Who is the lover the saint sings for? || Acharya Prashant, on Hafiz (2016)
The subject tonight is love and for tomorrow night as well.
As a matter of fact, I know of no better topic for us to discuss, until we all die.
(Hafiz)
Acharya Prashant: Rumi, Hafiz, Meera, Bulle Shah, they sing of love, and in their poetry the lover often appears like a person. They talk of the lover, to the lover, in language that appears known and worldly. It is almost as if the man next door is composing and singing for his beloved who lives in the same town or somewhere afar. The whole ambience appears beautiful but not unknown. It is very easy therefore, to think that one person is singing for another person or one person is calling God, God as we know God. And is doing this lyrically, nicely, beautifully, heart fully. But the song, is something that we are familiar with.
It is easy to think this way. It is easy to think that this is just another love story, just another couple, just another man, possessed by a woman or the God idea or something else. In fact that is the reason why the poetry of Rumi and Hafiz is so frequently used by lovers all around us. And we are talking of very mortal, very material love, love that is hardly any different from attraction and identification. Even such lovers appropriate the words of Rumi to express their feelings and somehow Rumi seems to be giving nice, suitable, beautiful, magnified, decorated expression to the state of their mind. It is easy to be misled.
