North Carolina Society for Ethical Culture

Jalaladdin Rumi: Poet of Universal Love
By Paul Nagy, Editor of Wordtrade
A platform talk given on December 14, 2003

This is now. Now is. Don't postpone till then. Spend
the spark of iron on stone. Sit at the head of the table;
dip your spoon in the bowl. Seat yourself next your joy

and have your awakened soul pour wine. Branches in the
spring wind, easy dance of jasmine and cypress. Cloth

for green robes has been cut from pure absence. You're
the tailor, settled among his shop goods, quietly sewing. (Rumi/Barks)

To share with you my rapture and bewilderment, my joy and humiliation before the profound and impassioned words of this 13^th Century Muslim poet will stretch me to the very ends of myself and capacity. Jalalulddin Rumi Mawlavna is no ordinary poet, he is one of the greatest poets to have ever lived. Much as Shakespeare set the norm for English in his Plays, Rumi words have set the norm for Farsi, the Persian dialect many of his poems were composed in.

To begin, it will be useful to offer quick synopsis of what is known about the life of Rumi up to the time of his intellectual maturity and spiritual metamorphosis, in this I follow Franklin Lewis’s account from Rumi: Past and Present, East and West. I will also add some brief reflections about my pilgrimage to Rumi's tomb in Konya 23 years ago.

In the time left I will focus on the central movement of Rumi’s poetry: His inversion of the world and what we know as real, from dead thing, separate and painful to living ecstatic wonder. For Rumi Love is his central theme. His ecstatic poetry’s perennial subject and object is Love; and it as Lover that Rumi’s lyrics and imagery easily transcend his religious and historic milieu and even language to reach into my heart and cause me to swoon. Here I derive my examples from Wm Chitticks’ Sufi Path of Love.

Born in the end of September 1207, Rumi probably lived with his father in Vakhsh around present day Afghanistan.. His father, Baha al-Din, was a minor religious scholar, a preacher by profession.  A Sufi, Muslim mystic, Baha al-Din's spiritual visions and ascetic inclinations, along with the dreams of some of his followers, made him feel destined for a more prominent role in the religious life of his community. These aspirations led to some unpleasant encounters with the qazi and other religious scholars in Vakhsh, who denied Baha al-Din the rank and prestige he sought. Sometime between 1208 and 1212 Baha al-Din relocated to Samarqand, taking Rumi with him.
A few years later, probably by 1216, the Valad family emigrated from eastern Iran, heading first for the pilgrimage to Mecca. Most likely they already had the intention to settle in one of the Persian-speaking Seljuk princedoms of Anatolia. After some years at the court of the Manguchak ruler Bahramshah, whose wife endowed a religious college or Sufi lodge and a pension for Baha al-Din, he eventually moved to Konya under the patronage of `Ala al-Din Kay Qobad and taught for two years at an institution that probably functioned as something in between a traditional madrase and a Sufi lodge. He remained there until his death in February 1231.

Before establishing themselves in Konya, however, the family spent some years in Larende/Karaman under the patronage of Amir Musa, a local governor. During their stay in Larende, the seventeen-year-old Rumi wed Gowhar Khatun and fathered two sons. His own mother passed away and was buried here. Baha al-Din evidently intended his son Rumi to succeed him as a preacher or mufti. He introduced Rumi to his congregation and students and gave Rumi the opportunity to preach and win the confidence of the townsfolk in Konya. When his father died, Rumi was probably not yet old enough or advanced enough in his studies to command the respect that his father had. He therefore asked for Borhan al-Din to come and step into the place of his mentor, Baha al-Din.

Sayyed Borhan temporarily agreed to this arrangement, but he evidently viewed this position in Konya as Rumi's by right. He therefore established himself in Kayseri under the patronage of the Seljuk minister Saheb-e Esfahani. During this time Baha al-Din's former position in Konya must either have been discontinued, taken over by one of his disciples, or held in trust for Rumi, on the condition that he pursue a formal education in the Islamic sciences and obtain a degree (ejaze) from one of the famous madrases in Syria.

Borhan soon sent young Rumi to be trained by the acknowledged legal and religious authorities of the day in Aleppo and Damascus. While there, Rumi pursued a traditional course of religious studies, including Hanafi law, Koran, Hadith and theology. He perhaps also listened to the public lectures of theosophers and Sufi theoreticians like Ibn `Arabi while pursuing his course of studies. The mystical mentoring and maturation of Rumi, however, and perhaps his formal initiation into the Sufi path - though not his introduction to it, which, pace Schimmel, probably came at his father's knee - took place under the supervision of Borhan al-Din Mohaqqeq once Rumi had returned from Syria to Kayseri, perhaps sometime around the year 1237 (the same year that Ghias al-Din Kay Khosrow II succeeded 'Ala al-Din Kay Qobad as sultan). Rumi undertook a period of hermitage and ascetic exercises. Rumi also read and contemplated his father's spiritual notebooks, with their polychromatic mystical visions, along with the spiritual notebooks and Koran commentaries of Borhan al-Din. Eventually Rumi's mastery over his concupiscent self and his progress along the gnostic path satisfied Borhan al-Din that he was no longer in need of a mentor, and the two resumed their teaching/ preaching duties in Konya and Kayseri, respectively.

In Konya Rumi evidently resumed his father's old position or was awarded a new one, possibly as a professor of law, but more likely as the spiritual preceptor; and preacher to a community of piety-minded and mystically oriented disciples. Our sources rather predictably tell us that Rumi attained great fame during this period, that he became a recognized expert in Islamic law whose juridical opinions were widely sought out. It seems rather more likely that he achieved a certain popularity as a speaker and representative of an authentic and accessible mode of Islamic spirituality, attracting a great many disciples among the class of merchants and artisans, and among the ruling class as well. His lectures were attended by women as well as men, and a number of women considered themselves disciples. Before Shams arrived in Konya, Rumi supposedly had professorial positions in four separate madrases.

According to his son, biographer and successor, Sultan Valad, Rumi wanted to find a holy man like Khezr to be his guide. Rumi found Shams al-Din to be that guide, though his glory' was veiled from most others, even from the saints near unto God. God blessed Rumi with the revelation of the glory of Shams because of Rumi's devotion and in order to rid him of all other attachments.

After Shams al-Din Tabrizi arrived in Konya on November 29, 1244 (26 Jumadi 11 642), a transformation occurred in the outward form of Rumi's spirituality. He became more ecstatic in his worship, expressing his love for God' not only in a careful attitude of self-renunciation and control, but also through the joy of poetry, music and meditative dance (sama).

Love is but blessing and fortune
nothing but guidance and a dilated heart
But Hanifa never studied love
Shafe'i never related anything about it
The law of permissible and impermissible
pertains from now until the day of death
The knowledge of lovers is eternal...
Whoever you see with sad and sour mien
is not in love and has no part in that realm (from D 499)

Though many Sufis promoted these practices, not all the ulama sanctioned such motile and celebratory forms of worship. Some members of Rumi's own circle, both family and disciples, objected to this behavior, feeling it beneath the dignity of a preacher and jurisconsult, to say nothing of a professor in a college of law. No doubt they also found Shams' domineering manner objectionable, feeling that Rumi's deference and devotion to Shams detracted from his own reputation and standing. At some point, complaints were made to the qazi about the practice of sama` by Rumi's followers, though this would appear to date from the period after the final disappearance of Shams.

After a little more than a year, on March 11, 1246 (21 Shavval 643), Shams left town, hounded out by the hostility of some of Rumi's disciples. Distraught that this ecstatic and innovative exemplar of spiritual joy had left him, Rumi stopped composing poetry and performing the sama`. He searched frantically for Shams and after receiving word from Damascus, Rumi sent his son, Sultan Valad, to fetch Shams back to Konya. The disciples who had opposed Shams now understood that driving him away would not make things return to normal, and they reluctantly acquiesced to his reappearance in Konya in April of 1247 (Dhu al-hijja 644).

The suggestion that the relationship between Shams and Rumi was a physical and homosexual one entirely misunderstands the context. Rumi, as a forty-year-old man engaged in ascetic practices and teaching Islamic law, to say nothing of his obsession with following the example of the Prophet, would not have submitted to the sexual contact of the sixty-year-old Shams, who was, in any case, like Rumi, committed to following the Prophet and opposed to the worship of God through human beauty. Rumi did employ the symbolism of homoerotic, or more properly, androgynous love, in his poems addressed to Shams as the divine beloved, but this merely adopts an already 300-year-old convention of the poetry of praise in Persian literature.

Shams married one of Rumi's disciples, Kimia Khatun, who had been brought up in Rumi's household, but she died shortly thereafter. Perhaps Rumi's family and disciples blamed Shams for negligence in attending to her health. In any case, their hostility or jealousy toward Shams apparently led him to leave Konya for good that winter, in late 1247 or perhaps early 1248. Here there is a celebrated mysth that one of Rumi's own sons and some disciples actually murdered Shams and shoved his body down a well.

Whatever really happened a devastated Rumi went searching for him several times to Damascus, but never found him. From 1244, if not earlier, Rumi had begun composing the ghazals. During the time of his companionship with Shams, Rumi addressed many ghazals to him. When Shams disappeared the first time, Rumi's inspiration virtually dried up, but his joyous muse returned when Shams came back to Konya. With the final disappearance of Shams, the frenetic quest to recover the vision of this spiritual guide turned inward. Eventually, Rumi reached some kind of catharsis for his fervent longing and began to discover Shams within himself. He continued to compose poems in the persona of the seeker longing for guidance, but also began to assume the voice of Shams in his own poetry. Rumi appears in many of these poems as the survivor of spiritual crisis and a guide to the shores of inner enlightenment, which can be reached only through great suffering and burning away the self.

**

Love resides not in science and learning, scrolls and pages; whatever men chatter about, that way is not the lovers’ way.
Know that the branch of Love is in pre-eternity and its roots in post-eternity; this tree rests not upon heaven and earth, upon legs.
We have deposed reason and circumscribed passion, for such majesty is not appropriate to this reason and these habits.
So long as you are desirous, know that this desire of yours is an idol; when you have become beloved, after that there is no existence for the desirous.
The mariner is always upon the planks of fear and hope; once planks and mariner have passed away, nothing remains but drowning.
Shams-i Tabrizi, you are at once sea and pearl, for your being entirely is naught but the secret of the Creator.

***

By the 1250s, Rumi was composing ghazals for Salah al-Din, whom Rumi treated as Shams' successor. Gradually, the flood of composition of ghazals began to subside somewhat and, with Hosam al-Din as his chosen disciple and scribe, he turned in the 1260s to the narrative, didactic and anecdotal poetry of the Masnavi. However, Sepahsalar and Aflaki both indicate that Rumi continued to compose lyrical poetry for sama` sessions and other occasions.

The mystery of this life transforming relationship between Shams and Rumi  was the subject of many of the ghazals of Rumi. Consider the famous opening of the Masnavi:

(1) IN THE NAME OF GOD THE MERCIFUL, THE COMPASSIONATE.

Listen to the reed how it tells a tale, complaining of separations--
Saying, 
"Ever since I was parted from the reed-bed, my lament hath caused man and woman to moan.
I want a bosom torn by severance, that I may unfold (to such a one) the pain of love-desire.
Every one who is left far from his source wishes back the time when he was united with it.
In every company I uttered my wailful notes, I consorted with the unhappy and with them that rejoice.
Every one became my friend from his own opinion; none sought out my secrets from within me.
My secret is not far from my plaint, but ear and eye lack the light (whereby it should lie apprehended).
Body is not veiled from soul, nor soul from body, yet none is permitted to see the soul."
This noise of the reed is fire, it is not wind: whoso hath not this fire, may he be naught!
'Tis the fire of Love that is in the reed, 'tis the fervour of Love that is in the wine.
The reed is the comrade of every one who has been parted from a friend: its strains pierced our hearts'.
Who ever saw a poison and antidote like the reed? Who ever saw a sympathiser and a longing lover like the reed?
The reed tells of the Way full of blood and recounts stories of the passion of Majnun.
Only to the senseless is this sense confided: the tongue bath no customer save the ear.
In our woe the days (of life) have become untimely: our days travel hand in hand with burning griefs.
If our days are gone, let them go!---'tis no matter. Thou remain, for none is holy as Thou art
Whoever is not a fish becomes sated with His water; whoever is without daily bread finds the day long.
None that is raw understands the state of the ripe: therefore my words must be brief. Farewell!

***

My pilgrimage to Konya came in the middle of a fellowship to study and experience the theosophy of Muyadiin ibn al-'Arabi, who was a older contemporary of Rumi's and who had lived in Damascus and may well have entertained Shams and Rumi. I had this opportunity from the Chisholm Institute in Scotland at the end and beginning 1979-1980. I had been traveling with a group of  mostly British mystics, with a film crew, visiting archeological sites and Sufi macams (tombs), mostly on the Anatolian coast when I was asked to attend the public Sama for Rumi, Celebrating his nuptial night,  December 17th, the day he died 707 years previously (1273).

More than 12 hours of bus ride I arrived late upon the bitter cold night of the 16th. lodging was arranged and that night I had a extraordinary dream.

I was seven years in the past at the 700th anniversary of Rumi's urs.  I with a film crew. There was a big gathering of saints from all over the world and from all religions. A big procession was endlessly going on like a circus. I noticed two fellows dancing. Later I remark to one of the dancers  that I liked their dance. Who was he and his partner? I enquired. A disciple standing by answers for him saying this is Hodai and his partner is Uftadi. (Names of founder's of Turkish Sufi orders, whose tombs I had visited.) Wow! I say I visited your graves in the future. Hodai looks unpleased. What the problem I ask, I am trying to appreciate your special dance and I am insulting you!. The disciples says Well Paul you see they are not dead. I am beside myself with embarrassment and am crying inconsolable for this unintended slight.

I am beginning to wake up and know I am dreaming. Just then far away in the hubbub of the crowd there is this guy I know. He's Shams. He's shouting Paul don't go. I have a secret to tell you. Now I really want to stay asleep. I want to hear the secret for sure. "Paul, they're waiting for you?" Who me? yes they're waiting for you to join the parade."

I awoke and copied the dream down.

Later that day again to keep it simple I was to follow a traditional  Sufi  etiquette, a decorum of what order to visit these Sufi saints in Konya, to Jalaluddin Rumi's tomb. First I visit Sadr'udin, Qonvi (ibn al-'Arabi's son-in-law, who provided a neoplatonic interpretation and systemization of  theosophy and who lived in Konya the same time as Rumi). I go to his tomb by an out of way madrase in a neighborhood of Konya. There I am to bring respect. I didn't feel like respect. It was a hard attitude to muster. 

Next I go to to the Mosque dedicated to Shams.  I was instructed. "Bring Love" The myth has it that Shams sacrificed  his life so that Rumi could be cooked to perfection. Selfless love the greatest gift anyone can give another.  What love do I have? I wonder. Just after taking off my shoes. In my mind Shams from my dream returns to me. Commanding: "Paul, you love what I love." both question and statement. Yes, I assent. "Then do not put yourself (or anything) before it!"

I was astounded at the simplicity and profundity of that tierce admonition.

Still following the custom. Next was Rumi's tomb. It is a Mosque and a museum. Here I was told. "Bring nothing" Love boils away egotisms. I however felt myself like a boil upon my body. I looked at my empty open hands and fretted How can I bring nothing? I feel helpless and burdened with myself and perceptions.

It is the day the 17th of December, Rumi died here in this city 707 years before. Tonight I would be going to the high school gymnasium to see the Mevlana Sufi's whirl as Rumi had taught them generations ago. The Mosque is an historic work of architecture. There are many people here. A group of Japanese photographers are literally hanging from the rafters taking photographs. There are old women praying. and little children wide-eyed with wonder. It was a regular Zoo. Here I ran into other tourists. Looking wondering praying. Behind all the noise and commotion however was a abysmal indifference. Not the cozy love and friendly familiarity I felt with Shams. Here Rumi was in all his Jalal. Grandeur beyond care or passion. Here was an incredible yawning openness beyond all thought wonder or aspiration. It was vast. I was literally yawning. as my mind and self could no way face this spaciousness. Wow!

Bring Nothing. Frankly what was there in absence was not to be readily captured by words. Silence.

I quizzed some of my fellow travelers, coaxing some to confess some admission of what they felt. Most are not as word ready as I am. I also discussed the deep disappointment that some felt. For them there was nothing, but a busy museum. and a bunch of grave markers. No vastness opened to reveal the palatable taste and  touch of eternity.

So for me Rumi is more than a love poet. he is a guide and demonstration of the profound goodness of our human condition. He inspires.

***

147

Look on me, for I shall be your companion in the grave on that night when you pass across from shop and house.
You will hear my greeting in the tomb, and you will be aware that not for a moment you have been veiled from my eyes.
I am like reason and mind within your veil, alike in time of pleasure and happiness and in the hour of pain and weariness.
On the strange night, when you hear the voice familiar, you will escape from the bite of snake and leap away from the horror of ant;
Love's intoxication will bring to your grave, as a gift, wine and mistress and candle and meats and sweets and incense.
On the hour when we light the lamp of the intellect, what a tumult of joy shall go up from the dead in the tombs!
The dust of the graveyard will be confounded by those cries, by the din of the drum of resurrection, the pomp and panoply of the uprising
Shrouds rent asunder, two ears stopped up in terror; what shall avail brain and ear before the blast of the trumpet?
On whatever side you gaze, you will behold my form, whether you gaze on yourself or towards that uproar and confusion.
Flee from squinteyedness, and make good both your eyes, for the evil eye on that day will be far from my beauty.
Beware of mistaking me in a human shape, for the spirit is very subtle, and Love is exceedingly jealous.
What room is there for form, if the felt be a hundredfold? It is the rays of the soul's mirror that pitch the flag visibly.
Beat the drum, and wind towards the minstrels of the city; it is the day of purification to the grown lads of the road of Love.
Had they sought God, instead of morsel and pence, you would not have seen one blind man seated on the edge of the moat.
What sort of ogling-house have you opened in our city! Mouth shut, shoot out glances, like light.
I am the slave who set the master free, I am the one who taught the teacher.
I am that soul which was born of the world yesterday, and yet erected the ancient world.
I am the wax whose claim is this, that it was I who made steel steel.
I have painted with surmeh many a sightless one, I have taught many a one without intelligence.
I am the black cloud in the night of grief who gladdened the day of festival.
I am the amazing earth who out of the fire of love filled with air the brain of the sky.
In joy that king slept not last night, because I the slave remembered him.
It is not to blame, since you intoxicated me, if I am scandalous and wrought injustice.
Silence, for the mirror is rusting over; when I blew upon it, it protested against me.

***

Rumi has nothing but pity and disdain for those of us who look at the world around and within ourselves and do not understand that what we are seeing is a veil over reality. The world is a dream, a prison, a trap, foam thrown up from the ocean, dust kicked up by a passing horse. But it is not what it appears to be...

***

If everything that appears to us were just as it appears, the Prophet, who was endowed with such penetrating vision, both illuminated and illuminating, would never have cried out, "Oh Lord, show us things as they are!" (F 5/18)

Rumi draws a fundamental distinction between "form" (surat) and "meaning" (ma'na). Form is a thing's outward appearance, meaning its inward and unseen reality. Ultimately, meaning is that thing as it is known to God Himself. And since God is beyond any sort of multiplicity, in the last analysis the meaning of all things is God. "Form is shadow, meaning the Sun." (M VI 4747)

In face of meaning, what is form? Very contemptible. The meaning of the heavens keeps them in place.
The meaning of the wind makes it wander like a millwheel, captive to the water of the stream. (M 13330, 33)

Know that the outward form passes away, but the World of Meaning remains forever.
How long will you make love with the shape of the jug? Leave aside the jug's shape: Go, seek water!
Having seen the form, you are unaware of the meaning. If you are wise, pick out the pearl from the shell. (M II 1020-22)  

The world then is form, or a collection of a myriad forms. By its very nature each form displays its own meaning, which is its reality with God. It is our human task not to be deceived by the form. We must understand that form does not exist for its own sake, but manifests a meaning above and beyond itself.

Forms are the oil, meaning the light-otherwise, you would not keep asking why.
If form is for the sake of the form itself, then why ask "Why?" . . .
So wisdom cannot allow that the outward forms of the heavens and the inhabitants of the earth should exist for this only. (M IV 2994-95, 98)

Pass beyond form, escape from names! Flee titles and names toward meaning! (M IV 1285)

The Prophet said, "Behold the form of the heavens and the earth, and through this form draw benefit from that Universal Meaning. For you see the changes wrought by the Wheel of Heaven, the rains of the clouds in season, summer and winter, and the changes of Time. You see that everything is in its place and in accordance with wisdom. After all, how does this inanimate cloud know that it must send down rain in season? You see the earth, how it nurtures plants and makes one into ten. Well, Someone does this. See Him by means of this world, and take replenishment from Him. Just as you take replenishment from the meaning of the human reality through the body, take replenishment from the meaning of the world through the world's form." (F 39/51)

The dichotomy between meaning and form is a mainstay of Rumi s teachings and must be kept constantly in mind. He refers to it in many different contexts and through a great variety of images and symbols. In fact, there is no overriding reason to label the fundamental dichotomy within reality as that between "form and meaning," except that this pair of terms seems to be the widest in application of all the pairs Rumi employs, and he probably refers to it more often than any other. In any case, we should not attempt to tie Rumi down too closely in the matter of terminology. "Meaning" by definition is beyond form and its constrictions. Therefore all attempts to express it in words must be equivocal to some extent. Rather than impose strict philosophical definitions on Rumi s terminology, we will be much better off letting him speak for himself as he urges us to go beyond definitions and the limitations of human language.

In referring to form and meaning or the outward and the inward, Rumi employs another set of terms which emphasizes the "negative" face of meaning in relation to the "positive" side of form. From this point of view form is "place" and meaning is "No-place"; foam is "color" and the sea is "Colorlessness." For meaning is opposite to form and can only be attained by form's negation, by "formlessness."

 Everyone has turned his face toward some direction, but the saints have turned in the direction without directions. (M V 350)

In the direction without directions all is spring; any other direction holds nothing but the cold of December. (D 20089)

He appears to be still and in movement, but He is neither this nor that; He manifests Himself in place, but in truth He has no place. (D 6110)

Form comes into existence from the Formless, just as smoke is born from fire. (M VI 3712)

Rumi often discerns between form and meaning in terms of "existence" (hasti, wujud) and "nonexistence" (nisti, 'adam). This pairing of terms is more complicated than many others, since each of the two words may refer either to form or to meaning, depending upon the context. From one point of view, we see this world as an existent thing. Hence form is existence, while meaning is formless and nonexistent. But if we look carefully, we see that this form or "existence" is but dust upon the wind. Compared to the ocean, the foam may truly be called "nonexistent." So from a second point of view, God and meaning are existence, while form and the world are nonexistence. Rumi often contrasts these two points of view in the same verses, and at other times he refers to one point of view or the other.

This world of nonexistence appears as existent things, and that world of Existence is exceedingly hidden.
Dust is upon the wind, playing-deceptive, it sets up a veil.
That which is doing the work has no work; it is only skin. But that which is hidden is the kernel and origin. (M II 1280-82)

We and our existences are nonexistences. Thou art Absolute Existence showing Thyself as perishable things.
We are all lions, but lions on a banner: We keep on leaping because of the wind. (M I 602-603)

The worldly man imagines that a nonexistent thing possesses splendor. Oh friend, why would a wise man devote his life to the work of nonexistence? .. .

***

Form and meaning are inextricably connected: form derives from meaning, and meaning manifests itself as form. Since the two are the outward and inward aspects of a single reality, each is important in its own way. But for most people, the danger lies in giving too much importance to form and not understanding that it derives its existence and significance from meaning.

Each and every part of the world is a snare for the fool and a means of deliverance for the wise. (M VI 4287)

I said to the white-haired world, "You are both snare and admonition." It replied, "Although I am an ancient master, yet I am still His young disciple." (D 14988)

Form also has tremendous importance. No, much more than importance, for it participates in the kernel. Just as nothing can be done without the kernel, so also nothing can be done without the shell . . . But the root is meaning. (F 19/31)

When you say that "form is the branch of meaning," or "form is the vassal, while the heart is the king"-after all, form and meaning are relative terms. You say, "This is the branch of that": If there were no branch, how could you call the other the "root"? So it became the root because of the branch. If there were no branch, it would have no name. (F 144/153)

Just as Rumi constantly distinguishes between form and meaning, he also refers over and over again to two kinds of knowledge and vision: one that discerns only form, and another that passes beyond form and discerns the meaning. The first he sometimes calls the "science of bodies" (`ilm-i abdan) to distinguish it from the "science of religions" ('ilm-i adyan); the former embraces all that we customarily understand by the term "science" and "knowledge," even such disciplines as theology and metaphysics, for these are learned by rote and study. Until they boil up from the heart as the result of a direct vision of the inward meanings and realities, or of God God'sself, they are but shadows, not light. Without a direct and vibrantly living vision of meaning, knowledge is only form. Certainly it may have the potentiality of being transmuted into true knowledge, but only after long spiritual travail.

The man more perfect in erudition is behind in meaning and ahead in form ... .
A knowledge is needed whose root is upon the other side, since every branch leads to its root.
Every wing cannot fly across the breadth of the ocean: Only a knowledge that comes directly from Him can take one to Him. (M III 1117, 24-25)

Every science acquired by study and effort in this world is the "science of bodies." But the science acquired after death is the "science of religions." Knowing the science of "I am God" is the science of bodies, but becoming "I am God" is the science of religions.2 To see the light of a lamp or a fire is the science of bodies, but to be consumed by the fire of the light or the lamp is the science of religions. Whatever is vision is the science of religions, whatever is knowledge is the science of bodies. (F 228/235)

These people who have studied or are now studying imagine that if they attend faithfully here they will forget and abandon all their knowledge. On the contrary, when they come here their sciences all acquire a spirit. The sciences are all paintings. When they gain spirits, it is as if a lifeless body receives a spirit. The root of all these sciences is from Yonder, but they have been transported from the world without sounds and letters into the world of sounds and letters. (F 156/163-164)

Love

It can easily be shown that Love ('ishq) is the central theme of all Rumis works. In Rumi's view, Love totally dominates and determines the Sufi's inward and "psychological" states. But because Love pertains to the experiential dimensions of Sufism, not the theoretical, it must be experienced to be understood. It cannot be explained in words, any more than the true nature of one's attachment to a beloved of this world can be set down on paper. This is all the more so since the Sufi's Beloved transcends not only this world, but the next world as well and everything we can possibly conceive or imagine. Rumi often remarks on the impossibility of explaining Love, although in other verses he takes the complementary point of view: One can discuss Love  forever and never exhaust it. In any case, the result is the same: Love cannot truly be expressed in words. It is fundamentally an experience situated beyond the narrow confines of articulated thought---but an experience more real than the universe and all it contains.

No matter what I say to explain and elucidate Love, shame overcomes me when I come to Love itself. (M 1 112)

Love cannot be contained within our speaking or listening; Love is an ocean whose depths cannot be plumbed.

Would you try to count the drops of the sea? Before that Ocean, the seven seas are nothing. (M V 2731-32)

Love cannot be found in erudition and science, books and pages. Whatever is discussed by people-that is not the way of lovers. (D 4182)

Whatever you have said or heard is the shell: The kernel of Love is a mystery that cannot be divulged. (D 2988)

Enough! How long will you cling to these words of the tongue? Love has many expositions beyond speech. (D 4355)

Silence! Silence! For the allusions of Love are reversed: The meanings become hidden from much speaking. (D 12073)

Someone asked, "What is Love?" I replied, "Ask not about these meanings.  
When you become like me, then you will know. When He calls you, you will recite its tale." (D 29050-51)

Love, then, has to be experienced to be understood. But we can still glean a great deal about this ineffable reality from Rumi s words, so long as we remember that Love exists to be realized, not discussed. If Rumi discusses it, he does so only to stir up the desire for Love in the heart of the listener:

What is Love? Perfect thirst. So let me explain the Water of Life. (D 17361)

**

For Rumi God is the source of all love, just as God is the source of all other things. (For you who find the word God repugnant, because you have been hurt by religion and lied to about the divine nature substitute whatever ultimate Good you care about that can care about you... then let go of any idea that you can author such a good but rather the Good is greater than what you can know.)

To what extent may it properly be said that "God is Love"? The fact that Love is an Attribute of God is confirmed implicitly by numerous Qur'anic verses in which God is said to "love" something. The Sufis usually quote the following verse, since it shows clearly the hierarchical relationship between God's Love for people and our love for God, that derives its existence from the the divine: "God will bring a people whom He loves and who love Him, humble towards the believers, disdainful towards the unbelievers, men who struggle in the path of God, not fearing the reproach of any reproacher" (V 54).

As to whether or not we may say that "God is Love," the answer is the same as with any other divine Attribute: yes and no. God is certainly Love, but this Attribute does not exhaust His Reality. In the same way He is Mercy, Knowledge, Life, Power, and Will. He possesses all these qualities; His Being is the same as their Being; but we may not say that God is Mercy and nothing else, or that He is Knowledge and nothing else. As the "Coincidence of Opposites," He possesses all His Attributes absolutely, yet in His Essence He is beyond them all. From one point of view He is Love, but from another point of view He is beyond Love. Both points of view are seen in Rumi s verse and prose.

Love is affection beyond bounds. Hence it is said that Love is truly God's Attribute, while it is the attribute of His servants only in a derivative sense. He loves them is everything. What then is they love Him? (M II intro.)

Fear is not even a hair before Love; in the Religion of Love, all things are sacrificed.

Love is an Attribute of God, but fear is an attribute of the servant afflicted by lust and gluttony.  
Since you have read in the Koran they love Him placed in a single verse with He loves them,  
Know that Love and Affection are Attributes of God. But fear is not God's Attribute, dear friend!  
What relationship exists between God's Attribute and that of a handful of dust? Or between the attribute of a temporal being and that of the All-Holy?  
If I should continue my explanation of Love, a hundred resurrections would pass before I could complete it,  
Since the date of the resurrection has a limit---but where are limits when it is a question of God's  
Attributes? (M V 2184-90)

When I leave sleeping and eating behind, I will become like everlasting Love: Living, Self-subsistent. (D 16036)

Others call Thee Love, but I call Thee the Sultan of Love-oh Thou who art beyond the concept of this --without me  
No one has ever walked two or three paces toward the garden of Love without a hundred salaams from  
the Gardener.  
Beyond Love are thousands upon thousands of courtyards, but their might and majesty prevent them from entering the mind. (D 10109-10)

Love is desire and need. Although in God's Essence God is beyond all need, yet at the level of His Attributes He said, "I desired (or "loved") to be known, so I created the world." Likewise, it was His Love for the Prophet which made Him say, "But for thee, I would not have created the celestial spheres." Hence God's Love for manifesting the Hidden Treasure through the prophets and saints was the motivating force in His creation of the universe. As a result, Love courses throughout the world's arteries. All movement and activity result from that original Love; the world's forms are but the reflections of its unique reality.

The creatures are set in motion by Love, Love by Eternity-without-beginning; the wind dances because of the spheres, the trees because of the wind. (D 5001)

God said to Love, "If not for thy beauty, how should I pay attention to the mirror of existence?" (D 26108)

The world is like a mirror displaying Love's perfection. Oh friends! Who has ever seen a part greater than

its whole? (D 25248)

Love is the kernel, the world the shell; Love is the sweetmeat, the world the cauldron. (D 22225)

Oh Love who hast a thousand names and a cup of sweet wine! Oh Thou who bestowest a thousand skills!  
Oh formless One with a thousand forms! Oh Form-giver to the Turk, Greek, and Ethiopian! (D 14022-23)

Love splits the spheres with a hundred splittings, it shakes the earth mightily.  
Pure Love was paired with Muhammad---for its sake God said to him, "But for thee . ..".  
Since he was the unique goal of Love, God singled him out from the other prophets:  
"But for pure Love, how should I have given existence to the celestial spheres?  
I erected the heavenly wheel so that you might understand Love's exaltation." (M V 2736-40)  

***

All things participate in God's Love, the motivating force of creation so all things are lovers. In other words, each existent is infused with need and desire for other existents and is constantly striving to gaia union with them. These individual loves are the immediate source of all movement and activity.

God's wisdom in His destiny and decree has made us lovers of one another.  
That foreordainment has paired all parts of the world and set them in love with their mates.  
Each part of the world desires its mate, just like amber and straw.  
Heaven says to the earth, "Hallo! Thou drawest me like iron to a magnet!" . . .  
The female desires the male so that they may perfect each other's work.  
God placed desire within man and woman so that the world might find subsistence through their union.  
He places desire in each part for another part and their union gives birth to offspring. (M III 4400-03, 14-16)

That world is like an ocean, and this world is foam. God the Almighty desired to keep the foam in good order, so He made certain people turn their backs to the ocean in order to maintain the foam. . . . A tent has been pitched for the king, and certain people have been made busy keeping the tent in good order. One of them says, "If I did not make the pegs, where could they tie the ropes?" . . . God gave each of them a satisfaction and happiness in his task, so much so, else, every day his love for it would increase. (F 92-93/104)

The trees were saying, "What a shame! Under the earth we possess such skill and elegance and beauty! We have received such favors from God; and other roots have no knowledge of these things. Oh would that there were a day of bazaar, so that we could display our beauty! So that our excellence and the ugliness of others could be brought to light!"

An answer came to them from the Unseen World: "Oh prisoners of water and clay, occupy yourselves with your tasks and acquire skills! Be not broken-hearted! Fear not that your skills will remain hidden! For We have placed these pearls and fruits in your treasuries, and you yourself had no knowledge of them. They were concealed in Our Unseen Knowledge. Before entering into existence the skills and beauties that you see today in yourselves were pearls in the Unseen Ocean, hurrying to enter the treasuries of the inhabitants of dry land. We have placed a special characteristic in every possessor of a skill, in every craftsman and master of a task, whether goldsmith, jeweler, magician, alchemist; and in every tradesman, lawyer, and scholar-so that he will always be bubbling over and displaying his own skill. We have placed this bubbling and this desire, and they have become unsettled, like girls who have just reached puberty. In their houses the girls adorn their clothing and their beauty and gaze at mirrors.

***

Human love can be divided into two kinds: "true love" ('ishq-i hagigi), or love for God; and "derivative love" ('ishq-i majazi), or love for anything else. But on closer examination, one sees that all love is in fact love for God, since whatever exists is His reflection or shadow. The difference then between the two kinds of love is that some people know that only God truly exists and direct their love only toward Him; while others believe in the independent existence of various objects of desire and so turn their love toward them.

But since love for other than God derives from love for Him, it ultimately leads to Him. One by one man's objects of desire will show their unfaithfulness, and man will turn his love elsewhere. However, many will not find the true Beloved until after death, when it will be too late to try to close the gap of separation. The Sufi has already discovered that there is only one Beloved; he sees all derivative love as cold and unreal.

In the present context Rumi explains the nature of beauty clearly and succinctly: It is a drop of spray from the infinite Ocean, or a ray of light shining upon a wall. All beauty derives from the other world, so here it is borrowed and ephemeral. True Beauty pertains only to God.

In the eyes of the elect, Love is a tremendous eternal light, even though the vulgar see it as but form and sensuality. (D 18197)

All the hopes, desires, loves, and affections that people have for different things-fathers, mothers, friends, heavens, the earth, gardens, palaces, sciences, works, food, drink-the saint knows that these are desires for God and all those things are veils. When men leave this world and see the King without these veils, then they will know that all were veils and coverings, that the object of their desire was in reality that One Thing. All their difficulties will be solved, all the questions and perplexities they had in their breasts will be answered. They will see all things face to face. (F 35/46)

The universe displays the beauty of Thy Comeliness! The goal is Thy Beauty-all else is pretext. (D 31554)

Your beloved is not form, whether your love is from this world or that.  
Why do you leave the form that you love when its spirit goes?  
Its form is still there-why have you had your fill? Oh lover, look carefully! Who is your beloved? (M II  
703-705)

I wonder at these people who say, "How can the saints and the lovers love that ineffable world, since it has no place or form and is beyond description? How can they derive replenishment and aid from it and be affected by it?" After all, they themselves are occupied with the same thing night and day. Take this person who loves another person and derives replenishmemt from her: After all, this replenishment, kindness, goodness, knowledge, recollection, thought, joy, heartache-he derives all these things, and all dwell in the world of No-place. Moment by moment he receives replenishment from these meanings and is affected by them, but this does not cause him any wonder. Yet he wonders how some people are in love with the world of No-place and draw replenishment from it. (F 38-39/50)

In man there is a love, a pain, an itch, and a desire such that, if a hundred thousand worlds were to become his property, he would still gain no rest or ease. These people occupy themselves thoroughly with every kind of craft, skill, and position; they learn astronomy, medicine, and other things, but they do not find ease, since their goal has not been attained. After all, the Beloved is called "heart's ease," since the heart finds ease through Him. So how could it find ease and peace through others?  
All these diversions and goals are like a ladder. Since the rungs of a ladder are no place to take up residence, but exist only so that you can pass on, happy is he who quickly comes to himself and awareness! Then the long road becomes short, and he does not waste his life on the ladder's rungs. (F 64/75)

***. NEED AND ASPIRATION

They say that in the end, love is the want and need for something. Hence need is the root, and the needed thing is the branch. I say: After all, when you speak, you speak out of need. Your need brings your words into existence. Since you desired these words, they came into being. So need is prior, and the words came into being from it.  
Hence need existed without the words, and love and need cannot be the words' branch.  
Someone said: But the goal of the need was the words. So how can the goal be the branch?  
The master answered: The branch is always the goal-the tree's roots exist for the sake of its branches. (F 139/148)

Almighty God does not bestow anything without need.  
Had there been no need for the world, the Lord of the world's inhabitants would not have created it.  
If this quaking earth had not needed mountains, would He have created them in their majesty?  
Had there not been need for the spheres, He would not have brought the seven heavens from nonexistence.  
The sun, the moon, these stars-how could they have come visibly into existence had there been no need?  
So the noose of all existences is need: Man's instrument is the extent of his need.  
So, oh needful man, quickly increase your need! Then the Sea of Bounty will gush forth in generosity.  
These beggars and cripples in the road display their need to people-
Blindness, lameness, illness, and pains-so that people's mercy will be moved.  
Does a beggar ever say, "Oh people, give me bread, for I have wealth, warehouses, and a spread table!"? (M II 3274-83)

Indeed, no lover seeks union without his beloved seeking him.  
But the love of lovers makes their bodies into bowstrings, while the love of beloveds makes them happy and plump.  
When the lightning of love for the loved one flashes in this heart, know that there is also love in that heart.  
When love for God has doubled in your heart, without doubt God has love for you.  
You have never heard one hand clapping without the other.  
The thirsty man laments, "Oh sweet water!" The water also laments, "Where is the drinker!"  
This thirst in our souls is the attraction of the Water-we belong to It and It belongs to us. (M III 4393-99)

Of course, love and the regard of friendship always come from both sides. The stimulation of desire and the occasion for ardor derive from both directions, since love for God or for the creature is not one-sided, nor has it ever been. One cannot conceive of the sound of one hand clapping, nor can one dance on one foot. He loves them is never separate from they love Him, nor is God is well-pleased with them ever without they are well-pleased with Him (V 119). (MK 98: 102/195)

When the heart was annihilated within Him, He  
remained; then it understood the object of His words: "I  
Myself am the Seeker and the Sought." (D 13517)

In whatever state you may be, seek! Seek water constantly, oh man of dry lips!  
For your dry lips give witness that in the end you will find a fountain.  
The lips' dryness is a message from the water: "If you keep on moving about, without doubt you will find me."  
Seeking is a blessed movement, seeking kills obstacles on the way to God.  
Seeking is the key to your objects of desire, it is your army and the victory of your banners. (M III 1437-43)  

Whatever makes you tremble-know that you are worth just that! That is why the lover's heart is greater than God's Throne. (D 6400)

God will give you what you seek. Where your aspiration lies, that you will become, for "The bird flies with his wings, but the believer flies with his aspiration." (F 77/ 89)

6. THE RELIGION OF LOVE

Love for God implies theory, practice, and realization. The lover; discerns the true Beloved from derivative beloveds, augments his seeking and need through spiritual discipline under the guidance of, a shaykh, and negates all things other than the Beloved, including himself, so that only He remains.

Love's creed is separate from all religions: The creed and denomination of lovers is God. (M II 1770)

What is the mi'raj of the heavens? Nonexistence. The religion and creed of the lovers is nonexistence. (M VI 233)

My religion is to live through Love-life through this spirit and body are my shame. (M VI 4059)

The intellect does not know and is bewildered by the Religion of Love-even if it should be aware of all religions. (D 2610)

In the religion of the lovers, that spirit is mortally ill whose illness does not make him worse every day. (D 3610)

Everything other than love for the most beautiful God is agony of the spirit, though it be sugar-eating.  
What is agony of the spirit? To advance toward death without seizing hold of the Water of Life. (M I 3686-87)

Choose Love, Love! Without the sweet life of Love, living is a burden-as you have seen. (D 32210)

What sort of Beloved is He? As long as a single hair of love for yourself remains, He will not show His Face; you will be unworthy of union with Him, and He will give you no access. You must be completely repelled by yourself and the world and be your own self's enemy, or else the Friend will not show His Countenance. So when our religion resides in a person's heart, it stays right there until it takes his heart to God and separates it from everything unworthy. (F 114-115/125-126)

Love wrings water from rocks, Love cleans rust from mirrors.  
Unbelief has come in war, faith in peace-Love strikes fire to both peace and war.  
In the ocean of the heart Love opens its mouth and like a whale swallows down the two worlds.  
Love is a lion, without deception and trickery, not a fox one moment and a leopard the next.  
When Love provides replenishment upon replenishment, the spirit gains deliverance from this dark and narrow body.  
From the beginning Love is all bewilderment-it stuns the intellect and dazzles the spirit. Oh east wind, my heart is in Tabriz-take my salaams there without delay! (D 1331)

*** LOVE AND THE INTELLECT

The word "intellect" is ambiguous out of context. It is a reality with many dimensions, the lower of which are intimately connected with the ego, but the higher of which are of the same substance as the angels. people must strive to overcome the partial: intellect, which is dominated by the ego. We must seek the guidance of the Universal Intellect, which is embodied in the prophets and saints. Ultimately we must find the Universal Intellect within ourself and come totally under the sway of our own angelic nature.

We have already seen that "the angel and the intellect were one but they assumed two different forms for God's purposes" (M 1114054 Moreover, there is no doubt that the intellect-whether partial o universal-is created, since "the first thing God created was the In, tellect." Hence, when man attains the station of annihilation, the Intellect within him is also annihilated; or rather, he leaves the Intellect behind. In the station of "I am God," only God remains. There cannot be an intellect through which man knows God, since there is not eve man, but only Absolute Oneness.

These limitations of the intellect and even the Universal Intellect are expressed symbolically in the accounts of the Prophet's ascent to God's Presence during his mi'raj: Gabriel, who was the Prophet's guide and is the embodiment of the Universal Intellect, was only able to take him as far as the Lote Tree of the Far Boundary on the outermost edge of the seventh sphere. When the two of them reached this point, Gabriel told the Prophet that he could go no farther without burning his wings. So the Prophet ascended the last stages alone.

Since Love brings about man's annihilation and subsistence, it transcends the intellect, which, from this point of view, is looked upon as an obstruction in Love's path. The juxtaposition of Love and intellect plays an important role in much of Sufi literature, and Rumi s works are no exception. However, the criticisms Rumi makes of the intellect from the point of view of Love must never be taken out of the context of his whole teachings, within which the intellect plays a major and positive role. For it is no less than the necessary preparation for Love and man's guide to the doorway of God's sanctuary, just as Gabriel was a necessary guide on the Prophet's mi'raj. But as for the last step of the journey, that can only be traveled upon the legs of Love and self-naughting.

God gave you two hands, meaning, "Grasp my skirt!" He gave you an intellect so that you might follow the path to heaven.

For intellect is the same in kind as the angel and runs toward it. You will see it if you hide yourself from the mirror's surface. (D 32545-46)

When the sun goes, what remains? Black night. When the intellect departs from the head, what remains but foolishness?

Oh intellect, everyone's troubles stem from your departure! Then you lay the blame upon the body without an intellect.

Wherever you turn your back are found error and war, wherever you show your face are seen intoxication and passionate love. (D 31643-45)

This is good: an intellect from that side, effective in looking toward the ultimate end, free of cupidity and sensuality, and prepared for Love. (D 25715)

The intellect is that which, constantly, night and day, is agitated and restless from its meditation, effort, and striving to comprehend the Creator-even though He is uncomprehended and incomprehendible. The intellect is like a moth, the Beloved a candle. As much as the moth throws itself upon the candle, it is burned and destroyed. But the

moth is that which, however much it suffers harm, burning and pain, cannot do without the candle. (F 36/47)

Without doubt, only angelic attributes are Love's

confidant: You are still caught in the attributes of asses,

demons, and beasts. (D 30358)

Where do angels find food? From the beauty of

God's Presence-the moon and the planets seek nourishment

from the world's sun. (D 21945)

Intellect is good and desirable to the extent it

brings you to the King's door. Once you have reached His door, then divorce the intellect! From this time on, the

intellect will be to your loss and a brigand. When you reach Him, entrust yourself to Him! You have no business with the

how and the wherefore. (F 112/122-123)

Know that the intellect's cleverness all belongs

to the vestibule. Even if it possesses the knowledge of Plato, it

is still outside the palace. (D 5141)

Intellect is like a magistrate. When the Sultan

comes, the miserable intellect slinks off to a corner.

Intellect is a shadow, God the sun: How can a

shadow stand up to the sun? (M IV 2110-11)

Before Thee, who is the Universal Intellect? A

child just entering school. Compared to Thy perfection, what does the Intellect possess other than a beard and a turban? (1t

26889) 1 At the words of my Heart-ravisher, the intellect

flew from my head. The Universal Intellect did not catch a scent of the rest of the story-so what place was there for

me? (D 19160)

Even if Thou settest a fire which consumes the

Universal Intellect's garden, .Thou wilt make thousands of gardens from non-intellect and madness. (D 26573)

When Muhammad passed the Lote Tree and Gabriel's observation post, station, and limit,

He said to Gabriel, "Come, fly after me!" He replied, "Go! Go! I am not your match!"

Again he said, "Come, oh burner of veils! I have still not reached my zenith."

He replied, "Oh my sweet glory! If I fly beyond this limit, my wings will burn."

This tale of how the elect become senseless

before the most elect is bewilderment within bewilderment!

Oh Gabriel! Although you are noble and might, you are neither moth nor candle.

When the flaming candle sends its invitation, the moth's spirit does not hold back from being consumed! (M IV 3801-05, 07-08)

In the screaming gale of Love, the intellect is a gnat. How can intellects find space to wander there?

When the journey went beyond the Lote Tree, Gabriel held back from Muhammad:

"I will burn if I come, for in that place there is only Love and naughting." (D 7600-02)

I am with the King, I am both slave and Kinghow can Gabriel find room where there are only God and I? (D 34953)

I had wings like Gabriel-six hundred wings were mine. When I arrived at His side, what use were wings? (D 5791)

Without the Buraq of Love and the effort of Gabriel, how will you reach those stations like Muhammad? (D 30751)

The partial intellect is a vulture, oh destitute man! Its wings are connected to carrion eating. The intellect of the saints is like Gabriel's

wing-it takes you mile by mile to the shade of the Lote Tree. (M VI 4138-39)

The partial intellect is a denier of Love, even if it pretends to know the mysteries.

It is clever and knowledgeable, but not naughted-as long as the angel is not naughted, it is a demon. (M I 1982-83)

If you build yourself a hen house, try not to put a camel inside it-with its long neck.

The hen is the intellect and the house your body; the camel is the beauty of Love, with its stature and upright head. (D 31168-69)

Trying to explain Love, the intellect fell down in the mud like an ass-Love and loverhood can only be explained by Love.

The sun is the sun's proof: If you must have proof, then turn not your face away from it. (M I 115-116)

Like a shark Love has again shown its head, smashing the intellect's rowboat in Love's ocean. (D 13877)

Do not listen to tales of Love's heartache from a rational man, for he has cold lips and chin.

Have you or anyone else ever seen an icebox give a sign of fire? (D 24887-88)

He that is fortunate and a confidant of the mysteries knows that cleverness is from Iblis and love from Adam.

Cleverness is to swim in the sea. But the swimmer can hardly escape-in the end he will drown.

Leave off swimming, abandon pride and spite! This is not the Oxus or some stream, this is the Ocean!

What is more, it is a deep Ocean with no sanctuary-it swallows down the seven seas like a straw.

Love is a ship for the elect: Misfortunes are few, most are saved.

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment! Cleverness is opinion, bewilderment vision.

Sacrifice your intellect before Muhammad! Say, God is enough for me (XXXIX 38), for He suffices.. . .

Make yourself a simpleton and follow the saint: You will find salvation only by being a simpleton.

Hence, oh father, that king of men, the Prophet, said, "Most of the people of paradise are simpletons."

Since cleverness is your pride and fills you with wind, become a simpleton so that your heart may remain healthy,

Not a simpleton warped by buffoonery, but one distraught and bewildered in God.

Those women who cut their hands were simpletons-simpletons in relation to their hands, but they gave notice of Joseph's face.

Sacrifice your intellect for the love of the Friend; in any case, all intellects come from His side.

The true possessors of intellects have sent their intellects to that side; the fool has remained on this side, where the Beloved cannot be found.

If your intellect departs from your head in bewilderment, every hair on your head will become a head and an intellect. (M IV 1402-08, 19-26)

In the glory and splendor of Love, you will find many intellectual concepts other than these.

Beside this intellect of yours God has many intellects, governing the intermediate causes of the heavens.

Through this intellect you gain your daily bread, but through that other you will make the spheres your carpet.

When you sacrifice your intellect in love for God, He will give you ten like it, or seven hundred. (M V 3233-36)

If you have a heart, lose it! If you have an intellect, become mad! For the partial intellect is a boil on love's eye. (D 24224)

Though Iblis had knowledge, he had nothing of religion's love, so he saw naught in Adam but an imprint in clay. (M VI 260)

The intellect's splendor is not embraced by the seven heavens-oh Love, why has it gone into thy trap and bag?

Though the intellect is but a single grain from Love's granary, all your feathers and wings are attached to it. (D 22989-90)

He who has not seen Thy Beauty makes the intellect his kiblah-a blind man carries a cane instead of a lamp. (D 11437)

Love has no thoughts, for thought is a cane. The intellect's cane shows it is blind. (D 16734) Oh intellect! You were copper and then Love

made you gold. You are not the elixir, you are the science of the elixir. (D 36313)

Until Thy Love burns my intellect to ashes, I

am heedless, not intelligent-Come! Come! Come! Come! (D 1790)

If intellect is a judge, then where is its diploma and license? Seeing the outcome of affairs, patience, dignity, and faithfulness.

If Love is a confidant, then what is the mark of its confidence? All but the Face of the Friend is annihilated in its vision. (D 4901-02)

The intellect's merchandise is evidence, but Love's is to give up the spirit: At the time of contemplation, it scatters the spirit's pearls.

If you fasten together a thousand spirits, hearts,

and intellects, they will not take you to His window without Love. (D 9485-86)

Lovers and men of intellect do not mingle, since no one mixes the broken with the unbroken. In caution, men of intellect pull back from a

dead ant; without cares, lovers trample upon dragons. (D 25018-19)

Men of intellect become broken before Him out of necessity, but lovers become broken with a hundredfold free will.

Men of intellect are His slaves in chains, but

His lovers are sugar and candy.

Come unwillingly! is the bridle of the men of intellect; Come willingly! (XLI 11) is springtime for those who have lost their hearts. (M III 4470-72)

On guard against drowning, men of intellect flee from it-but lovers have no work and profession except drowning in the Ocean.

Men of intellect gain ease when given ease; lovers consider bondage to ease a disgrace. (D 20656-57)

The intellect says, "The six directions are limits and there is no way out." Love says, "There is a way, and I have traveled it many times."

The intellect saw a bazaar and began to trade; Love saw many bazaars beyond the intellect's bazaar... .

The lovers who quaff the wine's dregs have many ecstacies within; the dark-hearted men of intellect are inwardly full of denial.

The intellect says, "Do not go forward, for annihilation contains only thorns." Love says to the intellect, "The thorns are in you."

Enough! Silence! Extract the thorn of existence from the heart's foot! Then you will see many rosegardens within yourself. (D 1522-23, 25-27)

Do not remain a man of intellect among the lovers, especially if you love that sweet-faced Beloved.

May the men of intellect stay far from, the lovers, may the smell of dung stay far from the east wind!

If a man of intellect should enter, tell him the way is blocked; but if a lover should come, extend him a hundred welcomes!

By the time intellect has deliberated and reflected, love has flown to the seventh heaven.

By the time intellect has found a camel for the hajj, love has circled the Kaaba.

Love has come and covered my mouth: "Throw 1 away your poetry and come to the stars!" (D 182)

*** BEWILDERMENT AND MADNESS

The sign that we are dominated by our  intellect is a sober rationality and cold cognizant of own situation and that of the world. But the lover is bewildered distraught, and mad.

Who can describe the work of the Ineffable? I have only spoken like this because I have no choice.  
Sometimes He shows Himself in one way, sometimes in the opposite way-the work of religion is naught but bewilderment,  
Not a bewilderment that turns you away from Him, but one that drowns you in the Friend and intoxicates you with Him. (M I 311-313)

Let me wash my heart of all knowledge, let me make myself heedless of self: One must not go before the auspicious Beloved as a master of all sorts of sciences.  
The spirits of madmen know that this spirit is the shell of the spirit: For the sake of this knowledge, you must pass beyond knowledge into madness. (D 19447-48)

Lay the blame upon yourself, not upon the manifest signs of religion! How can a bird of clay fly to religion's celestial sphere?  
A bird's loftiest soaring place is the air, for it has grown up from sensuality and self-will.  
So be bewildered, saying neither yes nor no! Then Mercy may send you a means.  
Since you are too dull to understand these wonders, if you say yes, you will be pretending.  
And if you say no, that no will lop off your head-it will make Severity shut your window.  
Therefore be bewildered and distraught, nothing less, so that God's help may come to you from before and behind.  
Once you have become bewildered, dizzy, and annihilated, then your spiritual state will say, Lead us on the Straight Path! (I 5) 
 Although your intellect is flying upward, the bird of your imitative knowledge is feeding upon the ground.  
Imitative knowledge is the bane of our spirit: It is a borrowed thing, and we sit complacently saying, "It is ours."  
You must become ignorant of this intelligence: You must become mad!  
Whatever you see as profitable, flee from it! Drink poison and pour away the water of life!  
Curse anyone who praises you! Lend your profit and capital to the indigent!  
Abandon security and stay in frightful places! Throw away reputation, become disgraced and shameless!  
I have tested the far-seeing intellect-after this I will make myself mad.  
One night the king, Sayyed-i Ajall, said to Dalgak, "You ran off hastily and married a harlot.  
You should have consulted with me and I would have found a chaste woman for you."  
He replied, "I have married nine pious and chaste women, and each one became a harlot, while I wasted away in grief.  
I married this harlot without any introduction to see what would happen in the end.  
I have tested the intellect many times-from now on, I will seek a seedbed for madness." (M II 2326-37)

In this path, anything other than confusion and madness is distance and alienation from God. (M VI 609)

Behold how the madmen have jumped up and been delivered from the shackles of existence! See how they have set their hearts on losing them, for these hearts are snares of affliction. (D 423)

Oh people! Oh people! You will not find human nature in me! Even a madman could not conceive of what I have conceived in my heart!  
The madman's star has been eclipsed, he has fled from my commotion-I have mixed with death, I have flown into nonexistence. (D 14490-91)

Oh Saki, the intellects entered into the house with madness! They poured blood into madness' cup until it spilled over!  
The thirsty men and women have burned a hundred thousand houses of existence, showing their manliness in madness... .  
Do you not see that the moth of madness keeps on throwing itself upon the candle because of Love's overpowering force?  
As soon as the spirit and heart heard the tale of madness from the intellect, they stuffed their ears with cotton so as not to hear the tale of the two worlds. (D 29743-44, 46-47)