Hakim Sanai - No tongue can tell Your secret

March 5, 2010

FROM IVAN

Here's your Daily Poem from the Poetry Chaikhana --

No tongue can tell Your secret

By Hakim Sanai(1044? - 1150?)

English version by Priya Hemenway

No tongue can tell Your secretfor the measure of the word obscures Your nature.But the gift of the earis that it hearswhat the tongue cannot tell.

-- from The Book of Everything: Journey of the Heart's Desire, by Hakim Sanai Al-Ghaznavi / Translated by Priya Hemenway

Amazon.com / Photo by jordanfischer /

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Thought for the Day:

The awakened heartcorrects all errorsof the mind.

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Hi Alan -This verse has an elegant subtlety, and trimmed with a thin edge of wit. Here Sanai is playing with the mystic's dilemma of words."No tongue can tell Your secret / for the measure of the word obscures Your nature." The direct encounter with the Divine can't truly be put into words. Words are a creation of the limited mind, powerful, certainly, but limited. Words, even when masterfully wielded, can only describe limited aspects of limited reality. Words imply a fracturing of reality into countless objects, an impassible duality of observer and observed, describer and described. How can words properly convey the undivided Wholeness?(There is really no 'encounter' the way I just phrased it, because that implies two separates meeting, when there is really only the profound recognition of unity. Words fail the Wholeness.)Seeing this limitation, some teachers

construct complex frameworks of descriptions. Some hint and suggest and riddle. Some fall silent. What is said and what is left unsaid... a fascinating game. But it is only the encounter (which is not really an encounter) that conveys the truth of all this. The "tongue cannot tell" these things properly. "But the gift of the ear / is that it hears" anyway. That is, when we truly and openly listen, an inner whisper begins to draw the awareness beyond the descriptions, the suggestions, the silences. And suddenly there we stand, outside of all words and concepts that obscure while they define. There we stand, witnessing, participating in the living Wholeness that is the divine nature of undivided Reality.I like the game of words, perhaps too much. But it is time for my tongue to rest and let the ear enjoy its gift...--Sanai is one of the earlier Sufi poets. He was born in the province of Ghazna in southern Afghanistan in the

middle of the 11th century and probably died around 1150.Rumi acknowledged Sanai and Attar as his two primary inspirations, saying, "Attar is the soul and Sanai its two eyes, I came after Sanai and Attar."Sanai was originally a court poet who was engaged in writing praises for the Sultan of Ghazna.The story is told of how the Sultan decided to lead a military attack against neighboring India and Sanai, as a court poet, was summoned to join the expedition to record the Sultan's exploits. As Sanai was making his way to the court, he passed an enclosed garden frequented by a notorious drunk named Lai Khur.As Sanai was passing by, he heard Lai Khur loudly proclaim a toast to the blindness of the Sultan for greedily choosing to attack India, when there was so much beauty in Ghazna. Sanai was shocked and stopped. Lai Khur then proposed a toast to the blindness of the famous young poet Sanai who, with his gifts of insight and

expression, couldn't see the pointlessness of his existence as a poet praising such a foolish Sultan.These words were like an earthquake to Hakim Sanai, because he knew they were true. He abandoned his life as a pampered court poet, even declining marriage to the Sultan's own sister, and began to study with a Sufi master named Yusef Hamdani.Sanai soon went on pilgrimage to Mecca. When he returned, he composed his Hadiqatu'l Haqiqat or The Walled Garden of Truth. There was a double meaning in this title for, in Persian, the word for a walled garden is the same word for paradise, but it was also from within a walled garden that Lai Khur uttered the harsh truths that set Hakim Sanai on the path of wisdom.--Have a wonderful weekend!Ivan

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are 2002 - 2010 by Ivan M. Granger.All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.

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