Bullhe Shah: What Has Happened to Me?

Here is another mystical lyric by the Punjabi Sufi and poet Bullhe Shah.  ‘Mansur’ refers to the early Persian Sufi Mansur al-Hallaj, who said, in a moment of ecstasy, “I am the Truth!”  As ‘Truth’ is one of the Divine Names, the religious authorities condemned him for claiming to be God, and after a long trial executed him in 922 CE.  Here, though, Bullhe Shah says that Mansur’s utterance was not at all self-assertion, but the statement of the lover so completely absorbed in the beloved that the self has disappeared. For more about Bullhe Shah, see this post.

What has happened to me? The “I” in me is lost and gone.
What has happened to me? Why do they call me crazy?
When I look into myself there is no “I.” Only you can be seen in me.
From head to foot, there is only you.  You are inside and outside.
I am free from the far bank and the near bank. There is no boat, there is no river.
Dear Mansur said I am God. But who was the one who made him say it?
Bullhe, the lord is the lover of those who have destroyed their selves.

Tr. Christopher Shackle

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