Hafiz

The thought struck me recently that it was time to get serious about spirituality. I realised that I spend most of my time: 

• working on mathematical or programming problems
• reading books or articles on history, geopolitics or about famous people
• walking and exercising
• eating, sleeping etc.

I asked myself how much time do I spend in "spiritual pursuits", a term that for me means reading material dictated by Meher Baba or about Meher Baba. The answer was simply: not much time at all. On the other hand, I know a Muslim who prays seven times a day, two more than the recommended five, and often for quite lengthy periods of time. This contrasts quite sharply with the meagre time that I allot to my own spiritual pursuits.

By way of addressing this deficiency, I was recently reading additional commentary added by Meher Baba to God Speaks (identified as God Speaks Supplement to Part 2 of God Speaks) where he spends a lot of time discussing Sufi terms and occasionally quoting from Kabir, Rumi and Hafiz. I checked my library and found I had a copy of The Purity of Desire by Daniel Landinsky (with Nancy Owen Barton) which contains a 100 poems of Rumi. A reviewer wrote of this book:

The first full-length volume of Rumi's cherished verse by bestselling poet Daniel Ladinsky. Renowned for his poignant renderings of Hafiz's mystical texts, Daniel Ladinsky captures the beauty, intimacy, and musicality of another of Islam's most beloved poets and spiritual thinkers. In collaboration here with Nancy Owen Barton, and with learned insight and a delicate touch, they explore the nuances of desire—that universal emotion—in verse inspired by Rumi's love and admiration for his companion and spiritual teacher, Shams-e Tabriz. These poems thoughtfully capture the compelling wisdom of one of Islam's most revered artistic and religious voices and one of the most widely read poets in the English language.

This review alerted me to the fact that he had also done some "renderings of Hafiz's mystical texts" and so I managed to get hold of a copy of his book A Year with Hafiz. As I began to read the Acknowledgements, I was in for a surprise. It begins:

I thank my teacher, Eruch Jessawala, with whom I spent a lot of time over a twenty-year period. I think he knew Hafiz intrinsically, more truly and deeply than anyone I have ever met. Not one poem of mine would ever have been published without his extraordinary sanction and a profound, rare insight he revealed to me about my work. And I thank his decades-old little bamboo walking stick—that Zen’s master’s baton—that I journeyed next to for hundreds of miles in India. It lays across my computer as I write. I think my every word leans against it and upon Eruch, in many ways. For he is now the hub of me, and I a spoke he moves.

He concludes his foreward by saying:

What can I say to my dear Master, Meher Baba, for all his help and guidance? Whatever truth, beauty, laughter and charm you may find here, I would say is a gift from him, the Avatar. 

So the person that I had more or less randomly chosen to render Hafiz turns out to be a Baba-Lover who was mentored by Eruch. How amazing! This confirmed to me that I was on the right track in my choice of elevating spiritual literature because Hafiz was Baba's favourite poet and who better to render the spirit of Hafiz's writing in English than Landinsky.

Daniel at Sheriar Press, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
https://www.meherbabatravels.com/books/authors-of-baba-contents/daniel-ladinsky

I was prompted to find out a little about him and found some biographical details on Wikipedia from which I've extracted the following quote about his early life and background:

Ladinsky was born and brought up in suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, where his father was a wealthy developer. He grew up with two brothers, and had a Jewish upbring as his father was Jewish, though he was also baptized as a Catholic, as his mother was Christian. After studying in small colleges, at age 20, he enrolled at the University of Arizona. During this period he came across the book God Speaks, by Meher Baba, and poetry by Rumi, both of which had a deep impact on him. At the back of the Meher Baba book, he found the address of the five centers dedicated to the spiritual master. 

Some time later, as Ladinsky recounted in an interview, intending to drive towards the Andes mountain, he took a detour of a thousand miles, and stopped the Meher Baba Center at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. There, he met the disciple Kitty Davy, then in her seventies, who had spent twenty years in India with Meher Baba. He stayed at the Center for a few months, when Davy advised him to go back to his family, and to find a job that would let him work with his hands. Back home, his father helped him join a carpentry school. 

He worked for a few years at a carpentry job, and thereafter joined his father's investment company. Unable to find fulfillment, he visited the Meher Baba Center in South Carolina again. Then, in 1978, Davy advised him to visit the Meher Baba ashram, at Meherabad, near Ahmednagar, India. There he met Meher Baba's sister Mani Irani, and his close disciple, Eruch Jessawala. Though Ladinsky's first visit lasted only two weeks, it started a process which continued with regular visits for the next two decades, and Jessawala became his spiritual teacher. He even lived in a nearby spiritual community at Meherazad for six years, working at the local free clinic and spending time with Jessawala.

His work is not without controversy as the following quote from Wikipedia illustrates:

Scholars and critics point out that Ladinsky's poems are originals, and not translations or interpretations of Hafez. Christopher Shackle describes The Gift as "not so much a paraphrase as a parody of the wondrously wrought style of the greatest master of Persian art-poetry" and Aria Fanil describes his contribution thusly "Ladinsky does not know Persian while his poems bear little or no resemblance to what Hafez has composed". That his poems are neither written nor intended to fall under the purview of literal and/or scholarly translations of Hafiz' work, Ladinsky states in each of his volumes.

He was born in 1948 so he is a year older than me. There is a detailed interview with him to be found on this site. Anyway, I've very little of his poetry and haven't formed any opinion of it whatsoever. I may like it, I may not. Let's see how things unfold.