WHAT IS LOVE?

WHAT IS LOVE ?
Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, the Sufi Mystic, in a trance of Divine intoxication, wandered into the central market place of the city surrounded by his followers and shouted the words that were deepest in his heart ana’l-haqq - I am the law, I am God! “I am Reality” or as the Vedas and Upanishads say “Aham Brhamasmi” (I am the Braham). The Sufis says Mansur spoke those words in the state of Fana Fillah--a state where a Sufi annihilates his ego self and is attuned with God.

His statement was of course considered blasphemous by the then King, though he was preaching to the masses that God could be discovered within one’s own heart. He was immediately prisoned as his utterings were in contravention to the Islamic law of ‘Sharia’

According to the legend, Mansur’s disciples were allowed to speak to him as he lay in his prison cell and asked him for his last words. He told them, "The only thing that is important is love." They asked him, “What is Love”. He answered: “You will see it today and tomorrow and the dayafter tomorrow.” And that day his hands and feet were cut off, and the next day they put him on the gallows and burnt, and the third day they gave his ashes to the wind.
In Love all is meant to be lost---this is the message of Mansur.Love in mystic terminology means annihilation of the self or merging of self with the real SELF—the essence of the Beloved. Jesus went the same way, the fifth master of the Sikhs Guru Arjan Dev and the four sons of Guru Gobind Singh, Bhagat Pralhad are just a few names in mystic history that one can recall as an paradigm of “what is Love”. There could be many more models of such love. Perhaps history lacks record or cannot appreciate the ecstasy of Divine Love.