Let Me bring you trays of food

https://www.mindfulnessassociation.net/words-of-wonder/just-sit-there-right-now-hafiz/

I so often felt the words in this link above, from my living teacher, Eruch Byramshaw Jessawala, sitting with him alone at night in Meherazad, India. It’s very rural countryside, maybe some 200 miles East of Bombay (as I used to call it).

I would feel this from Eruch's silence and soft words. And I so very rarely ever spoke to him at night, though he said I could always ask him any sincere questions I had. But on some of my hundreds of early morning walks with him, I could become very animated, and rave about poems or any number of things. I would ask him questions about Hafiz, Rumi, Meher Baba, and other great poet-saints, as well as his own extraordinary life too! 

Eruch was the person closest to and most intimate with Meher Baba— he had been since his early 20s. He was also the person who most put Baba's words into sounds. Meher Baba chose to be completely silent for some 44 years, and communicated only via an alphabet board and unique sign language. It is true to my mind that not one single book of mine would ever have been published without my life-long  connection to Meher Baba, as well as Eruch's remarkable sanction and direct help.

Eruch could be said to have been a perfect shadow of God, or like a Hanuman to Rama— that is a perfect servant & platonic friend. And a shadow only exists via some other form. But could not a shadow of God's then too be divine. It would be. And in some ways that is all of us— and everything— a shadow God casts, from God gazing at Herself. A miraculous shadow of the Sun we are. But a shadow that can in itself—become profoundly aware, become an Infinite Illumination of love. Become a Magnificent Luminous Sovereignty, that is truly so independent one could be completely satisfied being with just itself, being with just itself— forever. I personally know that to be the truth, well, as much as one can experience that and then return to this world. There  are certainties for everyone I feel; an ultimate glorious, glorious destiny.

But back to the title of this blog. Let Me Bring You Trays Of Food. That line is mentioned in the Hafiz poem in the aforementioned link. I like the way the blogger expounded on the poem and speaks about mindfulness. 

I have worked with 12 of the great historic poet-saints in my Penguin anthology, Love Poems from God. And I don't think I have ever come across a poet-saint who is more serving and giving to us in unique, rather ingenious, and playful ways as Hafiz. I believe it is very true as Goethe remarked— Hafiz has no peer. But surely Rumi gets into the wonderful theological and mystical heights as Hafiz does, and Meister Eckhart too, and may even be more eloquent and poignant than Hafiz at times. But I think Hafiz offers us the greatest variety of manna, and from more angles, from more directions, from a vaster range of care and more personal affection. Hafiz, in his own words said:  

If you ask for a few words of comfort and guidance, 

I will quickly kneel at your side and offer you -- a 

whole book as a gift.

Those lines inspired my most popular Hafiz book, which is titled The Gift.

Most of my Hafiz poems-renderings, and some stories of him I have heard from my teacher about Hafiz are still unpublished. Guess I have some 4,000 unpublished renderings of Hafiz. I became a busy cowboy for a while— lassoing stars and comets whizzing around— the best I could.  And once I had the idea of doing a series of pocket size books, titled: Rumi & Hafiz Go Haiku. A free style haiku (using just lines of theirs, or fragments of lines) could be on the left side of a spread and then an annotation, drawing, or other piece of art on the right. Here is an example that has, to me, a Zen quality to it:

how can a mountain

   feel an ant's 

      bite

— Hafiz

Then the expounding could be (that even Hafiz got into):

Yes, how can a mountain, especially a golden one, 

feel the bite or the hoof of any creature, or an arrow 

shot into it, in an adverse way? Could not it welcome

all within its ken?

Or look. How could a speck of dust ever pollute an 

ocean or cause it a moment of concern? That is your 

pain dear, any pain you have ever known will someday 

be impossible to not forgive. Moreover— impossible to

even conceive. 

                                        ***

I think I have said it somewhere before, but to me Rumi and Hafiz can often appear like Carl Jung times ten gone poet. And who wouldn't want to hang out with Carl for an hour if he started giving away wonderful & free elite therapy sessions, or meditation secrets? And if you read a good poem slowly and out loud— that is a meditation secret, as it can open a door for you. It can make a hidden sun rise; you can feel its warmth and expansiveness and know beautiful quiet— within sounds. Interesting, how sounds can make us feel quiet, peaceful.

“Let Me Bring You Trays Of Food. Trays of suns.” 

Hafiz has been doing that for over 700 years. And fantastic, for he just won't quit.  

Hafiz's poems are offering you his hand to touch or hold. His poems are really, also, all a bowing to your miraculous existence. He sees all as a miraculous shrine. Everything.  

Is not the moon's light on our feet

God bowing to us?

And when She raises Her head,

    so should we back into the Sky

        of great freedom.