Your Spirit is Mingled with Mine - Hallaj

Art by Rassouli

"Your spirit is mingled with mine
as wine is mixed with water;
whatever touches you touches me.
In all the stations of the soul you are I."

Hallaj

The great Sufi mystic poet, Hallaj, was persecuted and 
eventually put to death by orthodox religious authorities
for poems like this, in which he seems to be equating himself
with God.

This is the danger faced by most mystics.  The sacred experience
is one of ecstatic union with the Divine.  Where do "you" cease
to be. and where does the Divine begin?  In mystical union,
these questions are artificial since the Divine is everywhere...

"Wine" here is not wine; it is the drink of Divine union.  It is the
"water" of the soul, awakened and flavored with the fermenting of
life.  This is the celestial drink of initiates: the amrita of the yogis,
the ambrosia of the Greeks, even the tea of our own poetry tea house...

When wine is poured into water, water takes on the nature of wine,
until no difference can be perceived. This is how he comes to the
final realization:

In all stations of the soul you are I.

When the divine wine pours into the clear water of the soul,
everything is turned to wine.  God and self become indistinguishable.
Rather, self is lost and only God remains.

Ivan Granger

Poetry Chaikhana

~

Art by Rassouli