SUFISM-- VAISHNAVA-- BAUL, FOLKSINGERS

SRI RAMAKRISHNA -HARE KRISHNA -I was very much fond of SARBESH OR Fakir, such as SANYASI in our Sanatan darma Hinduism, since my childhood as their black or white cloths, garlands of stones – punthis- . I recalled the character of Fikir in the drama Dakghar – post office , written by our beloved poet RABINDRANATH TAGOR, how Fakir was traveling one country to another without barrier, in this context I may refer the book A MONK WITHOUT BARRIER reminiscences of my mentor Swami Ranganathananda ji.
I must acknowledge to quote from –SUFISM WRITTEN BY WILLIAM C. CHITTICK –CHAPTER – Religion of love—The Koran sometimes calls this human nothingness, poverty [faqr], a word which, in Islamic languages, is far more common designation for what wee have been calling Sufism THAN THE WORD tasawwuf itself. Both Fakir [ Arabic faqir] and Dervishfrom [ Persian darwish] mean poorman, that is a traveler on the Sufi path. The term is taken from the Koran, especially the verse, “ O PEOPLE YOU ARE THE POOR TOWARD God; and God- He is the Wealthy, the praiseworthy.”[35:15] As Ibn Arabi says, Poverty is an affair that is inherent in everything other than God. There is no way to escape from it Rumi writes, Poverty is not for the sake of hardship—no, it is because nothing exists but God—First you empty the lovers at the hand of separation, \ then you fill with gold to the top of their heads…. How much the Companion made me suffer until this work \ settled into the eye’s water and the liver’.s blood \ A thousand fires and smokes and heartaches all named LOVE \ A thousand pains and regrets and afflictions all named COMPANION \ If you are the enemy of your own self, come- in the name of God. \ Welcome to the soul’s sacrifice .\ Welcome to a pitiful slaugher. ……………Silence, silence , Love’s allusions are upside-down--\ too much speaking keeps the meanings hidden. [ KULLIYYAT]
[Ibn Arabi] ---- If someone falls in love with that splendor of the meadow, \ don’t wonder that he’s lost his heart in love like me. [87] Don’t speak of patience- patience will never find its way \ to the heart that has been tested by that friend. \ When love rattles intellect’s chain, \ Plato and Avicenna go mad. \ By the spirit of love , No spirit escapes love—even within a hundred fortresses, a hundred bodies. \ … love is the world’s sanctuary, the source of all justice, \even if it waylays the intellects of man and woman. \ Silence, For speech’s homeland is Damascus, the heart--- with such homeland, don’t call it a stranger,[88


Sufi poet RUMI wrote-- Love makes bitter sweet, \ love turns copper to gold, \ love makes dregs into wine, \ love pain to healing, \ love brings the dead to life' love makes king into slaves-- Rumi devotes all his works to love, he frequently remind us that true love depends upon discernment. the lover must be able to distinguish gold from gold-plate.
---Like a hypocrite, you offer your excuses—
I’m so busy providing for wife and children’
“I don’t have time to scratch my head.
How could I have time to practice religion?
I can not escape from feeding my family,
I must seek lawful earnings tooth and nail.”
You have an escape from God—but not from food.
You have an escape from religion- not from idols [RUMI-]
P\19 If Suism is an appropriate name for doing what is beautiful and striving after spiritual perfection, then it is built of two foundations- ISLM or submission to God[ pratice of the SHARIA and the prophetic model] and IMAN or faith[ acceptance of basic Islamic teachings concerning God, prophecy, and the Last Day]One seekers have gained sufficient grounding in these two dimensions, they can focus their efforts on “worshiping God as if they see Him.” Eventually, sincerity and love may take them to the place where the as if ceases to apply. In other words, they will worship Him while seeing Him.
Rumi -------------- You are your thought brother the rest of you bones and fiber, If you think of roses, you are rosegarden \ if you think of throns you are fuel for furnace.SUFI---- WHO WERE WOOL. Ghazali[ d-1111]O ne the great sufi teacher gave nutshell description of sufism’s roll in the very little of his magnumpus… giving of life to the sciences of religion. Only those who spoke for the branch of IHSAN [DOING THE BEAUTYFUL] maintain that ISLAM and IMAN MUST BE SUBOR DINATE to the highest goal, which is to worship God as if you see Him. By and large, such people were associated with what has come to be known as Sufism In his giving life to the siences of religion. Ghazali illustrates in copious detail how Islam and Iman need to be vivified and validated by ihsan. I t intensifies Islam itual life through careful attention to the details of the Sunnah and by focusing on DHIKR the remembrance of God at any moment. p\26] Prophet says—He who knows himself, knows his Lord. [57-4] And He is with you wherever you are. IBN ARABI [FUTUHAT] Love has no definition through which its essence can be known. Rather it is given descriptive and verbal definitions, nothing more. Those who define love have not known it , those who have not tasted it by drinking it down have not known it and those who say that they have been quenched by it have not known it, for love is drinking without quenching. RUMI [KULLIYYAT] Someone asked, “What is loverhood?” I replied, Do not ask me about these meaning—When you become like me , you will know; when it calls you, you will tell its tale. What is to be a lover? To have perfect thirst. So let me explain the water of life. [do] RUMI—Love makes the ocean boil like a pot, love grinds mountains down to sand. Love splits the heaven, in a hundred pieces, love shakes the earth with mighty shaking. Pure love was paired with Muha mmad== because of love God said to him, But for you. ----IBN ARABI==== It is incumbent on lovers to seek the friend, flowing like floods on face and head to His river. He himself does not seeking, and we are like shadows. All our talking and speaking are the words of the friend. Sometime we rejoice like water running in His stream, sometime we are trapped like water in His jug. ----\\\ Love is an attribute of God, who has no needs—love for anything else is a metaphor. The beauty of others is gold-plated: outwardly it is light, inwardly smoke. When the light goes and the smoke appears, metaphorical love turns to ice. The beauty returns to its own root, the body is left—putrid, disgraced, ugly. The moonlight goes back to the moon, the moon’s reflection leaves the wall.----------------------------- [Mathnawi- IBN ARABI] -LOVE MAKES BITTER SWEET, love turns copper to gold, Love makes dregs into wine, love turns pain into healing, Love brings the dead to life, love makes king to slaves—But this love results from knowledge. When did a fool sit on this throne? How can faulty knowledge give birth to love, but love for inanimate things. When it sees the color of its desire in the things, it hears call of the beloved in a whistle. [LORD PLAYING THE FLUTE TO CALL GOPIES] Faulty knowledge does not know the difference—it thinks that lighting is the sun.
IBN ARABI – The mark of divine love is love for all beings in every domain- spiritual, sensory, imaginal and imaginary. Every domain has an eye that it receives from His name light, an eye with which it looks upon His name beautiful.
Rumi—The joy and heartache of lovers is He, the wages and salary for service is He. If they were to gaze on other than the beloved, how could that be loved? That would be idle fancy. Love is that flame which, when it blazes up, burns away all except the everlasting Beloved. It slays other than God with the sword of no God. Look carefully: After no God what remains? There remains but God, the rest has gone. Hail, o love, great burner of all others. It is He alone who is first and last, all else grows up from the eye that sees double.