By Susan Sabra
April 1, 2021
My friend asked me: “Ishq?! What is this “Ishq” you keep talking about?! And how do you know you have it?”
I said: “Well this is not going to be a short answer or a concise story to tell. Let’s start with the word itself and what it means.”
Ishq is the master word of all words of love in Arabic. But so far there exists no equivalent word in other languages. Most languages translate it as love, but love has different forms, names, and degrees. It is expressed differently depending on the person, the situation, and the real feeling. We often mistake many feelings to be love. Attachment or codependency, lust, passion, infatuation, friendliness, kindness, and care are what they are, but people often mistakenly label them as love. Ishq, however, is the master kind of love, the divine, pure, and existential love.
Each soul is on a quest for Ishq because it is what each soul knows deep down it is searching for. Each lifetime is a part of the journey of every soul to find Ishq, so that it gets to witness and live it when it reaches the end of that quest – i.e. “home”. It is the source, the destination, and the journey itself. How can I start to describe such a journey?
Like a pathless path, a journey home from a long way away from home. It is the longing to be home but simultaneously enjoying the burning of the flames of longing. It is all about the journey and never the ending, although in this case I would describe the ending as the ultimate state of peace.
Shams Tabrizi, the twin soul of Rumi and his inspiration to write about Ishq, said: “A life without love is a waste. 'Should I look for spiritual love, or material, or physical love?', don't ask yourself this question. Discrimination leads to discrimination. Love doesn't need any name, category, or definition. Love is a world itself. Either you are in, at the center ... either you are out, yearning.”
The word love here should be Ishq but due to the lack of an equivalent English-language word, it is always translated as love.
Ishq is the path to perfection whilst it is perfection itself. To be in Ishq, it is necessary for one to first understand that Ishq is within, in the center of the heart captive of the beast that is fed by the ego. To feel Ishq, we need to do the work of self-healing, shedding the layers of the ego that accumulated from social, cultural, religious, and other “norms”. Taming that beast to set Ishq free is not an easy task. It takes dedication, devotion, determination, and perseverance to advance on the spiritual journey to reach such a high state of consciousness. Ishq is the “kingdom come”, and “heaven” as described in many religions. Once reached, it becomes the eternal dwelling of the soul - there is no going back.
Ishq is the most pure, innocent, unconditional, and powerful degree of love. Ishq is the recognition of the soul. It is that state of consciousness that can be reached through the wholeness of the soul itself by knowing itself.
Ishq can be revealed in a person, a creature in nature, a poem, a quote, a melody, a piece of art in all its forms, a prayer, and a moment of stillness where only divine language is spoken.
As Shams and Rumi spoke of Ishq, they both experienced the Divine through the other. That is the role of a twin flame soul, the most entangled soul connection that exists in trinity with the Divine.
Ishq is not a word that can be described but only lived. I wish upon each one of us to experience this Ishq. That would be the best comprehension of all that is being described.
Have a beautiful and blissful journey of Ishq!!!
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