Baba Bulleh Shah

Introduction

Bulleh shah was a Sufi poet. His poetry is based on oral tradition. For Sufi poet, the aim is
one. The world is a transition phase, a journey towards eternal life. He has used
metaphors from the real world and used organic rustic images.
Sufism: Sufism is a mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslim seek to find the
truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience. Sufism is an
abstract word and derives from Arabic term “suf” which means wool which means
reference to early Islamic ecstatic's. Ecstatic is a person who denies himself worldly
pleasures. This fact is founded on the belief that the Prophet and his followers wore
woolen cloths. Maybe that is why Sufis often wear woolen cloths.
The sufi are also generally known as “faqeer” or [plural of Arabic word Darwesh who
denies himself worldly pleasures]. Islamic mysticism is called tasawuf which literally
means dressed in wool. Islamic mysticism is called tasawuf which literally means
dressed in wool but it is called sufish in western language.
The poetry of Bulhe Shah is a remarkable expression of the mystic, social, cultural,
political, religious, humane, sufi, and philosophical significance of his time and his vision.
Bulhe Shah’s poetry is a reflection of his philosophy of Sufism. Through his poems, he
spoke against the “religious, political and social patriarchal high handedness” of his
time.
metaphors He also used metaphors and symbols to convey his mystical experiences and
his longing for union with the divine. For example, he often referred to himself as a bride
waiting for her beloved or as a moth attracted to the flame. He also used the imagery
of spinning and whirling, which is a common practice among Sufis, to express his ecstasy
and surrender.

He believed that the true religion was not in the outward forms and rituals but in the
inward essence and spirit. He denounced the formal and superficial aspects of religion,
such as the mosque, the temple, the idol, the rosary, and the scriptures, and emphasized
the importance of the heart, the soul, the faith, and the love.

Bulleh Shah’s poetry also manifested his Sufi identity and affiliation, which was based on
the Qadri and Sattari orders. He was a disciple of Shah Inayat Qadiri, a renowned Sufi
master of Lahore, who taught him the secrets and mysteries of the Sufi path
Biography
Mysterious is the turn of time. The man who had been refused by Mullahs to be buried
after his death in the community graveyard because of his unorthodox views, today enjoys
worldwide reverence and recognition. Bulleh Shah is universally admitted to have been
the greatest of the Punjabi mystics. No Punjabi mystic poet enjoys a wider celebrity and a
greater reputation. His poetry has gained immense popularity.

Tear down the mosque and temple too, break all that divides
But do not break the human heart as it is there that God resides.
Bulleh Shah was a Sufi poet who lived in Pakistan from 1680 to 1758. His given name was
Abdullah Shah, Bulleh was a nickname, and it is the name he chose to use as a poet.
Bulleh Shah received his earlier education in Pandoke and then moved to Kasur for higher
education. He gained knowledge of Arabic, Persian and the Quran through his traditional
teachers. After that, in an effort to move to the next level, he searched for a spiritual guide
and eventually he found his Murshid in the form of Inayat Shah Qadri. Hazrat Shah Inayat,
a well-known Qadiri Sufi and gardener by profession. He asked Inayat, “I wish to know
how to realize God.” Inayat Shah replied, “What is the problem in finding God? One only
needs to be uprooted from here and replanted there.” Inayat graced Bulleh with the
secret of spiritual insight and the Knowledge of God. He is in fact, the greatest Sufi of the
world. Much of Bulleh Shah’s verses about love are written directly for his spiritual guide,
Shah Inayat.
Style: The verse form Bulleh Shah primarily employed is called the Kafi, a style of Punjabi,
Sindhi and Seraiki poetry used not only by the Sufis of Sindh and Punjab, but also by Sikh
gurus. Bulleh Shah’s poetry and philosophy strongly criticizes Islamic religious orthodoxy
of his day. Kafi is a small poem, a traditional Punjabi poetry, a genre of singing or writing in
monorhyme stanzaic ode which presents Sufi thought.

He is one of the most “celebrated and famous poet”, he had a natural appeal and no
other sufi poet enjoys the same reputation as he did (Ali, Ashraf and, Tahseen, 2022)

Considered as the greatest mystic poet of Punjab, his compositions have been regarded
as, ‘the pinnacle of Sufi literature’.

Bulleh Shah’s poetry highlights the philosophy of a reunion with God. He believes that
Man (creation) and God (Creator) are inseparable. He says that the Beloved is not apart
from me. Without the Beloved there is nothing. But there is no eye to judge. Doing good
and serving humanity is in fact serving God. Bulleh Shah preaches divine love, and for
delivering his message of love to the reader, he employs a genre of poetry called the Kafi.

Bulleh Shah! I will never die.

Someone else is lying in the grave

Here Bulleh Shah says that by being one with God, he has become immortal. He will never
die. The dead body in the grave does not belong to him. It belongs to dust, matter, and
earth. Soul is universally superior to the body. The Body is the dress of the soul. So the
main emphasis should be on purifying the soul. It must not become impure. Anger, lust,
greed, jealousy, enmity, bad behavior, pride and hatred make it impure.
It’s All in One Contained

Main Theme: Heterodox devotional vs Orthodox formal religion {notes]

Outward dimension vs inward dimension (Ritualism vs Spiritualism)

The outward dimensions (rational side of Islam) include all the rituals and religious
practices whereas inward dimension (revolutionary side of Islam) means finding deep real
meaning. He adopted the heterodox deviationist religion instead of orthodox religion.
Orthodox religion leads only to 2nd stage of the fourth stages of Sufism. All of the energy is
observed in hollow physical rituals. [emptiness, hollowness]. Bulleh shah rejects the
orthodox form of religion and focuses on journey toward realizing God.
Purify your dreams and desires . Your ultimate search should not be counting journey but
a journey toward god.
Refrain: one point settles it all. Taufiq Rafat is very unique in that he retained not only
outward form but also meaning.
3rd stanza :

Muslims observe only rituals. They have demarcated their limits. From a pilgrimage
someone has returned. It is ritualism and materialism which is highlighted in this stanza.
The goal of poem is to focus on Muslims to transcend worldly religion.

Analysis
It’s All in One Contained is a poem by Bulleh shah, emphasizing on the oneness of God.
The poem highlights the philosophy of reunion with God. Bulleh Shah conveyed that the
spiritual progress lay in detaching one’s mind from the outside world and attaching it to
the God within. He preaches divine love. He condemns all futile ways for searching God.
He believes that Man and God are inseparable. He says that the Beloved is not apart
from me. Without the Beloved, there is nothing. But there is no eye to judge. Doing good
and serving humanity, is in fact serving God. He advises us to study only one single point
in which all knowledge is contained, and to leave all other calculations. He strictly
disapproves the hypocritical religious or social behavior of the people, and condemns the
malicious or greedy behavior of mullahs, hafiz or common people, who run after
accumulating wealth, gaining high positions, lusting in his mind for enjoyment. They
become evil and they start drowning spiritually into the polluted ocean of their worldly
wishes. They lose their attachment with the Pivot. They indulge in a sinful life and lose
their humanity. Meanwhile, if they perform the religious practices, they become just
affection to impress others as they are very virtuous.

1. Bulleh shah was a radical, revolutionary and a deviationist. His style is oblique and
direct. He has used vernacular patterns / spontaneous speech patterns of Punjab
but also shows artistic capabilities.
2. Explanation
The kafi, “One is enough” emphasizes the oneness of God. Bulleh Shah says that: Be one
with the One and only the Almighty Creator, leave all complicated sources you have made
to reach him, free yourself from the fear of hell, make your heart grand, and only then you
will understand. But what do you do? You just rub your forehead against earth, you show
off that you offer prayers, you profess to believe him just to impress people, but you don’t
try to truly understand by using your heart, can’t you see that to find truth you need to
search, but you limit yourself to few religious rituals.

when you submit yourself completely to your Murshid (teacher) you become one with
God, you get indifferent to the world and get drunk in that ecstasy to find Him, you don’t
wish anything, you don’t ask for anything in fact you appear as you have gone dumb, and
then your heart is immensely cleansed. The truth is that there is nothing but the One.

Bulleh Shah advises us to study the One point in which all knowledge is condensed, and
to leave all other calculations aside. All other pretentious rituals are futile.

Ranjha Ranjha Kardi/ The Transformation

Theme: 4rth stage of Sufism.

2. Love and longing 3. Transformation and reunion

4. Transcendentalism: The ultimate devotion is transformation. The annihilation of self.
The ultimate reunion. Going beyond observing rituals.

Meaning is implied rather than stated. Heer refers to seeker or devotee and Ranjha
refers to ultimate beloved or God. God is referred to as he rather than He because the
poet has transcended worldliness. One and only referential poet is god. nothing in
comparison. The poet is transcending physicality. Bulleh shah wrote for people in
language of people.
Punjabi Sufi poets always compared their love for God with that of a woman because

the devotion of a woman to her beloved is incomparable. This is the reason that Bulleh
Shah wrote “main ranjha ranjha kardi hun, main ape ranjha hoyi”. In this poem he implies
the word ‘heer’ for himself and ranjha for God to whom he refers to as his beloved (in
Sufism there is a woman, behind every voice. The sacloth word used in last stanza refers
to self-denial , self abandonment and spirituality.
White dress is a symbol of materialism and worldly concerns. When you immerse
yourself to worldly affairs, you are bound to sin. Hazara: I will go to original place where
ranjha resides.
Sufism

The Sufis maintain that the soul has been separated from the Divine Reality and the
supreme mission of human life is to achieve union with God.

The Sufis believe that there are four stages in one's journey to realization:

(a) Leading a disciplined life as prescribed in Islam (Shariat),

(b) Following the path delineated by the Murshid or Guru (Tariqat),
(c) Gaining enlightenment (Haqiqat),
(d) On realization of truth, getting merged into Divine Reality (Marfat).
His poetry highlights his mystical spiritual voyage through the four stages of Sufism:
Shariat (path), Tariqat (observance), Haqiqat (truth)and Marfat (union). He is considered
as the “Poet of People” and “Father of Punjabi Enlightenment”
According to Bulleh Shah, the road to the union with God begins with Shariat or the
observance to the rituals of Islam. The second stage is that of Tariqat. The cardinal
feature of this stage is the assistance provided by the Murshid or Guru. In fact, what
Sharia does in the life of a common devotee, Tariqat does in the case of a Sufi.
Tariqat according to Bulleh Shah is the bridge which helps the seeker pass the arduous
path of hard spiritual exercises with the help of the Murshid.

Haqiqat is the third stage of his spiritual journey to which Bulleh Shah refers repeatedly in
his verse. The devotee understands and accepts the existence of God. God is truth. God
exists in everything around us.
Marfat is the last stage of the spiritual evolution of a Sufi. It is the merging into Divine
Reality called Fana and thus attaining the life eternal known in the Sufi idiom as Baqa. The
Murshid helps the seeker arrive at this stage but it is the grace which makes possible the
ultimate union. The moment this happens, caste and creed cease to have any meaning.
The Atma (Soul) and Paramatma (God) become one. When Bulleh attained this stage, the
entire world appeared to him as a reflection of the Divine Reality, Bulleh has merged in
God:
Remembering Ranjha day and night,
I’ve become Ranjha myself.
Call me Dhido Ranjha,
No more I be addressed as Heer.
I abuse Ranjha but adore him in my heart.
Ranjha and Heer are a single soul,
No one could ever set them apart.

As the last line of the Kafi indicates, Bulleh Shah became a follower of Sufi Shah Inayat
Qadiri, who was a member of the Arain tribe of Lahore. “For a distinguished scholar
[Bulleh Shah], who belonged to the line of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), to accept an
ordinary vegetable grower as his master was a very extraordinary event in the social
conditions of Bulleh Shah’s times. It was like an explosion which shook the prevailing
social structure.” (The Life of Bulleh Shah)

Bulleh Shah lived from 1680 to 1757 during the period of the Mughal King Aurangzeb, who
was the most communal and orthodox Muslim ruler the subcontinent ever faced. His time
was marked with communal strife between Muslims and Sikhs. But in that age Bulleh
Shah was a beacon of hope and peace for the citizens of Punjab.

Heer and Ranjha have already met,

In vain she looks for him in the orchard;
Ranjha rests in the knots of her net.
Lass, look to your spinning Theme : Transience of worldly life
Cultural metaphor of spinning wheel refers to the concept of singularity and soul . He has
used a conventional tone. Spining wheel is a symbol of human body. Meaning is present
in subtext. Meaning is conveyed through the cultural analogy of girl singlehood.
Bridegroom stands for death. Mother-in-law refers to hereafter, divine judgment, and
accountability.
Analysis: The poem shows very anecdotal oral tradition . Very strong subtext of sophism is
used. Actual meaning lies in the subtext and it is rooted in spirituality. A journey from
present world to afterworld is compared with a girl getting married. She will be in a whirl.

3rd stanza : The poem is rooted in cultural practices . The new cotton crop is ready . You
are young , you can preach and can succeed in your hereafter. Focus on doing good in a
timely manner. The stanza refers to the transience of worldly life.
Stanza 4: Carefree nature of man is criticized. You will be aloe in the next world. Set up
your house by your own in the hereafter. Hereafter is marked by singularity.
Spinning wheel refers to the hereafter and is marked by singularity. Journey from life to
death to hereafter is marked by singularity.
Stanza 6: Mother in law refer to the concept of accountability and torment of grave. Son
refers to the concept of doing your duties , the concept of farz.

Send the dowry to the dire means send good deeds ahead. Ephemeral nature of the world
is discussed. Cultural metaphors are passage to understanding meaning. last stanza
describe the singular nature of hereafter. Bulleh’s guide is Allah. Text is rooted in cultural
practices , subtext is rooted in spiritualism.

Rumi (1207 to 1273)

Rumi is more philosophical. His style is not colloquial. Concept of mysticism is very
strong in the subtext than stating. Rumi mysticism is at more deeper level and refers
directly to death . Death is not something fearful but a journey towards God. Death is not
something to be hated but awaited. Most of poetry is based on his separation from his
teacher.
Influence of Shams tabraiz . Rumi became a whirling darwesh in separation from Rumi.
When he met shams in the streets of koniya the meeting transformed him as ecstatic from
a teacher and jurist. The separation of shams left rumi heartbroken. He became a poet .
Sun is a constant symbol in his poetry.
His ghazals reflect different stages of love until he found shams in his life that is the
complete identification of lover and beloved.

Themes
Negation of oneself. Annihilation of self is not just a negation of oneself , it is the
reflection of God. Soul is an extension of god’s presence in the universe.
Pantheism : Nature as a reflection of God . The concept of romantics.

Rumi Philosophy: death is an extension of life and a complementary stage of life. Nature
is the manifestation of communion with God.

A new rule
It is the rule with drunkards to fall upon each other,
to quarrel, become violent, and make a scene.
The lover is even worse than a drunkard.
I will tell you what love is: to enter a mine of gold.
And what is that gold?
The lover is a king above all kings,
unafraid of death, not at all interested in a golden crown.
The dervish has a pearl concealed under his patched cloak.
Why should he go begging door to door?
Last night that moon came along,
drunk, dropping clothes in the street.
"Get up," I told my heart, "Give the soul a glass of wine.
The moment has come to join the nightingale in the garden,
to taste sugar with the soul-parrot."
I have fallen, with my heart shattered -
where else but on your path? And I
broke your bowl, drunk, my idol, so drunk,
don't let me be harmed, take my hand.
A new rule a new law has been born:
break all the glasses and fall toward the glassblower.
Analysis (ai): This poem by Rumi is characterized by its depiction of the transformative power of love and the
willingness to surrender to its intoxicating embrace. It delves into the passionate and reckless nature of love,
comparing it to the behavior of drunkards who lose control and indulge in chaos. The lover is portrayed as a
sovereign above all others, unyielding in the face of mortality and detached from material possessions.

Stanza 1: First effect of wine is the loss of equilibrium. Lover is an extreme form of intoxicated being. For
ecstatic, the ultimate love is God . The love of God is an intoxication of soul. There is no talk of physical.
Wine symbolizes intoxication or momentary deadening of senses. Love of God is forever deadening of senses.
When soul intoxicates , physicality is dulled forever. It is not temporary love. The senses are dulled forever.
Love of God is an intoxication that does not have an end. It totally negates our physicality. His poems are
based on spirituality.

Rumi employs certain elements of Sufi poetic tradition in his work such as the use of metaphors to symbolize
aspects of divine. One such metaphor is wine and drunkness to symbolize how mystic can become drunkards
on God’s love as human can become drunk on wine. Other symbols include nightingale a symbol of soul, rose
perfect beauty of God, Winter symbolizes a soul separate from God and symbolizes spiritual god or teacher.

Whirling darwesh symbolizes transcending of consiousness. Music , poetry and dancing is a path for
reaching God. Rumiuses highly rich mystical images. He describes the love of God through worldly
symbols. Lover is not romantic lover but lover of God.

The Darwesh has a pearl he is needless of worldly riches. Moon is a symbol of radiance and brightness.
Nightingale ; a symbol of night . Ultimate time of communion with God . When the whole world is
sleeping , communication takes place. In Rumi , there is only path of God, therefore there is no need to
write in capital letters. Glass blower refers to God and break all glasses means break all barriers.

Rumi's use of vivid imagery and symbolic language creates a distinct atmosphere that resonates with the
reader. The imagery of the moon appearing as a drunkard dropping clothes in the street captures the
unpredictable and intoxicating nature of love.

Compared to Rumi's other works, this poem shares a common theme of spiritual transcendence through love.
It also reflects his belief in the transformative power of surrendering to God.

I have fallen, with my heart shattered

– where else but on your path?

And I broke your bowl, drunk, my idol,

So drunk, don’t let me be harmed, take my hand. (From Helminski 2000a, 20)
This “drunkenness” relates to the Sufi motif of the effacement of self, often placed within
the context of death. A Sufi might even achieve the state of Fana, or “annihilation,” the
goal of experiencing union with the divine. Rumi’s poetry can articulate the Sufi adage to
“die before you die” through the experience of Fana. Intimacy, self-effacement, passion,
and movement are hallmarks of Rumi’s ghazal poetry.

Pablo Neruda
In 1936, a change came in the poetry of Pablo Neruda, from hermetic and introverted to political and
extroverted. From 1927 to 1936, he got worldwide exposure because of counsel ship. In 1945, he
supported senator Videla as a president of Chile on ideological basis. But President Videla deflected to
right as a support for America. Neruda referred to him as a clown in the poem "You will struggle.”
Pablo Neruda is one of the most influential and widely read 20th-century poets of the
Americas. “No writer of world renown is perhaps so little known to North Americans
as Chilean poet Pablo Neruda,” observed New York Times Book Review critic Selden
Rodman. Numerous critics have praised Neruda as the greatest poet writing in the
Spanish language during his lifetime. John Leonard in the New York Times declared that
Neruda “was, I think, one of the great ones, a Whitman of the South.”

“Canto general is the flowering of Neruda’s new political stance,” Don Bogen
asserted in the Nation.
“In the Canto,” explained Duran and Safir, “Neruda reached his peak as a
public poet. He produced an ideological work that largely transcended
contemporary events and became an epic of an entire continent and its
people.”
Neruda's masterpiece, Canto General, is emblematic of his passion for his continent. The epic poem-- Canto, as in song-- is a
class-based Marxist and humanistic interpretation of the history of the Americas, written as Neruda was developing his
burgeoning pan-American consciousness and perspective.

Canto General, he explained, is told from “the point of view of the people themselves, not the history told by the
conquerors. Yes, we could call it the ‘history told by the conquered.’"

Amor America
“Amor América (1400)” lays out Neruda’s idea of the American Genesis, a pre-Columbian Eden, before the arrival of the
Spanish Conquistadores and the subsequent “imperialistic” foreign powers' injustices. In this Eden, as Neruda described it, all
was pure, so natural that “Man was earth, earthen vase.”

Love America
by Mikaela Dunitz

Love America (1400) (164)

Before the wig and coat

were the rivers, the arterial rivers,
the mountain ranges, in whose weary wave
the condor or the snow appeared unstirring:
the thickness of the humidity, the unnamed
thunderclap, the planetary pampas.

Man was earth, a vessel, the eyelid

of the quivering clay, a form from the mud of the earth,
a Carib pitcher, a chibcha stone,
an imperial chalice or an Araucanian silica.
Tender and bleeding he was, but on the hilt
of his moist crystal weapon,
the initials of the earth were
inscribed.
No one
could remember them later: the wind
forgot them, the language of the water
interred, the keys were lost
or inundated by silence or blood.

Life was not lost, pastoral brothers.

But as a savage rose,
a red drop fell to the depths,
and the lamp of the land was extinguished.
I am here to tell history.
Since the peace of the buffalo
until the lashed sands
of final earth, in the accumulated surf
of antarctic light,
and for the burrows embedded off the cliffs
of somber Venezuelan peace,
I searched for you, my father,
young soldier of shadows and brass,
or you, nuptial plant, indomitable hair,
caiman mother, metallic dove.

I, Inca from mud,

touched the stone and said:
Who
waits for me? And I squeezed my hand
around a fistful of empty glass.
But I traveled among zapotec flowers
and the light was as gentle as a stag,
and the shade was like a green eyelid.

My earth without a name, without America,

equinoctial stamen, purple spear,
your aroma winds up my roots
into the chalice I nursed, into the finest
word still not yet born from my mouth.

The Europeans extinguished the ancient "lamp on earth," according to Neruda's thinking. He portrays the Spanish Conquest as
a tragic injustice forced on “his” people, despite his European heritage. The Europeans, to him, were barbarous and ruthless.
“Like a wild rose, a red drop fell on the thickness” --so ended America’s Edenic first phase of history. (The poet doesn't mention,
though, the barberry that many pre-Columbian societies had ruthlessly enacted on others within the continent: the blood let by
the Inca’s imperialism, the Aztec love of war, the Mayans` human sacrifices, the violence of Apache warriors. . . For he is not
just invoking the peaceful indigenous of his land which would be called Chile, he is talking all of the Americas, “from the peace of
the buffalo / to the beaten sands of the land’s end.”)

Neruda identifies himself with the indigenous people. “I searched for you, my father, young warrior of darkness and copper,” he
writes in “Amor América (1400)”. In the poem, all indigenous people, peaceful and belligerent alike, are his “fathers”; he is their
son. Pablo Neruda, though, was actually born Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, with no native names in his lineage, but
rather Spanish family names, with Neftalí, from his mother, suggesting some Semitic roots.

Certainly! Pablo Neruda’s poem “Love, America (1400)” is a powerful exploration of the continent’s
history and indigenous cultures. Let’s delve into its analysis:

• Summary:
 o In the first six lines, Neruda describes America long before it was settled, a time when
there wasn’t even a word for thunder yet. It was a wild, untamed land.
o From lines 7 to 19, he portrays an era when humans were deeply connected to nature and
the earth. Even their weapons were made from natural materials.
o These people predate recorded history and even the common modern idea of Native
Americans. Neruda mentions Carib, Chibcha, and Araucanian cultures, whose customs
and language have been lost over time.
o Despite the loss of culture and language, life itself endured, symbolized by the “red drop”
of ancient blood that sustained existence1.
• Themes:
o Colonialism Critique: Neruda’s work often critiques colonialism. In “Love, America
(1400),” he implicitly highlights the impact of colonization on indigenous cultures.
o Cultural Heritage: The poem celebrates the continent’s indigenous heritage, emphasizing
the need for Latin America to embrace its rich cultural roots.
o Atrocities and Unity: Through vivid imagery and passionate language, Neruda exposes the
atrocities committed by colonizers and calls for a united Latin America 2.
The Hangman
Certainly! “The Hangman” is a powerful poem by Pablo Neruda that serves as an
indictment of those who remain passive in the face of grave evil or injustice. The story it
tells is reminiscent of the famous statement “First they came…”, attributed to the anti-
Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller1. Let’s delve into its meaning and significance.
In this poem, Neruda paints a vivid scene where the hangman arrives in a small town. The
townspeople, initially fearful, gradually become accustomed to his presence. They go
about their daily lives, ignoring the atrocities he commits. The hangman’s actions
escalate, yet the townspeople remain silent, indifferent, and complicit.
The poem serves as a warning against apathy and the dangers of turning a blind eye to
injustice. It reminds us that our silence can enable cruelty and oppression. By not
speaking out or taking action, we become accomplices to evil deeds.

Neruda’s choice of words and imagery is striking. The repetition of “No, they were not
voices, they were not/words, nor silence” emphasizes the townspeople’s refusal to
acknowledge the hangman’s actions. The poem’s simplicity and directness make its
message even more poignant.

“The Hangman” urges us to be vigilant, to recognize our responsibility in the face of

wrongdoing, and to take a stand against injustice. It’s a call to action, urging us not to be
passive bystanders but to actively resist evil.

You will struggle

This poem is an exhortation of fellow country. He is reminding to overthrow the corrupt rulers.

Political background: The poem is relevant for corrupt forces and tyrannical government. Neruda was a
communist. He gathered funds and resources and was a part of Spanish civil war 1936.