So much beauty! In this joyous book Hafiz appears to us as a beacon of pure light in contemporary garb. These deeply tender, witty, clear-eyed and fullest-hearted renditions have brightened my life. Hafiz cant help but true the course on our journey towards living Love. Because for him, in fact, nothing else exists. For Hafiz, only Love is Real.Hafiz has influenced and nourished a great many through the years. In the West, inspired notables include Goethe, Nietzsche, Byron, Hugo and Emerson. Emerson wrote of Hafiz in his journals, "He fears nothing. He sees too far; he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to see and be." And Goethe exclaimed, "This is madness, I know well, Hafiz has no peer!"
_I Heard God Laughing_ is a perfect gem of a book. Go ahead. Take Hafiz home with you. Why--he may even lead the way, dancing and singing all the while.
Somebody announces, "I heard God laughing," and you crane your neck around. Its as irresistible as if he were to hoist a line of shot-glasses on his nose. Whats to lose? At worst youll get to watch a guy spill a drink on himself. So its with a bit of cheek that Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz first snags a moment of your time. With each line that follows the barroom boast of the title, I Heard God Laughing continues as a charming, quietly relentless seduction. The 14th century Persian poet, as rendered by Daniel Ladinsky, tolerates neither time, culture nor any other abstraction between himself and the reader. Its this same intimacy that has established Hafiz as the best-loved poet in his native Iran. A quick glance at the production values of this very modern treatment reveals that he enters as a celebrity in the West as well. Ladinskys renderings are set on single-sided pages and framed with extensive literary and cultural guideposts throughout an elegant soft-cover package. But this polish is very much beside the point. In the meat of the book, I Heard God Laughing is no historical exploration. As wrought here, Hafiz is intently direct, even conversational. Whether the interchange takes place in a palace or a pub fades from ones awareness. As in any heart-to-heart, the authority of the words shared has nothing to do with formality or flourishes. The most influential personage in any life is a friend. Hafiz aims for no lesser status than this with his readers. Considered afterwards, its an astonishingly high bar. But in the midst of being drawn in, one is only aware of a thoroughly understanding ear. That reading this poetry can leave one feeling deeply listened to is an indication of its undercurrent genius. "You dont have to act crazy anymore -
We all know you were good at that.
Now retire, my dear,
From all that hard work you do
Of bringing pain to your sweet eyes and heart..."
Its been said of Freud that he was a man who awoke before the dawn while the rest of the world was still lost, sleeping in darkness. In time, his powerful grasp of the lower roots of motivation roused humanity to admit denied forces at work in their behavior. Hafiz has the same ability to unveil, but his revelation is of our extreme intimacy with the summit of our being.
"Look in a clear mountain mirror -
See the Beautiful Ancient Warrior
And the Divine elements
You always carry inside
That infused this Universe with sacred Life
So long ago"
Only friendship could win the trust Hafiz needs to take us to this altitude. Time and again, the poet whisks us there before we realize the journey weve made.
"If someone sits with me
And we talk about the Beloved,
If I cannot give his heart comfort,
If I cannot make him feel better
About himself and this world,
Then, Hafiz,
Quickly run to the mosque and pray -
For you have just committed
The only sin I know."
The plain speech belies an astonishing wealth of insight into the human condition. One has to revisit the poems repeatedly to begin to uncover how Hafiz has managed to work his way so far in. Once there, he exploits his position in order to weave the personal with the metaphysical so intricately that we may never quite get them separated again.
"What is laughter? What is laughter?
It is God waking up! O it is God waking up!
It is the sun poking its sweet head out
From behind a cloud
You have been carrying too long,
Veiling your eyes and heart
It is Light breaking ground for a great Structure
That is your Real body - called Truth...
Laughter is the polestar
Held in the sky by our Beloved,
Who eternally says,
Yes, dear ones, come this way,
Toward Me and Love!"
In the end, the sound of Gods laughter - whether it booms, wheezes, or is more of a chuckle - remains undisclosed. But a curious effect takes hold in the silence. More than once the reader finds some previously inaccessible knot inside mysteriously unraveled. It becomes evident that a prankish compassion is at work on these pages. When contemplating the source of a mischief this insidious, all bets are off - even those made in barrooms
Hafiz trues the course of our journey towards Love