Sant Tukaram and Sufi Rumi: A Comparative Approach

Abstract: Compassion, love, egalitarian approach, charity and helpfulness are some of the basic virtues found among mystic-saints. The theistic mystics have always emphasized on the fact of love and seeing everything as the creation of God, therefore the pantheistic or theistic attitude of mystics could never create any form of hatred or negligence. Love has been the core concept of mystics; this love is not narrow but is so wide that it covers the whole of universe. A mystical union is the immediate transforming experience of the Unification of person’s soul with the Highest Reality. This is indeed the most authentic ascent of the human spirit. Mystical experience is an experience of enlightenment and exaltation of spiritual insight. The paper concentrates on two mystic-saints, one being a Maharashtrian saint Tukaram and a Sufi saint Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi. Though from completely different spaces, these saints resonate same philosophical ideology, the ideology of love and compassion for all. They speak same thoughts; they transformed the concept of God into Oneness of all. These masters’ poems are recited till date to bring about communal harmony and peace; and this being the urgent necessity of contemporary times. The paper articulates their philosophy, that is bringing people together, where in a country like India, so much of multiplicity exist, that it was essential to have ‘One Real’ concept that will see no race, culture, caste, language or gender bar. This happened through their mystical spontaneity