from its source, the riverbed. Anyone removed from a source wishes to go back. What the reed is doing, its complaining of separations. Rumi says, “I asked the Reed, what is it that makes you mourn.” It replied, “I was cut with sweet lips. It is the pain of separation, which makes me lament.” We also suffer from multiple separations. We are separated from loved ones, we have an existentialist separation, feeling cut off and away from home. Rumi says the homeland that the Holy Prophet (PBUH) was talking about is not Iran or Turkey and unless you rejoin with that homeland in heavens, you will stay in a state of anxiety and depression. —To be continued
—The writer is author of various books based in Rawalpindi.
