Note that they don’t say “union with god". When a saint dies, as Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti did in Ajmer, he has achieved wisaal, or the ultimate union with the beloved. The word Urs comes from the Arabic word uroos and it means wedding. The logic is that death reconnected the saint’s soul with its primal root, with god. This is why the annual Urs, officially the death anniversary of a Sufi saint, is celebrated joyfully as a wedding anniversary. All human action-the whirling, the singing, the poetry-is an expression for the devotee’s longing to return to this root, to restore the connection. Sufism believes that we are all cut off from this primal connection to god. Like the bhakti cult, the philosophy behind Sufism is the idea of tawhid, a complex Persian word that symbolizes the primal root, the foundation from which we all spring from. Although I didn’t know it then, there was a connection between the whirling dance I watched and the poetry of Rumi that I loved. They were in a trance and put us in one too. A line of men, clad in white robes, circling for a long time-time that extended out like their hands. It was among the most moving things I have ever seen. I once watched the whirling dervishes in Konya, Turkey. And then they whirl-round and round-for several minutes or more. One hand reaches for the heavens, another reaches for the earth in a diagonal.
A Japanese sensei told me that whirling was a way to centre yourself and sync your soul with the universe. They are also called whirling dervishes, and they are unforgettable. The qawwali is one manifestation, the Mevlevi order is another. Religious music-whether gospel or bhajan-springs from the same place and has the same goal: to connect with the divine. The acts of praying, singing and dancing help devotees connect with a higher power. Music, dance and rituals are tools that most religions use to disseminate ideas. They affiliate themselves with this idea and give it a name. One man’s interpretation of the answers that sprung from his subconscious resonates with countless people. Over time, they get codified and formalized as a faith. He meditates, and gets visions that answer fundamental questions. One man goes into a cave or sits under a tree. Religion was-is-the human search for answers, a quest for truth, a way of explaining the happenings of the world, much like scientists do today-except now science is looking for alien life and cloning genomes and religion has climbed down from its pioneering expedition into the soul and become the “opium of the people", to quote Karl Marx. Why did the lion kill my son-of all people-when he was such a great warrior? Why now, when he was making off with that eligible Homo sapiens beauty in the neighbouring hunter-gatherer group? Questions that have no answer. Why? Who can explain the timing of it? Why now? Why to this particular child? Religion, I am guessing, was the answer that early humans came up with when they got hit by the proverbial truck or the Paleolithic version thereof. A child gets hit in a road accident and dies. When early humans confronted events that shocked, awed and confused them, they had to explain it somehow. He-or she-who has created this web of life that we all inhabit. I’m hoping that doesn’t happen to today’s godmen and godwomen.Īll religions were an effort by early humans to wrap their head around this nebulous idea of the cosmic controller. Most are men who began as prophets and teachers before being converted into and worshipped as gods. When you think about it, god is such an abstract concept, which is probably why humans resort to labels and names: Mohammad, Jesus, Mary, Kali, Hanuman, Durga, Buddha or Zarathustra.
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