Learning from Hafez
Learning from Hafez
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HAFEZ: 5 minutes of Fame
07-Mar-2012
HAFEZ Blog is back.
My conscience had me leave for several months after the site was posting views openly insulting the entire religion of Islam on its front pages. I needed a break. After much encouragement, and enough "time out", I've decided to change my Logo picture to an aerial view of Cyrus's Tomb - as a reminder to all of us of Cyrus creating the first Global Empire some 2500 years ago, on the pillars of Freedom of Worship, and respect for all religions. (photo courtesy of Swiss Photographer Georg Gerster - RIP)
HAFEZ: 5 "minutes" of Fame: Today's Blog was inspired by a fascinating moment I had recently. Hafez often jolts you with statements that resonate with a deliciously contemporary parallel. Of course there are great differences between Hafez' Beyt (couplet) and his 5 Days and Warhol's famous statement:"In the future, everybody will be world famous for 15 minutes" - where 15 minutes of fame was coined.
"Dor-eh Majnoon gozasht o nobat-eh mast
Har kassi panj rooz nobat-eh oost."
Majnoon's time is up and it's now ours to behold
For each of us 5 days are set to uphold
In the above, Hafez is emphasizing how "love" takes its turn and each of us will have our share, our "5 days", of it. That Majnoun (of the Love epic "Layla and Majnoon" fame), that Majnoon's time is up, and it's our turn. Hafez often tells you to daryab, to behold, your moments of connection, and the concept of 5 days here is a reminder that such connectivity is often passing. The rest of the poem has Hafez singing the praises of his Beloved. With Andy Warhol - his quote also recognizes that perhaps we are all destined to have our own "15 minutes" -- The quote was from a 1968 Exhibit of his in Stockholm, Sweden. To me, it's always sounded like a finger of sorts to the notoin of "fame" - as if he's saying: "Stop idolizing me. The future will make fame redundant." In many ways, reality TV has - where anyone can be "famous." Or perhaps, he was less jaded than our reality tv era, and he'd simply meant: "We all can create, there's an artist in all of us. By definition, we are all due our 15 minutes worth of fame."
What the two quote share is the sense that something can happen to "anyone." In Hafez's case, it is love, and spiritual connection with a Beloved that can happen to Har Kassi, to anyone. For Warhol, living in an age of false adulation, it's possibly false adulation that could happen to "anyone." Or the lest malign interpretation, it is the reality that we are all potential creators, and therefore will one day become famous for it.
Feel free to share what you see in the comparison.
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thanks
by Hafez for Beginners on Wed Mar 07, 2012 06:52 PM PSTThank you Soosan Khanoom!
Again, for those new to the Blog since it'd been missing for a while, more about the weekend gathering/class I hold as a tool to continue to spread Hafez's wisdom, especially to those disconnected from him:
YouTube: "Learning from Hafez in DC""
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUhIXQoxwzE
The first and last lesson of love is "I am not"... " You are"
by Soosan Khanoom on Wed Mar 07, 2012 05:51 PM PSTGood to see Hafez' blog up and running again ..... Thank you Afsaneh jan ...
... Here is something on love ...The sufi way
From Bowl of Saki
It is not love, but the pretense of love, that imposes the claim of the self. The first and last lesson in love is, 'I am not -- Thou art' and unless man is moved to that selflessness he does not know justice, right or truth.
There is no greater teacher of morals than love itself, for the first lesson that one learns from love is, 'I am not, you are.' This is self-denial, self-abnegation, without which we cannot take the first step on love's path. One may claim to be a great lover, to be a great admirer, to be very affectionate, but it all means nothing as long as the thought of self is there, for there is no love. But when the thought of self is removed, then every action, every deed that one performs in life, becomes a virtue.
He who says, 'I love you but only so much, I love you and give you sixpence but I keep sixpence for myself, I love you but I stand at a distance and never come closer, we are separate beings'- his love is with his self. As long as that exists, love has not done its full work. Love accomplishes its work when it spreads its wings and veils man's self from his own eyes. That is the time when love is fulfilled, and so it is in the life of the holy ones who have not only loved God by professing or showing it, but who have loved God to the extent that they forgot themselves.
Man is here on earth for this one purpose, that he may bring forth that spirit of God in him and thus discover his own perfection. The three stages towards this perfection are the following. The first stage is to make God as great and as perfect as your imagination can. ....
The second stage is the work of the heart... The first lesson that love teaches us is: 'I am not. Thou art.' The first thing to think of is to erase ourselves from our minds and to think of the one we love. As long as we do not arrive at this idea, so long the word love remains only in the dictionary. Many speak about love but very few know it. Is love a pastime, an amusement, a drama; is it a performance? The first lesson of love is sacrifice, service, self-effacement. ... To close the eyes for prayer is one thing, and to produce the love of God is another thing. That is the second stage in spiritual realization, where, in the thought of God, one begins to lose oneself in the same way that the lover loses the thought of self in the thought of the beloved.
And the third stage is different again. In the third stage the Beloved becomes the Self, and the self is there no more. For then the self, as we think it to be, no longer remains. The self becomes what it really is. It is that realization which is called Self-realization.
PS ...
by Hafez for Beginners on Wed Mar 07, 2012 05:01 PM PSTSince the Blog's been "gone" for some time, I'm posting the below video from what is now our 5th year of "Hafez" classes here in the DC area. The classes are open to all - from those who don't know a single Beyt, to those who are seasoned Hafez connoisseurs. And... no - I'm not posting this to "advertise", rather to share with you a little more into the background of the creator of this Blog! "Tehran" 's interview is under Show More under the video itself. Enjoy! Afsaneh
YouTube: "Learning from Hafez in DC" :
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUhIXQoxwzE