Arash Golnam

Why I love Hafez

Hafez : A poetic Portal to the Soul

It is difficult to introduce Hafez with the language of concepts, for the heart of Hafez does not dwell in definitions.
Instead of asking who is Hafez,
a more fruitful question might be:
When is Hafez?
Or perhaps how can we enter the timeless moment within where Hafez eternally resides? 

For Hafez arrives not as a figure of history,
but as a presence in our moments—
a depth,
a dimension,
a current of feeling and remembrance,
a sacred belonging that awakens
whenever we surrender
to his divine guiding matrix.

This talk is not an academic seminar.
It is an invitation—
an invitation to experience Hafez
rather than to know about Hafez.

It comes from one
who feels privileged
to have walked under the light of his guidance,
to have witnessed
the psychological impact of his verses
and the healing they bestow upon the soul.

And in order to touch, however humbly,
the mystery of this experience,
I have written a poem—
a poem born from the inspiration
of a Hafez moment,
to whisper an answer
to the questions :
When is Hafez?
How do we access where Hafez dwells within?”

O Hafez!
bearer of the Qur’an within,
Tongue of the Arcane,
voice of the mystery—
you are vaster than 
form or category.

You set me upon
a pilgrimage 
towards stillness 
to release my heart 
from the tyranny of 
my mind.

Here I stand,
at your door once more,
a shadow 
yearning for a ray of light
a seeker 
of that which can’t be sought
waiting to be seized 
by the sudden 
and the eternal. 

Divination with your Divan— 
an invitation to taste 
the Wine of the Divine,
in its intoxication 
I lose myself 
in the sweetness 
of not knowing.

Your words,
fresh as rose petals
bathed in morning dew—

in their fragrance
I breathe again
the freedom of nature.

The prism of your poems
turns the invisible divine light
into a spectrum of beauty—
seen, heard, and felt:

In the dance of metaphor and symbol,
to the tune of rhyme and rhythm,
clothed in the robes of paradox.

My soul remembers
how to weave
your luminous threads
into the harmony
of a Persian carpet—

unfolding beneath my feet,
making the Path
my home—

the home I never left,
only forgot I always had.

Your alchemy
turns oblivion
into remembrance,

loneliness
into divine solitude,

wounds
into remedies,

and restlessness
into a longing
for the taste
of the Wine.

Surely,
there is more
to this life

In his 4-class course on Jung Platform, Arash Golnam invites us into the soul-stirring world of Hafez. This course invites you to an immersion that stirs the depths, awakens love, and loosens the cage of the small ego world. Click HERE to learn more.

His shorter talk Hafez: A Poetic Portal into the Soul gives you a peek into the world of Hafez. Click HERE to learn more.

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Arash Golnam
Arash Golnam is a psychoanalyst trained at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. A citizen of both Iran and Switzerland, he now call Lima, Peru my home.

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