Rumi: The Book of Love

Love is not love that doesn’t love the details of the beloved, the minute particulars.

“I did not want to live what was not life. Living is so dear.”

It doesn’t matter that you’ve broken your vow a thousand times. Still come,

and yet again, come.

God has given us a dark wine so potent that, drinking it, we leave the two worlds.

God has put into the form of hashish a power to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

God has made sleep

so that it erases every thought.

4

God made Majnun love Layla so much that just her dog would cause confusion in him.10

There are thousands of wines

that can take over our minds.

Don’t think all ecstasies

has given us a dark wine so potent that, drinking it, we leave the two worlds.

God has put into the form of hashish a power to deliver the taster from self-consciousness.

God has made sleep

so that it erases every thought.

4

God made Majnun love Layla so much that just her dog would cause confusion in him.10

There are thousands of wines

that can take over our minds.

Don’t think all ecstasies

What’s truly alive is always changing.

When thirst begins to look for water, water has already started out with a canteen, looking for thirst. Love feels like sliding along the eddies and currents of the tao.

Patience, old earth!” Rumi called out.

“You’ll have your sweet morsel soon!”

when Rumi died in

Fall in love in such a way that it frees you from any connecting.