[mukto-mona] From: Rabia Basri "...If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell...

 

Rabia Basri, a Sufi mystic lived in the eighth century (717-801)

 

IN MY SOUL

In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church
where I kneel.

Prayer should bring us to an altar where no walls or names exist.

Is there not a region of love where the sovereignty is
illumined nothing,

where ecstasy gets poured into itself
and becomes
lost,

where the wing is fully alive
but has no mind or
body?

In
my soul
there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque,
a church

that dissolve, that
dissolve in

God.

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One day, she was seen running through the streets of Basra carrying a torch in one hand and a bucket of water in the other. When asked what she was doing, she said,"I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God."

 

 

For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e. hindrances to the vision of God Himself.

She prayed: 

 "O Allah! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell,

and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.

But if I worship You for Your Own sake,

grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty."

------------------------------------------

DIE BEFORE YOU DIE

 

Ironic, but one of the most intimate acts
of our body is
death.

 

So beautiful appeared my death – knowing who then I would kiss,
I died a thousand times before I died.

 

"Die before you die," said the Prophet

Muhammad.

 

Have wings that feared ever
touched the Sun?

 

I was born when all I once
feared – I could
love.

 

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