They called him "Lisan al-Ghayb" — the Tongue of the Hidden, the one who speaks what cannot be spoken. Hafiz of Shiraz is the most beloved poet in the Persian language. In Iran, his collected works are found in every home, consulted like an oracle for guidance in matters of the heart.
His poetry speaks of wine and taverns, of roses and nightingales, of the beloved's face. The orthodox condemned him as a hedonist. But the Sufis knew: the wine is divine love, the tavern is the heart, the beloved is God. Every image has two meanings — one for the surface, one for the depths.
"I have learned so much from God
That I can no longer call myself
A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel, or even pure soul."
Hafiz's teaching is one of divine madness — the intoxication of the soul that has tasted divine love. "Reason is excellent," he wrote, "but it can only take you to the door. To enter, you must become drunk." This drunkenness is not stupor but awakening, not confusion but clarity of another kind.
He mocked the religious hypocrites: "The pious and the scholars talk of God incessantly. But I wonder — have they ever been in love?" For Hafiz, love is the only true path. Knowledge, piety, morality — all are secondary to the simple fact of falling in love with the divine.
"Everyone is so afraid of death,
But the real Sufis just laugh:
Nothing tyrannizes their hearts.
What happens when your soul
Becomes a candle with no one on this earth
To give it a bit of flame?
You feel left out,
But you are not alone —
The Friend is nearer than your jugular vein."
Hafiz lived in fourteenth-century Shiraz, survived invasions and political upheavals, and never stopped singing. He died around 1390, his tomb now a place of pilgrimage where lovers of all religions come to recite his verses and ask his blessing.
His final teaching: "Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that — it lights the whole sky."
Teaching 39
Love is the only true path. Knowledge and piety can take you to the door; only love can enter. The wine the mystic drinks is divine intoxication — not stupor but awakening. Fall in love with the Beloved, and you will light the whole sky.