Bu Ali Shah Qalandar, a revered Sufi saint of the 12th and 13th centuries, was born in Panipat, India. Associated with the Qalandariyah Sufi order, he emphasized asceticism and wandering as paths to spiritual purification. Known for his simplicity, humility, and devotion to God, he attracted a large following of disciples. Bu Ali Shah Qalandar’s teachings centered on love, compassion, and selflessness, advocating for the unity of all religions and the power of divine love to unite humanity. His tomb in Panipat remains a popular pilgrimage site, visited by devotees seeking blessings and spiritual guidance. Bu Ali Shah Qalandar’s legacy continues to inspire millions across South Asia, promoting the values of love, tolerance, and spiritual devotion in the Sufi tradition.
Bu Ali Shah Qalandar Quotes
01. “The beauty of worldly allurements makes its lovers so much oblivious that they forget the passage of temporal as well as celestial worlds. They fail to understand the challenge before them.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
02. “To remain satisfied and grateful for the pleasure of the Beloved, at the cost of religion and heart is necessarily passionate love, which in Sufi terminology is called faithfulness.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
03. “Thrones and crowns of worldly kings carry worth less than shoes of a donkey for us.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
04. “The Beloved created your being from His own love so that He could see His own beauty in the mirror of your heart and make you privy of His mysteries.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
05. “O the people of faith, when you open your inner eyes, you will see the beauty of the Beloved radiant everywhere. In every mirror you see Him. In every color of His manifestation, you will notice the fire of His love.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
06. “Innumerable are theophanies (tajalliyat) of the wahdat (Oneness). It is obligatory to cast glance over His creation.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
07. “When an irrational animal like a camel dances at the tune of a bell, why don’t you, being the best of creation, attain absorption and ecstasy in the love of God, or go into rapture by listening to the name of the Beloved.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
08. “The Divine way is extremely difficult to tread, but you should not despair. If you have courage, true aspiration, and ardency of love, then come to this path, otherwise be silent.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
09. “Search your heart within where lies the key to all Divine mysteries, and where God has placed treasures of Divine, mystical, and spiritual powers.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
10. “Beloved has been created in your image and sent to you in order to put you on the right path.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
11. “When you recognize the Beauty, you will also recognize the Beloved and fall in love with Him.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
12. “Try to understand your lower self. When you cognize it, you will cognize the soul, you will cognize the celestial world.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
13. “Become a lover. Think both the world’s beauty of the Beloved and think of one’s own self as the beauty of the Beloved.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
14. “Devotion to God and service to fellow beings is the pivot of life.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
15. “Who learnt the lesson of violent love from me, he entered the assembly of the lovers. Who got fed up of his own illusory being, he indeed, became confident of Divine mysteries.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
16. “When Divine providence graces you, and you are endowed with the passion of love and alienated from your ego, at that time Divine love enters your inmost being and He shows His Beauty to you.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
17. “When His (God’s) beauty has permeated in each and every iota of the world, why should I sit like an ascetic (hermit) in a corner!”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
18. “We are enraptured lovers and insane, we searched the Beloved everywhere. When I smell the fragrance of His divinity, I get intoxicated in His lane.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
19. “You are captive of your lower-self (ego); you nullify it and break the snare so that you arrive at your real nest.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
20. “O poor fellow! Do you know what is renunciation and what is piety? It is that you don’t go to the places of the king, nor roam about in quest of livelihood nor base yourself for the sake of worldly wealth, nor sit in the company of the worldlings.”
— Bu Ali Shah Qalandar
