Love your Solitude

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Love is the Fountain

"Love is the fountain of life-giving water. No one and no thing can live without love. Its expression varies according to the capacity of the receiver and the giver, and in its highest form, love is divinity.

To love is to live. You cannot really live without love. The omnipotent laws of nature have this power in its divine potency pervading the universe. The right to strike at the chord of love only belongs to the brave and sturdy at heart.

Hectic search for exhilarating experiences should not be mistaken for love. They are the forerunners of grim, relentless penalties and intense suffering.

Love from its lowest to its highest expression has its ups and downs. Love suffers the pangs of separation, the stings of jealousy, and all the little pricks that a lover has to endure are the different helpmates in disguise. They stir you up and bring forward to life the most important parts of your nature. Then they no longer maintain their individual life, but merge in one common longing for the beloved.

One in love tastes the glories of life to the full. The blissful heights of joyousness and the buoyant feelings of heavenly delights are the steady steps towards divine oneness. Love surrenders to the will of the beloved, gives all to the beloved, sacrifices all for the beloved, lives for the beloved, dies for the beloved. This supreme state of love is the God-state, for what is God but love - infinite, unbounded, eternal love?

Love annihilates the lower self, and expresses the higher self. So, dear soul, long for your divine beloved till you become one with your beloved. " Meher Baba, 1937

I love what I could love

I had a natural passion for fine clothes, excellent food, and lively conversation 
about all matters that concern the heart still alive. 

And even a passion about my own looks.

Vanities: they do not exist.

Have you ever walked across a stream stepping on 
rocks so not to spoil a pair of shoes?

All we can touch, swallow, or say aids in our crossing to God and helps unveil the soul.

Life smooths us, rounds, perfects, as does the river the stone, 
and there is no place our Beloved is not flowing, 
though the current's force you may not always like.

Our passions help to lift us.

I loved what I could love until I held Him, 
for then - all things - every world disappeared.

- St. Teresa of Avila

Time and Space

The temple of love is not love itself,

true love is the treasure,

not the walls about it.

Do not admire the decoration,

but involve yourself in the Essence,

the Perfume that invades and touches you,

the Beginning and the End.

Discovered, This replaces all else,

                                                the apparent and the unknowable -

time and space are slaves to this Presence

- Rumi -

Without You

Without You — my Life, my Love –

I would never have wandered across these endless countries.

You have poured out so much grace for me,

Done me so many favors, given me so many gifts –

I look everywhere for Your love –

Then suddenly I am filled with it.

- Rabia al Basri,

I Want That Love

I desire you more than food or drink.

My body my senses my mind 

hunger for your taste.

I can sense your presence in my heart 

although you belong to all the world.

I wait with silent passion for one gesture 

one glance from you." ~ Rumi

Lift your veil so that I may see your face.

Part the clouds so that I may see the moon.

Scatter your hair so that I may sense your fragrance.

Part your lips so that I may kiss your breath.

I want that love that moved the mountains.

I want that love that split the ocean.

I want that love that made the winds tremble.

I want that love that roared like thunder.

I want that love that will raise the dead.

I want that love that lifts us to ecstasy.

I want that love that is the silence of eternity.

~ Rumi

Like an Inheritance

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Only in Our Doing

Only in our doing can we grasp You

Only with our hands can we illuminate You

The mind is but our visitor

It thinks us out of our world.

Each mind fabricates itself

It sets its limits, for we have made them.

And just when we would flee them, You come

and make Yourself an offering.

I don't want to think a place for You

Speak to me from everywhere

Your gospel can be comprehended

without looking for its source

when I go towards You

it is with my whole life.

Rainer Marie Rilke

The Day Sky

Let us be like

Two falling stars in the day sky.

Let no one know of our sublime beauty

As we hold hands with God

And burn

Into a sacred existence that defies -

That surpasses

Every description of ecstasy

And love.

Hafiz

Compassionate Towards Yourself

“Simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies,

you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself,

you reconcile all beings in the world." 

Lao Tzu

Break out of this Prison

All day I think about it, then at night I say it.

Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?

I have no idea.

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,

and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.

When I get back around to that place,

I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,

I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.

The day is coming when I fly off,

but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? 

I cannot stop asking.

If I could taste one sip of an answer,

I could break out of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.

This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.

I don't plan it.

When I'm outside the saying of it,

I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.

Rumi

Am I a Falcon

I live my life in widening circles

that reach out across the world.

I may not complete this last one

but I give myself to it.

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.

I've been circling for thousands of years

and I still don't know: am I a falcon,

a storm, or a great song?

Rainer Marie Rilke

Quietness

"Inside this new love, die. 

Your way begins on the other side. 

Become the sky. 

Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. 

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color. Do it now. 

You’re covered with thick cloud. 

Slide out the side. 

Die, and be quiet. 

Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died. 

Your old life was a frantic running from silence. 

The speechless full moon comes out now."

Rumi