FRIENDSHIP vs. ENMITY:
“Plant the tree of friendship and reap its benefits
Unpluck the seeds of discontent that brings endless strife”
Often it takes the foreigner to worship us, while we as Iranians engage in cat-and-dog fights, not always, but often. I once had a student tell me: “Listen, Hafez was just another poet – stop worshipping the man.” Goethe’s love for Hafez was deep and profound, being one of the first in the West to recognize Hafez’s true spiritual and poetic status. The life-embracing approach that Hafez took on as a priority, was during an era that was rife with challenges, occupations, invasions, you name it. This (today) is not Iran’s first time going through such challenges, and I often wonder how many of us are learning the lessons of how to cope. The real artist that Hafez was, he did not resort to mud-slinging, and dug deeper, much deeper – and left us with a transcendent Divan.
In the year 2,000 Weimar, Germany honored “Hafez’s twin” – that’s how Goethe referred to himself, with the below monument. Two simple chairs carved out of stone, facing each other. Goethe too, recognized the danger of toxic ramblings and endless fights:
“When the sore oppressed complains
None will help or hope afford
For his healing still remains
Virtue in a kindly word.” – Goethe (Book of Maxims: IX)
I love today’s Beyt that I’m sharing with you, about Friendship vs. Enmity. Hafez telling us to nourish “friendships” and once faced with toxins, to unpluck them lest they grow into endless strife. “Good word, Good thought, Good deed” sounds simple, but is resonates much deeper than its surface value. And I always remind my students that if we think things are challenging in Iran’s history now, it would be disrespectful to forget what the Mongol invasions inflicted on societies – and yet, I often wonder what Hafez would be doing on this site. Come and throw mud? At times, there’s so much mud on Iranian.com that diving in you need a face mask, and somehow I doubt Hafez would do the same. That is surely one of the attributes that made him grand and what continues to keep him in the anals of spiritual inspiration! Here’s to us remembering the priceless lesson that I continue to learn from every day.
“Learning form Hafez in DC” (YouTube):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUhIXQoxwzE
