“The meaning of life for a mystic, is solely a journey from love to love. The condition of the soul before the journey is a condition of love; what is expected during the journey is love; and when the soul returns after the journey, it returns to love.”
– Hidayat Inayat Khan
The above statement is rather befitting to introduce the very reason ‘Suroor of the Soul’ – a metaphysical anthology was penned. It is of abundance, diversity and contrasts, manifesting a richness of voices and internal enthusiasm to commence dialogue and delve deep within the esoteric realm of self-realisation through mysticism in order to unveil and unite with the ultimate happiness – ‘Truth. The illustrious anthology is meant to ignite a divine spark – resonating through our corporeal and celestial messages of Love, Harmony, Beauty and Truth – intricately woven with ever-growing spheres of tolerance and unity embracing Spiritual Liberty in a world where chaos and destruction continues to reign and often times fostering loathsome attitudes by mass society, hence, this book was written with a focus to gently alleviate pain and suffering in humanity by invoking a deep sense of spiritual awakening and participating in expanding a space for sharing our thoughts – encouraging the influence of love and by reflecting a diverse inner and outer dimension – to emphasize the necessity to expand, grow and evolve, thus, concentrating of consciousness of self – beyond all human definitions.
‘Suroor of the Soul’ (Intoxicated soul) is a book serving a multi-dimensional realm where humanness in being a human is a regal and recurring theme – and finally reaching to the Divine presence. It is in this very context that the mystic’s role is to raise human love to the height of Divinity, hence, eliminating all boundaries to fathom that there is no difference between human love and Divine love, but, of course, the angle from which one is confronted is thereby the process at arriving at the ultimate happiness in both the outer and inner realms.
In humanity, we indirectly play a dual role; as spectators and participants in creating chaotic imbalance and harmony – a paradox, indeed. Absorbed in a world of variety and blinded by factuality, humanity often fails to grasp the inexpressible causes of intolerance, cruelty, fanaticism, ignorance and arrogance – in all this we are both the sufferer and the suffering; when we are cognizant of this paradoxical reality, then, it becomes a social, moral and spiritual duty to focus on cultivating love and harmony which can only result in a tendency toward spiritual awakening. ‘Suroor of the Soul’ is a seed and in the seed there is root, the stem, the branches, the leaves, the flower – the scent which tells the story of ‘I’ and ‘You’ – of our humanity in all its’ conditions, of our individual quest to reach the soul’s utter bliss and fragrance.
We hope you would support and encourage this book by whatever ways you find fit ! :p
A delight to share – the book is now available at: Amazon ! On Baker & Taylor and Barnes & Noble by end of the week!
In the early part of year two-thousand-thirteen, Ms. Soumya Vilekar and I discovered each other through our respective writings. At that time (as some of you, dear readers, may remember me!), I was an author at Word Press under the ownership of ‘ Blood Ink Diary’ – a narrative of my inner and outer climate of mind that mingled culturally, politically, socially, artistically and spiritually reflecting diversity and contrasts of various genres in expression — my blog was polar opposite (in theme) from Soumya’s spiritual quest- yet, there resonated and embodied an attraction for the others’ writings. Hence, a journey commenced between the two creative minds, a dialogue marked its’ significance imparting her own unique ‘ Suroor of the Soul ‘ (Intoxication of the Soul)- a poetry book prepared to share the spiritual faculty and the isolated jubilees of the inner realm. The title of the book was an interesting incident, for, after frequenting each other’s spheres, I had left a comment of appreciation at Soumya’s space and gifted her a humble oil painting that I had titled ‘ Suroor ‘, thus, was the inspiration that ignited Soumya to pen the magnificent volume. During the same time, I had deleted my blog for other creative pursuits, thus we had lost contact for short time, when, suddenly I received an email from Soumya requesting if I would fancy to include few of my mysticalpoems and to pen the foreword for ‘Suroor of the Soul ‘; needless to say, I accepted her request – thus, the duality of our personalities play a symphony of its’ own tune through the lyrics of our individual soul that can be explored in the pages.
You may be intrigued and probe as to why the execution for such a subject – ‘ the soul’;
simply, because the human minds are so varied, intellectual standpoints thus wide apart and emotional temperaments rather different, or shall I say, unique – that on these grounds alone we tend to isolate our Human and the Being that completes us as one. In a world marked with extreme desire for material consumption, the materialist forms a destructive alliance with the egoist and the shallow-minded, both attributes silently perforating inside him and when brought face to face with these two ways of viewing himself and his external environs, man finds them opposite and incompatible, markedly conflicting and hopelessly irreconcilable – thus it is quite possible for man to synthesize such an alliance developing a divided self – the soul often remains a mystical attraction if man does not cultivate the immense motivation to ‘seek’ the metaphysical reflection and mystical revelation of Reality of God.
Henceforth, what is the ‘insight’? If reality exists anywhere it must exist in an irreducible infinitude, though, such an assertion places beyond ordinary finite perceptions; only a transcendental insight is therefore beneficial to bring man into an intimate relation with his soul — whosoever truthfully and without superficial attempt at seeking shall witness the metamorphosis in its’ due time, when the ‘ego’ surrenders and humility perfumes the soul, a catharsis translates the silent movement within a human-being, opening a solid frequency embracing faculty of immediate insight. Ah, but of course, in one sense insight is a synthetic faculty, for, it mingles and blends with abstract reason what the intellect shan’t fully grasp though recognizes the full mystical emotions that are contained, combined and yet transcended in the philosophical insight.
‘Suroor of the Soul’ is such a book, that, smoothly transports and carves a path to Illumination – a veritable emotion turning around at the base of the whole consciousness. Our purpose is to ignite an immediate oneness with the Ultimate by a flash of desire to enlightenment which effectively removes the debris of doubts and ignorance for ever. Our combined vision is such that a reader would traverse within our souls’ parameters and glimpse for a tremendous and scintillating revelation to the man that it shall leave an ineradicable impression on his minds’ – soul and commences to probe the dazzling question of both his corporeal and celestial realms. Nay, it would be rather absurd to read the book and attain a deep frequency, for, mostly the aspirant toils for long wearisome months and perhaps years amid disheartening and monotony, howsoever, the book is a fragrance of connecting to bliss and the ultimate happiness — to surrender and annihilate the ‘ego’ which stops the cultivation to submission to discovering the layers of our soul. Just as in philosophy – thoughts are solid and more reasonable because it is more balanced, such a similar discipline demands man to action if he is to practice an equilibrium of mind-body-heart-soul. Everything that hinders the Divine will’s passage through his heart and life must eventually be cast out – he would need to affiliate his lower (human) will with his higher (being) one; the two must be synchronized to work in unison.
‘ Suroor of the Soul’ is a jubilee in utter ecstasy. It is devoid of any religious rituals and customs, for, its aspiration is simply to touch a human soul. The dogma and doctrine expressed as form of poetry is that of esotericism, which is considered to be something beyond the veil that illuminates bliss that one encounters through sublime horizon that leads one to greater courage and inner happiness – which cultivates a desire for seeking the enigma; the interpenetration of Human and its Being. Nay, I shan’t write more, nor, can I compel you to read further into this book — though I sincerely invite you to explore the poetry. I shan’t command it, for it commands us. The better offering, therefore, is to become inspired, that is, to the Divine self within us — through our humble offerings to humanity.
***Note: I have used the male gender as referring to ‘man’/him – but of course, it is not to provoke any gender inequality as we are constantly made aware of terms. I have simply just written from the corridors of my heart hoping to cascade into your soul. Also, I shan’t take credit for the compilation and execution of the book, for, it righteously lands with proper credit to Soumya Vilekar for conceptualising and all the endeavours associated for publishing ‘Suroor of the Soul’. Similarly, it was a pleasure to have worked and known Soumya, as she is a dear and kindred soul. Am most humbled by being associated with her book ! Lastly, this article is not a formal essay about and/or the soul — I have merely touched a few areas the poetry resonates in-kind. ***
soumyav 