Eckhart Tolle, Hafiz & Depeche Mode
This blog is an expansion of my last blog that was titled: Eckhart Tolle & Hafiz. Here, I want to add something about the famous British rock band, Depeche Mode. As they, Eckhart Tolle, my teacher in India, and Hafiz, all have an interesting connection.
Representatives of Depeche Mode contacted me some years ago because they wanted to use this Hafiz poem-rendering of mine titled: “I Have Learned So Much,” in what they called their Tour of the Universe, which resulted in them playing to, I think, millions of people in some 40 countries, and even filling the Hollywood Bowl twice in one weekend. They wanted to use this Hafiz poem in a significant way at most of their concerts.
You can read and see accounts of this by Googling: Depeche Mode Hafiz, and/or see this link.
Yeah amazing, soooo amazing all that was to me. And also amazing to me is the way Eckhart Tolle featured that same poem, as can be seen in my last blog, if you watched the video I enclosed. Eckhart reads some poems from my Hafiz book, The Gift, and starts with reading this very same poem, “I Have Learned So Much.” It is on page 32 in The Gift.
And how does that connect them to my teacher in India?
Well like this. The source of that poem, its very opening line was given to me by my teacher just as we were finishing an early morning walk that day. I was his invited guest for weeks and sometimes months at a time over a 12 year stretch that began in 1988. We so often talked of Hafiz and Rumi. And he, Eruch Byramshaw Jessawala, was a tremendous help to all of my poetry work, and I feel still very much is in spirit. And on this one morning, just as we were about to part, he said somewhat out of the blue:
I have learned so much from God
that I can no longer call myself ...
And that is all he says. And then I said to him: Is that Hafiz? And he just nods yes!
Well, I had never known Hafiz to have said that, but then immediately went to some old, very rare Hafiz books I had access to while staying with my teacher. I crafted that poem from some little gold land-mines that then rather wonderfully exploded— bloomed— in some old Victorian Hafiz translations. And then lo and behold... they (that poem crafted that day) joined the— Tour of the Universe.
And such a great, great thanks to Eckhart Tolle too for helping some of my life's work with Hafiz unfold— reach so many as my last blog of him speaks of. And Eckhart quotes my Hafiz work in his book: A New Earth.
The Unfoldment Of The Rose. The Culturium, a wonderful esoteric online magazine, and I collaborated on an article they posted on December 24, 2023. Here is a link to that. This article delves into my first real connection to Hafiz that happened, not too shy of 50 years ago, and also includes a remarkable story and poem of Ibn 'Arabi, with a great footnote about him.
As difficult and so, so hard for so many this world now is— some words of Hafiz often come to mind that I will honor tonight. They are:
Dear ones, anoint this earth with dance!
This earth, like a heart, needs a sun in our eyes, our love. Our touching care, our laughter, our happiness.
Hafiz spoke about poetry from many different angles. Once when asked: “Why do you write poetry?” Hafiz responded:
Because I hear a caravan weeping,
and I need to help the world to sing.