"What’s Love Got To Do With It?"

“Gujjey teer chala ke naina dey

Sanu lazat bakshe zakhman de

Rabba teer andaaz di khair howey 

Sade zakhm sajae rakhda ae

Odhey qatil nain nasheele nain 
Odhey abru shokh sajeeley nain 

Sanu luteya us sharmeele nain 

Jerha nazr jhukai rakhda ae

Ae athra ishq nai saun denda

Saari raat jagai rakhda se”

Hi everyone,

I truly believe that the declaration of love is as important as love itself and how you declare it, in its total divinity, is no less important than love itself! Love begets love and has as many faces as we fancy to give it.  Each face is compassionate, comforting yet capable of turning brutal, abusive and capitalizing!

Of course I am referring to romantic love that if we are lucky enough, we all experience at least once in our lifetimes. If you happen to have proficiency in dynamism and a god given expression of affection you have got it made in the shade. It can simultaneously be rewarding, challenging, accepting, rejecting, inconceivably joyful and excruciatingly painful. It’s the least infallible and most capricious one though as one can fall in and out of it at any given moment!

Then there’s one’s love for one’s child and that for sure is blind, pretty tough and the mother of all loves (no pun intended). It’s the most needy one by far. It’s hard to say who needs whom more but contrary to popular belief I say need falls more heavily on the child. Whether we admit it or not it’s definitely the most demanding of alliances and can easily be heartbreaking and testing on both ends! 

My favorite love is love for humanity as it’s totally genderless, totally unbiased, totall selfless   and totally universal and speaks only one language: the language of compassion, the language of empathy and the language of kindness. In a very conspicuous way it teaches you how to be fair to yourself while outwardly you are standing up for others. Love for humanity doesn’t  come easily but if you somehow acquire the taste for it and be indulgent about it, you are hooked forever! 

Love for one’s creator should be the most private and is undoubtedly the purest and most superior form of love. Sufis for centuries have prophesied it’s value and claimed it but one doesn’t need to distill the essence of Sufism to fully discern and clutch it. Your love for the Almighty gives you a much needed sense of belonging, it holds its arms wide open and takes you in like a mother, you seek it and it seeks you back. In actuality, ‘Ishq-e-haqeeqi’ is the ultimate form of love that’s compelling enough to keep you in hope and belief, authoritative enough to keep you grounded, solicitous enough to take you by the hand and walk you away from pain, intimidating enough to keep you on the right path!

Much love,

Shehla