Hymn of the Sea

Hymn of the Sea

In the Name of AllaaHu, the Presence of Love, the Endless Horizon of Love

Hymn of the Sea


Once, at dawn, I stood on a hill facing a great Sea where the liquid presence of love couldn't hide its own luster. There, whilst bending my longing towards the Sea and glancing at the sky for the first light of the day, a gift from life unto itself, I heard the Sea surreptitiously murmuring its secrets unto the hidden Sea within me in a language which only those who know the music of the vibrating strings of solitude can understand:

"I am the Silent Presence of Beauty and Majesty. I give you a song and a riddle. But your soul's intrinsic passion shall carry the riddle away. What is there between the earth, where the formless finds form, and the sky, where form becomes mist, that does not seek the song of life in me?

"I invite your doubt with my open presence and annihilate it simply by embracing your heart as if it were a shore for my waves. Shall you deem me unreal in your numbness then you too must be a passing shadow, like unto my own waves. Yet I am that which houses your love, your imaginings, your winged desires, in silence. None houses the music and elixir of love of the Beloved save my content heart. And your heart, in truth, is but a greater Sea.

"The wanderer that you are, the ever distant and alone, yet so very close to me... Oh do not be afraid, my dear, for this wilderness called love is our home. We are safe here though the doors of wild imaginations are not closed. This indeed is our larger body. One body do we share. Let it grow in the sun of our wildest days and sleep in the greatest stillness of our bottomless nights. In this body alone, my dear, let the Beloved span the summits of our love. Who shall then say that such love is dreamless when every dream is an expression of the Truth and is living?

"The Omnipresent Beauty of the Beloved alone is our home, even love's own home. Let the winds blow with the fragrance of the entire universe for us to breathe.

"Have I spoiled you with that which is spoken by the wind and the sun? I have only spoken the love that burns in its being homesick. How else shall I share my longing for the Treasure that lies in the depths of things? You may learn that everything is to be realized and hence found in the sweet stillness of silence. I am that living proof.

"Listen now, O slumbering souls of the world! Have you the beauty that leads your hearts from their self-fashioned things of stone, wood and lust unto the rainbow above the holy mountain called Beauty? Whose comfort is greater? Lust's comfort or mine? Which love is greater, the love made of lust that harnesses the soul with its stealthy trappings or the naked love that surrenders itself unto the serenity beyond the world's rest and motion?

"O life's young fruit, O life's tender branch, O life's innocent brook, I am happy that there is an awakening to, and recognition of, the Beloved in your heart. Forget not, my dear, that even the tiniest seed might become a forest. From this very now, always take care of the love that is in the ancient song, the eternal child in your being. Forget not that even as the morning sun is reflected in every dewdrop, and even as the mist is sustained and moved by the silence of the day, the Beloved is one with you in your rest and motion. Never fear darkness, for darkness is but dawn not yet born, a veil not yet lifted.

"Rise now in love of Allaahu, the Only Reality, the Presence of Love. Know that I exist only because Hu looks upon me, from within Hu's Great Silence, which is a Silence behind and beyond my silence that enfolds it with unspeakable tenderness and infinite longing. Always remember, my dear, that the Silence I speak of is not without a tide and song. It is not a barren sea. The Presence of Hu is an Ocean of Wine. Praise Hu for the gift of thirst!

"Allaahu, Allaahu, Allaahu Haqq... Hu alone is... Hu alone is...

"In Hu alone, One and Boundless, do we abide. After a long, silent night, when you wake up in the state of full awareness of Hu's Singular Presence, open your door and greet the morning mist. You shall see that the sky is made of eternal songs, Our songs. And the breath of life, your breath, is in the sunlight and in the winds. Arise then as a little child who longs to play with the winds, and with whom the winds long to play. Nothing but the beauty of the sunlight encloses them as one inseparable moving reality in love's own reality. Hu delights in feeling your bare beauty as Hu's own, for it is Hu's own. This is the way the welcome rendezvous for lovers is celebrated.

"O love, spill your feelings over. Reality is listening and seeing!

"Lovers are they who see the Beloved's mark upon the path of solitude. With infinite strength, they bend their hearts' desire towards Hu alone... towards Hu alone.

"I look inside myself and see that I'm in love with life. And I am in love with love."

Salaam e Ishq,

{Dani}