Sultan Bahu: In Search of A Genuine Master

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In Search of A Genuine Master -- Poems of Sultan Bahu

 

In Search of A Genuine Master -- Poems of Sultan Bahu, Sufi Master

and poet-mystic in the Qadriya Order

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You should only choose someone as your Master

who bestows the blessings of both worlds on you.

First he will drive the wolf from your door,

then reveal to you the path to God.

He will transform the barren ground of your heart

into fertile soil, so the seed of God's Name can grow.

If a Master has not accomplished this for you

in this very life,

you can be sure he is feeding you false promises.

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These false prophets

were never disciples themselves,

but they contrive to make disciples of others

as an act of seeming charity.

They study nothing themselves but make students of others.

They swindle their disciples

of their money and belongings.

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As long as you proudly pamper your ego,

you will not realize Allah.

You call yourself a holy man,

yet you don't even know

how to dissolve your self in God.

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There are few genuine disciples.

People purporting to be Masters

perpetuate themselves with false promises.

They exploit their followers to satisfy their greed;

they have no inkling of the exaltation of the mystic path.

But when their hearts are touched by God's love,

they willingly sacrifice their lives on this path.

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O Shah Jilani, Master of Masters!

listen to my supplication.

Who else will minister to my needs?

Who else will attend to my plight?

For me, there is no one like you.

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If you wish to learn the art of dying while living,

go and sit in the company of mystics.

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I found the mystic path

when I held the beggar's bowl in hand,

begging for the Master's grace.

I could only renounce the world

after I met my exalted Master.

Deep have I drunk from the Ocean of Oneness,

yet my soul thirsts for more and more.

Tears of blood pave the way to God, O Bahu!

None but the ignorant will take this lightly.

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My Master is a bird of paradise;

he only flies with his own kind.

Through great good fortune you will have his vision --

if the Lord pulls the strings of destiny in your favor.

He cleanses the lepers of their leprosy;

he removes deformities of the spiritually crippled.

You hold the panacea of all ills, my Master!

Pray, do not leave Bahu to the care of physicians.

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If you seek to meet God ardently,

become a disciple of a true Master

and sing his praises.

If you follow his instructions sincerely,

you will, one day, assume his very form.

By constant repetition of his Kalma*

you will bathe yourself in its beatitude.

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Ever since my Master gave me

to drink from his cup of nectar,

I have become carefree -- indifferent to the world.

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Only when my Master initiated me into the Kalma*

did I truly understand its meaning.

Only then did it dawn on me

that I had wasted my earlier life as a non-believer.

But now, in the manner of Hazrat Ali, the lion of God,

Kalma has slain the demon of my non-belief.

Only when Kalma has saturated every pore of your being

will your heart be purified, O Bahu.

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My Master has taught me a lesson:

it repeats itself -- without my repeating it.

When I plug my ears with my fingers,

without hearing, I hear its melodies.

My eyes are longing for a glimpse of Him:

without seeing, I see His Radiant Face.

In every heart abides the Beloved, O Bahu,

in countless forms He reveals Himself to me.

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The Master always tends and protects his disciples

as a gardener nurses his seedlings.

In his divine presence, he nourishes them

with his merciful glance.

It is only appropriate to use the name 'Master'

for someone who shows you the Lord

within your own body, O Bahu!

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My Master taught me a lesson:

"Any moment you are negligent

in remembrance of God

is a moment spent in denial of God."

These words opened my eyes to reality,

and I fixed my attention on the Lord.

Then I placed my soul in his protection --

such was the love I cultivated in my heart.

Having thus bequeathed my soul to Him,

I died before death -- to live in Him.

Only then did I attain the Goal of Life.

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-- Sultan Bahu, "Sultan Bahu," J. R. Puri & K.S. Khak, RS Books

See also, "Death Before Dying -- The Sufi Poems of Sultan Bahu,"

Jamal J. Elias, University of California Press, Berkeley

 

*Note on KALMA:

'Speech, word or proclamation.' According to the tenets of Islam, 'to

read the Kalma' is to confess or affirm the Muslim faith by

saying, "There is no god but God; Mohammad is the Prophet of God" (La

Ilaha Illallah Mohammad rasool'llah). To have someone say or repeat

the Kalma is to convert him to Islam. But, according to Hazrat Sultan

Bahu and other Sufi mystics, Kalma is also, on a mystic or esoteric

level, beyond a written or spoken word or expression. They refer to

Kalma as the audible Voice or Sound of God. How this Sound can be

heard is one of the things that a Master or kaamil Murshid reveals to

their students. Kalam-i-Illahi and Saut-e Sarmad are other terms in

Sufi mysticism for Abstract or inner Sound, the Voice of God that

draws souls back to the Beloved.

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