Trust Hafiz to fearlessly expose that which we relentlessly hide.
For me God has always been synonymous with love, yet love has often come at a price. So for the longest time I stood divided between my truth and my experience. It was easier to love God from a distance, like a pleasant backdrop, while I made careful and sound decisions to guard against any incidental losses that he may have overlooked.
When I first read Hafiz, I was shocked to see how he claimed God. It almost sounded like heresy to be on such intimate terms with our maker. Wasn’t God sacred, above this kind of human access, a power to be venerated and exalted in the most holy manner?
By the end of the book, I felt at once an imposter and a pauper, trying to find God in some abstract inconceivable space, always far from me. Keeping vigil by the light of a candle, while he was shining brighter than a midday sun. I realised I had been looking for him in the stories I had told myself or heard about him. I was in love with the idea of God.
Today I know that his sacred presence is not just around us but within us. We are sacred. Our journey is sacred. I feel that the most exciting experience is beckoning to me, a circling of the heart, an opening of the arms in complete acceptance of our divine essence. Today I come to him with the absolute faith and belonging of a child to claim him, to claim myself and to claim my life.
I leave you with the light that is Hafiz.
Now is the time to know
That all you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.
Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you can finally live with veracity
And love.
Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the beloved
Has written a holy message upon.
My dear, please tell me
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?
What is in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?
Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
This is the time
For you to deeply compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.
Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.
Best
Afshan x
I must read this book. Great post.
Love your observations and sharing my dearest.
I haven’t yet read Hafiz or Rumi but love their quotes.
We are truly blessed and grace flows through every moment, whether we
deserve it or not.
How beautiful !! I haven’t read his work but now I feel that I must . Indeed , We don’t need to go into deep forests or cross mighty oceans to seek Him , for He is already here , right now at this very moment , with us , forever !!
Love the message ❣️✨✨
Again a thought rendering post that makes you sit and see within. Ask yourself questions. Your writing also seems to painter a more vivid picture for me. Not that it wasn’t before, but it’s more brilliant if that makes any sense. I’m constantly impressed by you my sister for having this power over words. To have the ability to express thoughts and make them seem as if they were with me all along. I will read Hafiz. And i hope to continue reading what you pen down for a long long time. Love you.
So beautiful Afshan. Grace and beauty within the self that is not just a reflection of Him, but Him.
How profoundly beautiful to consider that you are Him, and He is you… to find yourself in tune and in rhythm and in chime with the divine clock. I like that idea. I like taking that with me from here.