MANIC SCREAMING - Some Rumi and Hafiz
I'm still learning the great poems of these two Sufi masters - I started posting some individual poems, but realise that's a futile task - these exquisite pieces need anthologies, not selections. I've posted below some that have truly touched me.
A big kudos to David Ladinsky for the translations - he apparently studied under Meher Baba of India, and based his translations on those done previously in 1891 by Wilberforce Clark.
So simple, so profound, so touching.
You Were Brave in that Holy War
You have done well
In the contest of madness.
You were brave in that holy war.
You have all the honorable wounds
Of one who has tried to find love
Where the Beautiful Bird
Does not drink.
May I speak to you
Like we are close
And locked away together?
Once I found a stray kitten
And I used to soak my fingers
In warm milk;
It came to think I was five mothers
On one hand.
Wayfarer,
Why not rest your tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes.
Come morning
I will kneel by your side and feed you.
I will so gently
Spread open your mouth
And let you taste something of my
Sacred mind and life.
Surely
There is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
O, surely there is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
If you think
Our Beloved would not be so
Tender.
---"The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the great Sufi Master" translated by
Daniel Ladinsky
Every child has known God
Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does Anything weird,
But the God who knows only 4 words.
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come Dance with Me , come dance.”
Hafiz
With That Moon Language
Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?
Hafiz
Stop Being So Religious
What
Do sad people have in
Common?
It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past
And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.
What is the beginning of
Happiness?
It is to stop being
So religious
Like That.
("The Gift" - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
Someone Should Start Laughing
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing -
Now!
Hafiz
A Golden Compass
Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any classroom ever taught you
Because
An empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear
Are always the testimony
You have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those
Who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company
Of the King’s beggars –
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous
Who have no choice
But to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.
I will lead you into the Circle
Of the Beloved’s cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues –
The ones you can trust for true guidance –
Who can aid you
In this Blessed Calamity of life.
Hafiz,
Look at the Perfect One
At the Circle’s Center:
He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,
Beyond all that is Rational,
To show this dear world
That Everything,
Everything in Existence
Does point to God.
--Hafiz
What Happens?
What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body
To the great Journey of Love?
First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears
And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep.
But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint.
What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in this world
To our deep need to love
And serve the Friend?
O the Beloved
Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions ~
Like Hafiz.
From: 'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz' - Daniel Ladinsky
Manic Screaming
We should make all spiritual talk simple today
God is trying sell you something but you dont want to buy
That is what your suffering is:
your fantastic haggling
your manic screaming
over
price.
--Hafiz
My Eyes So Soft
Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly
let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
as few human or even divine ingredients can
Something missing in my heart tonight
has made my eyes so soft
my voice so tender
my need of god
absolutely clear.
--Hafiz
Look
Look as long as you can
at the friend you love
No matter whether that friend is moving away from you
or coming back toward you.
--Rumi
A big kudos to David Ladinsky for the translations - he apparently studied under Meher Baba of India, and based his translations on those done previously in 1891 by Wilberforce Clark.
So simple, so profound, so touching.
You Were Brave in that Holy War
You have done well
In the contest of madness.
You were brave in that holy war.
You have all the honorable wounds
Of one who has tried to find love
Where the Beautiful Bird
Does not drink.
May I speak to you
Like we are close
And locked away together?
Once I found a stray kitten
And I used to soak my fingers
In warm milk;
It came to think I was five mothers
On one hand.
Wayfarer,
Why not rest your tired body?
Lean back and close your eyes.
Come morning
I will kneel by your side and feed you.
I will so gently
Spread open your mouth
And let you taste something of my
Sacred mind and life.
Surely
There is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
O, surely there is something wrong
With your ideas of
God
If you think
Our Beloved would not be so
Tender.
---"The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the great Sufi Master" translated by
Daniel Ladinsky
Every child has known God
Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don’ts,
Not the God who ever does Anything weird,
But the God who knows only 4 words.
And keeps repeating them, saying:
“Come Dance with Me , come dance.”
Hafiz
With That Moon Language
Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye
that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?
Hafiz
Stop Being So Religious
What
Do sad people have in
Common?
It seems
They have all built a shrine
To the past
And often go there
And do a strange wail and
Worship.
What is the beginning of
Happiness?
It is to stop being
So religious
Like That.
("The Gift" - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)
Someone Should Start Laughing
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
How are you?
I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question:
What is God?
If you think that the Truth can be known
From words,
If you think that the Sun and the Ocean
Can pass through that tiny opening
Called the mouth,
O someone should start laughing!
Someone should start wildly Laughing -
Now!
Hafiz
A Golden Compass
Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any classroom ever taught you
Because
An empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear
Are always the testimony
You have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those
Who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company
Of the King’s beggars –
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous
Who have no choice
But to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.
I will lead you into the Circle
Of the Beloved’s cunning thieves,
Those playful royal rogues –
The ones you can trust for true guidance –
Who can aid you
In this Blessed Calamity of life.
Hafiz,
Look at the Perfect One
At the Circle’s Center:
He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,
Beyond all that is Rational,
To show this dear world
That Everything,
Everything in Existence
Does point to God.
--Hafiz
What Happens?
What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body
To the great Journey of Love?
First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears
And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep.
But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint.
What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in this world
To our deep need to love
And serve the Friend?
O the Beloved
Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions ~
Like Hafiz.
From: 'I Heard God Laughing - Renderings of Hafiz' - Daniel Ladinsky
Manic Screaming
We should make all spiritual talk simple today
God is trying sell you something but you dont want to buy
That is what your suffering is:
your fantastic haggling
your manic screaming
over
price.
--Hafiz
My Eyes So Soft
Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly
let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
as few human or even divine ingredients can
Something missing in my heart tonight
has made my eyes so soft
my voice so tender
my need of god
absolutely clear.
--Hafiz
Look
Look as long as you can
at the friend you love
No matter whether that friend is moving away from you
or coming back toward you.
--Rumi
Labels: Hafiz, Ladinsky, Persian, Philosophy, Poetry, Rumi, Sufi
posted by Sreedhevi Iyer | 5:47 pm
|
35 comments
