{"id":5753,"date":"2017-05-09T08:33:22","date_gmt":"2017-05-09T15:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=5753"},"modified":"2017-05-09T09:02:12","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T16:02:12","slug":"abu-said-abil-kheir-sorrow-looted-this-heart-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/09\/abu-said-abil-kheir-sorrow-looted-this-heart-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Abu-Said Abil-Kheir – Sorrow looted this heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorrow looted this heart
\nby Abu-Said Abil-Kheir<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

English version by Vraje Abramian<\/font><\/p>\n

Sorrow looted this heart,
\nand Your Love threw it to the winds.
\nThis is how the secret which saints and seers were denied
\nwas whispered to me.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir<\/a>, Translated by Vraje Abramian<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Lin Zhizhao<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

Why does Abu-Said open this poem with such a gloomy line about sorrow?<\/p>\n

Sorrow and loss have an important role in sacred traditions. When we lose something or someone important to us, it is natural to grieve. But there is more going on there \u2014 a painful sort of awakening is occurring. <\/p>\n

When things or people become important to us, when we think of them as being necessary to our daily lives, that is a sign that we have begun to identify with them. We see ourselves in those people, things, experiences.<\/p>\n

Yet, because we have identified with them and come to believe that they are essential to our ongoing existence, their loss is seen by the confused ego as a form of self-death.<\/p>\n

In loss, there is an opportunity: We get to witness our own \u201cdeath.\u201d Over a lifetime, loss happens periodically. Yet, when we start to really pay attention, we are surprised by our continuing life in the midst of that loss. Over time, if we approach loss with heart and attention, we stop identifying with the naturally shifting world around us. This doesn\u2019t mean we stop loving the people in our lives, nor do we need to stop valuing important objects and experiences in our lives \u2014 it just means that when they recede from our lives at the proper time, it is no longer a life and death crisis for the ego.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the only sorrow that is real is the burning desire for return to unity with the Divine. This is what Abu-Said is talking about when he opens this poem with the line, \u201cSorrow looted my heart.\u201d That fundamental ache for union takes over the sincere seeker\u2019s heart, emptying it of all else.<\/p>\n

The irony is that when we finally stop identifying with the endless parade of external experiences \u2014 the many external gains and losses \u2014 we discover that we have never been in any way separated from the essential unity. By clinging to external gain and struggling to prevent external loss, we train our awareness to fixate on the outward shifting phenomena of life\u2026 and lose sight of the stable unity that we inherently are amidst that kaleidoscopic show.<\/p>\n

Through courageous openness, through utter surrender to the natural process of change and occasional loss, we slowly (at times, painfully) lose our false identification with what was not truly our self. Through fearless \u201csorrow,\u201d possessiveness is slowly lost or, as the poet says, the heart is \u201clooted.\u201d We become completely free from false identification and attachments that no longer serve the spirit.<\/p>\n

It is at that moment of freedom that the point of identity settles properly within our true nature, finally witnessing our being everywhere, without limit, without true loss. We are flooded with an indescribable joy and love and sense of wholeness. It is as if the heart has been expanded incomprehensibly by that love and thrown \u201cto the [formless, everywhere present] winds.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is one of the very difficult lessons for us all, the willingness to embrace sorrow, fearlessly, with unedited awareness, with profound self-kindness. This slowly frees us from misidentification with external experiences that come and go. It loosens our grip on the limited ideas of who and what we really are. Slowly, the awareness returns to rest at the center \u2014 and from there expands beyond our imaginings. <\/p>\n

It is the broken heart that opens.<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Abu-Said Abil-Kheir<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Longing in Between: Sacred Poetry from Around the World (A Poetry Chaikhana Anthology)<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nNobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nLove\u2019s Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThe Mystics of Islam<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n<\/td>\n\nAbu-Said Abil-Kheir<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Turkmenistan (967 \u2013 1049) Timeline<\/a>
\nMuslim \/ Sufi<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Sheikh Abu-Said Abil-Kheir was one of the earlier Sufi poets. He lived more than two centuries before Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, yet, like Rumi, much of his mysticism follows a similar path of annihilation in divine Love.<\/p>\n

Abu-Said\u2019s poetry ranges from the ecstatic and celestial, to struggles with abandonment. His poetry has an immediacy and even a sort of devoutly wry petulance that can draw comparisons with the great Bengali poet, Ramprasad.<\/p>\n

Abu Said referred to himself as \u201cNobody, Son of Nobody,\u201d to convey the mystic\u2019s sense of having completely merged or disappeared into the Divine, leaving no trace of the ego behind.<\/p>\n

He lived in Mayhana in what is modern day Turkmenistan, just north of Iran and Afghanistan in Central Asia.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorrow looted this heart by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir English version by Vraje Abramian Sorrow looted this heart, and Your Love threw it to the winds. This is how the secret which saints and seers were denied was whispered to me. \u2014 from Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir, Translated by Vraje Abramian \/ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[109,967,148,19],"class_list":["post-5753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-abu-said-abil-kheir","tag-sorrow","tag-suffering","tag-sufi-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5753"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5760,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5753\/revisions\/5760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}