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Sufism and the Quest for Inner Peace with Manjari Chaturvedi | Wellness Curated

August 08, 2024 • Anshu Bahanda • Episode 6

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Host Anshu Bahanda takes you on an enlightening journey in the latest episode of Wellness Curated as she talks about the mystical world of Sufism and its teachings on achieving inner peace. Guest speaker Manjari Chaturvedi is a cultural academic and exponent of Sufi Kathak. She discusses various practices of modern-day Sufis that include meditation, poetry, dance, and music. 

Discover the story of the cracked pot that teaches us about self-acceptance and finding the divine within our imperfections. Ms. Chaturvedi shares her insights into Sufi practices such as Zikr, Sama, and contemplation, offering a deeper understanding of how these can help anyone find tranquility and purpose in life. Whether you're a longtime follower of Sufi teachings or just beginning to explore spiritual traditions, this episode promises to enrich your journey towards inner peace.

#Sufism #InnerPeace #SpiritualAwakening #SufiMusic #WellnessCurated #ManjariChaturvedi #SufiKathak #Spirituality #Mindfulness #HealingMusic #SufiWisdom #AnshuBahanda

For a transcript of this show, go to https://wellnesscurated.life/sufism-and-the-quest-for-inner-peace-with-manjari-chaturvedi/

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Anshu Bahanda: There was once a water carrier, and he used to carry water for his master in two pots on a pole across his shoulder. One of the pots was perfectly round and beautiful and complete. The other pot had a crack in it. So every day, this water carrier would carry water to his master's house and he would deliver one and a half pots of water because there was a complete pot and there was a pot which had a crack in it. So one day the pot decided to talk to this water carrier, and he said, “I'm really ashamed because I dropped the water on the way because of my crack and you can't deliver a whole pot of water to your master.” So the water carrier said, “why don't you look along the path that we will go along tomorrow?” So the pot looks along the path and he sees that there's flowers blooming just on one side of the path. So the water carrier explains to him that, “I knew you had these cracks, and therefore I put seeds along the path, along your side of the path, and these flowers bloomed. And these are the flowers that I use to decorate my master's table and I give to my wife.” This is a beautiful story which explains to us that we may perceive something as our own flaws and we might consider ourselves to be broken, but actually there might be something in this supposed brokenness that can provide nourishment and love to someone else. And this touches on the Sufi principle of self acceptance and of finding the divine within us. Welcome to Wellness Curated. This is your host, Anshu Bahanda. And today we're going to talk about Sufism and the quest for inner peace. Sufism is a mystical branch of Islam and it helps you find the divine within yourself. The practices that are used are meditation, poetry, dance and music. And we have with us today a very special guest. We have Manjari Chaturvedi. She's a cultural academic and a danseuse, and she's based in Delhi. She's also responsible for the 22 or the Baees Khwaja Project, which explores the unknown, or the lesser known Sufi shrines. And she also has invented a different form of kathak, which is an Indian dance called Sufi kathak. And Sufi kathak focuses on the feminine within the Sufi poetry. Welcome to the chat Manjari, and thank you for being here with us today. 

Manjari Chaturvedi: Thank you for inviting me. I'm delighted to be here. 

AB: Thank you, Manjari. So what actually attracted you to Sufism?

MC: You know, I grew up in Lucknow, which is a city in Uttar Pradesh, and in Lucknow, there is the Qawwali form, which is a music form, and it is associated with Sufism. That music form is, you know, very popular in that area. And I am talking about the mid nineties and late nineties. You know, at that time, there was no google. We didn't have computers, we didn't have WhatsApp, we had no Instagram. So that was the time when I was listening to these qawwals singing at the shrines. And I was initiated into Qawwali, I would say, by Shri Muzaffar Ali. He initiated me. He took me for a Qawwali session, and I fell in love with that music. Then I read more about it. I tried to find more about it in books. Like I said, we had no other option but to either meet people or find it through books. So the more I, you know, read about the Sufi traditions and music especially, I was drawn towards it. And the qawwali music form actually had a, you know, a profound impact on me as a listener and then subsequently as a performer, that led me onto this journey. And I wanted to find out what Bhakti is this, that you know, takes me to that level of engagement where at times I forget myself. 

AB: You know, there's this Kabir doha— Kabir Das, as a lot of you might know, was from Varanasi, and he used to write dohas or couplets. And one of them goes— 

Dheere Dheere Re Mana, Dheere Sub Kuchh Hoye
Mali Seenche So Ghada, Ritu Aaye Phal Hoye

Basically it's telling the mind to go slow and that everything happens at its own pace. And that the gardener might water 100s of pots but it's only in season that the fruit will come. Which talks about the Sufi concept of slow living and about being present. Can you explain to me, Manjari, what is the basic practise of a Sufi? How do they get themselves to be present?

MC: So when we talk about what you've mentioned just now is an aspect of patience, and is something that, you know, when you have given your whole life to the will of the Almighty, then you have no hold over it. You've given yourself to that almighty. And now you've decided that, you know, whatever he does is going to be okay for me. I don't have to do anything for that. So there is a state, and that is what we call the state of surrender. Now, when we are talking about Sufism, surrender becomes a very important word. Surrender to the will of the beloved. Now, when we say surrender to the will of the beloved, it means that the beloved, if I may say, in terms of today's language, the beloved has control over you and you have no control. So where is that ‘I’? That I will do this. I have to do this. Where is that ‘I’? That ‘I’ actually disappears the moment you talk about surrender or you reach that place of surrender. So when we talk about the Sufi principles, now, this is something that, you know, you strive towards it, you move towards it. Some people reach it at some stage in their life. Some people never reach it. They keep trying for it, you know. Somebody may reach that stage in their twenties, some may reach it in their fifties, and some may reach it in their eighties. Somebody may just die and, you know, not even reach that state, but they aspire towards it. You know, people usually want to know that— ‘how can I do it?’ You know. So when we speak about that, you know, in the Sufi principles, there are certain practices that they have initiated. So one of them is the Zikr. The Zikr is chanting, you know; chanting of the name of the Almighty. And that chanting, you know, kind of helps you to meditate with that sound. Then there is the sama, or the music, which also becomes a very integral part of the Sufi traditions. And in India, that music is what I mentioned earlier, for me, what took me to a spiritual state was Qawwali. So music is again, a very important part of taking the person into the Sufi fold and the Sufi tradition. Then the third is, comes the Raqs. Raqs is the dance, which is where everyone has seen the whirling dervishes. So that is a dance which is the moving meditation that comes in. Then there comes the other part, which is a very important part, which is contemplation. You contemplate what is life, what you are thinking— not only by reading books, but by your own voice telling you so. There is a beautiful couplet which Bulley Shah also wrote. He wrote in Punjabi and he said:

Parh parh ilm te faazil hoya
Te kaday apnay aap nu parhya naai

He says that you read hundreds of books and became the learned one, but you never read your own self. What is inside you? These principles help you go inwards. The moment you go inwards, you try and understand and you have an acceptance. Similar to the story that you said in the beginning. The acceptance of who you are as you are. 

AB: That's wonderful. In terms of Sufi poetry, you know, just like Rumi says, the wound is the place where the light enters. When you're going through a personal challenge… And in the first story also we talked about that… When you're going through major personal challenges, can you tell us how would you seek inner peace at a time like that? How can you use these principles to help?

MC: You know the poetry is, interestingly, when it is written, it is written in a very layered manner. So, for example, a very simple line would be written: Aerii sakhi morae piya ghar aaye. It's a very famous Sufi song. People really like that song. But now, if you see the literal meaning of that song, which means that a woman is telling her friend that, you know, my beloved has come home or my lover has come home, you know, it's as simple as that— if you do the simple translation of it. Now, when you see the layers of it, who is the beloved? What is the home? Is this home clean enough for the beloved to entertain? Which means that your heart has to be as clean as a mirror. And that's when the beloved will enter that place. So, you know, those layers are multiple layers woven into the poetry that, you know, once you sit down and you get the habit of reading and understanding that poetry, it gives you a lot of solace. Because, like these masters have said, they have also been through strife. They have also been through separations. They have also been through the different difficulties that we are sort of facing. But they went through it, they accepted it, and they took it along with them. Then there's whirling now. But whirling requires a technique. In my moments of strife, and which there have been many, I accepted that it came my way. I have to deal with it and move forward. And [what helps me] is the sound meditation, which I actually teach my students. And that is the sound meditation. I tie my ghungroos, the belts, and I put a rhythm, and I just use that sound to heal myself. And you won't believe that— the moment you go inwards, you heal faster than going outwards and trying to heal through outward mechanisms.

AB: Wonderful. The moment you go inwards, you heal faster. That's so true. And I think, like you said, a lot of cultures, a lot of philosophies believe that, which is really beautiful. You know, you were talking about the Sufi whirling. How is it that the Sufi whirling gives people so much peace? What is the principle behind it?

MC: There is a technique that you need to do. That technique helps you, you know, gain that momentum to be able to work. If we see what is behind that concept of whirling, it's actually beautiful. Because, you know, it is the principle that the earth is whirling around its own axis. And it is also whirling around the sun. All the planets are in movement. All the stars are moving. So if we are also moving with them, then we are at one with the universe. So to be at one with the universe, at peace with the universe, and to, you know, take the energies of the universe, if you whirl with them, you get those energies. And actually, when you whirl, you know, you don't have any thoughts in your mind because you are just in that moment of whirling. I whirl, and I know that I have no thoughts at that point of time.

AB: That's a very blessed quality to be able to clear your mind of thoughts. How lucky are you? But, Manjari, just like you were saying, you grew up in Lucknow, I grew up in Delhi, you know. I'm from a family which is very into culture. I'd love to hear more about your 22 Khwaja Project, you know, to revive the works of Sufi saints and the impact that it's having. 

MC: You spoke about the poetry of Rumi. So what happens is that over the years, Rumi has been so well written by the western world that the moment we want a Sufi quote or we want something that, you know, gives us the thought of Sufism, we tend to revert back to Rumi. He'd written great poetry. He'd written about ishq, surrender, everything is there. But what happens is that actually in our subcontinent, we also have great Sufi poets who have written great poetry, you know, at par with Rumi. But because they haven't been translated well and people don't know them, that's why we don't quote them anymore. So this Baees Khwaja Project is something that I started about almost ten years back. I had put a deadline for me that in my lifetime, I would actually cover 22 saints and bring their poetry and their tradition and their music to the foreground and at least [when I] go away, then others can take it from there. So what we do through this is, you know, there are times when the Sufi saints are not in the metro. So he might not be living in Delhi. So the people in Delhi don't know about him. So we bring their stories, we bring their poetry to the foreground. I dance to it. There are musicians who sing it. So people, if I may use the word, get entertained without knowing that it is going so deep inside them that it will stay with them till the end of their lives. We are passing on something to them which will help them, you know, heal them in the process, whenever, at any stage of their lives. The interesting part, if I may, you know, add here, is that the Sufi saints actually always wrote in the language where they lived. So if Bulley Shah lived in Punjab, he wrote in Punjabi. If Amir Khusrow lived in Delhi, he wrote in Persian, Urdu, or Hindi.  So it was so regional and so strong in that region, that perhaps we need to translate and, you know, bring it forward to people. For example, you don't, you perhaps may not know how to read and write Persian, but you can quote Rumi's poetry because it is given to you in English in a language that you understand. So we are trying to do the same with the poetic content of Sufi saints from our subcontinent. 

AB: And tell me about Sufi kathak. Have you changed the way the Kathak works? Or is it just Kathak set to Sufi composition?

MC: So, when we say, what is Sufi kathak? What comes to the foreground is that in India, there is one single book which is called the Natya Shastra from which different dance forms have come. Everything comes from that grammar which is there. So I also, in Sufi kathak, use the same grammar. Because that is the grammar available to us. Now, how it becomes different from Kathak is, I will say it in a very quick, pointed manner, is that we have something which is called the Sagun bhakti, which is the bhakti for the form. And we have the Nirgun bhakti, which is the bhakti for a formless almighty. So, Sagun bhakti has all, you know, Krishna, Rama, you know, Shiva, any number of gods which are there. And you show your bhakti towards the Sagun bhakti. Now, similarly, we have the Nirgun bhakti. Now, in Nirgun bhakti, the God does not have a form. While it is a goddess, you don't create a form. You create a formless element. Nirgun bhakti was explored in classical music. But Nirgun bhakti was not the main part of any dance form in India. So Sufi kathak actually becomes the only dance form that follows the process of Nirgun bhakti. For example, you would see me dancing and you would know that, you know, I'm dancing a prayer. And it is a dance of prayer. It is something where, you know, there is meditation. But I will not leave you with any face of a God. You will go back thinking that it's some energy which was there, which is very powerful. So that is what has been my work— to take the existing language of dance forms that we had, and use the concept which was very much part of the Sufi traditions. And bring it both together to bring it forward as a complete form in itself. 

AB: I've seen whirling dervishes in India, in Turkey, in Tunisia, in Morocco. But I've never seen a woman whirling dervish. Is that just me, that I haven't come across one, or is there very few that exist? 

MC: No. So traditionally, the whirling dervishes do not have women in their groups. The women perform separately, the men perform separately. So you would only see the men performing the whirling dervishes. Even when we are talking about the Sufi saints, there has been only, if I may say, one woman till now, that is, Rabia al Basri. That was the only woman who was considered, or, you know, given, elevated to being a Sufi saint. Rest all the Sufi saints have been men. I find it so interesting that while everything has been so controlled by men, if we say as a gender, but till they don't tap into their femininity, they cannot surrender. So they have to delve into that aspect. So, yes, you are correct in saying that, you know, the whirling dervishes are largely always men who are dancing. The women are doing it on their own, in their own spaces. Perhaps not as public performances as the men whirling dervishes.

AB: I love your comment that till they don't tap into their femininity, they can't express their love for the divine. That's wonderful. You've talked a lot about music today, you know, about how it's almost integral to Sufism. Why music?

MC: Music, you know, has been the, like I said, it's been the most ancient sound which has been there. So if we see in our subcontinent, ‘nad’ which was, which is considered the most powerful sound is considered God, you know. So similarly, in most of the ancient traditions all over the world, you know, sound plays a very important part. We may understand or we may not understand it as outsiders, but it becomes an integral part. Even in India, you know, when we talk about the Bhakti traditions, which, you know, were before, even before Sufism, the Bhakti traditions that existed in the subcontinent had sound as an integral part of their, you know, spirituality. So you had the chanting of mantras, you had bhajans, you had songs which were sung for God, you had classical music, you had drupad. So all this actually existed as a sound because sound, you know, is the closest aspect to the human heart. 

AB: So I want to ask you something about Qawwalis. I've grown up listening to Qawwalis, and I've always felt a connection, a very strong connection and a very strong power in the Qawwalis. But I haven't always fully understood the words because sometimes, like you said, they come in various languages. A lot of it is in Persian or some of the Qawwalis are Urdu, so I'll understand 50% but not 100%. But I still feel that strong connection. What is the significance of Qawwali?

MC: So if we look at Qawwali as a separate music form, it was designed or created not for entertainment, but for spiritual elevation. Now, therein lies the difference, because it is a music form that is created as an ancient sound for taking you further in your spiritual journey, not entertaining you at all. We may today listen to a Qawwali and get entertained and move our heads and tap our feet and say that, oh, yes, I love Qawwali. But Qawwali is a healing process. It takes you to that state where when you are saying that you have always been touched by Qawwali, there are times when, you know, Qawwali touches you to an extent where you start crying and you perhaps would not know that, you know. You think, ‘oh, my God, why am I crying?’ It has happened to me so many times that, you know, when I'm listening to Qawwali live with a person singing in front of me and I think to myself, oh, my God, I was absolutely fine. I was sitting and laughing with friends a few hours back, and why am I sitting here? And, you know, I've reached that stage where I'm, you know, crying uncontrollably. But, you know, these are processes which… Where, again, I would come back to it, where our defences that we have put up get broken. It could be one couplet from the 20 couplets that perhaps the Qawwal had sung. There would be just one couplet that would touch you in that manner and you would be reduced to a cleansing process. I'm not saying you're crying because, oh, my God, I'm so sad, I'm crying. It's not that these are tears of, you know, cleaning your own soul, which is said in the spiritual traditions. When we go and listen to music, watch a dance, you know, experiencing art, you know, that is the only time that we let all our defences down and we let the art read to us.

AB: Beautifully put. Thank you for that. I wanted to also ask you, for our audience, can you recommend some simple Sufi practices or reflections which people can just adopt in their daily lives?

MC: Like I said, it's music. First thing, if I may say, that's the easiest to do, because you can just put on the music and listen to it. If for five minutes in the day, you put on the music that you like, and you just let yourself go— you dance, you sit, you move your head, you do whatever comes to you in those 5 minutes. If you learn to do that with yourself, you’ve learnt the first very important aspect of letting go and not sitting on a judgement for your own self. Unfortunately, even when we’re dancing or we’re trying to dance, we’re judging ourselves— ‘Oh my god, I’m not dancing well.’ You know when a child dances and goes round and round, the child doesn’t care whether I’m dancing well or dancing bad. The child dances. So even if you don't know any technique or you don’t know anything, if you just sit for 5 minutes, put on the music that you like and just let yourself go, you will slowly start going inwards. The problem that people usually face and that they share with me is that when they’re asked to sit down and meditate in silence. They say, ‘oh my god, my mind goes everywhere. I can’t concentrate, there are 100s [of] thoughts and then I can’t come to one thought.’ So I tell them that, ‘okay, don’t meditate without any sound. Put on a song.’ But then put on the same song for the next 5 minutes or 10 minutes. Don’t change it and just let yourself go with it. Gradually you will start learning to go inwards and you won’t, perhaps, need that song anymore. 

AB: Beautiful. Any resources that you’d like to recommend to people or any place that you would advise people to go to if they want to learn about Sufism?

MC: Many shrines all over Central Asia, there are many shrines in Iran, there are shrines in Turkey— obviously Rumi’s. All over India, if you’re there, India and Pakistan, there are so many shrines. Just go there once and feel that energy, listen to music there once, in that shrine. So that is an experience that you would move to. And if it is not possible to visit the shrines, you can just take out any music, that is music of Zikr, which are now available on records, and you could listen to that and go into that state. And if that is also not possible, then you come to me and come online and you listen and dance with me. 

AB: Wonderful. Thank you Manjari. Thank you for that timeless wisdom of the Sufis. And I hope we encourage people to explore this more. Thank you so much for your time.

MC: Thank you 

AB: Thank you again for being here with us today. I hope this timeless wisdom of the Sufis is going to help you in some way. And we will see you in a couple of weeks for the next episode. Till then stay well. 

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Anshu Bahanda

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