{"id":8439,"date":"2024-06-30T18:46:16","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T01:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=8439"},"modified":"2024-06-30T18:46:16","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T01:46:16","slug":"al-shushtari-the-nights-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/30\/al-shushtari-the-nights-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"al-Shushtari – The night’s journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

The night\u2019s journey
\nby Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtari<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

English version by Stephen Hirtenstein<\/font><\/p>\n

You who look in the mirror.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you see whom you see there?
\nIs the looker someone other than you,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or a reflection of your fantasy?
\nTurn your glance toward the glance itself,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for it holds wisdom concealed from the others.
\nWhen day breaks, may people
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 praise the night\u2019s journey.<\/em><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Rishab Dharmani<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

I am just beginning to discover and explore the poetry of al-Shushtari. He is a fascinating poet and mystic who, like ibn Arabi, was from Andalusia, that is, Spain when it was under Muslim rule. He was a Sufi who taught a radically unified vision of reality in which only God exists. Everything one might perceive, every person, every place, even finally oneself, is really just a passing phenomenon within the single reality that is God. We might say his poetry and teachings were a sort of non-dualism that can be compared in some ways to other non-dualist traditions, such as Advaita in India.<\/p>\n

In fact, these lines sound like statements that could have been made by the famous 20th century Hindu Advaita teacher, Ramana Maharshi.<\/p>\n

You who look in the mirror.
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you see whom you see there?
\nIs the looker someone other than you,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or a reflection of your fantasy?<\/i><\/p>\n

I think the real power of this short selection is in the lines:<\/p>\n

Turn your glance toward the glance itself,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for it holds wisdom concealed from the others.<\/i><\/p>\n

At first it sounds like a riddle that can\u2019t be solved, almost a Zen koan (another non-dualist tradition). How can you \u201cturn your glance toward the glance itself\u201d?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s back up for a moment and contemplate the image al-Shushtari has given us. We are looking in a mirror gazing at the face \u2014 our own face \u2014 reflected back at us. But is it our face? Reach out to touch your face and your fingers hit hard glass. It is a reflection, after all, a play of light on a reflective surface. It is not actually our face, but an image that represents our face. So is it really our face or a \u201cfantasy,\u201d a semblance? When we finally see through the illusion and recognize that the reflection is not actually our face we have to then accept that we have never<\/i> seen our own face, and we never will.<\/p>\n

The more deeply we work with this fundamental psychic dilemma, our certainty about who or what we are begins to slip. We cannot see ourselves, but\u2013 we can see ourselves seeing. We think of ourselves as this eye perceiving the world, this face fronting the world, this body interacting with the world. What if, instead, we are life moving through this body? What if we are this magical act of seeing happening through the eye? When we stop looking at the face in the mirror, saying, \u201cThat is me,\u201d and begin to notice the one looking through us our identity radically shifts and we come to know ourselves for the first time. We open to reality in was previously unimaginable and see everything as a living, glowing, blissful interconnectedness. And only That is real. The pretense drops and everything \u201celse\u201d is seen as a play of appearance within that light \u2014 like a face reflected in the mirror.<\/p>\n

When day breaks, may people
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 praise the night\u2019s journey.<\/i><\/p>\n

Have a beautiful day!<\/p>\n

==<\/p>\n

There is not a lot of information available in English about al-Shushtari right now. You can probably find the book Songs of Love and Devotion, by Lourdes Maria Alvarez. There is also a very good video about al-Shushtari on Filip Holm\u2019s YouTube channel Let\u2019s Talk Religion: https:\/\/youtu.be\/Te-ohX1qfHs?si=QNClire3DaPJlZ_a<\/a>. I highly recommend his channel for a broad exploration of religious and mystical thought from various cultures.<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Abu al-Hasan al- Shushtari<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

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

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Abu al\u2019Hasan al-Shushtari: Songs of Love and Devotion<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n
\n\"Abu<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nAbu al-Hasan al- Shushtari<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Spain (1212 \u2013 1269) Timeline<\/a>
\nMuslim \/ Sufi<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

More poetry by Abu al-Hasan al- Shushtari<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The night\u2019s journey by Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtari English version by Stephen Hirtenstein You who look in the mirror. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you see whom you see there? Is the looker someone other than you, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 or a reflection of your fantasy? Turn your glance toward the glance itself, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 for it holds wisdom concealed from the […]<\/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":[2560,368,2375,2520,938,2561,19],"class_list":["post-8439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-al-shushtari","tag-mirror","tag-muslim-poetr","tag-non-dualism","tag-reflection","tag-shushtari","tag-sufi-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439","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=8439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8440,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8439\/revisions\/8440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}