“Have fun, my dear, my dear, have fun ...”

That is part of a line in a Hafiz poem— the last poem in the book, The Subject Tonight Is Love, on page 67 in the Penguin edition.

That poem has become very popular (as several of my Hafiz poem-renderings have); you can see it here on this link too, I found just last night. And looks like it offers some other of my Hafiz work, that also is not really properly credited. I might have to sic some angels on some people. But really, just glad my work reaches people. Hey— “Have fun."

I think we would live in a different world if more people had some real fun everyday— in a way that hurt no one else. Finding something one really enjoys doing is like finding a treasure. It indeed makes you richer, and also more generous with your words, actions, and things one can touch.

I have spent time around a man named Eruch Jessawala (whom I feel was a true spiritual teacher), off and on, over more than 20 visits to India over a 22-year stretch, that began in 1978. And for some reason, the last 12 years, my teacher gave me a rare invite: to stay with him at a place called Meherazad. I got to know him as few westerns have— from walking with him, often alone, hundreds of times in the early morning around the beautiful, rural countryside of India. And that is where my Hafiz work began— walking with him one morning in 1992.

On this day, I recited to him the Hafiz poem that you can see in this link above. It is titled: “A Suspended Blue Ocean.” I recited the poem from memory— as years ago, I probably knew a couple hundred by heart. And I guess now, if someone gave me the first line of one of my published Hafiz poems... I could probably still recite a couple hundred, as they are just part of me I keep in an inner drawer of sorts.

But this poem here— I can still see so much of what then happened when I started to recite this poem to my teacher— wondering if he might endorse it. He stopped walking, and stood very close and looked very intently at me, and although he often seemed a great, great listener, I had never seen him listen like this. When I finished the poem, he said something very unusual to me:

“How do you know that Upasani Maharaj spoke just like that to his close ones?”

Well, that threw me. And I replied:

"I don't know anything of how Upasani Maharaj spoke to his close ones.”

And then Eruch (whom I have mentioned many times in my blog entries) said: “That is just the way he did."

Upasani Maharaj is really very unknown in the West. In India he is known by some to have spent some extraordinary time under the guidance of Sai Baba of Shirdi, and at Shirdi. You could see and read more about both of these masters if you Google their names. Sai Baba of Shirdi passed away in 1918, and is one of the most popular saints in India still today. I have visited both of their tombs, but never really read anything about Upasani Maharaj until years after the publication of that poem— “A Suspended Blue Ocean.” 

The idea of reincarnation is a big one to me. And I do feel a real connection to that lineage of Sai Baba & Upasani and Meher Baba, and then my teacher Eruch, who was the human being closest to Meher Baba. And I think Eruch met Upasani when he was quite young; though I never directly asked him about that. 

I had a couple of very vivid dreams of Upasani Maharaj I’ll bet Carl Jung would have said were important; then one of Sai Baba also, that was pretty much off the Richter Scale too, and seemed so real. I think some dreams can be true milestones in a person's life, as real and effecting as any milestones.

I read to Eruch many of my now published Hafiz poems that I have in five books with Penguin. That is— read them to him before they were published— for feedback, and so many he directly helped; and all I feel he very much indirectly helped. He made that very clear to me, on a profound and intimate level, his involvement with my poetry work.

And of all the poems I read to Eruch, if someone asked me: “Were there any lines you felt he most wanted you to remember? Or for the world to know?” I would say, “Yes.”

And they are:

Have fun, my dear, my dear, have fun,

in the Beloved divine game, O, in the

Beloved's wonderful game.

— Hafiz

But as this Hafiz poem also points out, this is a Wild Playground. And both of those words, I think, are very appropriately capitalized mid sentence. Cause O yeah, it can seem crazy on planet E, really too wild, too nuts! All the more reason to try and kiss the Moon and any sweethearts more (of course pets included)— or an apple tree, or pumpkins— or a good poem. 

And this seems a great aka to that Hafiz poem, or what you might learn from any real Zen master ... this photo here. May it help you rock-n-roll.