Few days back, I have written about an emotion which has no conflicting emotion. Since this emotion is the last step of all human emotions, it is impossible to turn back. Just like it is impossible to find a droplet after being merged into an ocean. There is no coming back for a river to its origin. Although no-one can completely describe this emotion, there is word in Arabic which refers to it “Ishq/Eshq” Going by its definition, “the common belief is that when love takes its root in the heart of a lover, everything other than God is effaced” We commonly use this word for “love” but love does have an opposite word “hate”. So it is beyond the boundaries of love and hate – A Divine emotion.
Sufi and Mystic believers talk about two kind of “divine love”: Ishq-e- Majazi and Ishq-e-Haqiqi
In Ishq-e-Majazi, lovers have normal earthly feelings of joy, pain, agony, and ecstasy. In Ishq-Haqiqi the lover is human, and the beloved is God. And as true lovers, they don’t ask for worldly comforts; they do not yearn for heaven nor are they afraid of hell. They seek only the enchanting sight of the Lord (beloved). A Sufi saint Rabia-Al-Basri has written,
“If I love thee for fear of hell, Put me in the fires of hell.
If I love thee for the sake of heaven, Deprive me of bliss for all time.
My love for thee is thine alone; I yearn for thy communion.
Withhold not thy everlasting beauty from me.”
Sufis believe that God is there in every human being, but he is hidden from our eyes by Ego. Therefore, it is necessary to kill self/ego before becoming one with the Supreme. The path chosen by Sufis for this purpose is Ishq-Majazi to Ishq Haqiqi. As Rumi has written,
In truth, your soul and mine are one. We are both exposed and hidden; that’s the game of the faith. I still say you and me because of immaturity. There is no you nor me; they are words that belong to this world only.
Ishq-e-haqiqi is the last visible sky, and no one can explain what is beyond that sky.
If Ego is a veil between you and me. Let this veil falls, let it be either you or me. – J.Gill