Can there be any Sufi poetry without Bulleh Shah? Love, song, music, spiritual realisation — all words represent the image of great Sufi saint Bulleh Shah. Born as Syed Abdullah Shah, he is lovingly addressed as Baba Bulleh Shah in the world of Sufi music and philosophy.
Bulleh Shah’s poetry symbolises his spiritual journey, which is the path of separation and union with his master and the Almighty. There is an interesting story of the meeting of the seeker with the guru. Bulleh Shah, who had already attained miraculous powers due to spirituality, saw fruit laden trees. Invoking the name of the God he looked at the fruits and they immediately started falling to the ground. Inayat Shah, a Qadri saint who was a gardener by profession, was working in the garden at that time. When he asked Bulleh Shah why he had made the unripe fruit fall to the ground, Bulleh Shah replied, “How could I do that since I neither climbed the tree nor did I throw any stone at the tree?” Inayat Shah looked at him and remarked, “O, you are not only a thief, but clever too.” Cast a full glance at Bulleh Shah, he said, “Why do you look down? Look at me.”
Nothing else was required. Only one glance and his grace showered. Bulleh Shah asked him the way to realise God. The guru said, “O Bullah, what problem is there in finding God? It only needs to be uprooted from here and planted there”. The only way is to detach the mind from the world outside and to attach it to God within.
Having realised the truth, Bulleh Shah dyed in the colour of love and spirituality, burst out singing, “I have got lost in the city of love, I am being cleansed, withdrawing myself, from my head, hands and feet. I have got rid of my ego, and have attained my goal. Thus it has all ended well. O Bullah, the Lord pervades both the worlds; None now appears a stranger to me”. Bulleh Shah’s poetry as well as his pure life was a journey towards the realisation of this ultimate truth.
But the path of love is not easy. Bulleh Shah had to face separation and pain, reflective in his kafis and kalams. “There is no peace, not for a moment, so intense is the pain of separation,” says Bulleh Shah. A small omission on the part of Bulleh Shah had annoyed his guru, Inayat Shah, and he refused to meet him. Separation from the master was unbearable and Bulleh Shah started roaming in the streets, yearning for his guru. He knew his master was a lover of music. So Bulleh Shah put on the garb of a woman and went to the tomb of a holy man in whose memory an annual function was being celebrated.
Inayat Shah had also come to attend it. While all other dancers and singers got tired and sat down, Bullah, intoxicated with love, continued to dance and he sang many kafis on separation. At last even Inayat Shah could not remain indifferent and asked, “Are you Bullah?” Bullah fell at his feet and replied, “Lord, I am not Bullah but bhulla (forgotten). The master embraced him.
Bulleh Shah writes, “The Master is one with the Lord. So, merging in the Master is transformed into merging in the Lord”. And, “Repeating the name of Ranjha I have become Ranjha myself… Ranjha is in me, I am in Ranjha... You alone exist, I do not, O Beloved!
Kulbir Kaur teaches sociology at Shyama Prasad Mukherji College, Delhi University
