Realisation — The Illusion Of Absence Poem by Mystic Qalandar

My master whispered,
"Go — seek the Secret of Love's Essence."
So I ventured forth,
as if Ishq were a distant star to chase.

I fasted from the clamor of nafs,
enthroned myself in the silence of fana,
and watched the mind's labyrinthine threads
unravel into the void of la ilaha.

Days melted into the Ocean of Pre-Existence.
Then — without mi‘raj's thunder,
without anqa's visionary flight —
the Veil tore asunder:

Love had never stirred from Its Throne.
No approach, no retreat — no withholding at all.
It is the Ground of all beholding,
the subtle pulse within each breath's ruh,
the primal Noor illuminating
even my shadows of shirk.

I had named It absent,
wandering through the echoing corridors
of my fragmented self,
chasing phantoms behind seven veils of illusion.

Yet in every flicker of awakening —
however faint the soul's recognition —
Love abides, unbound by time's mirage.
Not forgiving the dreamer's lapse,
not arriving as guest to host —
simply the Eternal Is,
the Wahid Unveiled.

Since then, "higher worlds" dissolve like mist.
No celestial realms hover beyond this sky —
only This:
the unveiled Hayula of Being.

This earth — when the sleep of duality lifts.
This instant — undivided by the mind's false partitions.
The supernal realm
is the world without hijab.

Awakening?
Merely ceasing the soul's prodigal flight —
returning to what was never left.

— March 4,2025