Sufis and Rabindranath

If I say I saw a Sufi in Rabindranath Tagore, you may immediately suspect my Bengali roots. I may plead that I truly did not like Rabindranath's poetry growing up although I was immersed in poetry from an early age but that would not help me much either, right? However, it is indeed true that Rabindranath took many years to finally get a home in my mind. He had to work towards it. The rebel in me rejected him because everyone around me liked him. It took me many years to bring myself to read and then appreciate the genius. However, my love for Rabindranath also flown through my love for Rumi, Bulla, Waris Shah. The more I read Sufi poetry, the more I saw Rabindranath speaking in the language of universal love. The language imbibed by Bulla Shah, Waris Shah, Amir Khusro, Shah Inayat, Rumi. May be he read them too and got influenced. Or may be all of them heard the same universal lover in their heart of heart. And it is their heart that tells them what to do. Rabindranath says, 

আমি কান পেতে রই 

I train my ears 

ও আমার গোপন হৃদয় গহন দ্বারে, 

I train my ears to the secret door of my heart

                                                         বারে বারে, কান পেতে রই

Time and again!

He says, it is the heart which brings the words of the beloved to the mortal world. It is exactly where he can hear that universal lover speaking. And Bulla Shah agrees:

Murshid man-marziyaaN

My heart follows my Mursheed

Dil araj kare te mai amal 

(Thus) I do whatever my heart asks me to do.

Sufis find love much greater than reasoning. Nizamuddin, who is called Mehboob-E-Ilahi asks you to love beyond all reasons. He places love above all the other virtues. He was embodiment of love himself. No wonder his followers yearned for his love. And said, 

 Ke taab-e-hijran nadaram ay jaan,

I do not want to endure this separation, O sweetheart!

Na leho kahe lagaye chatiyan.

why do you not take me to your bosom!

You can hear Rabindranath yearning for his beloved in the same way as these Sufis:

                                                                                         

কী করিলে বলো পাইব তোমারে, রাখিব আঁখিতে আঁখিতে–

Tell me what do I do to keep you in my eyes forever

ওহে এত প্রেম আমি কোথা পাব, নাথ, তোমারে হৃদয়ে রাখিতে।

Where do I find so much love that I keep you enticed forever in my heart, my lord!

তুমি আপনি না এলে কে পারে হৃদয়ে রাখিতে। 

How can one keep you there if you yourself do not agree to stay!

Both are asking the lover to come adorn the heart of the beloved by himself. Both are saying it is beyond them to "keep" the lover enticed. It is on him to stay close. I start wondering was not Rabindranath channelling Amir Khusro in the above lines? Because Khusro is requesting his beloved to come and sit in his eyes forever too: 

आ पिया इन नैनन में जो पलक ढांप तोहे लूँ

Come my love into my eyes, 

let me cover you with my eyelids

न मैं देखूँ गैर को न तोहे देखन दूँ

Neither I see anyone hereafter, nor you do!

The eyes and the heart, the two seats of the beloved get mentioned again and again in both Sufi poetry and Rabindranath's poems in Puja parv. The lack of peace is felt the most by the eyes and the heart. I have had discussions with many on whether love can sustain without the body ever featuring into the lover's mind. My reading says, it is impossible. Being able to see the lover, the yearning for seeing him and even touch him is as real as the desire to feel him in one's heart forever. The fear of losing is forever awake in the heart of the lovers. "ভয় নিত্য জেগে থাকে" The fear is forever awake. Forever alive. The lovers feel they indeed see the love in their beloved's eyes in some moments of glory but then they always fear losing him. 

ক্ষণিক আলোকে আঁখির পলকে তোমায় যবে পাই দেখিতে

I get to see light of your love flickering through at times

ওহে ‘হারাই হারাই’ সদা ভয় হয়, হারাইয়া ফেলি চকিতে।

But I always fear losing you, and lose I do, in a moment! 

Losing one's lover or getting separated from him is something intensely feared by all the Sufis. Be it Bulla Shah or Waris Shah. The latter requested Heer's folks to not to send her off with anyone else as her blood has already followed Ranjha. Can blood that has left the body ever made to return to it, Waris Shah asked. The following of one's lover is as definite as that. Khusro did not want to live even a day without the beloved. He also beseeched his beloved Nizamuddin: 

Cheri tihari hu har koyu jaane 

The whole world knows I am yours

Laaj meri hai ke tihari, Nizam?

Who should be ashamed (if I am spurned?)

You or me?

This constant tussle between pleading the lover to stay and beseeching him against leaving describes the tussle of the human heart. The Sufis yearning for the lover is so much that they want their eyes to live beyond the body to behold the lover in them, at least once more. Baba Farid thus sings, 

Kaga sab tan khaiyo, mera chun chun khaiyo maas

O crow! You can eat the whole of me, peck at all my flesh 

Do naina mat khaiyo mohe piya milan ki aas

Just let go of my eyes, I still hope to see my beloved. 

We hear the same cry in Vaishnav Padavali: 

 না পোড়াইয়ো দেহ মোর 

Do not burn my body

না ভাসাইও জলে 

Do not let it go floating in the river

মরিলে বাঁধিয়া রেখো 

When I die, keep it tied

তমালের ডালে 

to that dark branch of the tree

The lover is ready to stay close to whatever assumes the form of his beloved. They can not take separation even in death. The Sufi in Rabindranath cries out to the beloved asking never to forego him. Never to leave his side, ever. He pleads not to leave him even when he is with everyone, deeply engaged in family and not to leave him even when he looks completely fearless. The need for the beloved is forever. 

চিরসখা, ছেড়ো না মোরে, ছেড়ো না।

My friend forever, do not ever forego me.

Never.

সংসারগহনে, নির্ভয়নির্ভর,

In everyday affairs

Fearless-dependable

নির্জনসজনে সঙ্গে রহো ॥

When I am lonely, as well as with others

Please be with me.

Always. 

However, they also rejoice losing themselves in the process. If the Sufi loses his love, he is in pain, however if the sufi loses himself in love what remains is pure ecstasy!

  

Khabar e tahayyur e ishq sun, na junoon raha na pari rahi

Do you know the update about the wonder of love?

Neither the passion remained in the end, nor the fairy

na to tu raha, na toh mai raha, jo rahi so bekhabri rahi 

Neither you remained there, nor me

What remained was only oblivion. 

That death, that oblivion, is to be rejoiced! The oblivion that comes from losing oneself to the lover. "Mann tu shudam/ Tu mann shudi" I have become you, and you have become me. There is immense pride in becoming one. In holding the lover's self in one's heart. Becoming a mirror. An aks. Khwaja Meer Dard said, 

arz o sama kahaN teri wussat ko pa sake

The sky and the earth together can not contain the expanse of you

mera hi woh dil hai jahaN tu sama sake 

It is only my heart which can enfold the whole of you

The Sufi in Rabindranath sees the lover in death too. He says, 

হয়তো ঘুচিবে দুঃখ নিশা 

May be the night of pain will end then

তৃপ্ত হবে এক প্রেমে জীবনের সর্বপ্রেমতৃষা 

That one love will quench the thirst for all the desires of life

Khusro on the other hand keeps the teasing of love alive even in that pain and says 

Bahaq-e-roz-e-visaal-e-dilbar,

In honour of the day I meet my beloved

Ke daad mara gharib Khusro

who has lured me so long, O Khusro!

Sapet man ke varaye rakhun,

I shall keep my heart suppressed

Jo jaye pauN piya ke khatiyan.

if ever I get a chance to get to his trick.

Do the Sufis ever get to understand the trick of the lover's heart? Is there a "visaal"? An ultimate union? Or does it remain a question till the death? The Urs? The marriage of souls? The word, "হয়তো" /"may be" looms large. Through these "insecurities of love" and "fear of loss", "anxiety of separation", Khusro speaks to Rumi, Rumi speaks to Bulla, Bulla speaks to Rabindranath, beyond the boundaries of language. But then again, who cares much of about insecurities in love? Love is love's reward after all! And all Sufis sing in unison when Shah Niyaz says,  Ishq me tere koh e gham sar pe liya jo ho so ho! I have indeed invited the mountain of misery upon my head in your love! But so what! 

Yes! So what!