A Sufi Path of Spiritual Liberty
“A True Life enables Man To Realize God” - Hazrat Inayat Khan
Seest thou not how Allah sets forth a parable? - A goodly word like a goodly tree, whose root is firmly fixed, and its branches (reach) to the heavens,- of its Lord. So Allah sets forth parables for men, in order that they may receive admonition.
Mian Muhammad Bakhsh, the Sufi mystic-Poet of the Punjab, begins his famed Saif-ul Maluk by a request: ‘O God! Turn my internal garden green with the rain of mercy and laden the plant of my garden with the ripened fruits of hope and optimism.’ The metaphor of plant and tree is often used by Sufis since it denotes growth and fecundity.
The Garden is the symbol of the Heart, God’s Knowledge is a seed planted in it in pre-eternity, Love is the water that feeds it, and Muhammad salallaho alayhi wasallam is the Gardener tending its growth. It is in the above context of Suluk/ spiritual journey and its exertion between moving from Zahir/Manifest to Batin/Hidden and vice-versa, that we find the foundation of the South-Asian enchantment with the Sarv/Cypress motif.