She was an elderly lady, blind for several years, dignified, humble, kind, with a reverence for the world, a joy for life and a deep respect for others.....she was a sufi, and the descendant of a long chain of sufis.....
I asked her: "what is sufism?"
And she answered: "Sufism is union"....
I did not asked "union with what?"...as in that moment I knew clearly, and at the same time hazily, what she meant......
A beautiful scene of a beautiful film, Bab´Aziz, a sufi story......
Rumi's poetry is essentially about tawhid – union with his beloved (the primal root) from which/whom he has been cut off and become aloof – and his longing and desire to come back to it.
THE WORM'S WAKING
This is how a human can change:
there's a worm addicted to eating
grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it grace,whatever,
something wakes him,
and he's no longer a worm.
He's the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn't need
to devour.
Rumi
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My great grand-father was diabetic and therefore followed a restricted diet. He used to sleep on the charpai on the open lawn. He was tremendously influenced by Sufism and therefore realized a transcendental connection with spirituality. He was by no means a fanatic; his approach to religion was on a higher plane.
ReplyDeleteMy mother told me of an incident on a cloudless moonlit night when a Hindu mendicant was passing along the road in front of Gol-Kothi, her grandfather's house, playing a melodious instrument called the ‘behala’.
‘Ei, come inside,’ he motioned to the wandering minstrel. ‘What beauty. Keep playing,’ he said encouragingly. ‘What divine notes…,’ he muttered as if in a trance. ‘The beauty of sound is the same, whether it’s a behala or a flute,’ he said audibly.
The mendicant paused, stopped his playing and said, ‘true, my friend. And do you know why the sound from the flute is so plaintive?’
‘No,’ replied my great grand father.
‘It is because the flute is sad after being separated from its parent…from its bamboo grove in the forest. Listen to the reed, as the poet says…’ He continued playing the magical strains of the behala.
My uncle was so moved by this lilting melody that he invited the mendicant inside his prayer room and in that solitude he began listening spellbound to the plaintive tune of the behala until he lost himself in spiritual ecstasy.